Nancy Pelosi Questions Whether Trump Is A Person Of Faith

Posted on February 17, 2020 by LifeZette

By PoliZette Staff | February 17, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) hit a new low in her anti-Trump behavior this weekend when she questioned the president’s Christian faith.

During an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Pelosi seemed to suggest that Donald Trump is not actually a man of faith, saying that if he was a real Christian, he would know that people of faith like her pray “even for him.”

After alleging that GOP senators did not have the “courage” to vote guilty on impeachment, Pelosi said, “Except for Mitt Romney. God bless him. And then the president criticized him for using his faith.”

“Look I don’t know if the president is a person of faith. It’s not for me to make that judgment,” Pelosi continued.

“He criticized you about saying you prayed for him as well,” Amanpour countered.

MORE NEWS: Challenger DeAnna Lorraine charging hard against Nancy Pelosi

“He said I didn’t pray for him,” Pelosi said. “I thought if he was a person of faith he would recognize other people of faith. And if he prayed he would recognize that other people do, even for him.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “[President Trump] said I didn’t pray for him, but I thought if he’s a person of faith, he would recognize another person of faith, and if he prayed, he would recognize that other people do. Even for him.” pic.twitter.com/5V7ZBZStJd

— The Hill (@thehill) February 16, 2020

This comes as Trump and Pelosi have been trading barbs over one another’s faith in recent weeks.

“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,” Trump said at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, referring to Romney’s vote to impeach him. “Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that that’s not so.”

Pelosi has frequently said that she is praying for Trump, and in response to his comments, she accused him of being irreligious.

“I pray hard for him, because he’s so off the track of our Constitution, our values, our country,” she said, calling the presidency a “heavy responsibility.”

“I thought what he said about — what he said about Senator Romney was particularly without class,” Pelosi continued, according to The Washington Examiner. “He’s talking about things that he knows little about: faith and prayer.”

Regardless of Pelosi’s personal feelings on Trump, there is no excuse for her questioning his faith. This is just another example of a powerful Democrat crossing the line when it comes to attack on Trump.

Shame on you, Nancy Pelosi.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

The post Nancy Pelosi Questions Whether Trump Is A Person Of Faith appeared first on The Political Insider.

New Daily Kos/Civiqs poll: Most Americans disapprove of U.S. Senate’s handling of impeachment

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Carolyn Fiddler

The best antidote to hot takes is hard data, and the February Daily Kos/Civiqs poll is here with your cure. This month’s survey of 1,543 registered voters was conducted online from Feb. 11-14 and reveals that 60% of Americans disapprove of how the U.S. Senate conducted Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. And with the Iowa Democratic caucus debacle just behind us and the Nevada caucuses imminent, 58% of Americans support eliminating the presidential caucus system.

Other noteworthy findings in this month’s poll include:

The majority of Americans (52%) disapprove of Trump’s job performance as president. Support for eliminating presidential primary caucuses cuts across party lines. Majorities of Democrats (68%), Republicans (51%), and Independents (54%) want to end the practice. More Americans rank George W. Bush’s presidency above Trump’s (48%-44%), but 91% of frequent Fox News viewers rank Trump over Bush.

Additional issues surveyed include support for continuing Trump investigations by the U.S. House, the Trump administration’s newly expanded travel ban, and support for the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday.

February’s numbers unequivocally reveal that Americans feel the GOP Senate majority failed in its duty to administer the impeachment trial fairly.

This month’s survey provides additional evidence that frequent Fox News viewers are deeply disconnected from mainstream Americans. While 60% of all Americans disapprove of how the Senate conducted Trump’s impeachment trial, 68% of faithful Fox viewers approve. And while only 45% of Americans believe Trump is handling his job as president well, a whopping 93% of frequent Fox viewers think he’s doing great.

Civiqs is a survey research firm that conducts scientific public opinion polls on the internet through its nationally representative online survey panel. Founded in 2013, Civiqs specializes in political and public policy polling. Results from Civiqs’ daily tracking polls can be found online at civiqs.com.

Trump shows Collins a lesson he learned from impeachment: Don’t let anyone listen to your criming

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Joan McCarter

Sen. Susan Collins has done her best to walk back her ridiculous statement that impeached president Donald Trump learned a lesson from the impeachment process, and to absolve herself of any responsibility for a now totally unfettered Trump. The thing is, though: She can't. Because Trump himself is yelling out the real lessons he learned every damn day. Like on Thursday, when he trashed another presidential norm meant to keep chief executives in check and to protect national security.

