(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter suggested on Sunday that the man who attacked Sen. Rand Paul, damaging his lungs and breaking his ribs, was justified in doing so.
“Rand Paul’s neighbor was right,” Christine Pelosi said in a now-deleted tweet, just hours after the Kentucky Republican revealed he had tested positive for COVID-19.
This is Nancy Pelosi’s daughter
Saying that Rand Paul’s neighbor (who beat Rand to the point of breaking 6 of his ribs) was right.
Christine Pelosi’s reaction was a reference to a 2018 incident in which Paul’s Bowling Green neighbor brutally assaulted Paul while he was mowing his lawn.
The senator suffered five broken ribs and underwent surgery to have part of his lung removed.
The attacker was charged with a felony assault for attacking a member of Congress.
Nancy Pelosi’s daughter just endorsed the felony assault against Sen. Rand Paul. https://t.co/kQpPM0Dyjt
Paul also faced criticism this weekend after senators discovered he had used the Senate gym and met with Senate colleagues while he was waiting for his COVID-19 test results.
But Paul defended himself and said it was “my extra precaution, out of concerned for my damaged lung” that led him to get tested in the first place.
“For those who want to criticize me for lack of quarantine, realize that if the rules on testing had been followed to a tee, I would never have been tested and would still be walking around the halls of the Capitol. The current guidelines would not have called for me to get tested nor quarantined,” Paul said in a statement.
‘When I joined the Army Reserves … I never thought that one of the greatest threats to our country would be the corruption we’re witnessing in Washington today…’
Chuck Schumer / IMAGE: Maddow Blog via Twitter
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) A massive super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, has been funneling millions of dollars through political front-groups to bankroll a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in North Carolina.
It raises the question of why the powerful New York progressive is hiding his funding relationship with the Tar Heel ‘moderate.’
Despite his pledge not to receive corporate PAC money, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham has been the beneficiary of more than $13 million in outside spending, mostly originating from Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC.
Democrats are desperate to regain control of the Senate and have targeted North Carolina’s incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis as a possible flip. Cunningham received overwhelming support from the Democratic establishment during the state’s March 3 primary election, when he crushed his main competition, Erica Smith, 57-35.
Smith, a female and African American, had endorsed a far-left platform. Cunningham, an Iraq war veteran, has sought to stake out a more centrist label while courting disaffected Republicans in the historically red state. But his ties to the controversial and polarizing Schumer are not likely to win him any crossover voters.
The Senate Majority PAC is the largest Democratic super PAC focusing on Senate races. Its president J.B. Poersh is a close ally of Schumer. Poersch formerly ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has given Cunningham $1.1 million this election cycle.
Recent filings with the Federal Elections Commission indicate that the Washington, DC-based Senate Majority PAC gave an organization called VoteVets.org more than $7.8 million during the North Carolina primary. That group, along with its sister organization VoteVets.org Action Fund, recycled the money and spent $7.5 million on behalf of Cunningham’s campaign.
Not a single donor was from North Carolina, according to a review of FEC records. Contributions mostly came from New York City, Chicago, California and Washington, DC. Notable donors include the Pacific Environmental Coalition and billionaire Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings.
Both VoteVets.org and VoteVets.org Action Fund are PACs that were founded as veterans’ lobbies in 2006, but they give almost exclusively to Democrats—regardless of whether candidates are veterans—and they push liberal positions on issues such as climate change with the veneer of military servicemen and servicewomen.
Along with Cunningham, who remains in the Army reserves, VoteVets.org backed Pete Buttigieg, an Afghanistan war veteran, before he dropped out of the presidential primary.
Carolina Blue is another group that has delivered millions in support to Cunningham’s campaign. The mysterious dark money organization was formed in early February and rained $4.5 million in outside spending on behalf of the Democratic Senate hopeful.
According to OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics, Carolina Blue purposely filed with the FEC so that it didn’t have to disclose its donors until late March, long after the North Carolina primary election.
The group uses the same ad buyer as Senate Majority PAC—Waterfront Strategies—-an equally nebulous consulting firm that is linked to former Barack Obama campaign adviser Jim Margolis, according to HuffPost.
Ironically, Cunningham has denounced the reliance on corporate PACs’ dark money in his own messaging.
“When I joined the Army Reserves…I never thought that one of the greatest threats to our country would be the corruption we’re witnessing in Washington today,” he said in his first TV ad.
