The Democrats gave away the game with a very disgraceful display of pettiness at State of the Union address last night.
They pouted, sulked and refused to applaud for the great American economy or all the progress we have made over the last three years.
But a few Democrats outdid the others. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) who all stormed out of Trump’s State of the Union address were the worst.
“I walked out of that speech. The lies, the bigotry, and the shameless bragging about taking away food stamps that people depend on to live,” Tlaib said.
“It was all beneath the dignity of the office he occupies. Shame on this forever impeached president,” she added.
Tim Ryanalso said: “I just walked out of the #StateOfTheUnion. I’ve had enough. It’s like watching professional wrestling. It’s all fake.”
Pascrell didn’t wait long to join in: “I just walked out of the #StateOfTheUnion. I can’t stand a liar. This man’s presidency is a national tragedy.”
I walked out of that speech. The lies, the bigotry, and the shameless bragging about taking away food stamps that people depend on to live—it was all beneath the dignity of the office he occupies. Shame on this forever impeached president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped her copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address in pieces after he finished delivering it to a joint session of Congress.
As President Trump concluded his 90-minute speech, the California Democrat tore up the pages of the president’s speech Tuesday evening.
Pelosi explained her decision to rip the speech, saying, “It was a courteous thing to do,” and later called it a “dirty speech.”
Earlier that evening, after President Trump made his way up to the podium, he appeared to ignore Nancy Pelosi’s offer of a handshake, leading her to smirk and shrug.
President Trump spoke before lawmakers for approximately 90 minutes, touting his accomplishments, including trade deals and criminal justice reform, and honoring conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“The best is yet to come,” said President Trump, who is seeking reelection this year.
The White House Twitter account didn’t wait long to respond to Pelosi’s statement, claiming her “legacy” will be centered on her ripping up a speech that mentioned “one of our last surviving Tuskegee Airmen,” “the survival of a child born at 21 weeks,” “the mourning of Rocky Jones and Kayla Mueller,” and the reunification of a service member and his family.
Speaker Pelosi just ripped up:
One of our last surviving Tuskegee Airmen.
The survival of a child born at 21 weeks.
The mourning families of Rocky Jones and Kayla Mueller.
President Trump’s third State of the Union address took place as his Senate impeachment trial winds down. A vote is scheduled for Wednesday in which Trump will likely be acquitted of two Ukraine-related charges. The President didn’t mention the impeachment during his speech.
Two of President Donald Trump’s guests at the State of the Union address on Tuesday were the wife and son of Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Hake, who was killed in Iraq by a bomb planted with the help of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
“On his second deployment to Iraq in 2008, Sgt. Hake wrote a letter to his 1-year-old son, Gage: ‘I will be with you again,’ he wrote to Gage. ‘I will teach you to ride your first bike, build your first sandbox, watch you play sports, and see you have kids also. I love you, son; take care of your mother. I am always with you. Daddy.’ On Easter Sunday of 2008, Chris was out on patrol in Baghdad when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb,” Trump said.
“That night, he made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Sgt. Hake now rests in eternal glory in Arlington, and his wife Kelli is in the gallery tonight, joined by their son, who is now a 13-year-old and doing very, very well. To Kelli and Gage: Chris will live in our hearts forever. He is looking down on you now. Thank you.”
The U.S. government concluded that Iran is responsible for the deaths of at least 603 American service members during the war in Iraq, with many of the deaths resulting from Iran-sourced improvised explosive devices and other attacks aided by Iran’s then-Soleimani-led Revolutionary Guard and its specialized Quds Force.
“The terrorist responsible for killing Sgt. Hake was Qassem Soleimani, who provided the deadly roadside bomb that took Chris’s life. Soleimani was the Iranian regime’s most ruthless butcher, a monster who murdered or wounded thousands of American service members in Iraq. As the world’s top terrorist, Soleimani orchestrated the deaths of countless men, women, and children. He directed the December assault on United States Forces in Iraq and was actively planning new attacks,” Trump said.
“And we hit him very hard. That is why, last month, at my direction, the United States military executed a flawless precision strike that killed Soleimani and terminated his evil reign of terror forever.”
