Tag Archive for: President Donald Trump

Senate GOP Races Ahead With Trump Confirmations Despite Historic Roadblocks From Dems

Senate Republicans are plowing ahead with confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees, outpacing the confirmation speed of the prior two administrations, including Trump’s first, despite unprecedented obstruction from Senate Democrats.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) general counsel nominee Sean Donahue on Thursday became the 67th civilian nominee of Trump’s second term to be confirmed, more than doubling the number of civilians that were confirmed by May 15, 2017 during the president’s first term. The Senate GOP leadership’s aggressive pace comes as Senate Democrats have sought to place historic roadblocks in the confirmation process by requiring roll call votes for all of the president’s nominees.

Senate Democrats have placed blanket holds on hundreds of the president’s nominees thus far, requiring Senate GOP leadership to use finite floor time to confirm each nominee individually through a series of roll call votes.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday became the latest Democrat to announce holds on the president’s Department of Justice (DOJ) nominees following Trump’s plans to accept a jet from the Qatari royal family.

Senate Republicans, however, pointed out that Democrats have sought to delay the confirmation process since the opening days of Trump’s presidency.

“Democrats can drag out nominations all they want, but we’re going to fill out the president’s administration and ensure that his nominees get into place so that … he can do the job that he was elected to do,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the Senate floor Monday. “I’d like to do this the easy way, and confirm noncontroversial nominees expeditiously – in batches, for example, and maybe even by unanimous consent.”

“But if we have to do this the hard way, we will,” Thune continued. “We’re going to get the president’s team in place.”

Trump, in his second term, is the first president in roughly a century to not have a single civilian nominee secure confirmation via voice vote or unanimous consent at this point in his presidency, according to the Thune-aligned Senate Republican Communications Center.

The Communications Center looked as far back as former President Herbert Hoover’s administration and found that every president since has had a nominee confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent at this point in their presidency, except for Trump in his second term.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was confirmed just hours after Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20, is the lone Trump nominee that Senate Democrats allowed to bypass a cloture vote. Senate Democrats forced the other 66 civilian nominees confirmed thus far to be subjected to a cloture vote to end debate on their nominations.

Prior administrations, even those with few total civilian nominee confirmations as of May 15, had an easier time moving nominees across the Senate floor than the second Trump administration.

Senate Democrats have sought to stall the confirmation process by requiring a cloture vote for nearly every Trump nominee. (Chart by the Senate Republican Communications Center)

Senate Democrats confirmed 52 of former President Joe Biden’s civilian nominees as of May 15 in the first year of his presidency. However, just 33 of those nominees required a cloture vote to win confirmation.

Similarly, 11 of the 32 Trump nominees confirmed by May 15 in the first year of the president’s first term did not require cloture votes to cut off debate on their nominations.

Though former President Barack Obama secured 107 civilian nominee confirmations by May 15, 2009, the Senate held a cloture vote on just one nominee out of the entire cohort.

The Trump White House attributed the quick confirmation pace of the president’s nominees to their enthusiasm to implement the president’s policies.

“The Senate has confirmed President Trump’s nominees at a record pace because his picks are wildly popular, credible and eager to implement the President’s America First agenda,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement Thursday.

Though Senate Republicans have made substantial progress in getting the president’s appointees into place, much of Trump’s agenda has yet to advance through the Republican-controlled Congress. Senate Democrats have successfully filibustered four GOP-backed bills since January despite every member of the Democratic conference previously voting or campaigning to eliminate the procedural rule requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation.

Thune indicated he is aiming to send what Trump has called his “one, big beautiful bill,” a vast tax and spending package incorporating much of the president’s legislative agenda, to Trump’s desk by July 4.

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Dems Have ‘Chosen Obstruction’, Sen GOP Leader Says, As Schumer Blocks Trump Noms From Swift Confirmation

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘You Should Be Embarrassed’: Trump Snaps At ABC News Reporter Confronting Him On Accepting Gift From Qatar

President Donald Trump snapped at an ABC News reporter Monday as she confronted him on accepting a luxury gift from the royal family of Qatar to the U.S. government.

The president is set to accept a Boeing 747-8 jet, which he will use as Air Force One, and later be transferred to his presidential library at the end of his second term, ABC News first reported. The reporter asked why Trump decided not to leave the jet behind given that he is receiving backlash for accepting the gift.

“What do you say to people who say that you got a luxury jet as a personal gift to you? Why not leave it behind?” the reporter asked.

