Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has appointed seven Members of Congress to her House Select Coronavirus Committee, designed to &#8220;oversee&#8221; how the White House spends the money allocated for coronavirus relief in the CARES Act, passed last month &#8212; and perhaps to no one&#8217;s surprise, the committee has only Democrats.
&#8220;Pelosi had already announced that she intended to name the House’s third-ranking Democrat, Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), to lead the committee. On Wednesday, she selected six additional members, a mix of trusted lieutenants, veteran policy-writers and a vulnerable freshman to fill the high-profile positions,&#8221; <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/29/pelosi-coronavirus-committee-221192">Politico reported Thursday</a>.
Among those selected, House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), House Small Business Committee Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman &#8212; and notable anti-Trump &#8220;resistance&#8221; leader &#8212; Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).
Politico reports that it is &#8220;not clear&#8221; whether Republicans will be invited to participate on the panel, but their inclusion looks unlikely. Pelosi has said, in the past, that the committee will be charged with overseeing how CARES Act funds are dispersed and checking up on White House watchdogs assigned to keep CARES relief funds accountable.
&#8220;We must make sure that the historic investment of taxpayer dollars made in the CARES Act is being used wisely and efficiently to help those in need, not be exploited by profiteers and price-gougers,&#8221; Pelosi said in a statement announcing her committee selections.
More likely, the committee will scrutinize the White House&#8217;s response to the pandemic and challenge CARES Act expenditures, including those loans made through a CARES Act body designed to help buoy companies still suffering six months on from when most coronavirus-related lockdowns lift. Democrats quickly labeled the program a &#8220;slush fund,&#8221; and suggested that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was reserving the money for close friends.
Mnuchin is not in charge of the fund and at least two separate bodies are handling oversight, in addition to Pelosi&#8217;s new select committee.
Politico notes that Pelosi&#8217;s select committee is just the first of several committees created to analyze and criticize the White House&#8217;s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who led the charge against President Donald Trump over a supposed quid-pro-quo agreement with Ukraine &#8212; allegations that led to the president&#8217;s impeachment &#8212; already has a bill drafted demanding a full &#8220;coronavirus commission.&#8221;
&#8220;After Pearl Harbor, September 11, and other momentous events in American history, independent, bipartisan commissions have been established to provide a complete accounting of what happened, what we did right and wrong, and what we can do to better protect the country in the future,” Schiff said in a statement last month.
The White House has not commented on either committee directly but President Donald Trump has pointed out that he believes the House, including both Pelosi and Schiff, are looking to lay the blame for coronavirus at the foot of the White House and will use the House&#8217;s investigative power to accomplish their goal.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>. 
&nbsp;

Speaker Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi Appoints Only Democrats To House Select Coronavirus Committee

Congress

Coronavirus

Maxine Waters

Nancy Pelosi

House Democratic leadership gave in to their caucus Tuesday, and now say that they will not return to work on May 4th as expected and, instead, will delay the next session of Congress indefinitely.
&#8216;House Majority Leader announces the US House will not be returning on May 4, as initially planned,&#8221; NBC News reported Tuesday morning, just after Politico reported that the House planned to come back into session as expected, despite something of a Democratic rebellion. &#8220;After speaking with the House physician on Monday, [House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)] said &#8216;we made a judgment that we will not come back next week.'&#8221;
&#8220;The House will not come back to Washington next week, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer told reporters Tuesday, reversing an announcement he made on a Democratic Caucus conference call the previous day,&#8221; NBC continued, in an additional story.
&#8220;The change of course comes as members expressed concern about returning to Washington while some areas in the region are developing into coronavirus hot spots,&#8221; the outlet said. &#8220;Hoyer said the decision to delay the return, which had been briefly scheduled for May 4, came after he talked with the Capitol physician, who said he recommended against taking the risk involved in members returning.&#8221;
On a phone call with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Monday, Democrats, led by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) voiced their opposition to returning May 4th, &#8220;railing&#8221; against the decision, <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/huddle/2020/04/28/congress-plans-its-capitol-comeback-489056?cid=su_tw_hu">according to Politico</a>. Many suggested Members of Congress, many of whom are elderly, would be at risk of contracting the virus by returning to Washington, D.C, which could become a virus &#8220;hot zone.&#8221;
Others objected to leaving the families, especially when childcare is largely unavailable and day cares are closed. Although Washington, D.C. is on the verge of lifting its stay-at-home order, states where many Members reside while at work, like Virginia and Maryland, have extended their stay-at-home orders well beyond that. Virgina announced, earlier this week, that parts of the state could be locked down for as long as two years.
The Capitol physician, Politico added, also seems to believe things will take years to go back to normal in the nation&#8217;s capital: &#8220;the Capitol physician warned a group of lawmakers that they might be &#8216;years&#8217; away from normalcy.&#8221;
But, <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/04/28/breaking-hoyer-reverses-says-house-wont-return-next-week/">as Hot Air points out</a>, buried deep in NBC News&#8217; story is, perhaps, the real reason that Democrats aren&#8217;t quite ready to return to work: the fourth coronavirus relief package, which they&#8217;ve been working on during their month in recess, isn&#8217;t ready for prime time.
Another reason the House decided to delay its return is because the chamber is not ready to vote on the next coronavirus relief bill, Hoyer said.
“We will not come back next week, but we hope to come back very soon to consider the CARES 2 legislation,” Hoyer told reporters. He added &#8220;that the House will take &#8216;the time to get that in order&#8217; before returning.&#8221;
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already signaled that there will be a partisan battle over the bill, which is expected to cst $1.1 trillion, and may include bailouts of state and local governments. McConnell has said he does not want to burden taxpayers with more debt if it could further imperil the shaky American economy, and the Senate Majority Leader has been adamant that he will not allow Republicans to support a bill that bails out state like Illinois, whose massive debt long predates the coronavirus lockdowns.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Steny Hoyer

REVERSE: Dems Give In, House Will NOT Return To Session Next Week

lockdown

House Democrats say they won&#8217;t return to Washington, D.C., the first week of May, even though House leadership has set May 4th as Congress&#8217; official date of reopening, and has declared the work of the federal government &#8220;essential&#8221; for the purposes of breaking coronavirus-related lockdowns.
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/senate-will-return-to-washington-next-week-211758">Politico reports</a> that key Democrats &#8220;railed&#8221; against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), when she reminded them that the House was due to gavel back into session May 4th, calling the date &#8220;too dangerous,&#8221; especially for the many elderly members of the House Democratic caucus.
&#8220;Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said returning next week would be &#8216;dangerous,&#8217; according to multiple Democrats on the call,&#8221; Politico said Tuesday. &#8220;Other members also spoke up including Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA.), Susan Wild (D-PA) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX), with some asking how they were expected to take care of their families — many without childcare at home — and return to Washington for an extended stay.&#8221;
Republicans, on the other hand, have been pushing for the House to come back into session on the timeline set months ago, before coronavirus became a threat, suggesting that Members of Congress are, perhaps, the most &#8220;essential workers&#8221; in the United States, and stressing that, if many Americans can withstand working through the coronavirus pandemic, federal lawmakers can, too.
Pelosi, House Democratic minority leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) now all seem to agree: Congress will return to session on May 4th, regardless of objection.
Hoyer and McConnell both say that safeguards are in place for Congress&#8217; more vunlerable Members, especially those who are elderly or infirm.
&#8220;We’re going to take whatever safeguards the Capitol physician recommends that we engage in and we believe we can do that safely,” McConnell told Politico. “Look, it doesn’t make sense for the Senate to sit on the sidelines while a lot of other people are going to work everyday and trying to get us through this.&#8221;
Hoyer says that legislators will vote in shifts so that they can maintain &#8220;social distancing,&#8221; and Congress will stagger votes so that the chambers aren&#8217;t packed with people.
McConnell and several other key Republicans never left Washington, D.C., and have been working out deals with key Democrats to extend coronavirus-related relief programs. Until last week, though, Pelosi and Hoyer seemed uninterested in returning to work as soon as possible.
Now, the House and Senate are likely gearing up to battle over a fourth coronavirus relief package. Pelosi, who is the lead author of the $1 trillion &#8220;CARES Act 2,&#8221; as she&#8217;s called it in interviews, believes the package must be passed within days of Congress returning to work. McConnell, however, says he is &#8220;calling time&#8221; on expensive bailouts, in case the spending further imperils the already struggling American economy.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Democrats Rebel, Won’t Return To Work May 4th, Say Its ‘Too Dangerous’ To Reopen Congress

House Democrats are reticent to return to work in Congress, first trying to stall the end of Congressional recess and now proposing a &#8220;proxy voting&#8221; system that would let Members who are able to return to Washington, D.C., cast ballots for those who prefer to shelter-in-place in their home districts. But House Republicans now say they&#8217;ll resist those efforts and demand Democrats return to Congress as &#8220;essential workers&#8221; if they plan on passing legislation.
<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-propose-proxy-voting-during-coronavirus-outbreak-2020-4">Business Insider reports that Congress</a>, despite being about as &#8220;essential&#8221; to the functions of American government as an entity can get, is not forcing its Members back to the nation&#8217;s capital, and House Democratic leadership, under the guidance of House majority leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), told their caucus last week that no Member of Congress should plan to return to work in person absent an &#8220;emergency.&#8221;
This week, House Democrats fell under criticism for opposing an extension to the Paycheck Protection Program from afar, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was skewered for doing cable news hits on the subject from in front of a $24,000 SubZero side-by-side refrigerator/freezer in her San Francisco, California, home while American small businesses scrambled for cash.
Instead of mandating a return, though, Hoyer proposed Wednesday that Congress could vote by proxy, with younger Members, who are less at risk of contracting COVID-19, casting ballots for older Members who are better off sheltering in place.
&#8220;This week, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, has proposed changing House rules to allow proxy voting, which would allow Members to vote on behalf of absent colleagues,&#8221; <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-propose-proxy-voting-during-coronavirus-outbreak-2020-4">BI says</a>. &#8220;The vote to change the rules could happen as soon as Thursday morning, he told Members in a letter.&#8221;
&#8220;There are some Members who are particularly vulnerable to either themselves because of some preexisting condition or they&#8217;re caring for relatives, moms or dads, or others, and they are concerned about coming and then having to quarantine themselves for 14 days when they get back. So that&#8217;s a real concern,&#8221; Hoyer said.
But House Republicans say that&#8217;s simply not good enough. If Congress cannot find a way to pipe in Members from across the country, then the nation&#8217;s leaders should be required to do their job in person.
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) is leading the opposition, telling members of the media Wednesday, that the thought of Congress voting by proxy is &#8220;a complete overreach&#8221; and flies in the face of how Congress operates. &#8220;I just think is absurd and I think it silences individual members of Congress who were sent here to cast votes on behalf of our constituents,&#8221; David said.
&#8220;All the essential work of Congress — that is any step necessary in order to enact legislation, the task of legislating itself — can be done only by members who are voting and present in their respective legislative chamber, either this Senate or the House of Representatives,&#8221; Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) added. &#8220;This is a non-delegable duty.&#8221;
Hoyer responded by saying the body will experiment with technological options but made no guarantees.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">subscriber</a>.

