Apparently all of the Democrats in Congress, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who have long derided Republicans for favoring the top one percent now have a one percent of their own.
The Dems’ one percent now consists of “dreamers” who were created by an illegal act of President Obama. Congressional Democrats are more than willing to put dreamers’ concerns ahead of the nation’s interests as witnessed by the recent brief government shutdown.
President Trump has repeatedly stated that without a border wall there will be no DACA program. For his part, Senator Schumer in a fit of pique has reiterated his stance against a border wall. The deadline for this apparent confrontation is rapidly approaching.
In his well-received State of the Union address, the President has listed his three demands for a DACA resolution. He is willing to give at least 1.8 million dreamers an eventual path to citizenship in exchange for his requirements. Those requirements are: A border wall, an end to chain migration and the dissolution of the visa lottery.
At the State of the Union address, television was able to show the vast chasm between the two major Parties by focusing repeatedly on the facial expressions of various Democrat leaders. Stenny Hoyer looked like he was in the midst of a very irritable bowel movement. Nancy Pelosi squirmed endlessly and was either gritting her teeth or adjusting her dentures, while Cory Booker’s “deer in the headlights” expression looked like he had just been caught with both hands in the cookie jar. Also, when the President touted the fact that black unemployment was at its lowest mark in years, the famed “Black Caucus” sat on their hands.
By most accounts, even those of the liberal media, the speech was well-received by at least three quarters of viewers.
Trump was ecstatic in his recitation of the good economic numbers for his first year in office. Incredibly, when the mainstream Press commented on those numbers they gave most of the credit to President Obama. As far as Obama is concerned, the best that can be said of his eight years is that it was a tepid affair. Many comparisons about the Obama era have been made such as: If the economy was a car, it was stuck in neutral. If the nation was a ship, it sat becalmed and if it was an engine, it failed to respond to the starter.
At this writing, word comes that the much-debated House memo on possible malfeasance at the FBI and DOJ is to be released shortly. Several comments from lawmakers in the know indicate that the memo will detail how flawed the Clinton email investigation was, how the FISA court was manipulated into what blossomed as the Russia-Trump collusion investigation and some of the top players’ names might be revealed. Recently the abrupt departure of the FBI’s Andrew McCabe and the revelation of thousands more emails between highly-placed FBI personnel seem to indicate that there is a lot of fire beneath the smoke. Another interesting tidbit is how the infamous meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton gave Lynch the opportunity to recuse herself. It has been widely reported that Bill assured Loretta that should Hillary win the election, Loretta would continue in her job as Attorney General.
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Since the Winter Olympics are set to kick off tomorrow, it might be well to revisit an item that we missed in our recent column about the 1960 Winter Olympics at nearby Squaw Valley. That item was the official program for the 1960 Games. I still have my copy and it was a 124-page item that included a wealth of advertising and all the pertinent facts about how the Games were set up. Interestingly enough, the ads were sold by Spencer Advertising Company of New York (no relation). Opening reading was from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, followed by Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee (a frequent guest of the Mapes Hotel), then Edmund G. Brown Governor of California and finally Grant Sawyer, Governor of Nevada. Of all the other big names listed in the publication, the most familiar to me is that of Art Linkletter, who was Walt Disney’s right-hand man when it came to the staging of the opening and closing ceremonies plus the nightly entertainment for competitors at Squaw. Of all the international members of the Press that covered the games, I was most acquainted with Walter Cronkite, who was telecasting the first-ever Olympic coverage.
Every night during the Games, when I was viewing the floor show in the Sky Room, I would feel a tug at my coat and turn to find Walter, who had eschewed the night-time activities at Squaw for the rather succulent steak dinner at the Mapes.
Robert Amantia says
Well written, thanks.