“You’re ABC fake news, right? Only ABC, well, a few of you would. Let me tell you, you should be embarrassed asking that question. They’re giving us a free jet. I could say no, no, no. Don’t give us [the jet], I want to pay you $1 billion or $400 million or whatever it is. Or I could say thank you very much … When they give you a putt, you pick it up, you walk to the next hole and you say ‘thank you very much.’”

WATCH:

The president clarified that the jet is a gift to the Department of Defense, and not him personally.

“It’s a gift to the Department of Defense, and you should know better because you’ve been embarrassed enough and so has your network,” Trump continued. “Your network is a disaster. ABC is a disaster.”

Trump criticized Democrats in a Sunday Truth Social post for wanting the U.S. government to pay for the jet, calling the gift a “very public and transparent transaction.”

“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40- year -old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA,” Trump wrote.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News that all gifts given by a foreign government are “always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws.”

The gift was expected to be announced during Trump’s upcoming visit to Qatar, though a White House official said the jet will not be presented during the trip, according to ABC News.

AUTHOR

Nicole Silverio

Media Reporter. Follow Nicole Silverio on Twitter @NicoleMSilverio.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: Kennedy Center Breaks All-Time Attendance Record Amid Liberal Bellyaching Over ‘Trump Takeover’

The Kennedy Center broke its all-time attendance record for a public event March 29, with over 11,000 attendees for the EARTH to SPACE: Arts Breaking the Sky fireworks show, the Daily Caller has exclusively learned.

The history-making moment was celebrated amid a flurry of criticism from liberals about President Donald Trump’s takeover of the entertainment facility. Critics voiced concerns about Trump’s understanding and appreciation for the arts when he took control of the Kennedy Center. However, attendance numbers have told a different story. With a focus on shifting away from politically-charged programming, the facility experienced tremendous success with a widely-attended fireworks show.

Roma Daravi, VP of PR for the Kennedy Center boasted the successful turnout in a statement issued to the Daily Caller.

“It was wonderful to have so many new visitors at the Kennedy Center for Cai Guo-Qiang’s firework showcase. We look forward to their return for more wonderful programming soon. Everyone is welcome here!” Daravi said.

The fireworks show, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Interspecies Love Letter, didn’t just attract a historic number of patrons to the venue — it also snagged numerous first-time attendees.

A Kennedy Center representative noted that 76% of all attendees at the fireworks show had never stepped foot in the venue before. The event was open to the public, with free first-come, first-served tickets available on the Kennedy Center website.

Visitors took in the show on the 360-degree rooftop terrace and flocked to the riverwalk to take in the magic of art as the fireworks filled the skies above the Potomac River. The first 800 visitors were treated to a VIP experience by having the opportunity to send an individual firework into the sky through the cAITM — Cai Guo-Qiang’s custom AI model — web interface.

The EARTH to SPACE festival continues through April 20th. 

Trump named conservative firebrand Richard Grenell as the president of the Kennedy Center amid a series of moves designed to strengthen Trump’s grip on the performing arts center.

AUTHOR

Leena Nasir

Entertainment reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Kennedy Center Apparently Scrubs Pages For Most Egregious Left-Wing Content After Trump Threatens Takeover

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Historical Ignorance Raises Flags

Usually, when something alarming happens, it raises red flags. But this time, it was the raising of a flag (and not even a red one) that caused alarm. The left is manufacturing controversy out of whole cloth again—in their ongoing assault on one of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court.

First, they went after Justice Samuel Alito because of abortion, as he was the chief author of the Dobbs decision of 2022, which overturned the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that led to the death of some 60 million fellow Americans through abortion.

What Dobbs did was to allow the states to decide for themselves their own abortion policy.

For this, the left protested him, even at his own home. To my knowledge, no one on the left voiced objection to these brownshirt tactics.

Then they went after Alito for flying an American flag at his home upside down—which they read as a distress signal supporting the January 6 protests.

And now the left is excoriating him for daring to fly a flag from the Revolutionary War. This flag, which is a field of white and shows an evergreen tree pointing to the sky, states: “An Appeal to Heaven.”

The left is using these flag flaps as a strategy to sideline Alito. NBC News reported  that Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told reporters that he wants Alito to recuse himself on some cases because of the flags.

The New York Times essentially accused Alito of guilt by association—since that flag was carried by a few of the protesters who descended on the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election results.

CNN adds that they think the “An Appeal to Heaven” flag has “become a symbol for supporters of former President Donald Trump.”

But Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania opined: “If that dude wants to fly his freak flag — it’s very strange.” “Freak flag”?

We live in a day of widespread historical ignorance. Either the elite are ignorant of our American heritage or they are committed to a vision that excludes the key principle of the American experiment: self-rule under God.

What do we know about this classic flag, “An Appeal to Heaven,” other than that it was used during the American War for Independence?