The ad portrays the squeaky-clean image of an honest moderate, but it makes no mention of the millions in Schumer-aligned super PAC money Cunningham is willing to accept—or the strings that come with it.
‘If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACs, count me in…’
Elizabeth Warren / IMAGE: The Late Late Show with James Corden via Youtube
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s, D-Mass., professed opposition to big-dollar donations in politics does not match her willingness to accept more than half of her super PAC’s funds from a single source, MSN reported.
According to a recent report from the Federal Election Commission, Warren’s super PAC, called Persist PAC, received $14.6 million from one donor—nearly all of the $15.1 million that the super PAC raised last year. In other words, Warren’s presidential campaign lacked grassroots support.
The donation came from Karla Jurvetson, a doctor in Silicon Valley who also works as a Democratic political activist.
“I feel like it’s our moral duty, if we’re not going to run ourselves, to support the women who are brave enough to put their name on the ballot,” she said in 2018.
Although Warren said she opposed super PACs, she refused to cut ties with Persist PAC unless her opponents vowed to do the same.
“If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACs, count me in,” Warren said. “It can’t be the case that a bunch of people keep them and only one or two don’t.”
Last year, Jurveston donated $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee on behalf of Warren’s campaign so that the DNC would give her access to a voter database, The Daily Wire reported.
Warren pledged not to solicit donations from individuals who would influence her decision-making as president. She said she did not reach out to Jurveston.
Writing for The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald questioned why Warren did not disclose the name of the high-profile donor when her campaign was still active.
“Why didn’t Karla Jurvetson just say all along she was the one pouring almost $15m of dark money into Warren’s SuperPAC?” Greenwald asked. “Why disclose it only once it no longer matters? Is Warren going to denounce Jurvetson for doing this & refuse future donations? Is @emilyslist good with this?”
‘There is a long history … of using emergencies as times to really start to encroach upon people’s civil rights and, in fact, this is the time when we need them the absolute most…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The Justice Department quietly asked Congress to expand its “emergency powers” amid the coronavirus outbreak, and one of the requested powers would allow the DOJ to ask chief judges to indefinitely detain people without trial.
This new power would grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience or other emergency situation,” according to documents obtained by Politico.
This proposal would also allow those top judges to pause “any statues or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” the documents revealed.
The proposal was met with bipartisan condemnation:
“If this is a joke, it’s not funny,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “If it’s not a joke, we’ve got much bigger problems.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., similarly blasted the proposal and called the DOJ’s proposal “abhorrent.”
“There is a long history in this country and in other countries of using emergencies as times to really start to encroach upon people’s civil rights and, in fact, this is the time when we need them the absolute most. We have to keep an eye out for these kind of authoritarian and frankly, for this expansion of — and rather, suspension of rule of law,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN this weekend.
‘The president of the United States is from New York City and he will not lift a finger to help his hometown…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio lashed out at President Donald Trump, accusing him of “dragging his feet” and refusing to “help his hometown” as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
“The truth is—and New Yorkers and all Americans deserve the blunt truth—it’s only getting worse,” de Blasio told NBC News this weekend.
“And in fact, April and May are going to be a lot worse. The president of the United States is from New York City and he will not lift a finger to help his hometown.”
As a result of Trump’s alleged inaction, “people will die who could have lived otherwise,” de Blasio continued.
De Blasio insisted that Trump should allow the military to “produce ventilators” and other necessary supplies.
“Why are they at their bases? Why are they not being allowed to serve? I guarantee you they’re ready to serve,” de Blasio said. “But the president has to give the order.”
De Blasio’s inability to work with Trump is sharply contrasted with Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has made it clear that he is actively working with the Trump administration to prepare New Yorkers for COVID-19’s continued outbreak.
“We’re fighting the same war,” Cuomo said, “we’re in the same trench.”
Cuomo compliments President Trump’s response to New York’s coronavirus crisis, saying the president is “fully engaged on trying to help New York” and “very creative and energetic” https://t.co/yMZlZ5gV1wpic.twitter.com/XyTTVXNk4J
Cuomo went on to praise Trump’s leadership, admitting the president is doing a “really good job.”
“He is fully engaged on trying to help,” Cuomo said. “He’s being very creative and very energetic and I thank him for his partnership … I have your back, you have my back, and we’re going to do everything we can for the people of the state of New York/ His actions demonstrate that he is doing that.”