Collins' time is up. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

In a radio interview with Geraldo Rivera, Trump talked about one of the lessons he’s learned: not to let officials listen in on his phone calls with world leaders. "Well, that's what they've done over the years," Trump said. "When you call a foreign leader, people listen. I may end the practice entirely. I may end it entirely." This came about in a discussion about Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who Trump was bitching about in the interview, calling him "insubordinate" for raising his concerns about Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. "I'm not a fan of Vindman," Trump added. Surprise.

Given his cavalier attitude toward classified intelligence, this latest lesson learned by Trump has the national security community freaking out. "Right now, President Trump is a nightmare to every intel and [national-security] officer, and this is all stuff he's done with their knowledge," a former senior National Security Agency official told Business Insider. "Allowing him to conduct these calls in private would be catastrophic for us."

A former National Security Council senior director under President Barack Obama, Edward Price, told Business Insider that allowing intelligence and national security people to listen to calls "is indispensable to the coordination and implementation of sound foreign policy and national-security practices,. […] No president—but especially not this one—can or should be relied upon to backbrief senior advisers on details that can often be extraordinarily nuanced." Of course it has happened with this impeached president. And it wasn't just a phone call, but also face-to-face meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin: On several occasions, Trump has talked with Putin without U.S. staff present.

So the lesson he did learn from Collins and the rest of the Republicans who let him off the hook is that that's the way he should always conduct foreign policy, with no one around him who can alert the rest of the government—including Congress—about the crime-doing.

Manchin Comes Crawling Back After Trump Guilty Vote

Posted on February 14, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | February 14, 2020

By making the vote to acquit the president a partisan affair, and making the guilty vote a bipartisan action with the Romney defection, Joe Manchin had to know there would be a price to pay.

We did a piece on it in LifeZette. It was obvious, as he had teased he might vote to acquit. So now his olive branches to the White House just look like pathetic groveling.

Also, according to LifeZette sources on Capitol Hill, the phones have been ringing off the hook in Manchin’s office and the response to his guilty vote has not been pretty. Calls are running over 2 to 1 for the president and against Manchin on the vote.

MORE NEWS: Disturbing new report reveals FBI had multiple informants in Trump’s presidential campaign

Oh no, says Joe. Everything is hunky dory. He and president will soon be buds again.

So not to burden with a lot of his blather, his rationale for the optimism is that when Trump did his best to unseat Manchin in 2018 they had lunch a week after his reelection. The insinuation is that this is just a game on the part of the president and soon bygones will bygones.

But hold on.

Manchin said one of the reasons he voted guilty was because he didn’t like the president’s message at the State of the Union address the night before his impeachment vote, “I saw the State of the Union, and I said: ‘It’s not who we are.’ There’s so many good things that we can do better. I hope he changes,” he told Politico. “I’m looking for that person that has heart and soul and compassion.”

So the president does not currently have “heart, and soul and compassion” according to the senator. But Manchin expects it to suddenly appear in his case? Oh, of course. That’s a gimme because we all know Donald Trump is politically easygoing. Doesn’t hold grudges at all. Nahhhh…

MORE NEWS: Biden stuns New Hampshire voter by calling her a ‘lying, dog-faced pony soldier’

Lindsey Graham is trying to smooth over feathers between the two. He correctly points out that the GOP, with 53 votes, will need Democrat votes to achieve 60 and get GOP and presidential legislation out of the Senate and to the president’s desk for signature into law.

That’s true. But it may be up to the GOP Senate to make nice with Manchin right now. If Trump acts like Trump, always a good bet, then Manchin still has some time left in the dog house.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

The post Manchin Comes Crawling Back After Trump Guilty Vote appeared first on The Political Insider.

House Democrats sharpen focus on Barr post-impeachment

Posted on February 14, 2020 by Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press

Democrats have demanded more information about Barr's intervention in the case of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who was convicted in November of lying to Congress and other charges.