The “An Appeal to Heaven” flag was adopted on October 21, 1775. That was the same year our war for independence began in Massachusetts on the fields of Lexington and Concord. That was also the same year that George Washington was appointed as our first Commander-in-Chief.

Early in this role, Washington commissioned six schooners for our nascent navy. In 1775, Col. Joseph Reed, under Washington’s command, proposed that a flag be made with a white background with a tree in the middle bearing the motto, “An Appeal to Heaven.” He proposed that this flag be placed on the six schooners deployed to defend the Boston harbor.

What is the origin of the phrase on that banner? An “Appeal to Heaven” comes directly out of the writings of John Locke, a British political philosopher from the 1600s in England. He was extensively quoted by the founders. In his 1690 Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke used the phrase an “appeal to heaven”—meaning asking for God’s help, should all else fail.

Here is his direct quote: “And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment.”

The two key founding documents of America are the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787). The Declaration of Independence declares independence from England and at the same time it declares dependence upon God. It can be summed up this way: “Here we rule by the consent of the governed because our rights come from God.”

Initially, the founders of this country had no other outside help—including aid from France (which did eventually come). In the Declaration, they declared themselves to be “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”

Dr. Peter Lillback, founder of Providence Forum, for which I now serve as executive director, once told me that by that phrase, the founders, being mostly Biblical Christians, are referring to Jesus here since He is the One who will be humanity’s judge.

It’s amazing that one of the banners of the era appealing to God for His help would become so controversial today. But maybe not surprising when you realize that perhaps it’s simply a cynical (and coordinated) strategy to marginalize one of the most influential conservative justices.

©2024. Jerry Newcombe, D. Min. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Justice Alito Tells Dems To Pound Sand, Refuses To Recuse Himself In J6 Cases

‘White Rage’: General Mark Milley Leaves Behind A Checkered Legacy

  • Gen. Mark Milley retired Friday after serving four years as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
  • Some view Milley as an upstanding adviser and protector of democracy, but many conservative leaders deride him as a political actor too willing to make his views on controversial progressive policies known.
  • “It’s his nature to pitch into a fight if he sees one going on,” retired Lt. Col. Thomas Spoehr, who served with Milley in the Pentagon, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gen. Mark Milley retired Friday after serving four years as the top military adviser to the president and the secretary of defense. He is perhaps the most well-known individual to ever serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a development that seems likely to color his legacy for years to come.

Milley’s term was punctuated with crises: the Afghanistan withdrawal, nuclear tensions with Iran and North Korea, defense of Taiwan and Ukraine against would-be conquerors, and domestic turmoil. While some venerate Milley as an American hero who shepherded democracy through a chaotic administration turnover, many conservatives deride him as a political actor who obediently went along with the Biden administration’s progressive agenda.

“General Milley destroyed the U.S military’s 250-year tradition of staying above partisan politics. That’s his legacy,” Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, a Navy reserve veteran who serves on the Armed Services Committee and leads the House Anti-Woke Caucus, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Milley was a brash, combative former special operations officer with strong opinions informed by his four decades of experience in the Army and his deep affinity for history and literature, retired Lt. Col. Thomas Spoehr, who served with Milley in the Pentagon, told the DCNF.

Former President Donald Trump, who appointed Milley as chairman, is thought to have appreciated Milley’s machismo and appearance as the general’s general.

“​​He kind of really seemed to have a warrior’s mentality. He was clearly an officer who wasn’t afraid to say what he thought. Or so it seemed,” retired Maj. Chase Spears, a former Army public affairs officer, told the DCNF.

The DCNF spoke to multiple current and former officials who served alongside Milley as well as several military experts to form a fuller picture of the former chairman’s tenure. Milley, through a spokesperson, did not respond to questions.

As chairman, Milley’s job was to advise the president and the secretary of defense on national-security threats and operations abroad and maintain military communication channels with friends and adversaries.

“Sometimes, that advice would be misinterpreted or purposely used by others for political purposes despite trying very hard to avoid politics,” Col. Dave Butler, Milley’s spokesman, told the DCNF.

Yet, Milley has shown willingness to delve into political fights and mud sling when it suits him, experts told the DCNF. In his farewell speech, Milley said the military does not answer to a “wannabe dictator,” which many interpreted as a jab at former President Trump.

In a June 2021 House Armed Services Committee hearing, Milley gave a full-throated defense of the Biden administration’s budget request for funding to purge “domestic extremists” from its ranks.

“There is no room in uniform for anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the values of the United States of America,” Milley said during the hearing.