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Although President Donald Trump and others had expressed a desire to deploy trillions in federal emergency aid by April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., showed no intention of casting aside partisan differences during the coronavirus pandemic.
Pelosi’s #COVID19 bill is 1,119 pages and contains provisions for “conducting risk-limiting audits of results of elections” so yeah it’s really very focused on the crisis at hand.??♀️ pic.twitter.com/Q6axBi14lZ
On Sunday, after five Republican senators went into self-quarantine over the virus—including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who tested positive for it—the Senate bill stalled 47–47. For procedural reasons that were not immediately clear, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was recorded as voting with the Democrats to defeat it.
McConnell last week signaled he had no qualms about pushing the bill through on a party-line vote.
Instead, reports indicated an all-out legislative battle on the Senate floor as the two sides haggled over a House bill that was 1,119 pages in length covering unrelated measures such as:
corporate diversity
unprecedented federal bargaining rights
$15/hr minimum wage
airline emissions offsets
same day voting
On Thursday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn told 200 House Democrats that the plan was to leverage the crisis as a “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,” according to the National Review.
The GOP proposal, which would have extended $1,200 in monthly aid to most Americans during the pandemic quarantine—along with billions in loans for the affected industries—was shot down by Democrats who claimed that it catered too much to corporate interests, despite their own proposal pandering blatantly to left-wing lobbies such as unions and green energy.
Border crossing in Roma, Texas / IMAGE: CGTN America via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Despite President Donald Trump’s directive to block all nonessential foreign travel between the U.S. and Mexico, some Customs and Border Protection officials are continuing to allow non-citizens to enter the country, according to the Washington Examiner.
“We’re letting them through. And that’s pretty much the gist of it,” one CBP official in Arizona said.
Hundreds of non-citizens who claim they need to shop, visit family or attend medical appointments have still been allowed to cross the border, the official said.
“Nobody’s enforcing it,” the official said of the Trump administration’s directive. “It was put up — the president put it out. The chief patrol put it out. And we’re just not doing it.”
The directive requires CBP’s Office of Field Operations to turn away all non-citizens unless they have a permit to work in the U.S., are a legal permanent resident or are a student. CBP supervisors, however, have told officers who inspect vehicles at the border crossings not to obey the mandate, the officials said.
One officer said that in a 10-hour span, not a single vehicle out of the hundreds that crossed the border was turned away.
“In plain English, it was a giant s**t show,” the CBP official said. “Nobody followed the directive, a plain and simple directive. You’re trying to keep the coronavirus from going north … yet you just let it bleed through anyway, so you’re not doing the job you’re directed to. That’s what’s aggravating.”
When asked why CBP supervisors were deliberately ignoring the Trump administration’s order, a Border Patrol official said, “Basically, second-line didn’t want to make the public angry. But that’s pretty much your job at the port—to make people angry.”
The Trump administration’s strict border policies have, however, impacted illegal immigration. In fact, illegal crossings have been cut in half since Border Patrol began directly returning illegal immigrants to Mexico rather than detaining them.
“We’re not going to take you into our custody,” Mark Morgan, the acting head of CBP, said on Sunday. “We don’t know anything about you. You have no documents, we’re not going to take you into our facilities and expose you to CBP personnel and the American people as well as immigrants.”
Coronavirus crisis gives Democrats ‘a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision…’
Nancy Pelosi / CSPAN via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As more lawmakers—disproportionately on the GOP side—join the ranks who are voluntarily self-quarantining due to the coronavirus pandemic, the question lingers of how far Democrats may go to make hay of their temporary advantage.
The change in power dynamics might even give House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., an opening—albeit a very brief and long-shot one—to make another attempt at impeaching President Donald Trump.
The voluntary self-quarantine of five prominent Senate Republicans on Sunday narrowed the Senate majority enough to allow Democrats to defeat a much touted coronavirus relief package.
Democratic leaders claimed that the bill—which would have effectively granted most Americans a universal basic income of $1,200 payments during the crisis—offered too much in the way of corporate interests.
However, they have countered by demanding several entirely unrelated ‘wish list’ items that cater to their own lobbying interests, such as unprecedented union bargaining powers and environmental regulations.
The touch-and-go negotiations may very well swing their way with the news that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was discovered to be infected. As a result, Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, both of Utah, are going into voluntary quarantine.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida already was quarantining after having attended the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado also went into quarantine last week, according to Fox News.