House Republicans Resist Dems’ Plan For Proxy Voting, Want Everyone Back To Work

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told Politico Friday that she is considering keeping the House of Representatives out of session longer than the April 20th return-from-recess date, and may not bring Congress back until well into May &#8212; and she&#8217;s warned President Donald Trump to keep the country under lockdown even longer.
Pelosi is drafting a fourth coronavirus relief package, to be introduced when Congress returns from recess in the spring, but it now appears that trillion dollar aid bill will be indefinitely delayed while she holds her chamber in recess.
Pelosi &#8220;signaled Thursday that the House is unlikely to return to session later this month, her clearest indication yet that Congress — like the rest of the country — could remain shuttered for weeks or even longer as the coronavirus crisis continues,&#8221;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/09/pelosi-trump-coronavirus-178633"> according to Politico</a>.
She also had harsh words for President Trump who has, reportedly, begun the process of convening a second coronavirus task force, this one charged with plotting a course to reopen the country and restart the economy. Trump has said before that he hopes to roll out a plan to lift coronavirus-related lockdowns as early as May first, subject to the advice of several of his top healthcare experts.
“Hopefully we&#8217;re going to be opening up …. very, very, very, very soon, I hope,” Trump said Thursday during his daily coronavirus briefing. “We&#8217;re going to open up strong, very successfully and I&#8217;d like to say even more successfully than before.”
Pelosi wants the country in economic lockdown much longer, she told Politico.
“Nobody can really tell you that and I would never venture a guess. I certainly don’t think we should do it sooner than we should,” Pelosi said. “This has taken an acceleration from when we started this. Little did we know then that at this point, we’d be further confined.”
She also suggested that Trump&#8217;s advisors rein the president in if he moves too quickly to restore economic function: “I would hope that the scientific community would weigh in and say, ‘You can’t do this, it is only going to make matters worse if you go out too soon.'&#8221;
That&#8217;s an odd statement, given that Pelosi and others were still at work even as states declared full lockdowns to prevent or slow the spread of coronavirus. The $2.2 trillion CARES Act &#8212; the third coronavirus relief package &#8212; was passed just before Congress left Washington, D.C., for their spring recess.
On Thursday, Pelosi, who now says there will be little more than a skeleton crew of Federal legislators in Washington until at least May, stood in the way of an emergency relief bill that would have added $350 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, a small business relief fund that is swifly running out of cash.
She implied, in her speeches Thursday afternoon, that she wanted the bill brought before the full House and Senate rather than passed by unanimous consent &#8212; something that can&#8217;t happen unless Pelosi gets all of her own members on the same page and in the same room. Small business owners may now have to wait for months to see additional relief funds.

Nancy Pelosi Says Congress Will NOT Reopen In April, Warns Trump Not To Restart Economy

Economy

Two more members of the U.S. House of Representatives have tested positive for the coronavirus that originated in China and that has devastated the world economy while killing over 30,000 people.
Reps. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) and Mike Kelly (R-PA) both announced on Friday that they have tested positive for the coronavirus and that they are self-quarantining from home.
In a statement, Cunningham wrote:
<blockquote>On March 19th, 2020, I entered self-quarantine after I received word from the Attending Physician of the U.S. Congress that I had been in contact with a member of Congress who had since tested positive for COVID-19. While I otherwise feel fine, since March 17th I have been unable to smell or taste, which I learned this week is a potential symptom of COVID-19. I have been in contact with my doctor since I entered self-quarantine. Yesterday, my doctor instructed me to get tested for COVID-19 and following a virtual consultation on MUSC.care, I went to my local testing clinic. Today, I learned that I tested positive.
While my symptoms have begun to improve, I will remain at home until I know it is safe to leave self-quarantine. I will continue to tele-work from home as Congress conducts its ongoing response to this public health crisis and my office will continue its urgent work of serving the people of the Lowcountry. Just now, the House passed bipartisan legislation that includes provisions I fought for and secured to deliver much-needed relief for South Carolina families and small businesses. I am grateful that my family remains in good health and urge South Carolinians to follow the guidance and recommendations from the CDC and other health experts so that we can recover from this public health threat.</blockquote>
In a statement, Kelly wrote:
<blockquote>When I started experiencing mild flu-like symptoms earlier this week, I consulted my primary care physician. My doctor ordered a test for COVID-19, which I obtained at the drive-through testing site at Butler Memorial Hospital. My test came back positive this afternoon. Thank you to my doctor Bill DiCuccio and the staff at Butler Memorial for their excellent care. My symptoms remain mild, and I will serve the 16th district from home until I fully recover. Additionally, my staff is tele-working and still available to constituents who need assistance.</blockquote>
The news comes after Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Ben McAdams (D-UT), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) all announced in recent days that they had tested positive for the coronavirus and that they were self-quarantining.
The U.S. federal government has passed multiple spending bills to combat the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., and to combat the economic fallout that has ensued.
Lawmakers have also called for an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-introduces-bill-to-investigate-chinas-coronavirus-cover-up-demands-china-pay-for-damage">international investigation</a> into the Chinese communist government and their handling of the initial outbreak in China, while also demanding that China pay for the damage that the world has suffered.
In a statement, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that China must “pay back all nations impacted because China lied about the spread of the virus.”
“Since day one, the Chinese Communist Party intentionally lied to the world about the origin of this pandemic,” Hawley said. “The CCP was aware of the reality of the virus as early as December but ordered laboratories to destroy samples and forced doctors to keep silent. It is time for an international investigation into the role their cover-up played in the spread of this devastating pandemic. The CCP must be held to account for what the world is now suffering.”

The United States Capitol Building at night

Two More Members Of Congress Test Positive For The Coronavirus

COVID-19

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s attempted partisan sabotage of the coronavirus relief bill might mark a new low for her. That the bill finally passed doesn&#8217;t excuse her reckless gamesmanship.
Republican and Democratic Senate leaders were close to an agreement when Pelosi parked her partisan broomstick and poured poison into the congressional punchbowl.
&#8220;Talking to some Senate GOP sources,&#8221; Townhall political editor Guy Benson tweeted. &#8220;They seem stunned and angry. I&#8217;m told there was lots of bipartisan input into the legislative outline &amp; emerging specifics — including an agreement in principle on broad strokes. Then Pelosi showed up and threw a partisan grenade.&#8221; Sources said the Democratic leadership moved to exploit the crisis by attaching its socialist wish list to the bill.
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl, a conservative known more for his scholarship than partisanship, had strong words. &#8220;The Senate Democrats just engaged in one of the most cynical displays of partisanship I have ever seen in the U.S. Senate,&#8221; said Riedl. &#8220;They let Pelosi blow up a bipartisan agreement.&#8221;
Keep in mind that Republicans and Democrats had already hammered out an imperfect deal before Pelosi&#8217;s last-minute shenanigans. Republicans had already reluctantly agreed to certain repulsive provisions to ensure prompt relief for suffering people and the free-falling economy.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt also expressed uncharacteristic disgust. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell &#8220;jammed his own caucus to pass @SpeakerPelosi bill because he knows we are in a catastrophe and action needed,&#8221; Hewitt tweeted. &#8220;If businesses founder, they cannot be resurrected from ashes. Vote by @SenateDems most outrageous obstructionism I&#8217;ve ever seen and @senatemajldr anger is righteous.&#8221;
Following Pelosi&#8217;s and Sen. Chuck Schumer&#8217;s lead, congressional Democrats degenerated to class warfare to justify their obstruction, calling the bill a corporate bailout and slush fund that would not protect workers. But that was just cover for loading the bill with partisan perks that wouldn&#8217;t alleviate problems caused by the virus.
Democrats added provisions to increase federal control over elections including federal mandates on how and when we vote, and who collects absentee ballots. Conservatives have long believed these progressive proposals — mandatory early voting, mail-in ballots (which would allow ballots to be marked behind closed doors), same-day registration and legalized ballot harvesting — are aimed at manipulating election outcomes and facilitating voter fraud. These measures have consistently failed, but Pelosi and company figured that with a gun to Republicans&#8217; heads, they would cave to avoid being perceived as uncompassionate. Congressman Adam Schiff insulted Americans&#8217; intelligence even more than he usually does, by depicting these provisions as necessary to strengthen &#8220;the health of our democracy.&#8221;
Other Democratic add-ons included aid for Planned Parenthood, millions for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour for all businesses receiving stimulus funds.
Perhaps worst of all was their ploy to require airlines receiving assistance to fully offset carbon emissions by 2025. &#8220;There is a whole concern in our country that if we&#8217;re giving tens of billions of dollars to the airlines, that we could at least have a shared value about what happens to the environment,&#8221; Pelosi tweeted.
To understand just how disgraceful this little trick was, consider the reaction of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, the principal architect of AOC&#8217;s notorious Green New Deal and a progressive&#8217;s progressive. &#8220;I helped write the #GreenNewDeal and I think this is ridiculous,&#8221; Chakrabarti tweeted. &#8220;The tiny little emissions standard increase doesn&#8217;t even do anything meaningful to stave off climate change and gives the @GOP leverage to get rid of real help for working people. Solve the problem at hand.&#8221;
How can Democrats still get by with their professions of compassion when they can&#8217;t tie their shoes without injecting politics into their shoelaces? How dare they hold this relief bill hostage for items that have nothing to do with the crisis or assisting those suffering from it while otherwise claiming to support it?
This stunt showcases the level of extremism choking the reason out of the Democratic Party. Likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden&#8217;s shameless support of these Green New Deal provisions puts the lie to the notion that he is a moderate alternative to some of the more extreme leftist Democratic candidates.
One can hope for more bipartisanship in tackling this pandemic and its surrounding economic devastation, but that can only happen if we decouple from relief bills the less urgent problems unrelated to the crisis. So far, congressional Democrats have resisted that, which, in a sane world, would come back to bite them in November.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is &#8220;Guilty by Reason of Insanity: Why the Democrats Must Not Win.&#8221; Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi

LIMBAUGH: The Worst Time For Congressional Partisanship

A new Gallup study gauging the American public&#8217;s view of the handling of the coronavirus crisis by various entities and figures found one particular group earning particularly bad marks: the news media, which was the only one on the list of nine that did not have majority approval.
&#8220;Americans are generally positive in their evaluations of how each of nine leaders and institutions has handled the response to the coronavirus situation,&#8221; <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/300680/coronavirus-response-hospitals-rated-best-news-media-worst.aspx">Gallup</a> explains. &#8220;Eight of the nine receive majority positive ratings — led by U.S. hospitals, at 88% approval. Only the news media gets a more negative than positive review.&#8221;
The news media was rated far worse than the CDC, Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and even Congress, all of which had strong majority approval.
Asked, &#8220;Do you approve or disapprove of the way each of the following is handling the response to the coronavirus in the U.S.?&#8221; Americans gave by far the worse assessment of the news media. Here is the breakdown from best to worst:
<ol>
<li>U.S. hospitals: 88% approve, 10% disapprove</li>
<li>Your child&#8217;s school or daycare:  83 &#8211; 9</li>
<li>Your state government: 82 -17</li>
<li>Your employer: 82 &#8211; 14</li>
<li>Government health agencies such as the CDC and NIH: 80 -17</li>
<li>Vice President Mike Pence: 61-32</li>
<li>President Donald Trump: 60 &#8211; 38</li>
<li>Congress: 59 &#8211; 37</li>
<li>The news media: 44 &#8211; 55</li>
</ol>
Gallup explains that the data was collected from March 13-22 Gallup poll, &#8220;with the field period starting on the same day President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak, and spanning sharp increases in the number of documented cases in the U.S., as well as the number of deaths.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s 60% approval, Gallup notes, is higher than his overall job approval, which is 49%, which climbed 5 points from a few weeks ago, when it was 44%.
A large part of the negative response to the news media comes from Republicans, only 25% of whom said they approve of how it&#8217;s covering the crisis, while 61% of Democrats approved.
According to Gallup&#8217;s survey, President Trump is winning this particular round of his years-long battle with the news media, which he hammered once again this week. In a tweet Wednesday, Trump accused the media of attempting to &#8220;keep our Country closed as long as possible&#8221; for political purposes.
“The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success,” he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-we-all-know-what-medias-push-to-keep-america-closed-as-long-as-possible-is-really-about">tweeted</a> Wednesday. “The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1242905328209080331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump&#8217;s tweet came the same day as Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response coordinator, called out exaggerated reporting on the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think the numbers that have been put out there are actually very frightening to people,” Dr. Birx <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dr-deborah-birx-media-has-frightened-the-american-people-with-salacious-coronavirus-numbers">said</a> during a press conference on Wednesday. “But I can tell you if you go back and look at Wuhan and Hubei and all of these provinces, when they talk about 60,000 people being infected, even if you said, alright, well there’s asymptomatics and all of that, so you get to 600,000 people out of 80 million. That is nowhere close to the numbers that you see people putting out there. I think it has frightened the American people.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dr-deborah-birx-shreds-media-for-salacious-claims-we-dont-have-evidence-of-that">Dr. Deborah Birx Shreds Media For Salacious Claims: ‘We Don’t Have Evidence Of That’</a>

Gallup Finds Biggest Loser In COVID-19 Response Is The Media

2020 Election

Donald Trump

Gallup

Media Bias

White House and Senate leaders reportedly struck a deal during the early morning hours on Wednesday over a $2 trillion stimulus bill to combat the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak.
&#8220;The White House and Senate leaders struck a major deal early Wednesday morning over a $2-trillion package to provide a jolt to an economy struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, capping days of marathon negotiations that produced the far-reaching measure,&#8221; CNN reported.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a>: The White House and Senate leaders struck a major deal early Wednesday morning over a $2-trillion package to provide a jolt to an economy struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, capping days of marathon negotiations that produced the far-reaching measure.
&mdash; Manu Raju (@mkraju) <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1242677857240993794?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/03/24/trump-coronavirus-congress-economic-stimulus/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The agreement capped five straight days of intensive negotiations that occasionally descended into partisan warfare as the nation’s economy reeled from the deadly pandemic, with schools and businesses closed, mass layoffs slamming the workforce, and tens of thousands falling ill.
The legislation, unprecedented in its size and scope, aims to flood the economy with capital by sending $1,200 checks to many Americans, creating a $367 billion loan program for small businesses, and setting up a $500 billion fund for industries, cities and states.
Other provisions include a massive boost to unemployment insurance, $150 billion for state and local stimulus funds and $130 billion for hospitals, among numerous other provisions.</blockquote>
CNN&#8217;s Manu Raju <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1242679063493390343">tweeted</a> that White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland said after leaving Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell&#8217;s office at 1 a.m.: “Ladies and gentleman, we are done. We have a deal.&#8221;
“Much of the work on bill text has been completed,&#8221; Ueland continued. &#8220;And I’m hopeful that over the next few hours we’ll finish what’s left and be able to circulate it early in the morning.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
At last, we have a deal.
After days of intense discussions, the Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement on a historic relief package for this pandemic. 
We’re going to pass this legislation later today.
&mdash; Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) <a href="https://twitter.com/senatemajldr/status/1242690673800855552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said during a press conference on Tuesday that the multi-phase stimulus spending bill would total $6 trillion and would be the largest spending bill in history.
“This package will be the single largest main street assistance program in the history of the United States,” Kudlow said. “The single largest main street assistance program in the history of the United States.”
“This legislation is urgently needed to bolster the economy, provide cash injections and liquidity and stabilize financial markets to get us through a difficult period, a difficult and challenging period in the economy facing us right now but also to position us for what I think can be an economic rebound later this year,” Kudlow continued. “Phase two delivered the sick leave for individuals, hourly workers, families and so forth. Phase three, a significant package for small businesses, loan guarantees will be included. We’re going to take out expenses and lost revenues.”
“The total package here comes to roughly $6 trillion: $2 trillion direct assistance, roughly $4 trillion in federal reserve lending power,” Kudlow added. “Again, it will be the largest main street financial package in the history of the United States.”
The stock market exploded late on Tuesday amid reports that Congress was getting to close to getting a deal done, which comes after Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allegedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-democrats-block-coronavirus-bill-that-provides-lifeline-to-economy-families">ruined</a> a chance for a deal on Sunday.
&#8220;So at a time when the country is crying out for bipartisanship and cooperation — and we saw that over the last 48 hours when regular members of Senate, not in the leadership office, not in the speaker’s office for goodness sakes, she’s the Speaker of the House, not the speaker of the Senate. We don’t have one,&#8221; McConnell <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mcconnell-explodes-on-pelosi-for-ruining-stimulus-bill-that-protected-economy-families">said</a> on Sunday in a swipe at Pelosi. &#8220;We were doing just fine until that intervention.”
This report has been updated to include additional information.

Mitch McConnell

Senate, White House Strike Deal On $2 Trillion Stimulus Spending Bill

With federal and state government shutting down the economy en masse all across the country, bold and creative plans are needed to stave off economic catastrophe. Unfortunately, our lawmakers in Washington show more creativity in their <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-6-million-of-stock-after-reassuring-public-about-coronavirus-preparedness">insider trading schemes</a> than they do in creating a plan to navigate us through the current crisis.
Senate Republicans yesterday unveiled their stimulus package which is supposed to, among other things, provide financial assistance to Americans hurt by the government&#8217;s response to the China Virus. The plan is garbage. There is no other way to put it.
The bill will try to save the day by giving $1,200 to any tax payer who earned less than $75,000 two years ago. Somehow I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s going to cut it. Employing the laziest kind of means testing imaginable, Republicans decided that payments should be based on an individual&#8217;s 2018 tax returns. Payment amounts for single people would begin to phase out at the $75,000 threshold and then disappear at $99,000. For couples filing jointly, $2,400 would be paid for any households that earned less than $150,000 in 2018. The amount would decrease gradually from that point and disappear entirely at $198,000. Each child would be worth an additional $500 payment. On the other end of the spectrum, individuals who had little tax liability in 2018 but at least $2,500 in qualifying income will receive $600. Individuals who had no qualifying income two years ago will receive nothing.
This is not just a bad plan. It&#8217;s a disgrace. The problems here are many and obvious. Let&#8217;s go over a few of them:
1. Not everyone is earning today what they earned in 2018. What about a person who made $105,000 in 2018 but earns $70,000 today and has been out of work for two weeks because his state shut down? This plan would offer him no relief. Meanwhile, a person who made $60,000 two years ago, currently makes $100,000, and hasn&#8217;t lost any income because he&#8217;s working from home, would receive a full payment. Likewise, a person who had no income two years ago but earns $35,000 today should be eligible for compensation but this plan would pay him nothing.
2. What about single parents? A single mother with three kids does not file her taxes jointly. Under this bill, she would count as a single person and miss out on any payment if she earns more than $99,000. But a person supporting three kids and themselves on a low six figure income is by no means wealthy. Indeed, a childless individual earning $60,000 is much more well off than a single parent of three kids earning $100,000.
3. Of course some of this depends on where you live. A married couple with a few kids earning $200,000 in New York could already be living paycheck to paycheck. Now what if their business has been destroyed by the lock downs, or they lost their job, or had to take a pay cut? This plan has nothing for them. The bill controls for income but does not account for cost of living. Neither does it account for a person&#8217;s current job and income status. You might as well draw names out of a hat or send checks out to random addresses in hopes that they find a person in need.
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There is a better way of doing this, but it requires, as I said, a very small amount of creativity: Send checks to everyone. At least everyone who is not a multi-millionaire. People are going to need way more that $1,200, so look for wasteful government programs and agencies to cut. Washington squanders many billions of dollars every year. It shouldn&#8217;t be hard to find additional funds. Foreign aid would be another place to look. Perhaps we can&#8217;t afford to be sending welfare checks to foreign governments in a time like this.
Once you&#8217;ve sent everyone a check, kick off a campaign to encourage those who don&#8217;t need it to #PassTheBuck. Americans love to donate. There&#8217;s a reason even the dumbest and most questionable Go Fund Me campaigns can raise millions of dollars overnight. The government simply cannot, especially under such a time crunch, reliably identify who actually needs the money. They only know the income you earned the last time you filed taxes. They don&#8217;t know your current situation. They don&#8217;t know how much money you&#8217;ve lost or will lose. But all of these details are absolutely essential. A plan that ignores them is useless and will achieve almost nothing.
Fortunately, individual Americans know who in their families and among their friends and in their communities is most in need. I could personally name a dozen families off the top of my head who need a check much more than I do. If I got one, I&#8217;d send it their way. Yes, some people will be selfish and keep the check even if they don&#8217;t need it. That&#8217;s their right. This is, after all, our own money we&#8217;re getting back. It isn&#8217;t a handout or a welfare program.
But experience and history shows that many millions of Americans would be thrilled for the chance to do a good deed and pass the buck along. Empower individuals to make their own decisions and help each other. A plan like this would represent an ideal partnership between citizens and their government. It may not be perfect, but it&#8217;s a hell of a lot better than what the Republicans are offering.