Susan Collins is so concerned about Trump that she’s going to make a sternly worded phone call

Posted on February 14, 2020 by Joan McCarter

The White House better be prepared. It’s going to get a sternly worded phone call from Sen. Susan Collins over the impeached president’s interference in the sentencing of Donald Trump’s buddy Roger Stone after his conviction in federal court. She told reporters that Wednesday, saying that Trump should "play no role whatsoever when it comes to sentencing recommendations" and that he "should not have commented" and that she wished he "would not tweet." No word on whether she's also going to talk about the tweeting on the phone call. But boy, that's sure going to strike terror in Trump's heart.

She also has questions for Attorney General William Barr, she says, but she's not sure if there should be any hearings yet over Trump and Barr turning the Department of Justice into Trump's defense counsel. She wouldn't want to be hasty. Still, a sternly worded phone call might be happening. I'm sure she really wishes it would help. But don't worry, she says, about Trump being "emboldened" by being let off the hook by her and her Republican pals.

Her time's up. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

He wasn't acting out because he knows now that there are no limits to his power, now that the Senate will let him do literally anything. It's just him acting like a toddler, she says. He "often acts in an impulsive manner," she explained in a USA Today interview. "I think the president was angered by impeachment and that is reflected in the personnel choices he made," she said. Because that makes it so much better, the fact that he's now a 4-year-old on speed, and it had absolutely nothing to do with her.

No, she's not responsible at all for his behavior now. She was doing her solemn duty and certainly, she told the Bangor Daily News, if the president had committed "treason or bribery," she would definitely have voted to impeach. The House, however, called Trump's treason and bribery in withholding aid to Ukraine in order to force that country to interfere in the presidential election on his behalf "maladministration." So they didn't meet her bar.

But boy, Trump, she better not catch you doing this again, or you'll be in big trouble.

Three House Dems On Judiciary Committee Hit With Ethics Allegations

Posted on February 13, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | February 13, 2020

Fox News reports that three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee who voted against President Trump on impeachment are now under suspicion for unethical activities of their own.

Rep. Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia all had ethics complaints filed against them by a watchdog nonprofit group on Wednesday. Americans for Public Trust asked for investigations as to whether the trio violated House rules and federal law.

“All three of these members have engaged in disturbing activities that appear to us to be violations of federal law and House rules. This is especially alarming given all three sit on the prestigious House Judiciary Committee, which has direct oversight responsibilities over the U.S. Department of Justice and, by extension, the nation’s law enforcement,” said Adam Laxalt, former Nevada attorney general and counsel to the group. “We’re calling on the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Ethics to immediately investigate these suspicious activities.”

MORE NEWS: Disturbing new report reveals FBI had multiple informants in Trump’s presidential campaign

The charges against Dean are that she used funds from one campaign, for lt. governor of PA, in another campaign, a race for Congress. The law says only funds for federal races can be used for other federal races. The PA race was not federal, thus violating FEC rules.

Jayapal is charged with soliciting campaign funds connected with performing an official duty. She did so in a C-SPAN broadcast on healthcare where she used the time given to her as a member of the House to ask for campaign donations. That is a clear violation of House rules.

McBeth allegedly worked for a gun control group up to and during her congressional campaign. She did not report that employment when filing her papers to run and thus was making campaign appearances while both a candidate and an employee of a gun control group. Her non-reported double dipping is against FEC rules.

These three very possibly stood in ethical judgment of the president while they had broken rules of ethics and laws themselves. They repeatedly expressed horror at the president’s supposed actions and sanctimoniously conducted themselves as pure as the driven snow.

But with a little digging, their snow has turned to dark mush.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

The post Three House Dems On Judiciary Committee Hit With Ethics Allegations appeared first on The Political Insider.

Cartoon: A Calvinesque and Hobbesian look at impeachment acquittal

Posted on February 13, 2020 by RubenBolling

PLEASE DO join Tom the Dancing Bug's INNER HIVE! Get exclusive access to each week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic at least a day before it's published, extra comics, sneak peeks, insider info, other stuff and other, other stuff! JOIN TODAY!

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book perhaps some Insta-grams, and even my/our MeWe

Susan Collins really doesn’t want to talk about what lessons Trump learned in impeachment anymore

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Joan McCarter

Following the Tuesday Night Massacre, which happened after last week's revenge binge from impeached president Donald Trump, intrepid CNN reporter Manu Raju caught up with Sen. Susan Collins to see what she's thinking about it all. She clearly did not appreciate the fact that Raju remembered what she said last week. The part about "I believe that the president has learned from this case," which she downgraded to "hopes" after Trump point blank said there was no lesson to be learned because "it was a perfect call."

