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

Weasel Zippers

Trump in extraordinary Oval Office shouting match with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as he threatens to shut down the government to get his wall built - and they call him a 'Pinocchio' and tell him: 'Elections have consequences'  

. . . "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." . . .

McConnell Warns against Shutdown after Trump Spars with Dems

Pelosi said, . . . "It was so wild. It goes to show you: ‘You get into a tickle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you.'”

‘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):

Alana Abramson

✔@aabramson

Grassley postpones judiciary committee meeting AGAIN. Flake still holding out until he gets special counsel vote on the floor. McConnell has blocked it.

Pat Sajak Shared ‘Quick Fix’ For The Oscars — People Are Loving The Idea

THE ACADEMY AWARDS USED TO BE ABOUT GREAT FILM AND GREATER PERFORMANCES, BUT SADLY OVER TIME, IT’S TURNED INTO SOME RIDICULOUS POLITICAL RALLY WHERE A BUNCH OF RICH HOLLYWOOD TYPES SITS AROUND PATTING ONE ANOTHER ON THE BACK FOR HATING THE PRESIDENT.

Lawrence Richard  "One indisputable reason the Oscars are having difficulty finding a host for their annual Academy Awards event is that no one is watching it anymore. The event has largely shifted from an event celebrating the cinematic creativity of directors and the performance of Hollywood’s actors and actresses to a politicized swipe at President Trump.
"TIME reported the 2018 Oscars — the 90th Academy Awards — were the lowest viewed in 44 years. “The figure is the lowest since Nielsen started tracking Oscars viewership numbers in 1974,” per the report.
"According to TIME, the 2018 event continued a downward rating trend for one of Hollywood’s most prestigious awards shows: “Viewership sunk by 20% from last year, when 32.9 million people watched the 2017 Oscars.”
"In 2017, the Oscars “saw was the lowest number of viewers since 2008,” when only 32 million viewers watched.
"As Twitchy reports, Pat Sajak, perhaps best known for his role hosting the game show Wheel of Fortune, might have found a solution that could please everyone:
. . . 
"Sajak took to Twitter to offer forward his suggestion for a “quick fix.”
“Here’s a quick fix for the Academy Awards show: expand it to two nights,” Sajak tweeted. “On the first night, give out awards, and celebrate the history and wonder of movies. On the second night, hold your political rally.' ” . . .

You Are Here Harvard Study: Gender Pay Gap Explained Entirely by Work Choices of Men and Women

Intellectual Takeout.

"Gender pay gap is worse than thought: Study shows women actually earn half the income of men,” NBC announced recently in reference to a report titled “Still a Man’s Labor Market” by the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which found that women's income was 51 percent less than men’s earnings.

The "Gender Pay Gap" Isn't What You Think It Is

"What do you think of when you hear the phrase “gender pay gap”? Perhaps you think of a man and woman who work exactly the same job at exactly the same place, but he gets paid more than she does. This sort of discrimination has been illegal in the United States since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963.

"But that is not what is generally meant by the phrase “gender wage gap.” Instead, the commonly reported figure—that a woman earns 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man—is derived by taking the total annual earnings of men in the American economy in a given year and dividing that by the number of male workers. This gives you the average annual earnings of an American man. Then you do the same thing but for women. The average annual women’s earnings come in at about 80 percent of the average annual man’s earnings. Presto, you have a gender wage gap.

"That’s it, honestly. It isn’t much above back-of-a-cigarette-box stuff. This methodology takes no account whatsoever of a whole host of factors that might explain this discrepancy. It ignores the fact that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2017, men worked an average of 8.05 hours in an average day compared to 7.24 hours for women.

"True, women are more likely to be raising children, taking care of elderly family members, or doing housework, leaving them with fewer hours in the day for paid employment. But this does not alter the essential fact: that people working fewer hours, on average, can be expected to earn lower incomes, on average." . . .

Issa: If Steele Dossier people are agents of Russia, Hillary is the one guilty of the so-called ‘collusion’

BizPac Review  "During an appearance, Friday on Fox News’ “Hannity,” House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa dropped a potentially earth-shattering truth bomb about the Russian collusion narrative.
"According to the California congressmen, the real colluders may very well be the Democrat National Committee and failed Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"How so? Because they funded the debunked dossier that the Obama administration had used to obtain a potentially illegal warrant on President Donald Trump’s election campaign.

It’s official: DNC and Clinton campaign paid for research that went into infamous ‘Trump Dossier’ https://t.co/hX08ub6dXS pic.twitter.com/VUX1HT06hT— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) October 26, 2017

"Though the dossier was reportedly pieced together by former British special agent Christopher Steele, Issa suspects the document’s real sources may be Russian operatives.
" 'Christopher Steele hasn’t been in Russia in 20 years, so even the people, the unknown people responsible for it could easily, easily have in fact been agents of the Russian government, which would mean that Hillary Clinton is the one guilty of the so-called ‘collusion,'” he said Friday." . . .

