From a dear friend and fellow memo reader: " Sherlock Holmes:  elementary  Watson, the wall is not the problem with the Democrats, it’s the 2020 elections."
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Hypocrisy :

Oops! New Years Day featured Elizabeth Warren  drinking  to seem more relatable to middle-class voters.  Sharp-eyed citizens deconstructed the appearance of her kitchen background, however, and turned up the type of ceramic figurine that would immediately doom  a Conservative candidate. 

No word yet from Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton.

Is this a fake pictorial ?  Is this the way to destroy a candidate's aspiration for higher office and if so it is disgraceful. If not it is, at least, revealing.


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I posted this before but it is worth another posting: <https://Com.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6e9bdf3ddfb426b3df728ee00&id
=01a45e9826&e=e437799b5c>

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 Kim on government shutdown. (See 1 below.)
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Acosta goes to where there is no action because the wall has driven traffic elsewhere. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Watch the Democrats begin to turn on Israel. (See 3 below.)
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I have several liberal friends who are also fellow memo readers and they constantly berate me for always referring to Obama.  They apparently do not believe history is connective. (See 4 below.)

I am reading "Trump's Enemies" and the more I  read, if only half true. the more  Bassie and Lewandoski are confirming what I always believed.- Obama knew all about the false Steele Dossier and its connection to the Russian Collusion frame job Hillary, The DNC, the law firm they used,the topesenior members of the FBI and  others were up to their arm pits in framing Trump and illegally listening in on conversations of Trump associates obtained through flawed FISA warrant requests.
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Worth re- posting for those who are fair minded and balanced in their judgement. (See 5 below.)
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Dick

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1)Trump’s New Shutdown World

In 2013, Obama tried to maximize the difficulty. OMB is taking another tack.

By Kimberley Strassel

This weekend the federal shutdown becomes the longest in history—and yet, and yet, the sky has not fallen. Meet the team that has allowed the Trump White House to hold out for so long, and in the process forever altered future shutdown fights.

Across the street from the Oval Office, an only somewhat merry band of budget lawyers labor on one priority: making this event as painless as possible. That was the order from President Trump when the government closed, and the Office of Management and Budget was ready. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney had spent months as OMB director gearing up for a stoppage. Acting Director Russ Vought was all in. And OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta and his small legal team (those not furloughed) has spent every day since putting out fires.

It’s the opposite of prior shutdown thinking. The Obama White House used a 16-day shutdown in 2013 to punish Republicans for withholding funds, and in the process penalized the nation. The administration immediately furloughed workers and cut pay for private contractors. It shuttered Head Start, suspended money for health care in the District of Columbia, and sealed national parks, including war memorials on the National Mall. Some agencies had carry-over funds that would have allowed them to continue operations; they refused to use it.

Some shutdown pain is unavoidable—and correctly so. Both the Constitution and the Antideficiency Act are clear that only Congress appropriates money, and no one should want the executive branch to flout clear legal requirements. Shutdowns are also wasteful and highlight Washington’s inability to function.

Yet since Mr. Trump “owns” this one, Republicans have an incentive to minimize the suffering. Congressional Republicans helped themselves by last year passing bills that kept most of the government open. As for the rest, it turns out the law provides some useful flexibility—when an administration cares to exercise it.

A series of OMB memos stretching back to 1981 had already established certain shutdown exceptions. Agencies can continue to function as necessary to protect safety and human life and property, as well as in aid of the president’s fulfilling constitutional duties. Those programs that operate under “indefinite” appropriations, including Social Security and Medicare, also continue. The current OMB team has employed some of these doctrines in ways past administrations haven’t but which nonetheless make obvious sense. The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, has on the grounds of safety continued to monitor adverse reactions to medical devices, conduct foreign drug-factory inspections, and watch for outbreaks of food contamination.

Lawyers have scoured other statutes for legal outs. It turns out that Congress’s latest spending bill, the continuing resolution that ended Dec. 21, contained a provision allowing the government to pay certain obligations that came due within 30 days. That’s allowed OMB to rush food-stamp payments for millions of Americans through February. It was the Interior Department’s own reading of prior statutes that allowed it to use entrance fees to keep national parks open.

Then there’s the past OMB legal finding that unfunded agencies can continue providing services that are “necessary” to funded ones or to mandatory services. An easy example: The Social Security Administration and Treasury Department, both technically shut down, must nonetheless process Social Security checks that operate under continuous appropriations.

That’s also why Americans will still get tax refunds. The OMB team dug through Treasury documents and found that long ago the Internal Revenue Service had determined refunds fall under permanent, indefinite appropriations. IRS workers are being recalled from furlough to process them.