Midsection Of Woman Counting Currency

WALSH: The Stimulus Plan Just Released By Senate Republicans Is Garbage. Here’s A Better Plan.

money

Someone prepare House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for some bad news: her impeachment efforts boosted the popularity of congressional Republicans so that now more Americans approve of congressional Republicans’ job performance than congressional Democrats’ performance.
That news comes from the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/287633/approval-congressional-republicans-tops-democrats.aspx?utm_source=alert&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=morelink&amp;utm_campaign=syndication">latest Gallup poll</a> released on Tuesday, the first time Gallup has asked that question since the Dec. 18 impeachment of President Trump in the U.S. House of Representatives. 40% of respondents approved of congressional Republicans while 35% approved of congressional Democrats.
Gallup noted:
<blockquote>The rating for Republicans in Congress has risen six percentage points <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/268097/approval-members-parties-congress.aspx">since late October</a>, before the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the same period, congressional Democrats&#8217; approval rating has edged down three points and disapproval has climbed five points, from 57% to 62%. In general, congressional Democrats have historically had slightly higher job approval ratings than congressional Republicans.</blockquote>
Gallup pointed out that Republicans&#8217; approval of congressional Republicans rose 13 points to 76% since October while Democrats&#8217; 65% approval remained at the same general plateau.
Gallup also found that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell&#8217;s took a leap upward since October, when it languished at 27%; it now rests at 33%. Gallup stated, “Although, on a relative basis, McConnell&#8217;s favorability is not particularly high, it is his highest rating since Gallup&#8217;s first reading in 2010.”
Meanwhile, Pelosi&#8217;s unfavorable rating has risen from 50% in October to 55% now, almost as high as it was before the 2010 midterm elections when GOP retook the House, when it was 56%. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer? His 46% unfavorable rating is the highest it has ever been.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) was more popular with Democrats than Republicans. 56% of Democrats approved of him but only 23% of Republicans agreed. His favorable rating has risen 19 points with Democrats and plunged 22 points among Republicans.
Plenty of warnings were issued to the Democrats that an impeachment of Trump might backfire; in November FOX Business&#8217; Stuart Varney stated, “Time to set a few things straight about impeachment. Number one: it is a purely political strategy. The Democrats intend to damage the president as much as possible right before the election. It is entirely partisan; all Republicans voted no; all but two Democrats voted yes. No matter what the lawyers say, this is not a legal issue. Are we prepared to remove this president from office on the basis of a phone call to the Ukraine? Don’t be fooled by legalisms; that is a political question.”
Varney continued, “Two: Impeachment has little or no impact on the stock market; investors are not dancing to Speaker Pelosi’s tune; investors care about profits and the economy; trade and employment. This impeachment drive hasn’t scared Wall Street; Trump doesn’t scare Wall Street, but if Sanders or Warren look likely to win next year, watch out below … Number three: There will be a backlash. Unless a real ‘high crime’ is revealed, the impeachment drive will fail in the Senate, and when it fails, voters will ask what the Democrats achieved. All they’ve done is damage a president that they hate. That’s where I’m coming from. Impeachment is all vicious politics. It will fail, and voters won’t forget.”
Video of Varney’s prescience below:
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US-POLITICS-VOTE-MIDTERMS-DNC

Pelosi’s Impeachment Effort Backfires. Congressional GOP Now More Popular Than Dems. She Was Warned.

House Republicans

Impeachment

Disgraced former Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA), who was the first woman in U.S. history to resign from Congress over a sex scandal, told ABC News on Thursday that she had to resign because of &#8220;biphobia.&#8221;
Hill made the remarks during an interview with &#8220;Good Morning America&#8221; that featured softball questions from host George Stephanopoulos, who used to work in the Clinton administration.
&#8220;Your story exploded,&#8221; Stephanopoulos said. &#8220;How much of it is tied to the fact that, in your mind, that you&#8217;re bisexual?&#8221;
&#8220;I think a lot of it is, and it&#8217;s also partly because I&#8217;m a woman, we haven&#8217;t seen as many of the sex scandals with women, but the bisexuality is a huge part of it, right?&#8221; Hill responded. &#8220;There is a fantasy element of it, there&#8217;s biphobia that is rampant still, and certainly misunderstanding of what bisexuality is, and it&#8217;s sensationalizing, right?&#8221;
Hill resigned after the House Ethics Committee announced that it was opening a formal investigation into the allegations that Hill had a prohibited sexual relationship with a congressional staffer. Hill&#8217;s decision to resign shielded her from being investigated over the allegation.
WATCH:
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>STEPHANOPOULOS: Was the biggest mistake having a relationship with a campaign staffer?
HILL: Absolutely. When I started to run for Congress, I was a nobody. I was a non-profit director that was 29-years-old when I jumped in. I did not have any political experience and so I was a complete long shot, but my team, which built over time, was, especially the people who were there in the beginning, it never felt like an employer-employee relationship in the way that I&#8217;d been an executive at a large organization before. The boundaries were completely different because you are truly in the trenches with this very small team, where I think I made the biggest mistake was not setting those boundaries from the very beginning.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The photos were released. You&#8217;re also accused, not only of having a relationship with a campaign staffer, but having a relationship with someone on your congressional staff, which obviously would cross all kinds of ethical lines.
HILL: That accusation came from my ex-husband and it launched a&#8211;
STEPHANOPOULOS: It&#8217;s not true?
HILL: No, especially, the person he was accusing me of, was somebody, who was my first hire, right? He was the first person who worked on my campaign and he came with me to Washington and we were friends and it shows you how easy it is to, when you&#8217;re talking about someone, especially a woman being a victim of something like the photos, or cyber exploitation, or revenge porn, or whatever you want to call it&#8211;
STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you want to call it?
HILL: Well, there&#8217;s a problem with the term &#8220;revenge porn&#8221; because it implies, A, that there is something to be taking revenge for, right? That the woman maybe did something wrong in the first place and pornography could imply that it was consensual, and it&#8217;s not.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And how much have you regretted the decision to actually resign? Any part of you that thinks you should have stayed and fought?
HILL: I strongly feel that I made the right call in stepping down, for several reasons. One of which is that I, I did not want to be a liability to my colleagues. We knew from the people who had the photos that had obtained the photos that there were hundreds more images and text messages that were out there that I had no idea what they could be or how they could be taken out of context.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Your story exploded. &#8230; How much of it is tied to the fact that in your mind that you&#8217;re bisexual?
HILL: I think a lot of it is, and it&#8217;s also partly because I&#8217;m a woman, we haven&#8217;t seen as many of the sex scandals with women, but the bisexuality is a huge part of it, right? There is a fantasy element of it, there&#8217;s biphobia that is rampant still and certainly misunderstanding of what bisexuality is and it&#8217;s sensationalizing, right?</blockquote>

Katie Hill

Disgraced Democratic Congresswoman Katie Hill: I Had To Resign Because Of ‘Biphobia’ And I’m A ‘Woman’