The Revolutionary Guard, which was led by Soleimani, supports terrorists around the world, carries out assassinations and cyber attacks, funds illicit missile development, and wields huge influence both inside the country and around the region. It also plays an important role in funding, training, and guiding Iran’s global proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen, and in propping up Bashar Assad in Syria.
“In recent months, we have seen proud Iranians raise their voices against their oppressive rulers,” President Trump said. “The Iranian regime must abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, stop spreading terror, death, and destruction, and start working for the good of its own people.”
Michael Bloomberg’s new $5 trillion tax plan would limit a tax break used by a majority of small business owners, a proposal that could endanger business support for the former New York City mayor’s bid for the White House.
On Saturday, Bloomberg announced that he plans to limit the 20% deduction for “pass-through” businesses that file their taxes through the individual side of the tax code, rather than as “C” corporations, a tax break created by the 2017 tax overhaul signed into law by President Trump.
On Monday, a representative for the Bloomberg campaign said that it wasn’t clear whether the pass-through deduction would be totally eliminated or if it would be capped so that wealthier small-business owners could not use it.
“Right now, [capping the deduction] is under consideration, but if I said ‘yes,’ it wouldn’t be a hard ‘yes,’” said Brian Reich, a spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign.
More than 14 million small businesses claimed the pass-through deduction on their 2018 taxes, and a large majority of these taxpayers had adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000, according to CNBC. Over 90% of businesses in the United States are pass-through businesses, according to the Tax Foundation.
“In our research, we found that 72% of business owners find that deduction to be important, and they’re using anything from it to invest in the business and invest in the employees by increasing compensation and creating jobs,” said Kevin Kulman, a senior director of federal government relations at the National Federation of Independent Business, a group that represents small businesses. “So, we have seen significant benefits from the implementation of the small-business deduction.”
While most of the businesses that file as pass-throughs are small, the majority of the income goes to big businesses, making it a target for the Dems. About 80% of the deduction flows to taxpayers with incomes over $1 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Bloomberg included limiting the pass-through deduction as part of a number of tax increases to pay for his legislative priorities.
The NFIB’s Kulman siad that eliminating the deduction will garner the attention of small-business owner voters, potentially dissuading these voters from supporting candidates. He also stated that the NFIB will be informing members about candidates’ proposals over the remaining 10 months and will focus on how candidates propose changing the pass-through deduction. This deduction was critical for small-business owner support of the 2017 tax reform bill.
Adam Schiff gave his closing argument and all but fell flat as most Senators have already decided how they will vote on President Trump impeachment.
The Dems in no way have 67 votes to remove President Trump, in fact, they may lose a few Democrat Senators who are rumored to be seriously considering voting to acquit.
Doug Jones and Joe Manchin are two votes that the Democrats cannot afford to lose. In Schiff’s closing arguments he all but begged at least one GOP Senator to vote to convict in his desperate hopes to avoid a partisan impeachment.
Sadly, Schiff forgot the House did show some bipartisanship in voting against the articles when a few Dem Reps broke with Pelosi and Schiff.
It looks like the same thing is happening in the Senate, so Joe Manchin is trying to find a compromise – a toothless censure vote.
President Trump won’t go for it, so Manchin and the rest will have to take a tough vote.
Fox News reported that Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, speaking on the Senate floor on Monday, urged his colleagues to formally censure Trump — saying that while the president’s dealings with both Ukraine and Congress were “simply wrong,” he was “struggling” with whether to vote to convict and remove him from office.
At the same time, he also condemned the GOP-controlled Senate for failing to call additional witnesses in the impeachment trial, saying “history will judge the Senate harshly” for failing its constitutional duty to “protect our democracy.”
“I see no path to the 67 votes [requried to convict and remove] President Trump,” Manchin, who represents a deeply pro-Trump state, asserted. “However, I do believe a bipartisan majority of this body would vote to censure this president.”
A censure resolution has no practical effect and serves as a legislative rebuke to the sitting president.
Saying the decision of whether to remove President Trump from office was a “grave” matter that has “weighed heavily” on him, Manchin noted he has “listened carefully” to both sides of the issue — and that he remains undecided.