Here come the Democrats

Rich Terrell

Top House Democrats Raise Prospect Of Impeachment, Jail For Trump

"Not going to happen.

"Via Chicago Tribune:

Top House Democrats on Sunday raised the prospect of impeachment or almost-certain prison time for President Donald Trump if it’s proved that he directed illegal hush-money payments to women, adding to the legal pressure on the president over the Russia investigation and other scandals.

“There’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House intelligence committee. “The bigger pardon question may come down the road as the next president has to determine whether to pardon Donald Trump.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, described the details in prosecutors’ filings Friday in the case of Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as evidence that Trump was “at the center of a massive fraud.”

“They would be impeachable offenses,” Nadler said." . . .

Democrats are indeed turning America into a third-world country,

If the Dems want to lose in 2020, Beto O’Rourke is the perfect candidate

Sharpton and Farrakhan

NY Post  "Beto O’Rourke, with widespread backing, is considering running for president in 2020. If Democrats want to lose, he absolutely should.

"Nothing has been learned from Hillary Clinton, the two-time heiress apparent who, in 2016, had the support of nearly every mainstream media outlet, who entered the final stretch of her last race with a $449 million war chest (compared with Trump’s $163 million), who led in nearly every national poll, and who was roundly depicted as the rational adult tolerating a villainous bozo. 

"Just as Hillary has taken that humiliating defeat as a sign to mull yet a third run, O’Rourke has taken his loss to Ted Cruz — the most loathed senator in modern American history, once called “Lucifer in the flesh” by then-House Speaker John Boehner — as a sign that he, a 46-year-old three-term congressman with a thin record, is the one to defeat Trump.

"And why wouldn’t he? It’s not like party pundits or the mainstream media, which swooned over O’Rourke and stoked its own so-called “Beto-mania,” have reached a different conclusion.

"“Beto O’Rourke should run for president,” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said Tuesday.

" 'The hottest thing in American politics,” Chris Cizzilla wrote for CNN just weeks after O’Rourke’s loss. “A top-five contender for the nomination.”

“I think he should run,” said Veronica Escobar, a Texas Dem who actually won her seat in Congress.

“ 'He’s Barack Obama, but white,” one top bundler told Politico post-defeat." . . .

New Flavor ~ Same Obama

Robert Francis O’Rourke to Meet with Al Sharpton as He Mulls 2020 Bid  . . . "Sharpton — a veteran liberal activist whose support has proven integral to up-and-coming Democrats in recent years — “agreed to meet within the next couple of weeks” with O’Rourke during their Friday call, according to his spokeswoman." . . .
Apparently, O'Rourke is just fine with people like Sharpton:
Al Sharpton Defends Racist Rants: 'It Was Only One Jew'
Al Sharpton in 1992: I'll Use Hate To Achieve Racial Justice

Sharpton's race-hate-stirring Tawana Brawley hoax

Kavanaugh Joins Liberals To Protect Pro-Planned Parenthood Ruling

Daily Caller  "The Supreme Court declined to review three cases relating to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood at the state level Monday, over a vigorous dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas.

"The dissent was significant because it indicates that Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the high court’s liberal wing to deny review of a lower court decision that favored the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“ 'So what explains the Court’s refusal to do its job here?,” Thomas wrote. “I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood.'”

Justice Clarence Thomas

“ 'Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty,” Thomas added. “If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background.”

"Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch joined the Thomas dissent, meaning there were three votes in favor of taking the case. Since four votes are needed for the Supreme Courtto take up a case, the opinion indicates that Chief Justice John Roberts and Kavanaugh joined with the four liberals to deny review.

"This move could indicate that Roberts and Kavanaugh are loath to take take up an abortion-related question in the aftermath of Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation. The Court’s new junior justice has generally kept a low profile since taking the bench in October. (RELATED: Mueller And Manafort Have A Lot Riding On This Supreme Court Double Jeopardy Case)" . . .

Comey Confirms Lisa Page Helped Peter Strzok Draft Hillary Clinton’s Exoneration Statement

The Gateway Pundit

"On Saturday, the House Committees released the 235-page transcript from Comey’s closed-door interview that was conducted on Friday.

"The Committee on the House Judiciary joint with the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight interviewed fired FBI Director James Comey Friday in a closed-door session that was NOT UNDER OATH according to the transcript.

"Comey was defiant in his interview with GOP lawmakers and said he “didn’t remember” 71 times, “didn’t know” 166 times and said “I don’t recall” 8 times.

The fired FBI boss did admit to a few things, however.

"James Comey told lawmakers that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page helped her lover, Peter Strzok draft Hillary Clinton’s exoneration statement.

"Peter Strzok is the FBI agent who changed the wording from “grossly negligent,” a term that would have brought potential Espionage Act charges against Hillary Clinton, to a softer, “extremely careless.' ” . . .