LGBT

Rarely do we see businesses, small or large, voluntarily abandon a tax credit. When those tax credits are used to help low-income and inner-city kids escape failing schools and find a pathway to success, it’s even more surprising.
Several days before President Donald Trump called on Congress during his State of the Union Address to pass legislation providing a million students with an opportunity scholarships, the Orlando Sentinel published a lengthy investigative <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-voucher-schools-lgbtq-discriminate-20200123-s5ue4nvqybcgrbrxov5hcb46a4-htmlstory.html">article</a> detailing how corporations support these low-income families by way of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. Pushing more of an ideological agenda than straight reporting, the Sentinel suggests that the use of these funds by many religious schools is meant to be “anti-gay.”
I went to one of the school (whose mascot, ironically, happens to share a name with the Sentinel) on the list. My parents sent me to Christian school because they believed no education was complete without a thorough understanding of the Bible. If you’ve never been to one of the schools on the list, let me tell you what you will find there.
First, you will see students from every corner of America represented: Black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, middle income. As a fifth grader, when I started attending Evangelical Christian School in Fort Myers, Florida, it struck me as completely ordinary that my classmates looked pretty much the same as any room I ever entered in America. Selma, my friend of Indian-American descent, was just Selma. We played football together during recess and tried not to get in trouble during lunchtime.
My school was very disciplined, growing out of a religious conservative tradition that valued respect for elders and one another. We stood to answer questions when called upon. We did not talk during the lunch hour or in the hallways. We wore uniforms. Mrs. Dunn, the headmistress, was feared by all, but it was clear she cared for her students.
And there was chapel and prayer and Bible study. In fact, by the time I got to high school, we had an entire class period dedicated to Bible. It was insightful: We studied not only the Scriptures that formed the basis of our faith, but also learned to appreciate and respect the differences of our faith with that of others&#8217; faith.
Of course, we also studied math, science, literature, and the rest. Each class had a distinctive approach of not only mastering the subject at hand, but evaluating what our Christian worldview had to say about it. Before every baseball practice, Coach Kieffer would lead the team in a brief devotion drawn from the Bible and pray for us. I respected that man for his commitment to “the Man in the chair,” an empty chair meant to remind us that God is ever present, a help in time of need.
Florida’s tax scholarship program came about after I was out of school. Thanks to the Sentinel (the newspaper, not our mascot), I know that my alma mater receives scholarships through the Florida Tax Credit program to assist students to attend school. I believe there are families who have always wished to send their kids to a school that unashamedly teaches according to the Christian tradition but, for financial reasons, never could afford to do so.
But because of this newspaper article, fewer low-income families will have that choice. Wells Fargo, Wyndham Vacation Properties, Fifth Third Bank, and others <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/third-company-pulls-florida-voucher-donations-over-anti-gay-school-n1126686">pulled their funding</a>. (Fifth Third, perhaps realizing the error, <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/02/07/fifth-third-continue-funding-scholarships-anti-lbgtq-florida-schools/4691279002/">reversed that decision</a>). Activists are hard at work trying to convince Waste Management, and others, to do the same.
Rather than let inner-city kids or low-income families from the rural areas of Acadia and Belle Glade pursue private education that meets the needs of their children, they would cancel their scholarship to score “woke” points with the Left. It’s a shame.
In 2018-19, over 104,000 students received scholarships because of this program.  The typical <a href="https://www.stepupforstudents.org/research-and-reports/">student</a> receiving the scholarship lives at the poverty line (roughly $29,000), has only one parent in the home, and struggles academically. Sixty-eight percent of them are Africa-American or Hispanic.
Wells Fargo, Wyndham, and others are literally taking money away from poverty-stricken, minority children and the Left is praising them for doing so. Why? In their mind (and that of the Sentinel), it is less risky to a child’s future to live in poverty, with one parent in the home, and continue to struggle academically than attend a Christian school.
Such hostility toward religion should have no place in Florida, the news room, or a corner office. Businesses are welcome to forgo whatever tax credits they want. If they want to pay more in taxes, I suppose we cannot stop them. Still, they should understand that the price of appeasing the Sentinel and other ideologues is a low-income child’s future.
&nbsp;
Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

Human hand placed on the Bible, pray to God.

DYS: Pulling Scholarship Funds Punishes Low-Income Children

Bible

Christianity

Florida

Homosexuality

Leftism

Progressivism

On Friday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney by training who has been a <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/19/alexander-vindman-condemned-himself-in-his-impeachment-testimony/">frequent</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/26/why-trumps-ukraine-demands-werent-remotely-illegal/">commentator</a> on Democrats&#8217; current partisan <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/13/obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge/">impeachment</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">effort</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-HnMAHs3-c">joined</a> “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network (OANN) to discuss the recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) purporting to show that, by initially withholding the disbursement of foreign aid money to Ukraine last summer, President Donald Trump violated the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA). It is this withholding of Ukrainian foreign aid money that forms the crux of the Democrats&#8217; impeachment push.
As The Daily Wire initially <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-gaos-report-on-white-house-withholding-ukraine-aid-violated-law">reported</a> last Thursday, the officially nonpartisan GAO claimed that Trump violated the ICA and, by implication, also the <a href="https://www.heritage.org/constitution/articles/2/essays/98/take-care-clause">Take Care Clause</a> of Article II of the Constitution. “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the GAO report asserted, as The Daily Wire reported. “[The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)] withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the [ICA]. The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”
Hammer penned an <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/trumps-ukraine-money-holdup-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-breach-of-the-law/">op-ed</a> in Saturday&#8217;s New York Post in which he argued that &#8220;Trump likely did not violate the ICA,&#8221; but that &#8220;even if he did breach it, that law itself comes with its own remedy baked in — and it is a far less draconian remedy than impeachment.&#8221; He then elaborated:
<blockquote>
To be sure, expressly directing a subordinate to violate federal law is inconsistent with the Take Care Clause. But the president also has other obligations under Article II of the Constitution. The very first clause of Article II vests the president with “the executive Power.” The doling out of foreign aid is an integral part of conducting foreign affairs, and, according to a 2001 Yale Law Journal article by legal scholars Saikrishna Prakash and Michael Ramsey, 18th-century English common law — which helped form the Framers’ thinking — had an “ordinary &#8230; meaning of executive power” that “included foreign affairs power.”
Similarly, in the 1936 Supreme Court case U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., the justices describe the president as “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations — a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress.” &#8230;
[Furthermore,] as my boss at The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, quickly observed after news of the GAO report hit, the ICA prescribes a precise remedy for a situation in which the president allegedly violates it. Specifically, 2 U.S.C. § 687 provides for a cause of action by the comptroller general in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. But since the funds have been released, any legal action would be moot.
</blockquote>
On Friday&#8217;s OANN appearance, Wheeler began by asking Hammer whether the alleged ICA violation is impeachable. Hammer strongly opined that it should not be viewed as impeachable, and went on to describe the current Democratic mentality and antics as &#8220;desperate,&#8221; &#8220;reckless,&#8221; and &#8220;borderline dangerous&#8221;:
<blockquote>
The Impoundment Control Act in 1974 actually provides for a precise remedy within the statute. So a lot of people are talking about this as a possible impeachment vehicle, but it is a deliberate, disingenuous, bad faith effort to attempt to impeach as a draconian remedy where the statute itself has the savviness and the foresight to provide for a much lesser remedy.
And let&#8217;s talk about that remedy. It&#8217;s [title] two of the United States Code, then sub-section 687, I believe. The remedy is the Comptroller General of the United States is allowed to file suit in the federal trial court in the District of Columbia to force the president, essentially, to disburse the funds. Liz, here&#8217;s the problem with that: The funds have already been disbursed! They were released and there was barely any delay. So even according to the statute&#8217;s own remedy — according to the statutory structure &#8230; it&#8217;s a moot case. In law school, you learn this is called a moot lawsuit because the funds were disbursed. Ukraine didn&#8217;t even know that the funds were being withheld.
So all of this is starting to remind me a lot of the whole [Brett] Kavanaugh [Supreme Court nomination] fiasco, where they would just throw mud at the wall and see what sticks. You know, we talked about [how] the Democrats first were talking about quid pro quo, [but] that didn&#8217;t poll-test well. Then they were publicly flirting with bribery and they knew they didn&#8217;t have the legal gravitas to make that argument. They are just so desperate, at this point. Swing state poll after swing state poll shows they&#8217;re gonna lose next November — Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, all these voters are starting to turn against the Democrats. And this is really starting to get reckless; it&#8217;s actually borderline dangerous, at this point, I would say.
</blockquote>
Wheeler agreed, saying that the Democrats do routinely &#8220;move the goalposts.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="The Truth About The GAO Report" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G-HnMAHs3-c?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN 1.17.20

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: The Truth About The GAO ‘Bombshell’

