Acquitted, this is worth posting

Troll level: Super Galactic Mega-God

Twitter bias

“…Twitter has locked the account of conservative journalist James O’Keefe for publishing publicly available evidence that a pair of radical leftists with violent fantasies work for the Bernie Sanders campaign. While O’Keefe’s tweets are still visible, he can’t publish anything new on the platform until he deletes a post which violates Twitter’s rules against “posting private information.”…”

Hat tip to Kane

Trump’s China policy appears to be working

China to halve tariffs on $75 bn of US imports

The best moment of the impeachment farce ?

Don’t do it Republicans

Calls For Expelling Romney From GOP Surge; Utah Lawmaker Files Motion To Allow Recall Of Senators

Don’t act like Democrats

Matt Gaetz to file ethics charges against Pelosi

I call on baseball to reinstate Pete Rose, one of the best players of all time

Pete Rose Petitions MLB for Reinstatement in Wake of Sign-Stealing Scandal

Democrats reap bitter fruits of impeachment as Trump reaches his apex

Washington Examiner:

“…President Trump is absolutely sitting on top of the world. This is the highest point of his presidency so far.

Consider what has happened in the last four days, and the reasons become clear. On Saturday, Republican senators stuck together. In voting not to prolong a farcical Senate trial with a predetermined outcome, they refused to honor the politically motivated impeachment that House Democrats brought on a flimsy pretext.

On Sunday, the Trump campaign aired ads during the Super Bowl. He advertised to a politically mixed sports crowd, but the point of the ads was not to rile up his base the way most candidates do during primary season. No, he was doing something Republicans so often talk about and so seldom do: He was reaching out to black voters, just as he would do later in his State of the Union speech, and he was doing it for real, based on actual legislative accomplishments in the area of criminal justice reform.

On Monday night, in Iowa, Trump’s political rivals fumbled away one of the best public relations moments they built into their election calendar. Given the chance to emerge from the first-in-the-nation caucuses with a front-runner and momentum enough to consolidate their party, Democrats instead failed to produce a numerical result for at least 24 hours. The results from their unexpectedly low-turnout contest are still being tallied, but the moment is now gone. Their nominating field is in chaos, and only one thing seems certain: Joe Biden, supposedly the strongest candidate to take on Trump in 2020, is wounded, perhaps mortally, by what is looking like a distant fourth-place finish.

On the same night, Trump won the Iowa Republican caucuses with more than 97% of the vote. This demonstrated emphatically that there exists no serious opposition to his candidacy within the Republican Party. If Democrats are divided, Republicans have never been so united.

As if to underscore this fact, Gallup released a poll on Tuesday showing Trump with a 94% job approval rating among Republican respondents, but, even more importantly, the survey showed him with a 49% rating among all voters, the highest of his presidency, and a 63% approval rating for his handling of the economy, up 6 points since November. A majority approved of his recent action against top Iranian terrorists in Iraq, and the share of people “satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S.” is at its highest point since 2005.

Mind you, this poll was taken during Trump’s impeachment trial and before his State of the Union speech.

Then, on Tuesday night, Trump delivered the speech. From the dais, he looked down on the very House Democrats who impeached him frivolously. He addressed the very Democratic senators who will vote out of partisan loyalty to remove him from office.

“Jobs are booming, incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting, crime is falling, confidence is surging, and our country is thriving and highly respected again,” he said. “The years of economic decay are over,” he said. “Our economy is the best it’s ever been.”

Trump described his agenda as “relentlessly pro-worker, pro-family, pro-growth, and, most of all, pro-American.” He recited one economic accomplishment after another: the lifting of 10 million people out of welfare, the record low levels of black poverty and unemployment, the surge in job creation far over and above all projections made during the Obama era, etc. It’s as if he were saying to those Democrats, “Go ahead. Impeach this. Vote to remove this from office. I dare you.”

Tomorrow, Trump will be acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial, which is what a majority wants, again, according to Gallup’s poll. For the next nine months, he will boast that the vote to acquit him constitutes his exoneration. He will argue that Democrats’ socialist policies threaten to plunge the nation back into economic weakness and foreign policy chaos.