On top of that, more than a dozen GOP members of the House of Representatives (and a handful of Democratic ones) have entered into quarantine as precaution.
Some CPAC attendees, including Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Lindsey Graham, R-SC, have already returned after testing negative. However leftists claim that Paul was recent contact with other senators, including Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, which may force them into quarantine also.
A Long-Shot Impeachment Attempt?
Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler / IMAGE: CNN via John Cornyn, Youtube
While it is unclear if the legal principle of double-jeopardy would apply to impeachment, Democrats likely would run up against constitutional issues for attempting to re-try Trump without filing new impeachment articles against him.
However, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, and others had previously left open the possibility that their ongoing investigations could yield new leads, including claims that Trump obstructed justice in the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion.
The biggest problem they could face in attempting to railroad through another impeachment would be the calendar—even the unprecedentedly quick December impeachment was roughly two months in the making, so two weeks of self-quarantine would not be nearly enough before those who test negative return to work.
Moreover, some GOP opponents who are voluntarily quarantining may cut it short, risking exposure to all, if such an egregious abuse of circumstances were at stake.
Moreover, even if Nadler and Pelosi were to clear the House at breakneck speed, they would still face a numbers game in the Senate.
Currently, without help from Romney, Democrats would still need additional GOP allies to secure the majority required to modify Senate rules, such as calling additional witnesses. And they would still fall well short of the required bar of a two-thirds majority needed to remove Trump from office.
Yet, the unprecedented circumstances of the coronavirus have done nothing if not prove how quickly the normal order can be upended.
As House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-SC, told a conference call with about 200 House Democrats on Thursday, according to the National Review, the health crisis undoubtedly has given the Left “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Democrats’ disturbing pattern of coronavirus shaming took an even darker turn after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced he had contracted the virus.
Left-wingers sought to smear Paul by suggesting that he ignored contagion concerns to use the congressional gym and swimming pool, as well as attending a luncheon with fellow senators on Friday, reported Summit News.
Rand Paul was seen at the Senate pool hours before he got his positive coronavirus test result https://t.co/wXPtE7OGlY
I took a picture inside the Senate GOP lunch when the door was open Friday and saw Rand Paul seated next to other senators. He is visible in this photo. pic.twitter.com/4qwZo5YdBs
Even one of his Senate colleagues, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., joined in the public stoning, claiming Paul’s actions were “absolutely irresponsible.”
I’ve never commented about a fellow Senator’s choices/actions. Never once.
This, America, is absolutely irresponsible. You cannot be near other people while waiting for coronavirus test results. It endangers others & likely increases the spread of the virus. https://t.co/651TJf8mWf
Paul clarified that he had entered into quarantine immediately upon learning he had it and had not been in recent contact with other lawmakers.
We want to be clear, Senator Paul left the Senate IMMEDIATELY upon learning of his diagnosis. He had zero contact with anyone & went into quarantine. Insinuations such as those below that he went to the gym after learning of his results are just completely false & irresponsible! https://t.co/yqfxydsXBG
Despite projections that a large majority of Americans will eventually contract the highly contagious, airborne illness, the Left has sought to stigmatize it by using ‘social-distancing’ shame campaigns to discourage people from leaving the house.
Concerns even exist that sites like Facebook and Google, following the lead of several Asian and European countries, will use geotracking to report on phone users’ mobility in the hopes of monitoring who might be infected.
The risk of contracting the disease—which poses serious risk to a small but “vulnerable” portion of the population of people 65 or older and those with compromised immune systems—already has created complications for the legislative process.
The quarantine of several conservative lawmakers gave Democrats added leverage in recent negotiations over a trillion-dollar relief package to help stimulate the economy. After demanding several unrelated ‘wish list’ items from the bill, Senate Democrats rejected it on Sunday, sending it back to the negotiating table.
‘Don’t they understand that they are destroying themselves?’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The latest trope to emerge in left-wing media’s coverage of the coronavirus is its attempt to frame the partisan divide with broad claims that Republicans are taking the outbreak less seriously than their Democratic counterparts.
Meanwhile, the cacophony of breathless opinions from doomsayers seeking to cash in on the pandemonium has done little more than to underscore the Left’s inherently cynical worldview.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Americans’ preparations to deal with the new coronavirus turned in part on their political views. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say they were washing their hands more, limiting contact with others and changing travel plans. pic.twitter.com/CoD5GjdxNx
For those on the Left, it seems the only thing the pandemic has not done to disrupt their daily lives is to slow the stream of invective directed at President Donald Trump.