Milley himself seemed to be aware of how he was being perceived. Speaking in November 2021 before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Milley lamented that he had “become a lightning rod for the politicization of the military,” targeted by both Republicans and Democrats, the transcript shows.

“It’s his nature to pitch into a fight if he sees one going on,” Spoehr told the DCNF.

Some congressional Democrats criticized Milley for defending the strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force in January 2020, according to CNN.

Then, Milley was blasted by Republicans when he apologized for having joined Trump in a march across Lafayette Square after the square had been cleared of people protesting the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Milley said he did not mean to give the impression the military had taken sides in a political fight.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, called Milley’s apology video “self-serving.”

The apology proved the first major incident in a trend lasting for the next four years of his career through two politically opposed administrations. Milley would often project disdain for interfering in politics, but then make exceptions in crisis situations or to defend core military values.

Milley “tried his hardest to actively stay out of politics,” but if extraordinary events demanded he step in, “so be it,” an unnamed official told CNN in July 2021.

Perhaps Milley’s most politically perilous moment came after he admitted holding two calls with his Chinese counterpart in October 2020 and January 2021 during the tumultuous administration handover. Lawmakers hammered Milley for his actions months later during a September 2021 hearing. Milley defended his actions as apolitical and in the interest of national security.

“I firmly believe in civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle essential to the health of this republic, and I am committed to ensuring the military stays clear of domestic politics,” he told Congress.

This was a refrain he would reiterate time and time again.

“He’s been saying those things for as long as I’ve known him. And I do think he’s true to those words,” said Spoehr.

‘A Tight Rope To Walk’

Others have pointed to Milley’s willingness to defend social policies in the military and to comment on broader trends in society as undermining the very norm of the apolitical military he claims to embrace.

Milley showed himself “willing to wade into topics that many including myself would argue are beyond the scope of the Joint Chiefs,” said Spears, the former Army public affairs officer.

In the days following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, Milley took it upon himself to “land the plane” as he and other leading national security officials worried the former president was displaying increasingly erratic behavior, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in their book “Peril.”

Woodward and Costa portray Milley’s acts — including convening a “secret” meeting of senior military officials involved in nuclear command and control on Jan. 8 to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons — as orchestrating the peaceful transfer of power and restraining a rogue president from triggering an international crisis.

In November 2021, Milley told House lawmakers about a January 8 phone call he had with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who he described as “quite animated.” During this call, Milley sought to “assure her” of the security of the nation’s nuclear weapons systems.

“It’s clearly recognized that the President and only the President can authorize the launch,” Milley said, “so he, alone, can authorize the launch, but he doesn’t launch alone.”

“Best practice suggests that ‘regular order is your friend,’” Peter Feaver, an expert in civil-military relations who previously taught Milley, told the DCNF. But the military has no role in the democratic transfer of power from one administration to the next, Feaver said.

Many in the media framed Milley’s actions in the latter days of the Trump administration as heroic measures taken to safeguard democracy. Milley “saved the constitution” from Trump, The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in a glowing Nov. 2023 profile.

But, the savior of American democracy is not how Milley wants to be remembered.

“He would prefer not to be portrayed in that light,” a senior military official close to Milley told the DCNF.

While the chairman does not have command authority, he does serve at the top of the “chain of communication.” Some experts have argued this can give the chairman undue influence on policymaking.

“There’s a tightrope to walk here,” Bret Devereaux, a military historian who teaches at North Carolina State University, told the DCNF. “He’s expected to speak for the military as an institution and while, as an institution, the military does not have politics, it does have policies. In his capacity as an advisor, he advocates for certain policies.”

Milley repeatedly considered resigning during the Trump administration, according to reports. He felt Trump was “doing great and irreparable harm” to America and “ruining the international order,” according to a copy of the resignation letter included in Susan Glasser and Peter Baker’s “The Divider.” But resigning in protest of a legal policy with which he disagreed would be the “consummate political act,” Milley said, and he never submitted the letter.

“Milley concluded that difficult times do not release him from a duty to uphold those norms and traditions,” said Devereaux. “Milley was put in a situation where those two parts of the oath might conflict. He might have to say that the president himself was the constitutional danger.”

In the end, Milley testified to Congress that he never received an illegal order. Milley also admitted to speaking with reporters, including Woodward, who were working on books about the Trump administration. The former joint chief also said he spoke to Leonning and Rucker, for their book, and to Michael Bender, for his.

Milley’s expansive media presence “comes with some clear downsides since it means he becomes part of many stories that he probably could have stayed out of, or at least minimized,” Feaver explained.

“I don’t think that served him well. I don’t think it served the country well, for him to be talking to those guys,” Spoehr added.