Some critics claim these workarounds are “illegal,” but lawyers say the Trump team looks to be on sound footing—especially given these decisions have been approved by career OMB lawyers. And also because the Trump team continues to nix proposals that fall too close to the legal line.

Yet there are no legal fixes for some truly painful effects—including Friday’s missed paycheck for 800,000 federal workers. And many patches were one-time wonders. There can be no additional payments for food stamps or for the Coast Guard. The pressure on Mr. Trump will only rise from here, and some Republicans are already nervous. Prepare for a lot more talk about national-emergency declarations.

But no matter the immediate outcome, the administration’s “painless as possible” approach has shifted the appropriations landscape. House Democrats will have to confront a new set of political calculations in budget negotiations during the Trump presidency. And future administrations will have a harder time justifying ugly shutdowns, in light of this example. Yet another way the Trump administration has changed Washington.

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2) Border Massacre Reveals Truth About Crisis

While some sections of the borders are highly secured, such as where Jim Acosta went over the week, others are total warzones. The Daily Wire reports:

On the same day that CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta posted his report from McAllen, Texas assuring Americans that there wasn’t “anything resembling a national emergency situation,” at least not there, very different reports were coming out of a Mexican border town just a few hours northwest: Authorities found 21 bodies, some burned, after what appears to be yet another clash between rival drug cartel gangs.

“Mexican authorities said Thursday that 21 bodies, some burned, have been found in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas in what appears to have been a clash between drug gangs. The bodies were found near the remains of seven burned-out vehicles near the border town of Miguel Aleman,” CBS News reports.

The city of Miguel Aleman is located in the northwestern border state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. The city is about three hours northwest of McAllen and borders the southern edge of Texas. […]

While Acosta made sure to note that he saw no evidence of a crisis “at least in McAllen,” the reality, of course, is that multiple towns on both the north and south edge of the border are seeing not only the humanitarian crises that necessarily result from illegal immigration, but the additional, often deadly violence of the drug cartels.This is yet another example of the border war that President Trump is trying to stop.

2a)  Border Patrol Leader Says This is Needed to Secure Border

By TTN Staff

The acting border patrol chief for a section of the border is asking that a barrier is built in his sector and more agents be added to secure the border. This directly contradicts the Democrat's narrative that the border crisis is a manufactured crisis.

According to The Daily Caller:

The acting border patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley told Fox News he wants to see another 120 miles of border fencing in his Texas sector and an increase in the number of agents.

“Right now we would like to see about another 120 miles of fencing in this sector alone. We’ve got 277 miles of river country. It winds an awful lot,” Raul Ortiz said.

“But if we were able to get the infrastructure, a few more agents and certainly the technology, I like our chances against the transnational criminal organizations out there,” he continued. “What I say to anybody who says we don’t need those things, come walk in my shoes.”

Fox News’s Pete Hegseth said Ortiz appreciates President Donald Trump’s hands-on approach to the border crisis and said anyone who knows border security will stipulate that a wall is absolutely necessary.

The chief also said that he is happy the president is taking initiative on the issue and he is actually visiting the border to learn what is needed to improve the conditions there.

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3)

A Warning from Robert P. George: Dems Will Turn On Israel

Robert P. George of Princeton offers this prediction:

You will be able to watch something as if in slow motion over the course of the next few years: the collapse of support for Israel by Democratic Party politicians who harbor ambition for national office. It will follow the pattern we saw of collapse of support for the pro-life cause by leading Democrats in the period of 1973-80 (and particularly 1973-76). One by one, major pro-life Democrats, perceiving the writing on the wall, flipped to supporting abortion and, eventually, even its public funding: Teddy Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Richard Gephart, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Joe Biden, and many others. (Something similar happened on marriage, by the way, in the period of 2000-2012, especially 2004-09, culminating in Barack Obama’s “evolution” and Hillary Clinton’s change of heart.) 

Similarly, today’s leading Democrats will move from support for Israel, to merely nominal support for Israel, to neutrality, to quiet, somewhat ambiguous opposition, to something effectively indistinguishable from “Zionism is racism.” The left calls the tune, and just as the left settled in on abortion in the early 1970s and marriage redefinition in the 90s, it has now settled in on opposition to Israel–not merely the policies of its government, but its very existence as a Jewish state and homeland of the Jewish people. Do you doubt me? You can do a test of your own. Go to the center of campus at your local university and hoist a placard bearing a large blue star of David and the words “Long Live Israel!” (Notice: Please make sure your health and life insurance coverage are in good order before conducting this experiment.)