Trump has never had it better. His approval rating was at its highest point before the speech. It may rise yet afterward. His opponents are divided and confused, and the economy continues to run strong. As long as it does so, it will be making the best possible case for his reelection.

Did Democrats ever expect impeachment to turn out like this?…”

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JONATHAN TURLEY

“…The House has its share of infamies, great and small, real and symbolic, and has been the scene of personal infamies from brawls to canings. But the conduct of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the State of the Union address this week will go down as a day of infamy for the chamber as an institution. It has long been a tradition for House Speakers to remain stoic and neutral in listening to the address. However, Pelosi seemed to be intent on mocking President Trump from behind his back with sophomoric facial grimaces and head shaking, culminating in her ripping up a copy of his address.

Her drop the mic moment will have a lasting impact on the House. While many will celebrate her trolling of the president, she tore up something far more important than a speech. Pelosi has shredded decades of tradition, decorum and civility that the nation could use now more than ever. The House Speaker is more than a political partisan, particularly when carrying out functions such as the State of the Union address. A president appears in the House as a guest of both chambers of Congress. The House Speaker represents not her party or herself but the entirety of the chamber. At that moment, she must transcend her own political ambitions and loyalties…”

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Lindsey Graham

“…So acquittal will happen in about two hours, exoneration comes when President Trump gets reelected because the people of the United States are fed up with this crap.”

“The reason the president was never allowed to go to court and challenge the subpoenas issued is the House managers understood that would take time. President Nixon and President Clinton were allowed to go to Article III court and contest the House’s action. That was denied this president because it would get in the way of impeaching him before the election,” Graham said. “If you think that Adam Schiff is trying to get to the truth, I have a bridge I want to sell you. They hate President Trump’s guts, they rammed it through the House in a way that you couldn’t get a parking ticket and they had a goal of impeaching him before the election.”

“You send this crap over here and you’re okay with it, my Democratic colleagues. You’re okay with the idea that the president was denied his day in court and you were going to rule on executive privilege as a political body. You were willing to deal out the Article III courts because you hate Trump that much. You have weakened the institution of the presidency. Be careful what you wish for because it will come back your way.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, you will come to regret this process,” he told the Senate. “And to those who have these pens, I hope you will understand history will judge those pens as a souvenir of shame…”

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Ed Driscoll strung this together

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Clinton adviser says Democrats will dominate for 40 years.

The London Telegraph, May 14, 2009.

Chaser: James Carville panics over Sanders: ‘I am scared to death…Do we want to be an ideological cult?’

Carville repeatedly suggested the Democratic Party was in danger of following the path of the Labour Party in Britain.

“Look at the British Labour Party,” Carville said. “We’re like talking about people voting from jail cells. Alright, we’re talking about not having a border. I mean, come on people,” he added.

“Of course I would vote for him [Sanders], but I don’t want the Democratic Party of the United States to be the Labour Party of United Kingdom.”

—John Sexton, Hot Air, yesterday.

Hangover: Don’t See That Often: On MSNBC, Carville Blasts Dem ‘Cult,’ Press Going ‘AOC Crazy.’

—Scott Whitlock, NewsBusters, yesterday.

On Iowa

The face of the Democrat party

She hates the President. She lets her emotions control her actions. She behaves like a peevish high school child who can’t sit still.

James Carville on the Democrat party

“…Carville on Biden coming in fourth place in Iowa: “He has had an honorable life in politics. This is just not the time. What’s happened is he blocked out access for my guy Michael Bennet, for Gov. Bullock, blocked out access to Senator Booker, probably some people that were going to run didn’t run because he was in the race. Maybe he’ll come back, but he’s going to have a difficult time. This is not a very good night for him to say the least.”

