Friday, December 25, 2020

Queen’s Christmas Message: ‘The Teachings of Christ Have Served as My Inner Light’

 

Queen’s Christmas Message: ‘The Teachings of Christ Have Served as My Inner Light’

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Queen Elizabeth II has hailed the “quiet, indomitable spirit” of her people through the Chinese coronavirus pandemic and described the importance of her Christian faith in her annual Christmas message to the British Commonwealth.

“For Christians, Jesus is the light of the world, but we can’t celebrate his birth today in quite the usual way,” said the 94-year-old monarch, a devout Protestant who, along with her 99-year-old consort, Prince Philip, has had to spend this Christmas in a “bubble” apart from her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

She lamented that people have been unable to come together as normal for many religious festivals, including “Passover, Easter, and Eid and Vaisakhi” over the course of the year — “But we need life to go on.”

“Remarkably, a year that has necessarily kept people apart has, in many ways, brought us closer. Across the Commonwealth, my family and I have been inspired by stories of people volunteering in their communities, helping those in need,” she said, adding that she was “so proud and moved by this quiet, indomitable spirit.”

“We continue to be inspired by the kindness of strangers and draw comfort that – even on the darkest nights – there is hope in the new dawn,” she continued.

“Jesus touched on this with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who is robbed and left at the roadside is saved by someone who did not share his religion or culture. This wonderful story of kindness is still as relevant today.

“Good Samaritans have emerged across society showing care and respect for all, regardless of gender, race or background, reminding us that each one of us is special and equal in the eyes of God.

“The teachings of Christ have served as my inner light, as has the sense of purpose we can find in coming together to worship,” she said.

Looking back over the year’s events, the Queen picked out a time when she was compelled to leave isolation as the country “commemorated another hero – though nobody knows his name.”

“The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior isn’t a large memorial, but everyone entering Westminster Abbey has to walk around his resting place, honouring this unnamed combatant of the First World War – a symbol of selfless duty and ultimate sacrifice,” said the monarch, whose own formative years were taken up by the Second World War, in which she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and mechanic.

“The Unknown Warrior was not exceptional. That’s the point. He represents millions like him who throughout our history have put the lives of others above their own, and will be doing so today. For me, this is a source of enduring hope in difficult and unpredictable times,” she explained.

“Of course, for many, this time of year will be tinged with sadness: some mourning the loss of those dear to them, and others missing friends and family members distanced for safety, when all they’d really want for Christmas is a simple hug or a squeeze of the hand,” the monarch continued.

“If you are among them, you are not alone, and let me assure you of my thoughts and prayers,” she promised.

“The Bible tells how a star appeared in the sky, its light guiding the shepherds and wise men to the scene of Jesus’s birth. Let the light of Christmas – the spirit of selflessness, love and above all hope – guide us in the times ahead.

“It is in that spirit that I wish you a very happy Christmas.”

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery



Rights Campaigner: ‘Merry Christmas’ as Default Greeting Is ‘White Supremacy Culture’

Christmas
alexhstock / iStock / Getty Images Plus
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Disability rights campaigner Jen Bokoff warned that using “Merry Christmas” as a “normal greeting” over the festive period is “white supremacy culture at work”.

Bokoff, Director of Development at the Disability Rights Fund and the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund, slapped followers on Twitter with an “annual reminder” that “not everyone celebrates Christmas!” and that, moreover, the “default” to the Christian salutation “as a normal greeting” is also “white supremacy culture at work”.

“If someone celebrates [Christmas], by all means. But so many people don’t,” chided the Tufts graduate, who boasts that “I bring anti-racism and intersectional feminism lenses into everything that I do” on her website.

Ms Bokoff’s “annual reminder” was not received with universal appreciation, however, with many social media users, including Trump campaign 2020 Strategic Advisor Boris Epshteyn, taking the opportunity to wish her a playfully enthusiastic “Merry Christmas!”
She was not the only person to take exception to the use of “Merry Christmas” as a universal greeting during the holidays, this year however, with former boxing heavyweight title contender Bryant Jennings topping her by saying non-Christians should not even be subjected to a bloodless “Happy Holidays”, for example.

“To say Merry Christmas or Happy holidays to a Muslim is ignorance, idiocy, and out right [sic] disrespectful,” the 36-year-old pugilist, who once challenged Luis Ortiz and Wladimir Klitschko for major championships, told followers — on grounds that “it’s not a holiday for us”.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has never been one to shy away from so-called “culture wars” issues, has championed the traditional “Merry Christmas” over “Happy Holidays” from the beginning of his term, declaring that he was “proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase” in 2017.

CUT THE SOCIALISM FOR WALL STREET AND HAND IT TO NEEDY AMERICANS??? - DON'T THAT SOUND JUST COMMIE TO YOU???

 In April, class action lawsuits were filed against JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America for allegedly prioritizing large PPP loans by big companies with political connections ahead of small loans for small and medium-sized businesses. PPP was designed to be first come, first serve but the lawsuit claims the banks reshuffled their applications to prioritize which loans would make the most money for the bank.