‘White Rage’

Milley may also not have been served well by his outspoken defense of “woke” Biden administration defense policies and his willingness to wade into the culture wars.

“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it,” Milley said, deflecting criticism of Critical Race Theory being taught at West Point, during the June 2021 hearing. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out.”

Republicans in Congress who see CRT as antithetical to American values derided Milley.

“That was a partisan political question, framed in a particularly partisan way, and so he could have and should have deferred to the political figure on his side of the hearing table,” Feaver said.

In a CNN interview on Sept. 17, just weeks before his retirement, Milley pushed back against assertions the military had gone “woke.”

“The military is a lot of things, but woke, it’s not,” Milley said. “So I take exception to that. I think that people say those things for reasons that are their own reasons, but it’s not true. It’s not accurate. It’s not a broad-brush description of the U.S. military as it exists today.”

When Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville held up military promotions in opposition to a new Pentagon policy facilitating abortion access, Milley elaborated on the detrimental impact it could have on military readiness. But he declined to comment on the policy itself.

“I don’t want to enter into the whole discussion of abortion and the culture war. I’m staying out of all that,” he told the Washington Post.

The accusation of wokeness “certainly wasn’t something that we expected to have to deal with,” Butler, Milley’s spokesman, told the DCNF. “We did not expect that to be a new issue brought up by Congress or anybody else.”

Nor does the chairman have time to spend focusing or advising on internal personnel policies when he has global crises to attend to, Butler said. Butler estimated Milley spent 13 hours each day on external threats and operations, and maybe one on other issues.

‘Some Very Difficult Dives’

Just two months after the “white rage” comment, Milley would be dealing with a catastrophe abroad.

Afghanistan collapsed amid the U.S. military withdrawal much faster than administration analysts expected. Both Trump and Biden sought to wipe out the military’s footprint in Afghanistan and end the war. But they planned for the Afghan army to resist the Taliban. It didn’t.

At the September 2021 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Milley echoed Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina in calling the Afghanistan evacuation “a logistical success, but a strategic failure.”

Milley did not explicitly describe conversations with the presidents, but he made it easy to deduce both Biden and Trump had resisted his “best military advice” to maintain a contingent of American troops in Afghanistan. Military leaders’ advice to Biden in the lead-up to the withdrawal had not changed from the previous fall, and that his opinion was to keep 2,500 troops in country. He had also pushed back on a signed order directing a full withdrawal by January, according to his testimony. Trump rescinded the order.

“Based on my advice and the advice of the commanders, then-Secretary of Defense Esper submitted a memorandum on 9 November, recommending to maintain U.S. forces at a level between about 2,500 and 4,500 in Afghanistan until conditions were met for further reductions,” Milley said in his testimony.

A national security official close to the situation told the DCNF that Milley repeatedly warned Biden “of the risks of a poorly-timed withdrawal by recounting details from the chaotic 1975 Saigon evacuation.” in the hours before the president announced his decision in April 2021.

Likewise, Milley saw Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine coming, The New York Times reported.  He is blunt and level-headed in his assessment of Russia’s capabilities and Ukraine’s challenges — and he has often proven correct, according to Spoehr.

“He’s been a very good chairman,” Spoehr told the DCNF.

As Milley closed out his career, high-level military communication between the U.S. and China, America’s greatest competitor, had been stalled for more than a year. The war between Russia and Ukraine shows no signs of abating. And his successor, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, faces the same culture war pressures.

Military leaders should be judged like Olympic divers, “taking into account the difficulty of the dive they have to do,” Feaver told DCNF. “Circumstances have conspired to force General Milley to do some very difficult dives. Even though he has kicked up some splash that does not necessarily mean he has under-performed.”

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

RELATED ARTICLE: China Is On The Fast Track To Wage War Against Taiwan — And The US, Experts Say

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Everybody Is Afraid’: Kenosha Residents Appear To Pivot Toward Trump Due To Democratic Leadership Amid Riots

Some Kenosha residents are rethinking their support for Democrats amid the rioting and violence that has erupted in the city, the New York Times (NYT) reported.

Several residents of the Wisconsin city expressed their fear in an interview with the NYT as the riots that struck many cities across the country following police shootings of Black men arrived at their doorstep.

Jacob Blake was shot by police Sunday in Kenosha, and later that night, unrest began to escalate, resulting in arson, vandalism and, a few days after, two people being shot to death.

Many residents say that Democratic leadership has been absent, and Democrats seem reluctant to denounce the violence.

John Geraghty, 41, works at a tractor factory and doesn’t pay attention to the presidential race. Although he was on the fence about who to vote for in November, he’s now unsure whether the Democratic state leaders are willing to remedy the violence.