Carville on who should chair Democratic party: “I don’t know, ask Nancy Pelosi. That’s my idea. Come on, Speaker, get somebody in there. I think this thing in Milwaukee (convention) is not off to a good start. I see all kinds of things that are very concerning there. Also, I’m just looking at the mega polling averages. I’m looking at popular opinion right now and frankly, we’ve got to snap back and get this thing going or — I don’t want to even think about if we had four more years of Trump. But this is so far not so good, that’s my analysis.”

Carville on Bernie Sanders: “Of course I’d vote for him, we don’t have a choice.”

Carville on how the Democratic platform is unappealing: “Look at the British Labour Party. We’re like talking about people voting from jail cells. We’re talking about not having a border. I mean, come on, people. Every day there are people out there struggling. We’re trying to get votes.”

“You’re saying you’re concerned that you consider Bernie Sanders for open borders and for incarcerated people voting?” MSNBC host Ari Melber asked.

“He says he is,” Carville said. “He said we should give people a ticket. Alright. I’m just saying what he said.”

“Of course I would vote for him,” Carville said of Sanders. “But I don’t want the Democratic Party of the United States to be the Labour Party of the United Kingdom.”…”

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Trump uses State of the Union as part of strategy to break Democratic lock on black vote

Democrat’s worst nightmare.

David M. Drucker:

“…President Trump made an unapologetic bid to break the Democratic Party lock on the black vote with a State of the Union address that featured black people and highlighted administration policies geared toward the black community.

Trump’s remarks Tuesday evening came on the heels of a campaign advertisement run during the Super Bowl that spotlighted the president’s commutation of the life sentence of nonviolent drug offender Alice Johnson, a black senior. At least in part to boost support among black voters, a key Democratic constituency, as his reelection campaign accelerates, Trump, before a prime-time television audience, lauded the accomplishments of black people and proposed education reforms to improve access to quality public education for black children…

…Democratic activists have scoffed at some Republicans’ claims that Trump might cut into the Democratic Party’s command of the black vote, an advantage that liberals have enjoyed for decades, but some Democratic operatives are not dismissing that the black vote could have an effect in a presidential election that is expected to be another nail-biter.

Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist, said that, “overall,” Democrats would win the vast majority of black votes in November.

But Mollineau cautioned his party not to ignore Trump’s play: “It’s a reminder that Democrats shouldn’t take the African American vote for granted. Our formula for winning includes driving up African American turnout in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. These are going to be close races, and every vote will count.”…”

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Related:

Van Jones:

We’ve got to be clinical about this stuff. We get so emotional about it. That was a warning to us. That was a warning shot across the bow to us Democrats that he’s going after enough black votes to cause us problems. It’s not just suburban votes, he’s going after black votes.

President Trump on American forefathers

The American nation was carved out of the vast frontier by the toughest, strongest, fiercest, and most determined men and women ever to walk the face of the Earth. Our ancestors braved the unknown; tamed the wilderness; settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine; laid down the railroads, dug out canals, raised up the skyscrapers — and, ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors built the most exceptional Republic ever to exist in all of human history. And we are making it greater than ever before!

On the state of the union

GEORGE NEUMAYR:

“…Nancy Pelosi spent much of Trump’s State of the Union address pretending to read a printout of it. She then ostentatiously ripped it up once the speech concluded. The moment captured the bitterness of a partisan watching a president she tried to overthrow moving closer to reelection. Trump delivered an effective address that made expert use of special guests in the audience, from Venezuela’s real president in exile to Rush Limbaugh to the widows and orphans of military heroes. All in all, it was a Reaganesque performance.

Far from derailing his presidency, impeachment seems to have energized it. Trump’s poll numbers are at the highest level ever, and after last night’s successful speech, the Senate will acquit him. Meanwhile, the Democrats are in disarray, reeling from a caucus they couldn’t run, and more bereft of a serious challenger to Trump than ever. Joe Biden’s poor showing in Iowa has exposed the depth of that problem. Already establishment figures, such as Chris Matthews, are questioning the viability of his candidacy. According to the Associated Press, his embarrassing fourth-place finish has donors looking elsewhere, perhaps toward Michael Bloomberg…”

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Doug Santo