Watch–Josh Hawley: Congress ‘Bailed Out the Banks’ But Hesitant to Provide Americans with Stimulus Checks

C-SPAN

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JOHN BINDER

18 Dec 20201,190

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After bailing out the nation’s biggest banks, Congress is now hesitant on whether to provide Americans with a second round of stimulus checks as 24.5 million remain jobless or underemployed, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said in a speech on Friday.

During a speech on the Senate floor, Hawley blasted Congress — and specifically, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who objected to stimulus checks for Americans — for coming to the aid of Wall Street, Big Tech, and multinational corporations while arguing over whether to provide American citizens with direct relief following forced shutdowns by state and local governments.

Hawley’s plan would provide single Americans with $1,200 stimulus checks and couples with $2,400 checks. Each minor child in a family would be provided with a $500 check — the same plan was included in the CARES Act passed earlier this year.

Johnson objected to giving stimulus checks to Americans, saying he was concerned about the federal deficit, even as the spending bill would still include hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stimulus without the inclusion of Hawley’s plan.

“We bailed out the banks to such a tune that now they’ve got money left over,” Hawley said in response to Johnson. “Now we’re going to take money back because we spent so much on Wall Street and the banks in the first part of this year. That’s right.”

Working people have put America first again and again. They have come to this nation’s aid at every hour of need. It’s time the Senate put them first. Get them direct #covid relief now pic.twitter.com/u380twZK7Y

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 18, 2020

 

“Now, Wall Street is doing great. Big tech? They’re doing great. The big multinational corporations? Fantastic,” Hawley continued. “Working people? Working people are living in their cars. Working people can’t go to the doctor. Working people can’t pay their rent. Working people can’t feed their children.”

Hawley said the consideration of working and middle-class Americans “should be first … not last” when negotiating the stimulus package and asked Senators to explain to their constituents why they oppose direct relief to them.

“I just urge members of these bodies, go home and try explaining that to the people of your state,” Hawley said. “Go ahead. Just try. Try telling them why this body can bail out the banks.”

Indeed, the nation’s biggest banks were gifted billions in the CARES Act as they collected fee payments for processing loans to small businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

In April, class action lawsuits were filed against JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America for allegedly prioritizing large PPP loans by big companies with political connections ahead of small loans for small and medium-sized businesses. PPP was designed to be first come, first serve but the lawsuit claims the banks reshuffled their applications to prioritize which loans would make the most money for the bank.

There are currently 24.5 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed, but all want full-time jobs, through no fault of their own mostly as a result of the pandemic. The economic nationalist policy has widespread, overwhelming support among Americans.

In September, a Gallup poll found that 70 percent of Americans supported a second round of stimulus checks, while polling from March by OnePoll found that 82 percent of Americans said stimulus checks should continue each month until lockdowns are completely ended.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on T

How Congress Can Give Americans $2K Relief Checks and Cut Omnibus Pork to Pay for It

WASHINGTON - DECEMBER 9: A holiday tree is shown lit in front of the U.S. Capitol building December 9, 2004 in Washington, DC. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) hosted the official tree lighting ceremony today. The 79-year-old red spruce weighs approximately 92 hundred pounds and is about 67 feet …
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
8:48

President Donald Trump has urged Congress to increase the amount of the direct relief payments to Americans to $2,000 by cutting out the unrelated pork in the coronavirus rescue package and government spending bill. Breitbart News has calculated how much that increase would cost and what could be cut from the 5,593-page omnibus bill to offset it.

The House and Senate passed the combined $900 billion coronavirus relief package and $1.4 trillion government spending bill on Monday night, but the massive 5,593-page omnibus bill immediately drew criticism for sending billions of dollars of aid to foreign countries while only allotting $600 relief checks for Americans.

Populists on the right and left, led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), argued that sending direct coronavirus relief checks to Americans provides the easiest and most equitable way to get funding to where it can have the most impact in helping people get through the pandemic.

Trump’s call to increase direct payments to $2,000 has bridged the partisan divide in Washington, receiving agreement from Hawley and Sanders, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). However, some Republicans have blocked the effort to amend the bill, worrying about the increase in spending for Americans despite the billions of dollars of foreign aid included in the bill.

There is no question that the United States government can afford to pay Americans more. The U.S. has an unerring history of paying its debts, and as a result, it can borrow from the public at extremely low rates. Especially in times of economic stress, investors in the U.S. and around the globe seek out U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven for their cash, which means that the pandemic’s surge around the globe has made it easier for the government to raise funds by selling bonds to willing buyers. The world wants to fund our government, which is why the yield on the 10-year Treasury is less than one percent.

Even though we could easily fund the higher payments by selling Treasuries, there will be some who worry that the government is spending too much. Fortunately, there is another source of funds available. Namely, there are hundreds of billions of dollars of spending in the bill Trump is threatening to reject that would go to unnecessary projects or programs that can easily wait until after the current crisis has passed.

So how much would it cost? The last round of $1,200 payments to adults and $400 to children cost approximately $218 billion. Raising the payments to adults to $2,000 and keeping all other things equal would increase the cost to around $349 billion. The lower amount in the current bill will cost around $166 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. So that leaves a funding hole of around $183 billion.