Constitution

Congressional Democrats, who seemed <del>willfully naive</del> blissfully unaware of then-President Barack Obama&#8217;s rather expansive interpretation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 during his strategically disastrous 2011 operation to oust Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi, suddenly seem to care an awful lot about constitutional norms and separation of powers principles again.
Intellectual inconsistency much?
Specifically, Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s House of Representatives is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/politics/war-powers-act-explainer-iran/index.html">debating today</a> whether to congressionally impose War Powers Resolution limitations upon President Donald Trump&#8217;s unilateral ability to ratchet up militancy with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In their crusade to hamstring the president&#8217;s conduct of his foreign policy vis-à-vis the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">jihadist</a> Iranian regime, House Democrats have even found some libertarian-leaning <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-lee-senator-utah-lambasts-trump-briefing-soleimani-strike-worst-hes-received-on-military-issue/">Republican allies</a>.
But this exercise is misguided, because the War Powers Resolution is, and always has been, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304186404576389474268093278">unconstitutional</a>.
Let&#8217;s start with what the War Powers Resolution, which was passed during the closing stanzas of the Vietnam War, actually does. The <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/93/hjres542/text">statute</a> requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces abroad, and it precludes deployed U.S. forces from remaining engaged in &#8220;hostilities&#8221; abroad for more than 60 days without an affirmative authorization for the use of military force that has passed through Congress. At the time, President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill on constitutional grounds, <a href="https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/artifact/president-richard-nixons-letter-house-representatives-regarding-his-veto-war">arguing</a> that the measure would define presidential war powers &#8220;in ways which would strictly limit his constitutional authority.&#8221; Nonetheless, a two-thirds majority in each congressional chamber overrode the veto.
Nixon&#8217;s veto was correct.
The Constitution famously divides foreign affairs powers between the legislative and executive branches. Among other enumerated powers in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8">Article I, Section 8</a>, Congress has the ability to &#8220;declare War,&#8221; &#8220;raise and support Armies,&#8221; &#8220;provide and maintain a Navy,&#8221; &#8220;make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,&#8221; &#8220;provide for calling forth the Militia,&#8221; and &#8220;provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.&#8221;
By contrast, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii">Article II</a> of the Constitution provides that &#8220;[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.&#8221; The very first clause of Article II also vests the president with &#8220;[t]he executive Power&#8221; — meaning a &#8220;residual&#8221; foreign affairs power that encompasses all those powers not expressly delegated to Congress in Article I, Section 8. As legal scholars Saikrishna B. Prakash and Michael D. Ramsey <a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-executive-power-over-foreign-affairs">persuasively argued</a> in a 2001 Yale Law Journal article, 18th century English common law had an &#8220;ordinary &#8230; meaning of executive power&#8221; that &#8220;included foreign affairs power.&#8221;
A careful, line-by-line overview of Congress&#8217;s enumerated powers does not actually provide a legislative means that could feasibly justify the War Powers Resolution. The most likely candidate is the Declare War Clause, but that provision happens to be woefully misunderstood by many lawyers and politicians across the ideological spectrum. As John Yoo <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=426862">compellingly laid out</a> in a 2003 University of Chicago Law Review article, &#8220;[t]he Declare War Clause simply confers on Congress juridical power to both define the United States&#8217;s legal relations with other countries and trigger domestic constitutional authorities during wartime.&#8221; It is the president of the United States, under Article II&#8217;s Commander in Chief Clause, who is actually responsible for initiating and conducting hostilities. Congress can then intervene to halt a president it views as a reckless warmonger using the manifold tools it does have at its disposal: Decreasing the size of the Pentagon&#8217;s budget, going line item-by-line item and removing various offensive-oriented materiel from the Department of Defense&#8217;s arsenal, or using its more general power of the purse to defund a war effort in its entirety (as eventually happened with Vietnam).
This interpretation of the Declare War Clause should not be nearly as controversial as it is. At the 1787 constitutional convention, the Framers actually conscientiously substituted out &#8220;make War&#8221; with &#8220;declare War.&#8221; In so doing, James Madison <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/qasem-soleimani-strike-president-trump-has-constitution-precedent-on-his-side/">famously explained</a> to Elbridge Gerry that it was imperative to leave to the president the &#8220;<a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_11s4.html">power to repel sudden attacks</a>.&#8221; This ought to make a great deal of sense; as Alexander Hamilton would explain only six months after the constitutional convention in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp">The Federalist No. 70</a>, &#8220;[d]ecision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.&#8221;
Finally, in Article I, Section 10, the Constitution precludes a state from &#8220;engag[ing] in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.&#8221; The Framers were therefore aware of multiple verbs — &#8220;make&#8221; and &#8220;engage&#8221; — that could have clearly conveyed the meaning of an initiation of hostilities. But they didn&#8217;t use those words, and they didn&#8217;t use them for a reason. The Framers understood that there was great merit to leaving decisions such as the commencement of hostilities to one man, and not to a fractious Congress.
To reiterate, Congress already has a number of tools at its disposal to push back against a crusading commander-in-chief. As Andrew McCarthy <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/war-powers-resolution-vote-trump-andrew-mccarthy">wrote</a> this week at Fox News, &#8220;No statute is needed to provide Congress with the power to frustrate unauthorized presidential war-making. The Constitution empowers the legislature to do so by simply refusing to appropriate funds for military action.&#8221; But the Declare War Clause means something fundamentally different than what many believe it does.
The War Powers Resolution may or may not be good policy. But it does not matter, because it runs afoul of the Constitution&#8217;s carefully calibrated separation of powers.

United States Constitution

HAMMER: The War Powers Resolution Is, And Always Has Been, Unconstitutional

Barack Obama

Federalist

Foreign Policy

Iran

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Libya

Middle East

Qassem Soleimani

Saturday night’s bloody machete attack in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/29/us/new-york-stabbing-rabbi-home/index.html">Monsey, New York</a> against a rabbi and his congregants celebrating Chanukah shocked in ways beyond its sheer brutality. This anti-Semitic assault by a man influenced by the “Black Hebrew Israelite” movement comes amidst a spate of crimes against Jews, with the New York Police Department now investigating <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anti-semitic-attacks-new-york-city-hanukkah_n_5e06227ac5b6b5a713ada7f9">six hate crimes</a> that occurred during the holiday.
Certainly, churches, synagogues, and mosques are under siege in America, from <a href="https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/11/10/Robert-Bowers-extremism-Tree-of-Life-massacre-shooting-pittsburgh-Gab-Warroom/stories/201811080165">Pittsburgh</a> to <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikehayes/jury-sentences-dylann-roof-to-death">Charleston</a>, and from <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/220410/synagogues-carry-face-bomb-threats/">Los Angeles</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/us/minnesota-mosque-bombing-suspects.html">Minnesota</a>. However, under the pretense of protecting places of worship and faith-based nonprofits, Congress stands poised to spend millions of taxpayer dollars effectively providing pro-jihadist Islamist groups — with documented ties to overseas terrorist organizations — with their own private armed militias.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and co-sponsor Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) have put forth a new bill, the <a href="https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/portman-peters-introduce-legislation-increase-security-resources-faith">Protecting Faith-Based and Nonprofit Organizations From Terrorism Act</a>, which provides <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2019/09/as-hate-attacks-on-houses-of-worship-mount-congress-needs-to-do-more-to-help-with-security-rob-portman.html">$75 million annually</a> over the next five years for security to religious groups.
Lawmakers need to address two notable problems as they consider this security bill.
First, <a href="https://www.portman.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/Protecting%20Faith-Based%20and%20Nonprofit%20Organizations%20from%20Terrorism%20Act.pdf">the proposal</a> provides funding to 501(c)(3) nonprofits. <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2005/05/the-muslim-brotherhoods-american-goals">Muslim Brotherhood</a>-linked Islamist groups such as the <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/3437/cair-islamists-fooling-the-establishment">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a>, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/swindle-california-islamist-activists-protest-david-m-swindle">Muslim American Society</a>, and the <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/732/isna-admits-hamas-ties">Islamic Society of North America</a> would therefore be eligible for funding under the plan, providing security dollars to advocacy organizations that share a common Islamist ideological heritage. Another network of Muslim nonprofits, including the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/57929/catalogue-of-icna-links-to-jamaat-e-islami">Islamic Circle of North America</a> and the <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/84.pdf">Muslim Students Association</a>, would also benefit from the bill despite being tied to <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/59929/jamaat-e-islami-a-threat-at-home-and-abroad">Jamaat-e-Islami</a>, a violent South Asian Islamist movement.
Assuredly, Islamists are not the only extremists exploiting 501(c)(3) laws; <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-supremacist-groups-tax-break-educational-2017-8">white nationalists also have a long history</a> of doing the same thing.
Second, the bill fails to adequately limit how grant monies can be spent. It identifies three general types of uses for the funds: “Target hardening,” “security training,” and “any other appropriate activity.” But what is to prevent religious centers and nonprofits from hiring or training armed guards to enforce religious law?
Some Muslim American communities have previously recruited security guards to serve as enforcers of Islamic law. These vigilante patrols have often been less concerned with local security than they are with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/09/02/a-breach-in-guards-invincibility/d0f9c4cc-4562-482f-9aac-fb9be699d003/">converting</a> their neighbors, enforcing standards of dress, and prohibiting drug and alcohol use.
Sunni Muslim secu͏r͏i͏ty patrols can be traced back to January 1988, when New York City imam <a href="https://www.meforum.org/6576/svcf-hate-speakers-siraj-wahhaj">Siraj Wahhaj</a> — listed as a potential <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/02/blind-sheikh-dies-terrorist-evangelist/">un-indicted co-conspirator</a> in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings — announced his <a href="https://clarionproject.org/clarion-special-report-nys-sharia-patrol/">“40 Days and 40 Nights”</a> campaign to expel crack cocaine dealers from Brooklyn. Armed with guns and nightsticks, Wahhaj’s team of nearly 50 men drew recruits from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/23/nyregion/muslims-start-patrol-to-fight-crack-in-brooklyn.html">homeless shelters</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyregion/security-guards-vigilantes-special-report-brooklyn-private-police-violent-their.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;assetType=REGIWALL&amp;fbclid=IwAR2bJlupgVwbKMXoKgDHADEtNRa5_ZILHylCaZfAnK_IFpa26DzMmfvUEqA">prison converts.</a>
From this “40 Days” event arose a more formalized, permanent, and licensed group of paramilitary guards and enforcers, known as SSI Patrol Services. In 1991, a New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyregion/security-guards-vigilantes-special-report-brooklyn-private-police-violent-their.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;assetType=REGIWALL&amp;fbclid=IwAR2bJlupgVwbKMXoKgDHADEtNRa5_ZILHylCaZfAnK_IFpa26DzMmfvUEqA">headline</a> described SSI as “private police as violent as their enemy” and questioned whether the firm employed “Security Guards or Vigilantes?”
The imam’s foot soldiers had no concept of proportionality: “If they spill one pin drop of our blood, we spill gallons of theirs,” one member promised. And indeed, they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyregion/security-guards-vigilantes-special-report-brooklyn-private-police-violent-their.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;assetType=REGIWALL&amp;fbclid=IwAR2bJlupgVwbKMXoKgDHADEtNRa5_ZILHylCaZfAnK_IFpa26DzMmfvUEqA">followed through with this threat</a>: One guard received a second degree murder charge, a second was held in a case involving the shooting of a disabled man, and a third faced a lawsuit for a brutal beating.
SSI was not the only Muslim paramilitary group with a questionable record. In 1996, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/09/02/a-breach-in-guards-invincibility/d0f9c4cc-4562-482f-9aac-fb9be699d003/">exposed</a> how the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) “Fruit of Islam” wing inspired the creation of multiple private security corporations that received “an estimated $20 million in public contracts in 10 cities.” Residents of areas patrolled by NOI security groups claimed “that guards paid with public money were proselytizing for Farrakhan, pestering residents to stop eating pork, go to the mosque or buy subscriptions to the Final Call, the Nation&#8217;s newspaper.”
<a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/03/11/black-muslim-security-firm-makes-false-claims-in-bid-to-secure-port-of-oakland-contract/">BMT International Security Services</a> is another black Muslim security group accused of defrauding the government and lying about its credentials to secure a $450,000 contract patrolling parks at the Port of Oakland. Such behavior was in keeping with the group’s background since “prosecutors have called it a cult that ran a wide-ranging criminal enterprise, committing crimes from real estate and mortgage fraud to murder.”
More recently, last year Wahhaj <a href="https://spectator.org/brooklyns-islamist-vigilantes/">revived his Islamist security group</a> under a new name: The <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/12/24/new-york-muslims-have-a-new-security-patrol-group/">Muslim Community Patrol (MCP)</a>. Just weeks after its founding, MCP members initiated a <a href="https://christianaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/The-Secret-Agenda-of-New-York-Citys-Muslim-Patrol-Cars.pdf">conflict</a> when they attempted to stop a group of African-American men from smoking marijuana near a mosque. According to “Abdul,” <a href="https://clarionproject.org/clarion-special-report-nys-sharia-patrol/">an informant who attended an MCP meeting</a>, Wahhaj said, “The mosques need protection and the MCP cars can help stop people who were not following the rules and regulations of the Sharia …”
“Everything is going to be Sharia,” Abdul explained. “That’s Wahhaj’s main thing. He’s working on a ‘one sheikh’ and ‘one government’ system that practices Sharia.”
Portman should  therefore consider one major revision for his bill: Funds must be allocated to increase the presence of trained local police — not dangerous and unprofessional faith-based patrols. The fungibility of funding to Islamist groups must also be considered; every taxpayer dollar dispensed to these groups frees up funding for other extremist activities.
If there’s one thing at which American Islamists are particularly adept, it is exploitation of the good intentions of others. And indeed, the intentions behind this bill are obviously well-meaning, but for such efforts to succeed, Congress must recognize the potential for abuse.
&nbsp;
David M. Swindle is a fellow for <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/">Islamist Watch</a> and the Southern California associate of the <a href="https://counterislamist.org/">Counter-Islamist Grid</a>. He also works as the Director of Research for <a href="https://theisraelgroup.org/">The Israel Group</a>. Follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/daveswindle">@DaveSwindle</a>.