Of course, we already saw this shift taking place in the Obama Administration. The big question is whether Jewish voters will start voting Republican in response.

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4)BILLY GRAHAM'S SON IS TELLING THE SAD TRUTH

NEVER SAID BETTER

Time is like a river.  You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.  Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, when he said America will not come back. 

He wrote: "The American dream ended on November 6th, 2012.  The second term of Barack Obama has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind.

A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, government workers, union members, environmental extremists, the media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the "forever needy," the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other "fellow travelers" have ended Norman Rockwell's America.

You will never again out-vote these people.  It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away.  It will take zealots, not moderates and shy, not reach-across-the-aisle RINOs to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.

People like me are completely politically irrelevant, and I will probably never again be able to legally comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired.

The Cocker spaniel is off the front porch, the pit bull is in the back yard  The American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and the likes of Chicago shyster David Axelrod along with international socialist George Soros have been pulling the strings on their beige puppet and have brought us Act 2 of the New World Order.

The curtain will come down but the damage has been done, the story has been told.

Those who come after us will once again have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to white guilt and political correctness.."
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5) Marc Thiessen: This is the stupidest government shutdown in US history. When will Dems get smart about it?

Barring some miraculous breakthrough, on Saturday the current government shutdown will become the longest in American history. But it has already hit another historic milestone: It is, by far and away, the stupidest government shutdown in American history.

In 2019, the federal government will spend a whopping $4.407 trillion. Yet Congress and the president are shutting down the government in a dispute between the $1.3 billion the Democrats have approved for border security and the $5.7 billion the president is demanding -- precisely 0.0998 percent of the total federal budget. In Washington, that is considered a rounding error.

Worse, Democrats are doing it over a border wall strikingly similar to one that they almost unanimously supported just five years ago. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., now says that "a wall is an immorality," back in 2013, she supported a bill that required the construction of 700 miles of border fencing. (Trump has called for a wall of "anywhere from 700 to 900 miles" long.) The bill negotiated by the Gang of Eight, which included current Democratic leaders Sens. Charles Schumer, N.Y., and Dick Durbin, Ill., declared that "not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary [of Homeland Security] shall establish ... the 'Southern Border Fencing Strategy,' to identify where 700 miles of fencing (including double-layer fencing) ... should be deployed along the Southern border."

That's not all. The bill further said that "the Secretary may not adjust the status of aliens who have been granted registered provisional immigrant status ... until 6 months after ... [the Secretary submits] a written certification that ... there is in place along the Southern Border no fewer than 700 miles of pedestrian fencing." In other words, Democrats agreed that no illegal immigrants could get a path to citizenship until all 700 miles of border fencing had been fully completed.

Every Senate Democrat voted for the Gang of Eight bill -- including 36 Democratic senators still serving today. President Barack Obama agreed to sign it. Indeed, he praised the bill for including what he called "the most aggressive border security plan in our history" and said that "the Senate bill is consistent with the key principles for commonsense reform that I -- and many others -- have repeatedly laid out" (emphasis added). That bears repeating: Obama said building a 700-mile fence on the southern border was consistent with the principles of the Democratic Party.

Pelosi supported the Gang of Eight bill, saying at the time that "every piece of this legislation has had bipartisan support" (emphasis added). But now we are shutting down the government over a wall much like the one that Pelosi and Senate Democrats fully supported just five years ago?

Democrats will object that the Gang of Eight bill did fund a border wall, but it was in exchange for a lot of concessions. Of course it was. As Obama said at the time, "the bipartisan bill that passed today was a compromise." But today, Democrats are refusing to compromise or lay out what concessions they would accept in exchange for wall funding. When Trump rhetorically backed off the wall and talked about "steel slats" -- a fence -- Democrats ignored it. When Vice President Mike Pence reportedly offered a deal for $2.5 billion, Democrats dismissed it. In a White House meeting Wednesday, Trump asked Pelosi whether, if he agreed to end the shutdown and negotiate separately on border security, she would support wall funding. She said no.

That is ridiculous.

In their response to the president's address to the nation, Schumer and Pelosi accused Trump of "manufacturing a crisis." That is simply untrue. As The Post reported this week, the United States now faces "a bona fide emergency on the border" as "record numbers of migrant families are streaming into the United States, overwhelming border agents and leaving holding cells dangerously overcrowded with children, many of whom are falling sick."

Democrats could not possibly be in a better position to demand concessions form Trump if they had manufactured a crisis. So put some demands on the table, for crying out loud. If Democrats think they have Trump cornered, then squeeze him and try get a lot out of him. But don't refuse to negotiate and tell us the wall is an "immorality" -- because their voting history shows they don't believe that.

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