To offset this $183 billion increase, we have identified the following potential cuts from the omnibus bill. In multiple sources of funding, as noted below, lawmakers allotted money well over what Trump had requested. These funds are labeled as “excess funding.”

  • $8 billion for the Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism
  • $1.7 billion for USAID operations abroad
  • $26.5 billion for “Bilateral Economic Assistance” abroad
  • $3.3 billion for “Global Health Programs”
  • $4.4 billion for “International Disaster Assistance”
  • $3.4 billion for “Refugee Assistance”
  • $2.4 billion for “democracy programs”
  • $1.7 billion for Jordan
  • $1.9 billion for “international food aid”
  • $35 billion in new clean energy initiatives to fight climate change
  • $9 billion for “international security assistance”
  • $5.9 billion for the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)”
  • $950 million for “basic education” programs in foreign countries
  • $740.3 million for “educational and cultural exchange” programs in foreign countries
  • $1.5 billion for “Contributions to International Organizations”
  • $224 million tax breaks for motor sports venues
  • $16 billion tax credit for businesses that hire individuals facing “significant barriers to employment”
  • $1 billion tax credit for “special expensing rules for entertainment productions”
  • $13 billion tax breaks for clean energy initiatives
  • $9 billion in tax credits for beer, wine, and distilled spirits producers
  • $2 billion “to enable better scientific information about the Earth and its changing climate”
  • $16.2 billion in excess funding for transportation, housing, and urban development
  • $19.2 billion in excess funding for the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and Health and Human Services
  • $6.9 billion in excess funding for energy and water development
  • $12.3 billion in excess funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency

TOTAL CUTS: $203,814,000,000

These are, of course, merely suggestions. Congress is free to ignore them or to suggest other cuts. In making these determinations, the nation’s leaders might consider the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, who once said, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.” When the economy was hit by the pandemic and the government enforced lockdowns, it became impossible for many Americans to “do for themselves” what they “need to have done” to support themselves.

Giving relief checks directly to American citizens allows them to meet their needs as they see fit. Conservative Republicans have argued for years that individuals know better than government bureaucrats how to spend their money. Replacing direct payments with targeted funding for one group or corporation simply allows the political class to pick winners and losers; and more important, it allows the Swamp to direct benefits to their donors and pet causes. Putting Americans first means giving them the check, not a faceless bureaucrat or a favored corporation.

“We bailed out the banks to such a tune that now they’ve got money left over. Now we’re going to take money back because we spent so much on Wall Street and the banks in the first part of this year,” Hawley said in a Senate speech in response to his colleagues who use concerns about the deficit to deny Americans direct relief.

“Now, Wall Street is doing great. Big tech? They’re doing great. The big multinational corporations? Fantastic,” Hawley continued. “Working people? Working people are living in their cars. Working people can’t go to the doctor. Working people can’t pay their rent. Working people can’t feed their children.”

Indeed, the picture Hawley paints is made manifest in the economic data. Weekly jobless claims continue to climb, rising to 885,000 last week. The number of Americans who are jobless or underemployed, but all of whom want full-time employment with good benefits and competitive wages, remains at 24.5 million.

In November, the U.S. poverty rate rose to 11.7 percent, a jump of 2.4 percent since June, marking the highest single year increase since the government began tracking poverty 60 years ago. Nearly 12 million Americans owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utilities, the Washington Post reports. The nation’s homeless population could increase by 40 to 45 percent this year, according to a Columbia University study. Homeless shelters across the country are struggling to accommodate a surge in people needing assistance.

Another study found that an estimated 5.4 million Americans lost their employer health insurance between February and May of this year due to the massive job loss from the pandemic. The number of people who lost their insurance in that three-month span is greater than the loss of coverage in any single year. Meanwhile, the cost of the average monthly health insurance premium for a family of four is $1,437.

The question remains: Will Congress step up to help Americans?

PHONY PREACHER MAN FRANKLIN GRAHAM SAYS PRAY THAT GOD SPARES NATION FROM EVIL BEFORE US... BUT HE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT THE ONE MAN CRIME WAVE DONALD TRUMP!

 

George Clooney Trashes Trump as a ‘Charismatic Carnival Barker’

ClooneyRehashesKissMyAssBannon
GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images
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Actor George Clooney once again slammed Republicans and President Donald Trump, who the Midnight Sky actor trashed as a “charismatic carnival barker.”

The New York Times asked the Argo star about his impression of Joe Biden presidency and whether or not Biden will be able to reach across the aisle to Republicans like he claims he can. Clooney replied that Biden will not be able to work with the GOP and used Texas Sen. Ted Cuz as an example of why Biden’s effort to work with Republicans will fall apart.

Clooney added that many of the Republicans in the Senate won’t want to work with Biden because they want to be president themselves.

“Every single one of these guys have aspirations for bigger things — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, all of them,” Clooney told the Times. “They think people will travel with them because, ‘I’ve stuck with you, Don,’ but the truth is, they won’t. They stay with Donald because Donald, for all of his immense problems as a human being, is a charismatic carnival barker.”

