Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Schumer, Pelosi speak to the press after leaving Trump

PJ Media
San Fran Nan slipped up earlier today when she absent-mindedly said "Christmas present to the American people," (quelle horreur!) which she quickly corrected to say "holiday present."
"Unfortunately that the president choose to shut down the government, that we have a Trump shut-down as a Christmas present -- a holiday present to the American people," she stammered.

Trump In Oval Office Shouting Match With Pelosi And Schumer Over Border Wall…



. . . "The fact is you do not have the votes in the House,' she told him pointedly.
"Trump angrily told the expected speaker of the House that funding for his wall would pass in 'two seconds' in the lower chamber, only it doesn't matter because it won't reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate without Democratic support.
" 'Nancy, I do. And we need border security,' he retorted as the televised meeting devolved into utter chaos.
"Schumer brought up Trump's 'Pinocchio' score in the Washington Post, telling Trump that he said at least 20 times that he would use a government shut down as a negotiating tool. 
" 'We do not want to shut down the government,' Schumer told him. " . . .
. . .
. . . "democratic senators warned the president's Pentagon chief on Monday that a plan to use defense funds build border barriers in Arizona would be controversial if carried out and unauthorized.   
"They told Defense Secretary James Mattis in a letter that the Navy did not provide a compelling argument for studies on 31 miles of barriers along a bombing range near Yuma.
"The project would divert as much as $450 million in funds that were intended for military readiness activities, they insisted.
" 'We believe the Department of Defense lacks any authorization or appropriations needed to move this project into any stage of construction during fiscal year 2019,' the senators said.
"In the letter told Mattis that he should not attempt to circumvent the legislative body by making use of a code that authorizes the military to provide a support role in counternarcotics operations along the border. " . . .
Official White House transcript of the Oval Office dust-up with Schumer and Pelosi
. . . HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: Well, thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to meet with you so that we can work together in a bipartisan way to meet the needs of the American people.
I think the American people recognize that we must keep government open, that a shutdown is not worth anything, and that you should not have a Trump shutdown. You have the White House --
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say 'Trump' -- oh, oh.
HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: A 'Trump shutdown.' You have the White House --
THE PRESIDENT: I was going to call it a 'Pelosi shutdown.'
HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: You have the Senate. You have the House of Representatives. You have the votes. You should pass it right now.
THE PRESIDENT: No, we don't have the votes, Nancy, because in the Senate, we need 60 votes and we don't have it.  . . .
National Review: "Tempers flared between President Trump and Democratic leaders during an Oval Office meeting Tuesday over funding for a wall at the southern border."  . . . "Large portions of the government are headed for a shutdown on December 21 if Congress fails to pass legislation to keep funding flowing. A particular sticking point for both sides is the $5 billion that Trump has requested for a wall, as opposed to the $1.6 billion for improving existing fencing along the border that Democrats have agreed to." . . .

‘Men Have Forgotten God’: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1983 Templeton Address

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 
Editor’s Note: This article, which originally ran in the July 22, 1983, issue of National Review, is adapted from the address Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave on the occasion of his acceptance, in London on May 10, 1983, of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. In announcing the 1983 award, the Templeton Foundation described Mr. Solzhenitsyn as “a pioneer in the renaissance of religion in atheist nations.” Mr. Solzhenitsyn ’s introductory remarks were made at the awards ceremony at Buckingham Palace, with Prince Philip presiding. The address proper was delivered later the same day at the London Guildhall. Today, December 11, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s birth.


"Your Royal Highness: Permit me to express my appreciation to you for taking part in this ceremony. Your participation lends special dignity to these proceedings. 

"This is the first time that the Templeton Prize has been awarded to an Orthodox Christian. With gratitude that our share in the religious life of the world has now been accorded notice, I remain acutely conscious of my personal unworthiness to receive this award as I look back upon the venerable line of outstanding Orthodox churchmen and of Orthodox thinkers from Aleksey Khomyakov to Sergei Bulgakov. And I am very much aware that Eastern Slavic Orthodoxy, which, during the 65 years of Communist rule, has been subjected to persecution even fiercer and more extensive than that of early Christian times, has had—and still has today—many hands worthier than mine to accept it. Beginning with Vladimir Bogoyavlensky, metropolitan of Kiev, shot by the Communists before the walls of the Kievo-Pechersky Monastery at the dawn of the Lenin era, the list would extend to the intrepid priest Gleb Yakunin, who is enduring torments today, under Andropov: Forcibly deprived of all outward symbols of his priesthood, and even of the right to have the Gospels, Father Yakunin has for months at a time been held in a freezing stone cubicle, without bed, clothes, or food.