“It’s crazy that it’s now happening in my home city,” he told the NYT. “We have to have a serious conversation about what are we going to do about it. It doesn’t seem like the powers that be want to do much.”

Former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden responded Monday to the shooting of Jacob Blake, saying that “Equal justice has not been real for black Americans and so many others” and that the country “must dismantle systemic racism.”

Biden later condemned Wednesday the “needless violence” in Kenosha, and said that the protests over police brutality were “right and absolutely necessary” but that “burning down communities is not protest.”

Republicans have focused their attention on Wisconsin, which Trump won in 2016. The rioting was also mentioned at the Republican National Convention, which is taking place the same week that riots emerged in Kenosha.

Geraghty, a former Marine, told the Times his city began to resemble a “war zone” and that Democrats were “letting people down big time.” He also believes Trump bungled his management of the coronavirus pandemic, describing it as “laughable,” and that he didn’t like how Trump talked.

But he also said that it seemed the Democratic Party seemed most interested in attacking Trump and calling him a racist, an accusation made so often that it was only alienating people.

“The Democratic agenda to me right now is America is systematically racist and evil and the only people who can fix it are Democrats,” he said. “That’s the vibe I get.”

“I’m not 100 percent sure of anything yet,” Mr. Geraghty said of November. “But as of now I’m really not happy about how Democrats are handling any of this.”

The RNC dedicated several moments to emphasizing Trump’s “law and order” platform, and also criticized the movement to defund the police, attributing such a push to Democratic leadership.

Public support for protests following the death of George Floyd has dropped in Wisconsin by 25 points since June according to a poll published by Marquette Law School Wednesday. While support for demonstrations against police killings stood at 61% approval to 36% disapproval in June, both figures changed to 48% in August. The poll was conducted before the protests and riots in Kenosha that began Sunday.

Don Biehn, 62, owns a flooring company in Kenosha, and he bought a pistol for the first time in his life Tuesday amid the chaos in his city, citing the need to protect his business. He told the NYT he had been calling county and state officials for days to explain how grave the situation was in Kenosha.

“There’s people running all over with guns — it’s like some Wild West town,” Biehn said. “We are just waiting here like sitting ducks waiting to get picked off.”

“It’s chaos — everybody is afraid,” he added.

Although Biehn didn’t initially support Trump, he’s now grateful he’s president because he understand the situation in a way other politicians didn’t.

“There’s nobody fighting back,” he said. “Nobody is paying attention to what’s going on.”

Priscella Gazda, a waitress at a pizza restaurant, said she had voted only once in her life, and it was for Barack Obama in 2008, in hopes of getting health insurance. She told the Times she’s “not the one who would ever vote,” but after the unrest in Kenosha, she’s voting for Trump.

“He seems to be more about the American people and what we need,” she said.

COLUMN BY

MARLO SAFI

Culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

REPORT: As Crime Surges, New York Police Union Is Expected To Endorse Trump

The New York City Police Benevolent Association (PBA) is expected to announce their endorsement of President Donald Trump over the weekend, the New York Post reported.

The announcement could come Saturday at the president’s country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to the report. Other law enforcement groups have endorsed Trump for reelection, including the National Association of Police Organizations, which endorsed the president in July.

The union, which represents 24,000 NYPD officers, didn’t endorse a candidate during the 2016 election, the Post reported. Their expected endorsement of Trump comes after a surge in crime and weeks of protests.

Black Lives Matter protests spread nationwide following the May 25 death of George Floyd. The protests turned violent in several places across the country, including in New York, where protesters clashed with officers, set police cars on fire, and looted businesses.

New York experienced a surge in violent crime as looting and rioting continued. In June, shootings in New York City increased by 130%, murders increased by 30% and burglaries were up 118%, NYPD crime statistics showed.

Lawmakers answered the demands of protesters and passed a budget June 30 to defund the NYPD by $1 billion, a move that was supported by Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

President Donald Trump called on de Blasio and Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to address the rise in crime, saying in a July 5 tweet that the federal government is “ready, willing and able to help, if asked.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1279887994107891717?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1279887994107891717%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2020%2F08%2F14%2Fnew-york-police-union-endorse-trump%2F

The president also expressed support for the police, saying that they “have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1278324681477689349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1278324681477689349%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2020%2F08%2F14%2Fnew-york-police-union-endorse-trump%2F

PBA president Mike O’Meara criticized the treatment of police officers in June, saying to “stop treating us like animals and thugs, and start treating us with some respect.”

“That’s what we’re here today to say,” he continued. “We’ve been left out of the conversation. We’ve been vilified. It’s disgusting.”