Clooney also slammed the president for refusing to support a coronavirus mask mandate, which already exist in most states.

“The idea that we politicize things like this is crazy,” Clooney said, ignoring the left’s efforts over the very issue. “Had Trump come out at the very beginning and said, ‘We’re all going to wear masks because it’s the right thing to do and it’s going to save a lot of lives,’ the whole country would have gotten behind him, and he would have been re-elected. But he thought it would affect his economy, so he chose to say it didn’t exist. And now we’re going to have 350,000 people dead.”

Clooney, a supporter of far-left, Democrat causes and candidates, who has donated millions to the Democrat Party, closed his discussion of politics by denying any interest in running for office himself.

“That’d be fun, wouldn’t it? Gee, what a great way to spend the last third of my life, trying to make deals with people that have no intention of making deals,” he said drily.

Watch below: 

Earlier this week, Clooney gushed over Joe Biden, calling him “very smart, wise man,” which the Ocean’s 8 star said America’s “going to need that after we’ve lost probably close to 400,000 people by the time we get [the coronavirus pandemic] in our rear-view mirror.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.

Rev. Franklin Graham: ‘Pray God’ Spares the Nation ‘from the Evil Before Us’

Franklin Graham
Stephen Chernin/Getty
2:18

On Christmas Eve evangelical leader Rev. Franklin Graham asked Christians to pray that America will be spared “from the evil that is before us.”

A supporter of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, Graham asked his Twitter followers to pray for the president, that God will grant him “wisdom in the coming days.”

On Saturday he posted to Facebook that Trump “has been maligned, falsely accused, and attacked on every front since before the election in 2016.”

“When President Trump says that this election has been rigged or stolen, I tend to believe him,” he wrote. “He has a track record of being right.”

The president of international aid charity Samaritan’s Purse, Graham also acknowledged the effects of the coronavirus lockdowns in an op-ed at Fox News.

“This is a Christmas unlike any other,” he wrote, one that finds many Americans filled with “fear and anxiety.”

“Large family gatherings and office parties have been replaced with grim lockdowns, quarantines and isolation,” he observed. “What used to be the warmest and most welcoming time of the year can now feel sterile and cold.”

The Christian leader also noted that while there is hope in new vaccines to combat the infection caused by the coronavirus, still “there isn’t a vaccine on Earth that can protect us from worry, depression, or fear.”

The only way to heal a “sick spirit,” Graham said, is “to find healing for deep, spiritual needs, and that’s in Jesus Christ – the hope of Christmas.”

Jesus, he continued, is “the only cure for a disease of the heart that has infected all mankind – sin.”

God’s “rescue mission to save us from our sins,” Graham said, happened on that first Christmas morning.

“When Christ was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem on that first Christmas morning, true hope was born for you and me,” he explained, adding:

While everything else may lock down, isn’t it reassuring to know there is a God who never shuts down? He will never isolate or leave those who trust in him alone.

“This is the good news of Christmas,” Graham wrote. “Jesus Christ changed the world on that first Christmas day and he has the power to change your life today and for all eternity.”

DONALD TRUMP V. THE UNITED STATES

Inside the Struggle to Stop a President

By Michael S. Schmidt

448 pp. Random House. $30.

Franklin Graham: ‘I Tend to Believe’ Trump’s Claim Election ‘Rigged’

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham prepares to tape his prayer for the fourth day of the Republican National Convention from the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
2:18

Rev. Franklin Graham detailed in a Facebook post Saturday many of the ways in which the Democrats and media have “maligned” and “falsely accused” President Donald Trump.

The Christian leader, who is president of charity Samaritan’s Purse, and a supporter of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, summarized:

In 2016 Donald J. Trump told the American people that the government was spying on him. The media said that he was paranoid. The Obama administration and the Democrats said that this was an absolute lie and that Donald Trump was not fit to be president, only for us to find out later that the U.S. government did spy on Donald Trump, and what he had said was in fact true. Then we spent the next two years with the President under investigation for collusion with the Russians. The President said there was no collusion, but night after night, the media and the Democrats said there was collusion. After an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, it turned out to be false—there was no collusion. President Trump was right again. Then the Democrats impeached him over a phone call.

“The President has been maligned, falsely accused, and attacked on every front since before the election in 2016,” Graham wrote. “When President Trump says that this election has been rigged or stolen, I tend to believe him. He has a track record of being right.”

Graham concluded by asking his followers for prayers for Trump, Joe Biden, and “our nation – that we will get through this, and for God’s will be done.”

Last week, Graham posted that he is “grateful to God” for the past four years during which Trump has been president.

“People have asked if I am disappointed about the election,” he wrote, and reflected he is “grateful to God that for the last four years He gave us a president who protected our religious liberties; grateful for a president who defended the lives of the unborn, standing publicly against abortion and the bloody smear it has made on our nation.”

“[G]rateful for a president who nominated conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to our federal courts,” he continued, “grateful for a president who built the strongest economy in 











70 years with the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years before the pandemic.”



