The news this week will be dominated by five things.
– The President’s summit with North Korea
– Michael Cohen testifying before congress – for three days
– The Mueller report coming “next week”
– The China negotiations and impending tariffs
– Congress voting to overturn the President’s national emergency
So buckle up for the onslaught of noise. It will be loud and in all directions.
Some News We Want To Share As It Unfolds:
Did you see that Beto O’Rourke backed off his take the wall down position?
“Potential 2020 candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke clarified his hard-line stance against the U.S. southern border wall on Tuesday, explaining that “physical barriers” could be useful in some areas”.
An example of how far the party is being driven. He was asked by MSNBC about taking down the wall and you could see hesitation. Then realizing the left expected a “yes”, he said so. Now he realizes that will hurt him if he ever got nominated.
Did you hear that three Democratic candidates have come out for “reparations” to be paid for slavery?
Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro have said they support reparations for African-Americans over slavery.
This will now be a challenge to Bernie, who have issues with the minority vote last election. If he comes out for payments, then what does Joe Biden do?
Another example that the party might drift too far left for the general election.
A story that didn’t get much air play but is significant is this one:
An IRS agent admitted giving Michael Cohen’s financial records to Stormy Daniels’ lawyer. “Federal prosecutors say an IRS investigator in California has admitted leaking confidential details of financial transactions by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to Michael Avenatti, lawyer for Stormy Daniels.
You would think the MSM would have covered this.
Roger Stone went too far this time and was lucky Friday to avoid jail time.
He posted a photo of his trial judge with what appeared to be crosshairs next to her head. The judge could have jailed him immediately, but instead ordered him to avoid any further comment about his pending criminal trial.
So the Roger Stone show (or circus) will be quiet for a while.
Liberal Connecticut (which was once a destination tax free state and turned into NY North) elected another tax and spend Governor in November. His first act was to recommend putting tolls on the roads (in the campaign he said for trucks only, now it is for cars and trucks). Plus a soda tax of 1.5 cents per ounce. (That means a one dollar tax for every 2 LTR bottle). Then add this from Friday.
A “thin blue line” flag meant to honor law enforcement was removed from the Connecticut State Capitol this week after Democrats complained it might offend Black Lives Matter supporters.
Did you see any coverage on the MSM?
Remember when we railed about the plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein that let him free and all his records sealed? He was charged with abusing underage girls for years here and in the Bahamas. Remember who spent time with him and flew on his plane? Bill Clinton. It was a travesty of justice when he was given this plea deal.
Well a federal Judge ruled that prosecutors broke the law when they “concealed a plea agreement from more than 30 underage victims”.
The bad news is the judge stopped short of overturning the plea deal or exposing more information. He told prosectors to talk to the victims and report back to him in 15 days.
We don’t expect anymore to come out and this is a complete miscarriage of justice.
Some information for you on the National Emergency declaration. These are facts on the power, whether you think the President should or should not have declared one. In 1976, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (NEA), which permits the president to declare a national emergency when he considers it appropriate to do so. The NEA does not provide any specific emergency authorities. It relies on emergency authorities provided in other statutes. The declaration must specifically identify the authorities that it is activating.
The President states in the proclamation that “the southern border is a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics.” He states further that large-scale unlawful migration through the southern border is long-standing problem that has gotten worse in recent years.
Democrats are touting that: Apprehensions of illegal crossers dropped to 303,916 in fiscal 2017.
But they are rising again.
There were 50,998 apprehensions in October 2018; 51,857 in November; 50,749 in December; and 47,893 in January 2019.
At that rate, there will be around 806,000 apprehensions in fiscal 2019, which will be two and a half times as many as there were in fiscal 2017.
So choose your number.
Then add this:
Immigration courts are overwhelmed by their caseload. As of Nov. 30, 2018, the courts had a backlog of 809,041 cases. This did not include an additional 330,211 cases that had not been put on the active docket yet, for a total backlog of 1,139,252 cases. The backlog was only 542,411 cases when Trump took office.
The average wait for a hearing is 1,018 days — more than two and a half years.
Crisis?