COLUMN BY

JORDAN LANCASTER

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Media Displays Double Standard For Protests Vs. Trump Rally

Gallup study: Media rank dead last in public trust


While the liberal media has been condemning President Donald Trump’s rally over coronavirus concerns, it has also been praising Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests despite the same risks.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Media Research Center (MRC) and others have pointed out the apparent hypocrisy in recent months. Protests over the death of George Floyd began in May and have since grown to cover the entire country.

“It’s hard to imagine a more blatant double standard at work: political gatherings for me, but not for thee,” Bill D’Agostino, the media editor for Newsbusters, noted during a June 18 article pointing out the double standard.

MRC compiled a video depicting some egregious examples of double standards by liberal networks.

WATCH:

MSNBC host Joy Reid was just one person to criticize Trump’s rally. She wondered if the White House understands “that people showing up to his precious rallies might get sick” during a segment on June 11, according to MRC.

Meanwhile, just days before on June 2, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed a protest organizer and simply wondered what it was like “to be marching arm-in-arm there with the police chief.” O’Donnell said just over a week later that the president was “pretending the coronavirus has disappeared,” according to MRC.

CNN host Chris Cuomo criticized Trump’s June 20 rally, saying it is “the worst thing you could do” during a global pandemic.

ABC, CBS and NBC have also appeared to downplay risks associated with the protests, the publication pointed out. One person referred to the protests as “a celebration … a carnival-like atmosphere.” Meanwhile, another said that people “might get sick and die” at a Trump rally, according to MRC.

McEnany herself noted this during a press conference June 17, using the front page of the New York Post – which also pointed out the double standard among the media.

The Post’s front page showed both a “black trans lives rally” protest and a Trump rally, Fox News reported. The protest was captioned “This is OK” and the Trump rally was captioned “This is dangerous.”

“While we appreciate the great concern for our rally goers, you should exhibit that same concern for the protesters who are out there not socially distancing in many cases,” McEnany said.

COLUMN BY

SHELBY TALCOTT

Follow Shelby on Twitter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

What American Populism Really Means by David Smith

The people had finally found their leader, a champion for those who had built the country with their hard work and yet now believed themselves to be silenced and ignored—left behind by the artificial currents of contemporary life. He would make their voices heard again. They didn’t think of themselves as angry—at least not without a good cause—but they were no longer going to go gently into that political good night.

The year was 1896, and a new century loomed just four years away. They believed they had one last chance to change the errant course on which the country was set, and William Jennings Bryan was ready to lead them.

Man the Barricades

With the triumph of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, magazines from Vanity Fair to The Economist suddenly began writing about populism and trying to analyze that amorphous identity that periodically returns to American politics. Far less defined than a political movement or agenda, American populism is an impulse, rooted in Jeffersonian individualism and animated by a conviction that something essential in our culture is under siege by powerful currents in the wider world.

While politicians may choose to use populist rhetoric to rally their voters, it’s not an identity that many would choose on their own because it’s borne of crisis, understood by those who take it up as being nothing less than a state of emergency. Populism amounts to a last desperate manning of the barricades, when all others have decided to jettison something that, in a significant number of hearts, is still worth fighting for.

The populism of the 1890s came at a crucial moment of transition from one economic framework to the next, as an America of farmers and craftsmen was giving way to an America of industrial workers, leviathan corporations, and new immigrants.

Today, the country faces another transition to a more interconnected and, some say, post-national world, and populists have again reappeared, fearful of rocky shoals along the passage. The impulse is no longer tied to the agrarian identity and way of life that was so tenaciously defended by populists at the close of the 19th century, but it is now expressed by those for whom something just as sacred is at stake.

Cultural Power

More than economic or political power, cultural power—the power to define what ought to be the true iconic representation of America, from which comes ideas of right and wrong—has always lain at the heart of populism, even if more specific economic concerns are easier to identify. This is why the emergence of a multi-billionaire as populist champion isn’t as baffling as it would be if the primary engine was class-based resentment of the wealthy (and it’s why Bernie Sanders is actually less of a populist than Trump).

As historian Alan Brinkley showed in his book Voices of Protest, despite the ways that the populist impulse has varied among its adherents throughout the decades, its “central, animating spirit” remained the determination to restore “to the individual the control of his life and livelihood.” Brinkley notes that Depression-era rousers like Huey Long and Charles Coughlin connected “their messages so clearly with the residual appeal of the populist tradition,” and future historians will undoubtedly note the same about Donald Trump.

