“Spilt Screen Day”

So What We See

While the media is calling it “spilt screen day”, we see a contrast.
As of this writing, we just saw  a President concluding trade deals with Vietnam and then meeting with the North Korea leader on a world stage to discuss peace. Monumental events that can impact the world.
Shortly, we’ll see the Democratic congress hold it’s first hearing and bring in the convicted former lawyer of the President. Convicted of lying to them. Before he goes to prison they want him to tell us how the President may have lied, is a racist and can’t be trusted.
Contrast the two. One impacting the world. One the next election. Then ask if they needed to be the same day before deciding which was right.

To The MSM: “Split Screen Day”

For the MSM this is “split screen day” as they equate the President’s meeting with North Korea to Michael Cohen’s open testimony.
Not quite the same to us, but to them its the Super Bowl, and for one day they love Michael Cohen. Now if he doesn’t say the right things they will bury him again.
The NYT expects big things. There story says this:
Michael Cohen will testify that Donald Trump engaged in criminal conduct while in office. The president’s former lawyer will, for the first time publicly, accuse Mr. Trump of criminal conduct while in office related to a hush-money payment to a porn star, a person familiar with his planned testimony before Congress said.
They added this:
“Cohen … is planning on portraying his onetime client in starkly negative terms when he testifies Wednesday before a House committee, and on describing what he says was Mr. Trump’s use of racist language, lies about his wealth and possible criminal conduct.”

We do think Cohen is coming to tell the Democrats what they want to hear. He will face harsh pushback from Republicans, but take notice if he mentions anything about Russia collusion. We don’t think so, outside of Trump was trying to build a hotel in Moscow. A business deal.
Remember, this started with Democratic charges of collusion and it will be about a hotel and a stripper getting paid off.

By the way, Michael Cohen got in trouble for lying to the congress before. There’s an old legal question that goes like this. “Sir, did you lie last time? Or, are you lying this time? Or, did you lie both times”?
Your witness counselor.

One last thought on this “spilt screen day”.  It used to be when the President was doing something involving world events, especially involving peace opportunities, the congress tread carefully. Not this congress.
Don’t you think that North Korea’s real goal is to try and wait out Trump’s time and get back to dealing with President’s they can stall? Of course they do.
Trump scared them to the table to talk possible denuclearization. They want to stall him while making him happy. Congress, by giving them the impression that he is weakened and might be taken out quickly, or defeated in the next election, gives them more desire to stall.
Our congress is aiding the enemy instead of helping clear a world problem.

News Outside The Summit and Congress:

Now I bet you didn’t see this on the news:

President Trump’s private business has turned over to the U.S. Treasury almost $200,000 of profits collected from foreign governments that used the company’s properties last year.
The Trump Organization wrote a check for $191,538 to cover benefits the company received from events, hotel stays and other spending from foreign governments at their hotel in Washington and other locations in 2018.

This from Jamie Dixon CEO of JPMorgan/Chase, who gets much coverage for every negative administration utterance. He said:
Amazon’s change of mind about locating in the New York City area resulted in a loss of about 100,000 jobs, far beyond the 25,000 people who would have worked directly for the company.
“It wasn’t just the 25,000 jobs that Amazon was going to do. It was probably going to be about 100,000 jobs supporting it,” Dixon said at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting.

The House voted to repeal the President’s emergency declaration and it looks increasingly like the Senate will do so too (just not get the 2/3 they need to override a presidential veto).
“Sen. Thom Tillis(R-N.C.)  said he would join with Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) along with 47 Senate Democrats to block Trump’s attempts to secure billions for his border wall. Now just one more GOP senator’s support for a resolution to block Trump’s bid would send the measure to Trump’s desk and force a veto. Watch Mitt Romney, he’s the next Republican to say no.
Another example of weakening the President who is meeting with North Korea from strength. There should be an outcry about this.

Did you see this vote?
Remember what Va. Gov Ralph Northam said about babies on birth day? Well, the Senate Democrats voted to ensure that babies who survive abortion can die.
Democrats blocked the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in a Monday roll call vote, which would have made it mandatory for doctors to provide medical care to babies who are born alive during an abortion.
The bill needed 60 votes to pass, but fell on a 53-44 vote. All 44 no votes were Democrats. (Three Dems, Jones AL, Casey PA and Manchin W.V. voted with the Republicans).

Speaking of votes, did you hear this?
The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to be a judge and fill a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The vote was a party-line vote. The Seattle attorney, Eric Miller, was confirmed 53-46, as the Republican-led Senate focuses on reshaping the federal judiciary in the Trump era.

Interesting poll released on Howard Schultz entry into presidential race:
The national survey tested the popularity of a center-left independent presidential bid. The clear conclusion is he would rob enough votes from the Democratic nominee to help President Trump win a second term.
For every Republican who defected to the third party candidate, five Democrats would switch.
In a two way generic race, she said, voters preferred a Democrat by 11 points, 48 percent to 37 percent.
With him in the race the numbers are:
Trump taking 34,  the Democrat 32 percent, and the independent 16 percent.