Trump held White House meeting on martial law plan to overturn election

President Donald Trump and his top aides reviewed a series of proposals for overturning his defeat in the presidential election at a meeting Friday night in the White House. This included discussion of a proposal that he declare martial law and order the seizure of voting machines in key battleground states, according to numerous press accounts.

The New York Times first reported on the meeting, which involved Trump, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and two prominent advocates of an election coup, former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell and former Trump national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn. Additional details were reported by CNN, ABC, NBC and other news outlets.

It was the first meeting at the White House for Flynn since Trump pardoned him on two counts of perjury for lying to the FBI during the investigation, in the early days of the Trump administration, that led to his firing as national security advisor. It was the first White House visit for Powell since she was dismissed by the Trump campaign after voicing a series of bizarre conspiracy theories in which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (dead since 2013) was held responsible for manipulating the 2020 US presidential election.

Michael Flynn leaving federal court in Washington, DC, 2019. [Photo credit: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File]

Trump’s welcoming such discredited figures into the White House undoubtedly expresses mounting desperation, but also an utter refusal to concede the result of the election, won by Biden with a margin of more than seven million votes. While acting like a cornered rat, Trump, as president of the United States for another month, still possesses immense powers, particularly over the US military-intelligence apparatus.

General Flynn visited the White House one day after suggesting, in an interview on the rabidly pro-Trump Newsmax network, that Trump should declare martial law, order voting machines in six key states seized by federal authorities, and conduct a second election in those states under military supervision. This would, of course, mean armed soldiers insuring that the voters of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin got it “right” this time, i.e., that the electoral votes of these states, officially delivered to Democrat Joe Biden on December 14 as a result of each state’s balloting, were instead awarded to Trump.

According to the press accounts, Trump asked General Flynn about his proposal for martial law and a second election. Meadows and Cipollone, and other unidentified White House officials, reportedly opposed Flynn and said the president did not have the authority to take the proposed actions. Powell, who was Flynn’s lawyer in his perjury case before joining the effort of the Trump campaign to overturn the election results, was said to have denounced the White House officials for being insufficiently devoted to Trump’s interests.

The meeting was characterized as ending in a “screaming” match, without a clear decision as to what course Trump would take. At one point, Trump suggested he might appoint Powell as a special counsel to investigate the presidential election, a proposal that was opposed by White House officials and even by Trump’s principal election lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is recovering from the coronavirus and participated in the meeting remotely.

Attorney General William Barr has resisted Trump’s demand to name a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, son of the president-elect, and presumably would oppose a similar appointment of Powell to investigate the election, but he is leaving the department under pressure from Trump, effective Wednesday, December 23. His interim successor, the current deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, could well be asked to make such appointments after Barr’s departure.

On Sunday, as details of the meeting and the illegal and unconstitutional proposals that were discussed became more widely known, Trump went on his Twitter account to denounce the press reports as “Fake News.”

According to the Times account, one of measures discussed at the meeting was a proposal by Giuliani that Trump issue an executive order to seize control of voting machines in the contested states so they could be examined for “fraud.” Giuliani reportedly discussed this option with the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kenneth Cuccinelli, last week, but Cuccinelli said the DHS did not have the authority to do so. An executive order would supposedly remedy that, but the president, as head of the federal government, does not have the power to take such action against the states, which actually administer elections under the US constitutional structure.

It is remarkable that Cuccinelli, a rabid anti-immigrant bigot and semi-fascist, who was a notorious law-and-order demagogue during his four years as state attorney general in Virginia, is now presented as a moderating force in the internal deliberations of the Trump administration.

In the only Sunday television interview program to take up the issue, CNN’s “State of the Union” began with host Jake Tapper declaring: “For anyone wondering just how much damage an outgoing president can do in the final month in office, we’re beginning to get something of an idea. On Friday in the Oval Office, the president reportedly discussed with disgraced pardoned former General Michael Flynn Flynn’s deranged proposal to have Trump declare martial law to force new elections in states that Biden won, so as to overturn the election results.

“Trump is also reportedly talking about giving the powers of a special counsel to attorney Sidney Powell, whose crackpot conspiracy theories about the election have been laughed out of courtroom after courtroom.”

Tapper asked a guest on the program, Republican Senator Mitt Romney, about the martial law plan, which Romney dismissed, saying, “It’s not going to happen. That’s going nowhere. And I understand the president is casting about, trying to find some way to have a different result than the one that was delivered by the American people.”

The only representative of the Biden transition to discuss the issue Sunday, Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s nominee for secretary of transportation, was far less categorical, merely stating that Biden would take office on Inauguration Day as scheduled, adding, “I just hope that, across the party and across the country, there’s an understanding about how important it is that we remain committed to democracy.”

Remarkably, there was no substantive discussion on any other Sunday television interview program about the White House discussions on martial law, nor did the Biden campaign issue any statement or comment on the issue of Trump’s continuing refusal to concede the election. Biden’s policy ever since November 3 has been to downplay Trump’s threats to overturn the election while reaching out to the military-intelligence apparatus and Wall Street to reassure them that the incoming Democratic administration will uphold their interests.