Capitol Hill

SWINDLE: Stop Taxpayer Money From Funding Islamist-Tied Security Agencies

CAIR

New York Police Department (NYPD)

Police

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

Rob Portman

U.S. Senate

Earlier this month, in the lead-up to House Democrats&#8217; (<a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1207731722995023872">kind of</a>/<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/trump-feldman-impeach.html">sort of</a>) formal impeachment of President Donald Trump, the Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)-led House Judiciary Committee convened a panel of three law professors: Pamela Karlan of Stanford, Noah Feldman of Harvard, and Jonathan Turley of George Washington. The ostensible reason for Nadler&#8217;s summoning of this troika was to air a public discussion of what the U.S. Constitution&#8217;s &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors&#8221; impeachment criterion actually means — a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-todays-judiciary-committee-impeachment-hearing-is-yet-another-waste-of-time">rather curious use of time and taxpayer resources</a>, alas, considering that Alexander Hamilton told us precisely what it meant in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">The Federalist No. 65</a>.
This triumvirate of ivory tower overlords, moreover, was hardly politically or ideologically diverse. Karlan is an unreconstructed leftist so radical that former President Barack Obama did not even consider her for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. Feldman is a traditional liberal — hardly one to find compelling the notion that a legal text ought to only be interpreted according to its original public meaning. Turley, the Republican-called witness who was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-12-09/opinion-trump-impeachment-hearings-democrats">most favorable toward</a> Trump&#8217;s impeachment defense narrative, is nonetheless best described as a left-leaning civil libertarian. He is <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/politics/turley-democrats-republicans-gop/2019/12/28/id/947594/">hardly a partisan Trump supporter</a>.
Alas, Turley&#8217;s testimony elicited intensive backlash from fellow liberals and fellow members of the cloistered legal academy. As Turley snarkily tweeted, linking to an op-ed he published over the holiday weekend at The Hill: &#8220;The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not testify for Republicans.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not testify for Republicans <a href="https://t.co/AhlGtYMYsC">https://t.co/AhlGtYMYsC</a>
&mdash; Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1210938223444267010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Journalist Henry Louis Mencken once observed, &#8216;Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them,'&#8221; Turley began. &#8220;Despite unending respect for Mencken, this is an occasion in which I found him mistaken, after I violated the Eleventh Commandment, &#8216;Thou shalt not testify for Republicans.'&#8221;
Turley&#8217;s piece continued with oftentimes dripping sarcasm. The professor clearly harbors no small amount of disdain for the intellectual and political monoculture that the Left oftentimes attempts to forcibly impose from the heights of academe.
&#8220;What is most striking about this commandment is that it does not matter if your testimony is made in good faith,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;For instance, under the Ninth Commandment, you are only guilty if you give false evidence against your neighbor. But under the Eleventh Commandment, it does matter if your testimony is true or false. A law fearing academic must not give any testimony for Republicans. &#8230; It is the act of testifying for Republicans that is deemed a sin against the legal academy.&#8221;
&#8220;[H]eresy demands condemnation, whether or not it is based in reality,&#8221; Turley concluded. &#8220;This is all meant to get people to not seriously consider the flaws in this impeachment, including the articles that ultimately were dropped. For any academic who is tempted to testify for Republicans in an impeachment, I can only caution that the Bible said, &#8216;Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.'&#8221;
Political and ideological diversity is an infamous and pervasive problem throughout much of American academia — with legal academia among the most grievous of all offenders. Recently, conservative law professor Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA wrote a <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/ucla-professor-bainbridge-hero-of-diversity/">widely disseminated</a> <a href="https://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2019/12/i-submit-herewith-my-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-statement-for-my-merit-raise-at-uclaw.html">blog post</a> about how he, as a conservative white Catholic, actively contributes to diversity (properly understood) at UCLA School of Law:
<blockquote>At UCLA, we know that the campus as a whole leans substantially to the left. “A study of various university faculties showed that at Cornell the ratio of liberal to conservative faculty members was 166 to 6, at Stanford it was 151 to 17, at UCLA it was 141 to 9, and at the University of Colorado it was 116 to 5.” Conservative students at UCLA have been “harassed, stalked, and threatened.” I recently searched the opensecrets.org donor database for political contributions made by persons who claimed UCLA School of Law as their employer. Thirty-eight of those persons contributed solely to Democratic candidates, the Democratic Party and various affiliates, and liberal PACs. One person contributed to both Republicans and Democrats. Three persons contributed exclusively to Republican candidates, the Republican Party, and various NRC affiliates. Of the faculty members who contributed exclusively to Republican candidates, the most recently hired of the two was hired in 1997. As a monetary matter, 92.67% of all contributions went to Democrats and affiliated groups.
Because conservative students and students of faith often feel alienated and estranged in an environment that is so relentlessly liberal and secular, I have made particular efforts to reach out to and support such students. I have served as a mentor for leaders of The Federalist Society and Christian Law Students Association. I have given talks to both organizations. I taught a Perspectives on law and Lawyering seminar devoted to Catholic Social Thought and the Law, which gave students — whether Catholic or not — an opportunity to consider how their faith (or lack thereof) related to the law and an opportunity to learn about a coherent body of Christian scholarship that might inform their lives as lawyers. I have also tried to lead by example, such as by serving as a volunteer with the Good Shepherd Catholic Church’s St. Vincent de Paul chapter, which raises funds for distribution to poor persons who are in danger of losing their home due to inability to make rent or mortgage payments.</blockquote>

Jonathan Turley testifying

Liberal Law Prof Turley: Not A ‘Sin’ To Testify For Republicans

academia

Jerry Nadler

Liberalism

Republican Party

U.S. House of Representatives

&#8220;It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.&#8221; – James Madison, <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed62.asp">The Federalist No. 62</a>
&nbsp;
In the year 2019, nine years after the constitutionalist and populist Tea Party wave midterm election of 2010, how many Republicans in Congress actually agree with James Madison?
While all the eyes of political media this week remain fixated upon the dueling melodramas of expected House impeachment later today and the next Democratic Party presidential primary debate tomorrow evening, Congress is gearing up to pass yet another year-end <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-congress-decides-18-year-olds-are-too-young-to-buy-tobacco-heres-a-bunch-of-things-they-still-arent-too-young-to-do">budget betrayal</a>. To be sure, we already knew that fiscal conservatism was dead and that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-fiscal-conservatism-dead-republicans-killed-josh-hammer">Republicans themselves killed it</a>. But it seems that Republicans&#8217; insatiable desire for fiscal profligacy will not be quenched until they can also spit upon fiscal conservatism&#8217;s proverbial corpse.
Daniel Horowitz of Blaze Media has a <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-signs-omnibus-bills-hell-lose-last-legislative-leverage/">devastating breakdown</a> of the nature of the latest boondoggle — a boondoggle rearing its ugly head, lest we forget, less than two years after President Donald Trump himself <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-signing-omnibus-spending-bill-859148">vowed</a> to &#8220;never sign a bill like this again.&#8221; Over 2,400 pages of legislation. Nearly one and a half trillion dollars of additional spending. Increased funding for the EPA, but no increased funding for ICE. MS-13 trafficking and amnesty loopholes galore. More backdoor <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/citizenship-4000-liberian-illegal-aliens-snuck-3430-page-defense-bill/">amnesty</a> for Liberian nationals. Incentivizing illegal aliens to attempt to enter the federal workforce. Re-authorization of the corporate welfare- and crony capitalism-abetting Export-Import Bank. Raising the national tobacco purchasing age to 21. Tens of millions of dollars toward &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/congress-spending-boondoggle-includes-millions-of-dollars-for-federal-agencies-to-research-gun-violence">gun violence research</a>.&#8221; Zero attention paid to the neo-Confederate nationwide plague of sanctuary city lawlessness. Zero attention paid to the fact that murderous transnational criminal cartels still effectively control large swaths of our southern border. Zero attention paid to our nationwide crisis of revanchist and power-hungry <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-conservatives-how-much-longer-are-you-josh-hammer">judicial supremacism</a>.
And so forth. It&#8217;s enough to make one wonder why we elect Republicans into office, in the first instance. Is there anyone on the Republican side of the aisle who still cares about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-who-will-stand-for-the-forgotten-american">the forgotten American</a>?
Over the past few years, there has been an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-the-problem-with-common-good-conservatism">ongoing</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-government-exists-to-establish-justice-not-promote-liberty">roiling</a> dialogue over the intellectual meaning and political future of American conservatism. It is undoubtedly an important and healthy discussion for us conservatives to air out among ourselves. My <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-path-forward-conservative-movement-josh-hammer">own take</a> is that there will be no going back to the pre-Trump &#8220;<a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/03/against-the-dead-consensus">dead consensus</a>,&#8221; with the only open question being the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-national-conservatism-conference-josh-hammer">proper path</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-on-chick-fil-a-political-tribalism-and-the-need-for-national-solidarity">forward</a>.
But as every card-carrying conservative knows, &#8220;Republican&#8221; and &#8220;conservative&#8221; are hardly synonymous terms. And while the debate over what it means to be a conservative rages on, it is an <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1207086692416577538">entirely distinct question</a> to ask what exactly it is that contemporary elected Republicans claim to actually stand for. After all, it certainly does not seem to be fiscal restraint. It certainly does not seem to be cultural traditionalism. It certainly does not seem to be national sovereignty.
Instead, the least common denominator that unifies seemingly all elected Republicans, in the year 2019, seems to be a shared hatred of the Left — or &#8220;triggering the libs,&#8221; as my colleague Michael Knowles <a href="https://twitter.com/michaeljknowles/status/1207092532695318529">aptly phrased it</a> yesterday. Indeed, there is actually some historical precedent for this: The <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1207091426791743488">sole unifying factor</a> among all three &#8220;legs&#8221; of the traditional post-William F. Buckley Jr./Reagan-era conservative &#8220;stool&#8221; — fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, and national security hawkishness — was opposition to the existential threat of Soviet-era communism.
The modern, post-Kavanagh fiasco Left is indeed a vicious and malicious political foe. The Left&#8217;s reckless radicalization and trend toward full-on totalitarian socialism is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-here-are-three-reasons-why-i-plan-vote-josh-hammer">one of the three factors</a> that fortifies my confidence in voting for Donald Trump next November. But surely it is not too much to ask Republicans to actually stand for something beyond mere hatred of the dreaded enemy.
Or is it?