"In this persecution-filled age, it is appropriate that my own very first memory should be of Chekists in pointed caps entering St. Panteleimon’s Church in Kislovodsk, interrupting the service, and crashing their way into the sanctuary in order to loot. And later, when I started going to school in Rostov-on-Don — passing on my way a kilometer-long compound of the Cheka-GPU and a glittering sign of the League of Militant Atheists — schoolchildren egged on by Komsomol members taunted me for accompanying my mother to the last remaining church in town and tore the cross from around my neck. 

"Orthodox churches were stripped of their valuables in 1922 at the instigation of Lenin and Trotsky. In subsequent years, including both the Stalin and the Khrushchev periods, tens of thousands of churches were torn down or desecrated, leaving behind a disfigured wasteland that bore no resemblance to Russia such as it had stood for centuries. Entire districts and cities of half a million inhabitants were left without a single church. Our people were condemned to live in this dark and mute wilderness for decades, groping their way to God and keeping to this course by trial and error. The grip of oppression that we have lived under, and continue to live under, has been so great that religion, instead of leading to a free blossoming of the spirit, has been manifested in asserting the faith on the brink of destruction, or else on the seductive frontiers of Marxist rhetoric, where so many souls have come to grief." . . .



Judge Rules Trump Administration JUSTIFIED in Ending Obama-Era Immigration Program

Socio-Political-Journal


SAN FRANCISCO — The Trump administration provided adequate justification for its decision to end a program that reunited hundreds of immigrants from Central America with family members in the U.S., a federal judge ruled Monday.Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler threw out the bulk of a lawsuit that argued the termination of the Obama-era Central American Minors program was arbitrary and violated the U.S. Constitution."The program allowed parents legally in the U.S. to apply to bring children or other family members living in Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador to the U.S.One of the goals was to discourage children from making the dangerous journey from those countries to the U.S. to be with family.More than 1,300 people came to the U.S. under the program between 2014 and the end of 2016, according to figures cited in Beeler’s decision.When it ended the program in August 2017, the Trump administration revoked approval for roughly 2,700 additional immigrants who were set to travel to the U.S.In her ruling, Beeler said the decision to revoke those approvals was arbitrary and capricious and required more analysis and explanation.Linda Evarts, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Project who is representing plaintiffs, said she welcomed that part of the ruling and called the decision “an important first step.”Beeler in a separate order suggested the plaintiffs might be able to revise their lawsuit to address some of her concerns.The judge, however, found the administration had sufficient policy and legal arguments for its decision to end the Central American Minors program.The Obama administration granted refugee or parole status to 99 percent of the people it interviewed for the program, giving them a greenlight to come to the U.S., according to State Department figures in Beeler’s decision.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her voters: made for each other

As it has been said, we get the government we deserve. I suggest to you that Democrats have become a third-world political party, with support from useful idiots* TD

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez goes full Fredo (and beyond)  "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is upset that people don't appreciate her intelligence and depth.  It turns out that people notice when she says stupid things, such as nattering on about the "three chambers of government" or not understanding that Pentagon accounting errors don't yield a pot of money available for her pet scheme of "Medicare for All."
"Preparing to become a solon in the House of Representatives is not at all like being a hot chick working her previous occupation of bartending, where pretty much anything she said was eagerly appreciated by her male customers.  Lots of generous tips, but few factual corrections in that environment for a slender, comely female with high cheekbones and a taste for fashionable clothing." . . .
. . . "I have to wonder if in addition to going Fredo, she is also "going Fauxcahontas" with this claim, which seems to be trading on the ethnic stereotype of Jews as smart. 
Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has claimed that she is descended from Sephardic Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism.
Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected last month to the US House of Representatives for New York State's 14th congressional district, told supporters at a Hannukah party organized by the left-wing Jews for Racial and Economic Justice that she has Jewish heritage.
American Thinker
*"In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause of whose goals they are not fully aware and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause.The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is unsubstantiated." Wikipedia

Jeff Flake, 'In the name of God, go!'


A phrase used on two dramatic occasions in the House of Commons. It was first spoken by Oliver *Cromwell in 1653 when forcibly ejecting the remaining members of the *Long Parliament: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!' The passage was used by Leo Amery on 7 May 1940 in his attack on Neville *Chamberlain
Jeff Flake Has Pretty Much Destroyed His Party's Agenda On Judges This Year
"Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is leaving, but not quietly. The immensely unpopular Republicanhas decided to totally trashhis party’s judicial agenda. Flake is the key 11thvote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he’s not budging until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds a binding vote on a billprotecting Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice’s Russia investigation. It’s frustrating. It’s deplorable. And it just comes to show you why Flake would never have won re-election if he decided to execute a suicidal banzai charge concerning that effort. He would have been knocked off in a primary, but I digress. The Senate Judiciary Committee has pushed back votes on judges. In all, he’s holding up the advancement of 21 judicial nominations, along with the confirmation of an additional 32 nominees whose votes are now stalled on the floor (via CNN):