Trump continued to rail against the election results over the weekend on Twitter, declaring Saturday that it was “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” and calling for supporters to attend protests in Washington on January 6, 2021, when Congress officially counts the electoral votes cast by the 50 states and the District of Columbia. “Be there, will be wild,” he tweeted, reiterating claims that he won a landslide victory in the election, and adding, “Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don’t be weak fools!”

A half-dozen Republican congressmen have said they will object to electoral votes being cast for Biden by states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, and one senator, incoming Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville, said he would provide the support from at least one senator required to force a vote on the objection. The objection would still fail, both in the Democratic-controlled House and in the Senate, where more than a dozen Republicans have said they accept Biden’s victory.

Meanwhile, the syndicated television program Inside Edition reported that Trump “has reportedly told his staff he’s not leaving the White House, flat out refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election…”

During the summer, after he had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden told interviewers that his “greatest fear” about the election was that Trump would refuse to acknowledge the decision of the voters and would refuse to carry out a peaceful transfer of power. Since the election, however, Biden has remained virtually silent on the issue, entrusting the transition to the national security apparatus and avoiding any appeal to the American population, for fear of triggering a political upheaval the Democrats could not control.

One indication of the mood in Washington—where the prospects of a Trump coup are the subject of heated discussions on a daily basis—is a little noticed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) introduced by Democrat Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force officer, with Republican support. It would require that if the president invokes the Insurrection Act of 1807, as Trump threatened to do last June during the protests against the police murder of George Floyd, military and paramilitary units will be required to wear their names and insignia so they can be identified as they take to the streets.

Trump has threatened to veto the NDAA, although not over this amendment, which does almost nothing to restrain the possible use of the military against the American people.


Franklin Graham: ‘I Am Grateful to God’ for ‘the Last Four Years’

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: (AFP-OUT) Franklin Graham (R) talks with President Donald Trump during a ceremony as the late evangelist Billy Graham lies in repose at the U.S. Capitol, on February 28, 2018 in Washington, DC. Rev. Graham is being honored by Congress by lying in repose inside of …
Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images
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Evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham said Monday that he is grateful for the last four years, and all that President Donald Trump has done for Americans who stand for life and freedom.

“People have asked if I am disappointed about the election,” he posted to Facebook, and reflected he is “grateful to God that for the last four years He gave us a president” who protected religious freedom and the lives of the unborn, as he also appointed Supreme Court justices and judges who will uphold the Constitution, and gave the nation a strong economy.

Graham, the president of international aid charity Samaritan’s Purse, continued that he is “grateful for a president who strengthened and supported our military; grateful for a president who stood against ‘the swamp’ and the corruption in Washington; grateful for a president who supported law and order and defended our police.”

“I’m grateful for a president and a vice president who recognized the importance of prayer and were not ashamed of the name of Jesus Christ,” he added.

“I’m thankful that the president stood against the secularists who wanted to take Christ out of Christmas and that he brought back the greeting “Merry Christmas!” the Christian leader continued.

“So as we come to the end of this election season, I look back with a grateful heart and thank God for all of these things,” he said. “President Trump will go down in history as one of the great presidents of our nation, bringing peace and prosperity to millions here in the U.S. and around the world.”


THIS FAMILY HAS NEVER EARNED AN HONEST DOLLAR IN THEIR PATHETIC LIVES!

Trump Is Surrounded by Criminals

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-fall-of-donald-trump-final-days.html

 

“The legal ring surrounding him is collectively producing a historic indictment of his endemic corruption and criminality.” JONATHAN CHAIT

Eric Trump claims family 'lost a fortune' in pushback of pay-for-play report

 

ADAM KELSEY

Responding to a story that reported that hundreds of corporations, special interest groups and foreign governments seeking benefits patronized Trump Organization properties in recent years, the president's son argued Sunday that the groups represent a small proportion of their business and that his father has not benefited monetarily from his office.

"We've lost a fortune. My father lost a fortune running for president. He doesn't care," Eric Trump, an executive vice president with the Trump Organization, said on ABC's "This Week." "He wanted to do what was right. The last thing I can tell you Donald Trump needs in the world is this job."

The comments come a day after a New York Times story reported that President Trump "transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family's hotels and resorts -- and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration." The article, citing the president's tax records, reports that of the hundreds of individuals and entities seeking favor, "60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million during the first two years of his presidency."

"Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government," the news story continued.

ABC News has not viewed the president's taxes and cannot confirm the Times' reporting.

On "This Week," Eric Trump echoed his father's rhetoric calling the story "fake news." He also implied without evidence that the report -- one of several in the past two weeks concerning the president's finances -- was timed to hurt his reelection campaign.

NEW: "My father has lost a fortune," Eric Trump tells @jonkarl when pressed on a NYT report that Pres. Trump turned "his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway's new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign." https://t.co/fsCP2um0H5 pic.twitter.com/MtZLiszs2K

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020

Pressed by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl about the president's debt, which the Times reported as more than $400 million, Eric Trump characterized it as commonplace for someone with his level of wealth in the real estate industry. He also misleadingly claimed that all of the president's lenders are publicly known.