Accordingly, liberals in the media have proceeded to blame their political opposites for keeping a level head and not launching into complete hoarding hysteria, suggesting that Trump supporters had been duped into underestimating the situation.
“Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to see the coronavirus as a threat to the country’s health, to fear for their family’s well-being, to see major life changes ahead, and to think that the worst is yet to come,” wrote the LA Times.
“… Republicans were more sanguine, more likely to think that the news media are exaggerating the risks,” it continued. “And they have been twice as likely as Democrats to believe a theory that scientists say is false—that the coronavirus was created in China as a bio-weapon.”
CNN’s Don Lemon and Jim Acosta
Pieces by the New York Times and Yahoo News were among those that went even farther in bemoaning the partisan divide by bashing conservatives for not believing what left-wing outlets with less-than-stellar track records had to say about the cataclysmic coronavirus catastrophe.
Even as they warned that the credibility of information was crucial during such a dire crisis, they repeatedly directed blame at the president for downplaying concerns, never once questioning their own hyperbole.
“[A]s Mr. Trump and his allies have defended his actions and accused Democrats and the news media of fanning fears to ‘bring down the president,’ a growing public health crisis has turned into one more arena for bitter political battle, where facts are increasingly filtered through a partisan lens,” claimed the Times.
No Room for Optimism
Trump has continued to push back against the fearmongering sensationalism in the press, warning left-wing media outlets that journalists were doing serious harm by stoking a panicked response—as well as destroying their own credibility.
I watch and listen to the Fake News, CNN, MSDNC, ABC, NBC, CBS, some of FOX (desperately & foolishly pleading to be politically correct), the @nytimes, & the @washingtonpost, and all I see is hatred of me at any cost. Don’t they understand that they are destroying themselves?
In a Sunday night tweet, Trump reiterated what should have been construed as a simple, innocuous concern about the dangers of overreacting—both by the public and the government—in that it could result in dangerous new precedents being established for future crises.
Some Republican lawmakers have expressed their alarm at the curtailment of basic constitutional freedoms, such as the Freedom of Religion (by forcing churches to shutter) and freedom of assembly (by limiting groups to no more than 10 people).
Several blue states and jurisdictions have gone even further with mandatory shelter-in-place requirements, projected to last an indeterminate amount of time, with most estimates being more than a month at least.
Trump sought to reassure those who were concerned by the potential overreach that he would not let it take root at the federal level.
WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!
Trump also expressed optimism that a treatment under review, using a drug previously prescribed for malaria, had shown encouraging results.
But the attack-dog press quickly circled, wasting no time with efforts to dampen his rosy optimism.
The Huffington Post claimed that the concerns about an extended or indefinite quarantine were merely “talking points” and ran with the headline “Trump Repeats Latest Bonkers Fox News Coronavirus Claims In Midnight Rant.”
MSNBC called his optimism over the drug currently in clinical trials a “conspiracy theory.”
Alternative Truths
During one of his now-daily press briefings last week, Trump remarked on the bizarre media efforts to second-guess every his action.
“I know the truth and people out there in the world, they [the left-wing media] really don’t know the truth,” Trump said. “They don’t know what it is.”
The faces made in the room as @ChanelRion asks Trump: Is it alarming that major media players…are consistently siding with a foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels and they work right here…with direct access to you and your team? pic.twitter.com/4eW8RHipY5
But if there is nothing concrete to validate the president’s outlook, there likewise is nothing to validate the doom-and-gloom scenarios being represented in the media. Many outlets rushed to plug varying worst-case scenarios involving millions of deaths and other life-altering impacts, although there seemed to be zero scientific consensus on the matter.
Despite the considerable uncertainty that the world faces in tackling the health crisis, as one Trump supporter told the Times, no action, however great or small, Trump could have taken would have been enough to placate the leftist media since the underlying goal is to undermine his presidency.
“What’s sad is that the Democrats are politicizing something that we should all be uniting to fight,” said Darrell Scott, a Cleveland pastor. “The Democrats are acting as if the president should have gone on TV and declared a state of emergency [weeks before he actually did so],” Scott said. “If he had, they’d have said he should have been calm.”