Joe Biden couldn’t handle some softball questions from the friendly NBC reporter Savannah Guthrie about Hunter Biden’s Burisma deal and he snapped.
Biden should know by now that times have indeed changed – the anti-establishment feeling still runs deep in America after the failures of the past leaders caused so much damage.
The NBC reporter started by noting the “certain irony” that Republicans “ensured that everyone knows” about Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma because of the impeachment, hinting the debacle backfired.
“That’s a good thing,” Joe Biden replied. “No one’s found anything wrong with his dealings in Ukraine except the said that it’s a bad image.”
“Well, do you agree that it sets a bad image?” Guthrie asked. “Do you think it was wrong for him to take that position knowing it was really because the company wanted access to you?”
“That’s not true!” Biden snapped. “You’re saying things you don’t know what you’re talking about! No one’s said that! Who said that!?”
Savannah Guthrie then hit a direct hit and called Hunter’s work in Ukraine “sleazy” before asking Biden, “was it right?”
Joe Biden dodged the question and said of Hunter “he’s a very bright guy” and he “speaks for himself.”
House Democrats are licking their wounds after losing the impeachment fight but don’t plan on going quietly. They all but vowed to continue the investigations and will most certainly start the subpoena’s flying in more doomed efforts to damage President Trump politically.
Others have more immediate actions planned like staging little protests at President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday.
Nancy Pelosi and President Trump haven’t spoken according to multiple reports since an Oct 16th confrontation which should add to the tension as President Trump will take a victory lap soon.
The Hill reported that female Democrats are reprising their coordinated white outfits to show solidarity with women, and, as in years past, at least a handful of lawmakers are considering or planning to boycott President Trump’s speech in the House chamber entirely.
The final vote in the Senate trial to acquit Trump will likely come on Wednesday, the day after his speech, and the lawmakers absent for the address will include some of the earliest and most fervent supporters of impeachment.
Rep. Steve Cohen, who introduced articles of impeachment against President Trump in 2017, skipped the last two State of the Union addresses. He told reporters that he has no intention to “go in a very cold room and hear a bunch of puff and lies.”
Rep. Al Green, who forced three House votes on impeachment and has boycotted all of President Trump’s addresses to Congress to date, said that he was undecided.
“The things that caused me to stay away have not changed,” Green acknowledged. But he said that he has been “encouraged” by a colleague to attend and is weighing his decision.
At least 6 House Democrats made a point of not attending last year’s State of the Union, while 14 boycotted the address in 2018.
The offices of other Democrats who boycotted President Trump’s State of the Union in the past 2 years — including Reps. Earl Blumenauer, John Lewis, Hank Johnson and Maxine Waters — didn’t respond when asked if they would attend this time around.
Maxine Waters crossed the line on Sunday with a very scandalous attack on Republican Senators in a Los Angeles-area church where she gave a sermon.
Maxine started with of course a few shots at President Trump saying that he doesn’t deserve to be president before calling him dishonorable.
“I’m so pleased about the spirit in this church today,” Waters started.
“I’ll be a slave buried in my grave and go home to my God, is that right? Now that’s what you call resilience,” she said.
“And this is what Trump doesn’t understand about me,” she added.
“He can’t intimidate me,” she said.
“I’m not afraid of him. He may sling all those nasty words out about people, me and everybody else.”
“But I’ll stand before him every day of the week and I’ll tell him he’s dishonorable, that he has disrespected us, that he’s divisive, that he does not deserve to be the president of the United States,” Waters said.
“And as I said I was going to do everything I possibly could to help him get impeached. It took them a long time to catch up and to get started in the House of Representatives but we finally got started.”
“And on December 18th at about 8:20 in the evening, the House of Representatives impeached the president of the United States,” she said to cheers.
“We transmitted it over to the Senate as the Constitution would have us do and, of course, we have a lot of racists, dishonorable people in the Senate of the United States of America,” she said.
“They’re no patriots. We are the patriots!” she continued.
“We’re the ones who stood with this country. We’re the ones who fought for democracy,” she said.
Univision’s Jorge Ramos got a real shock as he interviewed a group of Hispanics over President Trump and the impeachment trial.