"It's in his financial disclosures," Eric Trump said, referring to the annual reports the president is required to issue under federal ethics regulations that do not list all of his creditors. President Trump has not voluntarily released his tax returns, as other past commanders-in-chief and candidates for the office have done. "You know exactly who the money's owed to … my father is worth billions of dollars, and on a proportion of his net worth, my father has very, very low leverage."

"If you own buildings, if you own real estate, you carry some debt. That's what developers do, that's what business owners do, they carry some debt," he continued. "We have a phenomenal company, but there's nothing new about that, and by the way, it's the same debt that he got elected on."

.@jonkarl: "Don't the American people have a right to know who (the president) is indebted to?"

"That's what developers do, that's what business owners do, they carry some debt, "Eric Trump says but President Trump still won't release his tax returns. https://t.co/fsCP2um0H5 pic.twitter.com/x3u8GcDpKy

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020

In the interview, Eric Trump also responded to the president's refusal to participate in a virtual debate this coming week, as planned by the Commission on Presidential Debates following the president's COVID-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization. The debate was canceled as a result and it is not immediately clear what format the next, and potentially final, scheduled debate will take in two weeks.

"My father wants to stand on stage with his opponent. That's how debates have been handled in America for the last 200 years, you've stood there and you've debated somebody," Eric Trump said, despite the fact that John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated on-camera from opposite coasts, appearing on television in a split-screen in 1960.

"My father doesn't want to do it over a glorified conference call," he continued.

Karl noted that several members of the Trump family, including Eric and his siblings, defied protocol by watching the first debate maskless. Second lady Karen Pence also appeared at this past week's vice presidential debate without a mask.

"Given the concerns now, will you commit that the Trump team will abide by those safety precautions that the commission put in place at the next debate?" Karl asked.

"I'm happy to wear a mask," Eric Trump said, going on to accuse Democratic nominee Joe Biden of backing out the debate -- another mischaracterization. It was the commission that announced the plan to hold the second event virtually, and the president who chose not to participate. The Trump campaign said the president would also be willing to attend two more debates if they were each postponed a week to allow for an in-person format, but the Biden campaign rejected the idea.

"My father wants to stand on the stage with his opponent," and "doesn't want to do it over a glorified conference call," Eric Trump tells @jonkarl when asked if the Trump campaign will decline to participate in Oct. 22 presidential debate if it's virtual. https://t.co/R7EgB0oaON pic.twitter.com/s7Vl6T9MY6

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020

On Saturday, the president's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, issued a memo stating that the president "is no longer a transmission risk to others" and "the assortment of advanced diagnostic tests obtained reveal there is no longer evidence of actively replicating virus." It remains unclear whether Trump has tested negative.

The memo came hours after the president delivered an address resembling a campaign speech from the White House South Lawn. The administration called the event a "peaceful protest for law and order," which Eric Trump echoed on "This Week." The president heads to Florida Monday to restart official in-person campaign events with a rally in Sanford.

Eric Trump also noted on Sunday morning that attendees at Saturday's outdoor White House event were temperature-checked and wore masks -- the latter measure, Karl noted, a less common sight at Trump campaign rallies prior to the president's diagnosis.

As the president prepares to return to the campaign trail, Karl challenged Eric Trump about his father's rhetoric following the vice presidential debate in reference to Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

"Vice President Pence, when he debated Kamala Harris, said it was a privilege to be on the stage with her, recognized her history-making pick as Biden's running mate. And then the next day your father said that she was a monster," Karl said, referencing comments the president made on Fox Business Thursday. "Why? How is Kamala Harris a monster? Why did he say that?"

"Well, you know, there are a lot of stances that she takes are just -- they're mind-boggling to me," Eric Trump responded.

"But political differences are one thing. A monster? You're calling the Democratic vice presidential nominee a monster. Your father did," Karl pressed.

"You know, you're also dealing with a person who is willing to lie every single day," Eric Trump claimed, going on to misrepresent Biden and Harris' position on law enforcement funding.

Eric Trump claims family 'lost a fortune' in pushback of


THE ORANGE BABOON HAS SURROUNDED HIMSELF WITH ENABLER SOCIOPATH LAWYERS FROM ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR ALL THE WAY DOWN!

ALL LAWYERS ARE CONTEMPTUOUS OF THE LAW. FOR THEM, LAWS AND ETHICS ARE GAMED. THEY'RE TRAINED IN LAW SCHOOL TO GAME IT!

 

How Has Donald Trump Survived?

Donald F. McGahn II looks over at President Trump

By Gabriel Debenedetti

DONALD TRUMP V. THE UNITED STATES

Inside the Struggle to Stop a President

By Michael S. Schmidt

When a Republican-led Senate committee issued a nearly 1,000-page report in mid-August that detailed the prodigious extent of the contacts between Russian officials and members of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team, it felt a bit like a dispatch from a vaguely familiar reality — a prepandemic realm when we could mostly agree to focus on foreign interference in American democracy, and when the Trump presidency felt as if it were hanging in the balance while it awaited word from Robert S. Mueller III. This is the world that forged Michael S. Schmidt’s “Donald Trump v. the United States.” It vividly resurrects that actually-not-so-distant era by unspooling the occasionally staggering stories of two administration figures who were central to the investigative sagas that dominated the early Trump years, largely thanks to their attempts to constrain him.

