I hope you enjoy my observations on these items in the news.
ATTENTION SENATOR SCHUMER, your leftist colleague Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has a message for you as you insist that you intend to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court courtesy of The Wall Street Journal’s Notable & Quotable column.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren had her view of the filibuster in 2013. (StevenSenne/AP)
“We need to call out these filibusters for what they are – naked attempts to nullify the results of the last presidential election, to force us to govern as though President Obama had not won the 2012 election.
“President Obama did win the 2012 election – by 5 million votes. He has done what the Constitution requires him to do – nominated highly qualified people to fill open vacancies on the Federal bench. If Republicans continue to filibuster these highly-qualified nominees for no reason other than to nullify the President’s constitutional authority, then Senators not only have the right to change the filibuster rules, Senators have a duty to change filibuster rules.
“We cannot turn our back on the Constitution. We cannot abdicate our oath of office. We have a responsibility to protect and defend our democracy, and that includes protecting the neutrality of our courts and preserving the constitutional power of the President to nominate highly qualified people to court vacancies.” – Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Nov. 13, 2013
TWO DEMOCRATS INTEND TO VOTE FOR GORSUCH – As I write this post, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WVA), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Donnely (D-IN)have indicated their intention to side with Republicans in the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch; both are up for reelection in 2018 in states carried by President Trump. Eight other Democrat senators from red states won by Trump seem to have decided to take their chances in 2018.
THE ARROGANCE OF SEN. SCHUMER – Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, the Senate minority leader suggested that President Trump should gather with Senate Democrats and Republicans to “try and come up with a mainstream nominee.”
FOLLOW THE MONEY – The Media Research Center has learned that billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundations contributed $246 million between 2010 and 2014 to 100 of the 544 groups listed as partners of the Women’s March. I wonder how he determines whether his investment was worthwhile. Street interviews I heard revealed that most marchers couldn’t articulate why they were participating.
IT’S NICE TO SEE MONICA CROWLEY back as a commentator on television again after CNN did a hatchet job on her, labelling her as a plagiarist, causing her to withdraw from her appointment by President Trump to be the senior director of communications at the National Security Council.
Monica Crowley has survived the CNN hit job. (National Review/Truth Revolt)
“Monica Crowley is a strong voice on national security and a great patriot,” writes Andrew McCarthy in the National Review’s Truth Revolt, “It is important to recognize, moreover, this was never really about her. It’s the president’s scalp that they want. Along the way, they’ll take what they can get. I’m sorry to see my friend get caught in the crossfire.”
In his piece, “The Anti-Trump Media’s Attack on Monica Crowley,” McCarthy captures the findings of the well-regarded copyright attorney Lynn Chu, who did a comprehensive study of the plagiarism allegations.
“I found CNN’s splashy “plagiarism” accusation to ill-supported – a heavily exaggerated, political hit job,” wrote Ms. Chu, “Instead, after reading texts side by side with footnotes, I came away impressed by the very high-quality and care taken by Ms. Crowley in her writing, scholarship and research overall.”
If you would like to read McCarthy’s piece in full, click here.
PRESIDENT TRUMP IS DELIVERING AS PROMISED on the overreaching of the EPA and its costly, job killing regulations. Trump and his new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt now need to target the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” which labeled carbon dioxide as a pollutant, writes Paul Tice, an executive-in-residence at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a former Wall Street energy research analyst.
That ruling provided the legal underpinnings for all of the EPA’s follow-on carbon regulations, according to Tice. It provided the rationale for the Obama administration’s fossil fuel agenda and various climate change initiatives spread over a dozen federal agencies. The cost to us taxpayers over the Obama years has been $20-25 billion a year.
“Issuing a new endangerment finding would be a bold move requiring thorough work,” suggests Tice, “but the Trump EPA would be well within its legal rights to undertake such an updated review process … and would show that Mr. Trump is serious about challenging climate change orthodoxy.”
ON THE SUBJECT OF CLIMATE CHANGE, I noted that officials in Columbia are blaming heavy rains and the overflowing Mocoa River on climate change. The left-leaning USA Today obliged in its headline, “Climate Change Cited In Columbia Flood.”