Ramos thought he would have an easy time convincing his panel that Donald Trump was bad and the impeachment was not politically motivated, but he was in for a surprise.
Instead of full agreement from the panel, it was anything but.
The Hispanics on the panel thought that impeachment was a silly Democratic ploy, but they also brought up Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine.
Ramos probably thinks that all Hispanics should hate the fact that their poverty rate is down, their taxes are lower, and President Trump is an SOB for picking on illegal aliens.
Instead, the opposite was true, and they staunchly defended the president while excoriating the Democrats.
RAMOS: Let me ask you about the trial currently underway against President Donald Trump. They are trying to remove him, I don’t know if you are following it. Do you believe that President Donald Trump tried to cheat for personal gain…
RAY BACA, BORDER HISPANICS FOR TRUMP: No.
RAMOS: …when he had this call with the president of Ukraine?
BACA: I heard the call when…
RAMOS: From July 25th.
BACA: From July 25th. I didn’t see a problem. What is most interesting to me about this situation is- why don’t the Democrats want to know what happened with…with Biden and his son. How is it that Democrats are ready to plunge this country into a very difficult time- to force a president out over something he said? Saying, “Hey, can you look into what you can do about that issue”.
RAMOS: Isn’t he asking for a favor? Many people believe that he was asking for a favor in exchange for their investigation of a political opponent.
BACA: I didn’t see it that way, but at the same time, I’ll tell you this: why is it that if the Democrats have a Vice President who has a son that is making 80 thousand dollars a month in a company that is supposedly…that’s cheating in another country, why don’t they want to know?
RAMOS: There are no formal charges against the Bidens, let me make that clear. What do you think about attempting to remove President Trump?
ANTHONY AGÜERO: It’s the same thing we go back to, right? We have cases of over 4,800 families (being) trafficked along the border with fake documents, right? We have over 600 of those children that have been “recycled”, we have many more important things that we should be focusing on. That call that the president made clearly has nothing to do with him trying to persecute anybody. He’s just doing his job and seriously trying to investigate something that is going on, because he is opposed to corruption, and the moment we have someone like Joe Biden’s son, who has no experience whatsoever, none to do with that sort of work, who is making over 80,000 dollars a month, we should investigate what’s going on. The same thing with a relative of Nancy Pelosi’s, who is also very well connected in Ukraine.
Reports say that investigative reporter John Solomon had his car broken into, and his laptop was stolen. Solomon claims that his laptop contained a lot of evidence on the Biden corruption in Ukraine.
Coincidentally or not, the theft occurred the night before impeachment. His car was parked across from the White House, and police say it was done by a professional.
A sophisticated jamming device was used to open the car.
Solomon had been targeted by Adam Schiff, who doesn’t like the fact that Democratic corruption has been revealed by the reporter.
Adam Schiff claims that Solomon peddles conspiracy theories. Imagine, Adam Schiff accusing someone of lying. That is just dripping with irony.
Solomon says he is working with forensics experts to determine if the hard drive has been scanned.
Paul Sperry of Real Clear Investigations reported that on the night before the Senate impeachment trial began, someone broke into veteran Washington investigative journalist John Solomon’s car parked near the White House and stole his laptop, according to a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department report obtained by RealClearInvestigations.
The computer contained notes on Ukraine and former Vice President Joe Biden and other sensitive information, Solomon, 52, said in an interview. He said he was preparing to launch a new podcast and news site at the time.
Though the laptop has since been recovered, the investigation is still open. “The case has been assigned a detective and is under investigation,” MPD spokesman Sean Hickman told RCI.
The Secret Service is also involved in the matter, which appears suspicious. Break-ins are rare in the high-security area where the crime occurred, just outside the White House perimeter, and a sophisticated device appears to have been used to get into the vehicle.
The computer and bag, which also contained his U.S. Capitol press security badge, were discovered the next day a block away from where his car had been parked. The contents of the bag had been dumped out on a picnic bench near the FDIC building. The location had no security cameras, so there is no known video surveillance footage that can be reviewed. Authorities described it as one of the few “dark spots” in the area.