The subjects are both all too familiar and, Schmidt implies, underappreciated in their significance in shaping Trump’s presidency. Schmidt recounts with unsparing intimacy James Comey’s arc from the 2016 election to his 2017 firing from the F.B.I. directorship, and he documents the relentlessly uncomfortable White House tenure of the former general counsel Donald F. McGahn II, who, he points out, “was in charge of Trump’s greatest political accomplishment, and he found himself caught up as the chief witness against Trump.” The result is a revelatory portrait of the events that led to the investigation of Trump for obstruction of justice, and his repeated attempts to control the Department of Justice. It is not about the alleged collusion with Moscow, and in fact Schmidt reports that Mueller’s investigators “never undertook a significant examination of Trump’s personal and business ties to Russia,” largely thanks to the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s intervention.

Schmidt, a New York Times correspondent in Washington who was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018, including one for coverage of Trump’s Russian-inflected scandals, portrays an administration in which all aides may as well always have a resignation letter ready as a safeguard against an angry, flailing president detached from commonly accepted reality. This is a meticulously reported volume that clearly benefits from the author’s extraordinary access to many of the relevant characters, but also from his subjects’ tendency to record, in detail, their time around Trump.

Whereas recent years have been packed with high-impact reported books about Trump’s erratic behavior and his administration’s backbiting — Bob Woodward’s “Fear,” Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s “A Very Stable Genius” and Jonathan Karl’s “Front Row at the Trump Show” come to mind — “Donald Trump v. the United States” is more closely tailored to the efforts to rein Trump in. As such, it may be unlikely to become a go-to for general conclusions about Trump’s character. But it adds significantly to the public understanding of the Mueller investigation and Trump’s war against it.

The narrative is sometimes cinematic. It opens with Schmidt chasing down McGahn outside the White House’s front gates and eventually getting him to concede, “I damaged the office of the president; I damaged the office.” It’s a breathtakingly revealing admission from the White House’s chief lawyer and the architect of Trump’s effort to appoint as many conservative judges as possible. (Schmidt says, “I thought he was still understating the gravity of what he had done.”)

McGahn, a staunch libertarian, was frequently in over his head with the lawless president he nicknamed “King Kong,” and he struggled with his highly unusual extended contact with Mueller’s team. Still, despite getting close to resigning, McGahn stuck around far longer than his apparent misery and frequent attempts at principled stands would suggest, largely because of his judicial project’s success. It was only after Trump granted a woman clemency at Kim Kardashian’s request that McGahn knew he truly had to leave the White House. He could no longer abide the accumulation of Trump’s actions.

Then, in the annals of unsustainable relationships with Trump, there’s James Comey. His early interactions with the president, like the one-on-one dinner at which Trump requested Comey’s loyalty, have been described repeatedly. But in Schmidt’s granular telling, the relationship was especially agonizing because of a fundamental disconnect between the two men.

Comey was always deeply interested in maintaining his and his agency’s public credibility — especially after his wildly controversial intrusions into the 2016 campaign over Hillary Clinton’s emails. After he was fired by Trump, he text-messaged a friend: “I’m with my peeps (former peeps). They are broken up and I’m sitting with them like a wake. Trying to figure out how to get back home. May hitchhike.” It’s just one example of the clearly extensive access Schmidt had to Comey and his wife.

“Donald Trump v. the United States” is full of gritty details about what it’s like for a plugged-in journalist to report on Trump’s intrigue, ranging from the time Schmidt shepherded a valued source to and from the airport, to his learning, secondhand, about a Justice Department official soliciting dirt on Comey at a Cinco de Mayo party. At one point, Schmidt writes, he shattered his cellphone and didn’t fix it for a week because there was too much news; he ended up with pieces of glass in his hands.

More interesting, however, is the constant flow of shocking anecdotes: Schmidt writes that Mitch McConnell fell asleep during a classified briefing on Russia, for example, and he details the F.B.I.’s shambolic reaction to evidence of the hacking in 2016, including an unresolved disagreement over how to handle the material. Describing Trump’s unexpected November 2019 visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he reports the White House wanted Mike Pence “on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.” (The vice president never had to take this step.)

For all its revelations, this is not an inside look at Mueller’s investigation itself, and over half of Schmidt’s story goes by before Mueller is even appointed. At times, too, it wanders from the obstruction fights at its heart. Still, if the furor around the investigations into Trump’s last campaign feels like ancient history as the nation faces a pandemic, a civil rights reckoning and another election, “Donald Trump v. the United States” nevertheless offers one more startling dissection of the Trump presidency. Ultimately this book about “the struggle to stop a president” is, in many ways, a tale of how he survived.

Gabriel Debenedetti is the national correspondent for New York magazine.

DONALD TRUMP V. THE UNITED STATES

Inside the Struggle to Stop a President

By Michael S. Schmidt

448 pp. Random House. $30.