But his current success shows that its appeal is not merely residual but continues to animate millions of people. The lesson of Trump’s surprise victory is that populism remains at its core an evergreen cultural force that is as intertwined with our ideas about democracy as notions about voting, representation, civil rights, or economic fairness.

Today’s drive toward populism is not primarily because of big business or big banking, but because of a perceived threat of similar size and danger to the concept of Jeffersonian individualism. Now it is the cultural triumph of identity politics that’s pushing people toward populism, as surely as monopoly and industrialization did 120 years ago. Ascendant globalism is another: just as the farmers of the 1890s felt displaced from what they considered their time-honored position within the country’s culture and economy, those who recently rallied to the populist tone of the current president felt much the same.

In his 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Age of Reform, Richard Hofstadter mused that,

While its special association with agrarian reforms has now become attenuated, I believe that populist thinking has survived in our own time, partly as an undercurrent of provincial resentments, popular and ‘democratic’ rebelliousness and suspiciousness, and nativism.”

Indeed, Hofstadter’s account of those who flocked to William Jennings Bryan in 1896 is a caustic one and caused an outcry among historians who had long looked upon the populists as virtuous Jeffersonian Democrats. But Hofstadter substantially changed the way the mainstream thinks about our periodic outbursts of populism, and today, charges of nativism, provincialism, and intolerance are even more commonly attributed to Trump’s supporters than to Bryan’s.

Canary in the Coal Mine

I don’t believe populism is inevitably as xenophobic as that, but I do believe the impulse is inherently defensive. The Economist recently reported that populism in Alabama “has not always been driven by prejudice, as might be supposed.” Rather, explained the former director of the Alabama state archives, populism is always and everywhere fired by fears of “the rise of a new aristocracy,” and Alabamans who turned to populism were “not simply emotional victims of demagogues.”

Contemporary ideologies that divide people into grievance groups are a cultural echo of the process of industrialization that once divided people into competing economic classes. In both, the deck is stacked against the individual.

The proper response to populism isn’t to dismiss it as fringe, bigoted, or anti-intellectual, but to remember that threats to individualism come from every angle, sometimes in unexpected ways. Populism is the canary in our political coal mine—a warning that individual liberty may be having its oxygen drained away. Those who are concerned about freedom should pay attention to it.

Reprinted from Learn Liberty.

David Smith

David Smith

Dr. David A. Smith is a senior lecturer in American history at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He received his undergraduate degree from what is now Texas State University in San Marcos, and his Ph.D. in modern American history from the University of Missouri.

Relegating Radical Islam to the ‘Ash Heap of History’

On June 8th, 1982 in a speech before the British Parliament President Ronald Reagan blazed forth with his belief that ”[T]he march of freedom and democracy . . . will leave Marxist Leninism on the ash heap of history.” Nine years later, on Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time.

Fast forward to February 15th, 2017 and the meeting between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C.

During a press conference Prime Minister Netanyahu said to President Trump,

“Under your leadership, I believe we can reverse the rising tide of radical Islam, and in this great task, as in so many others, Israel stands with you and I stand with you. Mr. President, in rolling back militant Islam, we can seize an historic opportunity because for the first time in my lifetime and for the first time in the life of my country, Arab countries in the region do not see Israel as an enemy, but increasingly as an ally.”

Breitbart’s Edwin Mora reports:

President Donald Trump’s deputies intend to overhaul President Barack Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program to focus only on Islamist extremism, says Reuters.

The shift is not finalized, but is expected to reduce federal focus on non-Islamic extremism, reports Reuters, citing five unnamed people briefed on the matter. The shift may also cut off pending federal funding for Islamic groups.

The pending reorganization comes after widespread reports that Obama’s program has already failed, largely because of opposition by resident Muslim activists and groups, say some Republican lawmakers and news outlets.

Reuters notes:

The program, ‘Countering Violent Extremism,’ or CVE, would be changed to ‘Countering Islamic Extremism’ or ‘Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,’ the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

The news outlet cites Hoda Hawa, director of policy for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), who said she learned of the push to refocus the CVE program “from tackling all violent ideology to only Islamist extremism” from unnamed U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials last week.

MPAC has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and has previously advocated for the removal of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the U.S. State Department list of designated terrorist groups.

Read more…

President Trump has now named the evil empire bent on stopping the march of freedom and democracy in the world. That neo-evil empire is lead by radical Islamic supremacists. It is called “the Caliphate.” The restoring of the caliphate has been and remains the ultimate goal of radical Islamists.

Marxism, Leninism and radical Islam share a common ideal, the replacement of freedom with subjugation and replacing democracy with a totalitarian ideology based upon a fanatical world view.

President Trump understands this, others do not. The others are the followers of Marx, Lenin and Mohammed.

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