Fast forward a week, and she really wants to be done talking about it. Asked by Raju if, after the actions Trump has taken, she still thinks there's "any lessons he heard from being impeached," she snapped. "I don't know what actions you're referring to. I've made very clear that I don't think anyone should be retaliated against." Then she launched into lecturing Raju: "That has nothing to do with the basis by which I voted to acquit the president, as I made very clear to you, Manu, on numerous occasions because his conduct, while wrong, did not meet the high bar established in the constitution for the immediate ouster of a duly elected president." Which had absolutely nothing to do with the question at all.

Collins has chosen her side, and Maine knows it. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

Because she doesn't want to answer the question. She didn't want to answer it later, either, when she continued to insist that she bore no responsibility at all for Trump being totally unfettered now. Her vote against impeaching Trump, she told reporters, "wasn't based on predicting his future behavior." Which is a hell of a cop-out for the person who once said impeaching him would be enough to make him curb his future behavior.

Collins is completely abdicating responsibility for both her past and her future failures to do her goddamned most essential job of being a check on the president. What she does think is her job is not obvious (besides granting defense contracts to companies that in turn contribute tens of thousands of dollars to her reelection campaign).

Watch:

catch that chyron: "GOP Sen. Collins Won't Say If Trump Learned Any Lessons After Acquittal." of course, last week she excused her vote by saying he did learn from impeachment & would be more cautious.....#mesen #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/QMTKd7g2TJ
— Lauren Passalacqua (@laurenvpass) February 12, 2020

MR: In light of the president's actions, do you think there's any lessons he heard from being impeached?

SC: I don't know what actions you're referring to. I've made very clear that I don't think anyone should be retaliated against. That has nothing to do with the basis by which I voted to acquit the president, as I made very clear to you, Manu, on numerous occasions because his conduct, while wrong, did not meet the high bar established in the constitution for the immediate ouster of a duly elected president. And that was the rationale for my vote to acquit him. That is the reason why….

MR: Do you think he learned any lessons?

SC: … In all the years that … since George Washington was inaugurated as our first president that we have never removed a duly elected president from office. It's because the conduct alleged should be so dangerous to our country and so egregious and proven by the House managers that the person should not remain in office one moment more. That was the standard established by the House managers. It was the standard that I used in acquitting President Clinton and that's the reason for my vote and I don't know why you're equating the two.

MR: Well you said the president learned his lesson. Do you think he learned any lessons?

[Collins’ office door slams shut.]

Republicans angle to put a stranglehold on ‘nuisance’ impeachments in the future

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Kerry Eleveld

Barely past the sham GOP-led impeachment trial of Donald Trump, U.S. senators on both sides of the aisle are already bracing for what they expect to be a shorter time period between this removal proceeding and the next one. But naturally, the goals of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are quite different, according to The New York Times.

Republicans hope to enact rules that would limit both the House’s ability to impeach a president and the scope of information that would be considered in a Senate trial. One GOP official is advocating for a way to block consideration of what they called "nuisance" impeachments sent over from the House, as if Donald Trump's attempt to rig U.S. elections with foreign help was just a pesky dust-up. To that end, Florida Sen. Rick Scott is pushing to raise the House threshold for impeachment to require three-fifths support in the lower chamber rather than a simple majority.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley also wants to thwart the House's control over when articles are officially transmitted by simply giving the Senate authority to initiate a trial within a certain period after the House impeaches.

Democrats, on the other hand, want to expand Senate trials by mandating that new documentary evidence and testimony be considered. “I’d like to see witnesses and documents be required,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the proposal from Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley.

But at least some Republicans are pulling for a cooling-off period before any new rules are implemented. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt noted that about a dozen years passed between the anticipated Nixon-era trial that ultimately never materialized and impeachment rule changes made in 1986. “They waited a dozen years before they said, ‘OK, now that things have totally settled down, nobody has an ax to grind, half the Congress that was here in 1972 isn’t here anymore, let’s look at the rules,’” Blunt said.