GOP elephant

HAMMER: What Exactly Do Republicans Claim To Stand For?

Conservatism

Trump Administration

The $1.4 trillion budget currently being rammed through Congress should attract our attention because it&#8217;s yet another massive behemoth monstrosity of a spending bill and it yet again signals that fiscal conservatism, if it ever existed at all, has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-fiscal-conservatism-dead-republicans-killed-josh-hammer">dead</a> for many decades. The budget will add $500 billion to our deficits, meaning the government will spend vastly more than the nearly $4 trillion it collects in tax revenue annually. Our leaders in Washington already appropriate the equivalent of the entire net worth of half of the world&#8217;s billionaires every year, but it&#8217;s not enough, we&#8217;re told. Not even close to enough. Thus, deficits and crippling national debt.
If this wasn&#8217;t bad enough — and made all the worse by the fact that Republican voters appear entirely apathetic about this issue, despite all of the Tea Party theatrics a few years ago — consider what else they&#8217;ve jammed into this bill. Despite being at best only vaguely related to spending and budgets, a group of Democrats and Republicans have crafted a plan to raise the age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21, and they&#8217;ve attached it like a barnacle onto this budgetary Titanic. Once the bill is made law, it will be illegal across the country to sell tobacco or vaping products to anyone under the age of 21.
<iframe title="The Myth Of Fiscal Conservatism | The Matt Walsh Show Ep. 393" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OhInq3rr0Zs?start=387&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It doesn&#8217;t take much reflection to notice the absurdity of this situation. The law will say that people at the age of 18 lack the emotional maturity or mental competence to decide for themselves whether they want to smoke a cigarette or use a vape pen. Now remember all of the things that the laws says 18-year-olds are mature and competent enough to do. Here&#8217;s a partial list:
– Vote
– Buy a shotgun
– Get a tattoo
– Sign a mortgage
– Take on crippling student loans
– Sign a contract
– Get married
– Get an abortion
– Serve on a jury
– Serve on the battlefield
– Drive
– Be tried as an adult in federal court
– Be executed by the government
There is no theory of human psychology and development that makes any sense of this dichotomy. It seems thoroughly obvious that anyone who can be trusted to wage war on a battlefield, or decide someone&#8217;s fate on a jury, or pilot a 4,000-pound hunk of metal down the highway at 75 miles per hour, or make financial commitments that will affect the course of their lives for decades to come, can certainly be trusted with a vape pen. Another way of putting it: Anyone who cannot be trusted with a vape pen cannot be trusted with any of that stuff. I don&#8217;t know about you, but I certainly don&#8217;t want someone so incompetent deciding my guilt or innocence in a court of law.
If we are grasping for anything resembling consistency, it seems we have a few courses available, and none of them include empowering people to do almost every important and potentially dangerous thing while still depriving them the right to smoke a cigar. The non-arbitrary options would be:
(1) Move the age for almost everything cited above, along with tobacco use, to 21 or older. This would be consistent and coherent. It would also be wrong, in my opinion. We do not instill maturity in young adults by legally infantilizing them. Moving the age of legal adulthood to 21 or older forces people to remain in suspended adolescence, which would seem to accomplish the exact opposite of what we should be trying to accomplish in our culture.
(2) Keep the age of legal adulthood at 18 and include tobacco use and, for that matter, alcohol use in that bundle. This is the approach I favor.
(3) Ban tobacco outright on the basis that it&#8217;s poisonous and dangerous and nobody should be using it. Most of the arguments I&#8217;ve read in favor of increasing the tobacco age have really been arguments for this third option. As dozens of people have no doubt already observed in the comments section, I am not averse to the idea of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-a-group-of-republicans-want-the-government-to-start-fighting-hardcore-pornography-theyre-right-heres-why">banning</a> harmful things, so I&#8217;m not going to claim that the argument for banning tobacco is incoherent or inherently absurd. But I still don&#8217;t agree with it.
Tobacco is not intrinsically evil or significantly damaging in small doses. Both tobacco and alcohol, in moderation, are nearly harmless. The harm of an occasional cigar at least does not outweigh the harm of an occasional Big Mac. Neither does the harm of immoderate tobacco use outweigh the harm of immoderate fast food consumption. Many more people die from obesity-related causes than from smoking, after all.
That said, at least a call to ban tobacco is defensible. There is nothing necessarily inconsistent with claiming that 18-year-olds are old enough to vote, drive, and get tattoos, but not old enough to smoke because nobody should be able to smoke. There is something inconsistent and incoherent about arguing that tobacco is terrible so  you should have to wait until three years after you become a legal adult to use it.

hand destroying cigarettes &#8211; stop smoking concept

WALSH: Congress Decides 18-Year-Olds Are Too Young To Buy Tobacco. Here’s A Bunch Of Things They Still Aren’t Too Young To Do.

Tobacco

As a <a href="https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1206993171424653314">budget-busting boondoggle</a> of a shutdown-averting spending bill works its way through Congress, there are any number of provisions that ought to give conservatives tremendous pause. For instance, the bill raises the national age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21 — a seemingly important public policy issue that conscientious citizens might expect their federal legislators to actually debate just a little bit.
But for Second Amendment supporters, there is one particularly troubling item that the D.C. swamp monsters and Congress critters have snuck into this pork-laden 2,000-page legislative monstrosity. If the bill is ultimately enacted into law, then, for the first time in decades, that Congress will have provided federal funding for gun violence research.
&#8220;The $25 million for federal research into gun violence that&#8217;s included in the massive spending bill agreed to on Capitol Hill represents the first time in over two decades that Congress has allocated funding for the issue,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/politics/gun-research-congress-spending-bill-cdc-trnd/index.html">CNN</a> reported earlier today. &#8220;The provision maintains the long-standing prohibition on any funds being used to advocate or promote gun control,&#8221; the outlet continued.
No small deal, right?
Progressives have cheered the allocation of $25 million in taxpayer dollars being to gun violence research (but assuredly not the promotion of gun-grabbing policies, we are oh-so-reliably informed). For example, the leftists at New York Magazine <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/congress-funds-gun-violence-study-for-first-time-in-decades.html">gloated</a> in remarkably tendentious terms about the policy victory:
<blockquote>
Though Republican lawmakers have been able to stymie serious gun-reform legislation following tragic and preventable mass shootings for over two decades, a step toward future progress took place on Monday when House Democratic aides said Congress would allocate $25 million to federal agencies to study gun violence as a fraction of the year-end spending bill. &#8230;
Gun violence is the least studied of 30 causes of death in America; in 2017, it led to almost 40,000 deaths, the highest toll since 1968. As The Washington Post notes, “As many people die because of gun violence, for example, as of sepsis infection, yet funding for gun research is less than 1 percent of that for sepsis.”
</blockquote>
Conservatives, by contrast, have naturally been less than enthused.
Nate Madden of Blaze Media <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/congress-spending-deal-will-put-millions-tax-dollars-toward-government-gun-violence-research/">quoted</a> Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), chair of the House&#8217;s Second Amendment Caucus: &#8220;The inherent bias at NIH and CDC in deciding how this money will be spent will compel left wing researchers to compete with each other to cook up the most anti-gun results possible. As with the climate change research industry and the privately funded gun-violence research industry, this newly christened government-funded gun-violence research industry will work mainly to justify its own existence, and unbiased voices won’t be funded or even tolerated.&#8221;
Similarly, Blaze Media&#8217;s Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-signs-omnibus-bills-hell-lose-last-legislative-leverage/">excoriated</a> the budget bill earlier today for its various profligacies and capitulations of conservative principle, and urged President Trump to veto it: &#8220;There is no reason why Trump can’t demand a clean continuing resolution for six weeks while the nation debates and even discovers the provisions of these bills. At the same time, he needs to use the bully pulpit and the threat of the veto pen to build the case for better immigration enforcement, punishing rebellious sanctuary states, and actually fulfilling a fraction of his promises on spending levels.&#8221;
Earlier today, against the shrieks and howls of the chamber&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-fiscal-conservatism-dead-republicans-killed-josh-hammer">seemingly few</a> remaining <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1206729083612278784">fiscal conservatives</a>, the bill successfully passed the House. It now heads to the Senate.

U.S. Capitol

Congress’ Spending Boondoggle Includes Millions Of Dollars For Federal Agencies To Research Gun Violence

Gun Control

Guns

Violence

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