April 28, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
American people continue to give President Trump high marks on the economy despite COVID-19 crash
President Donald Trump appears
impervious to bad news. At least that’s what one might discern from the April
21 Hill/HarrisX poll, where 56 percent approve of his performance on the
economy despite 26 million jobs lost and counting amid the government-directed
closures in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Overall, 50 percent
approve of the job the President is doing. Perhaps that is because of Trump’s Herculean
efforts to do whatever it takes to prevent society itself from collapsing while
everything is still shuttered up. Trump’s considered yet robust approach to the
pandemic to save as many lives and jobs
as possible has inoculated the President against apparently any
political fallout from the economic crash. He took the approach favored by most
Americans, who, in turn, are giving him a pass on the economy that would
otherwise realign American politics for a generation for any other incumbent.
Can Trump be beat? By now, internally, Democrats must be in a full panic mode.
Video: Virginia pastor shares his experience with running a Church during COVID-19 lockdown
Ryan Oswald of Mint Spring
United Methodist Church in Staunton, Virginia says his church has gone online
and it has been good in many ways. He also believes the growth in faith during
the COVID-19 lockdown has been good in many ways.
Criminalizing Politics: The Investigation of General Flynn | National Review
“The Obama administration
detested Flynn and targeted him with trumped-up charges that are falling apart
under scrutiny. Obama officials asked the FBI if a quid pro quo had been
discussed on the call, and the answer came back no, according to one of the
officials, who like others asked not to be named discussing delicate
communications. The topic of sanctions came up, they were told, but there was
no deal. Asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. That’s a
good one. Let me translate. The officials did not want to identify themselves
because they were committing a felony: FISA intercepts are classified, and disclosing
them to unauthorized people, including the media, is a serious crime.Two
things, in any event, should be observed. First, the Flynn investigation was a
vindictive farce: Even if there had been a substantive discussion of sanctions,
there would have been no law violation. But there was no such discussion, just
the mere mention of sanctions, prompting Flynn’s proper response: Don’t
escalate. Second, the Flynn–Kislyak communication became the grist for an
outrageous classified leak for which, to this day, no one has ever been
prosecuted.”
American people continue to give President Trump high marks on the economy despite COVID-19 crash
By Robert Romano
President Donald Trump appears impervious to bad news. At least that’s what one might discern from the April 21 Hill/HarrisX poll, where 56 percent approve of his performance on the economy despite 26 million jobs lost and counting amid the government-directed closures in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Overall, 50 percent approve of the job the President is doing. Perhaps that is because of Trump’s Herculean efforts to do whatever it takes to prevent society itself from collapsing while everything is still shuttered up.
The biggest surprise comes from Trump’s growing approval among African-Americans, where 24 percent approve including 9 percent who strongly approve. On the economy, Trump garners 31 percent approval among blacks including 10 percent who strongly approve.
A similar pattern emerges among Hispanics, where 30 percent approve including 10 percent who strongly approve, with the numbers jumping to 36 percent among Hispanics on the economy including 14 percent strong approve.
Overall, Trump’s greatest strength comes on stimulating jobs, where 58 percent approve, including 64 percent of whites, 32 percent of blacks and 51 percent of Hispanics.
Suffice to say, if those are Trump’s numbers on Election Day, it won’t even be close against former Vice President Joe Biden.
How to account for Trump’s resilience amid the economic carnage and devastation from the pandemic? The President has stuck the landing on fighting the COVID-19 outbreak. He quickly organized a military response effort to deliver testing, medical equipment including ventilators and worked closely with State governors to save as many lives as possible. There, Trump gets 51 percent approval.
This explains the left-wing media’s relentless attempts to drive up the President’s negatives almost to a fever pitch. They are growing desperate, and with states and the economy prepped to reopen very soon, Trump has nowhere to go but up. The difference between his overall approval and that on the economy clearly demonstrates that he has room to grow.
And in the back of voters’ minds, they know it was President Trump who was the most concerned about the economic fallout to do with the virus. By effectively dealing with the pandemic, Trump also gets credit for wisely warning that the economy would be taking a big hit, and having the foresight to gain $2.7 trillion from Congress to prop up American businesses.
Trump’s considered yet robust approach to the pandemic to save as many lives and jobs as possible has inoculated the President against apparently any political fallout from the economic crash. He took the approach favored by most Americans, who, in turn, are giving him a pass on the economy that would otherwise realign American politics for a generation for any other incumbent. Can Trump be beat? By now, internally, Democrats must be in a full panic mode.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/04/american-people-continue-to-give-president-trump-high-marks-on-the-economy-despite-covid-19-crash/
Video: Virginia pastor shares his experience with running a Church during COVID-19 lockdown
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9ZHsyhsIMc
Criminalizing Politics: The Investigation of General Flynn | National Review
By Andrew C. McCarthy
The Obama administration detested Flynn and targeted him with trumped-up charges that are falling apart under scrutiny.
Could anything have made the Obama administration giddier than the prospect of making a criminal case on Michael Flynn?
Flynn is a retired Army lieutenant general, who made his mark on modern insurgent warfare by helping revolutionize the rapid dissemination of battlefield intelligence. He was promoted by President Obama to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is also a headstrong man who got himself on Obama’s bad side by questioning counterterrorism strategy, particularly the administration’s weakness on Iran. He was detested by Obama political and national-security officials for calling them out on politicizing intelligence. The FBI was not a fan, least of all Deputy Director Andy McCabe, because Flynn had supported an agent who claimed the Bureau had subjected her to sex discrimination.
After Obama fired him from the DIA post, Flynn became an important Trump-campaign surrogate, which gave him a national media platform from which to rip Obama’s foreign policy. When Trump won the election, Obama counseled him against tapping Flynn for a top administration job. Trump ignored the advice, naming Flynn his national-security advisor. Flynn worked on the Trump transition and incensed Obama officials by lobbying against a U.N. resolution against Israel that the Obama administration, in its profiles-in-courage style, orchestrated and then abstained from voting on. The collusion narrative notwithstanding, Russia rebuffed Trump’s entreaties on the Israel resolution.
Obama’s late-December imposition of sanctions on Russia got the attention of Sergey Kislyak, the Kremlin’s ambassador to the United States, just as the administration figured it would. Kislyak, who has a wide, bipartisan circle of Washington contacts, contacted Flynn, who, as a member of Trump’s transition team, was dealing with a variety of foreign counterparts.
The next day, December 29, Flynn called the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, where senior transition officials were cobbling together a new administration for the candidate no one had expected to win. Flynn and his colleagues discussed the Russia sanctions and their potential effect on Trump’s foreign policy. Flynn was advised to convey the message to Kislyak that Russia should resist any urge to escalate the situation. Immediately afterwards, Flynn called Kislyak. The topic of sanctions was discussed, but not a deal on sanctions. Rather, Flynn simply urged that Russia limit itself to no more than a reciprocal response, rather than escalate matters. This, obviously, is what we should hope any responsible American official, regardless of party, would propose.
As Flynn should surely have known, Kislyak, an overt agent of Russia, was subject to FISA monitoring. The FBI counterintelligence agents were not only eavesdropping on Kislyak’s discussion with Flynn; they were doing so in consultation with “Obama advisers,” as The New York Times gently described them. The Times elaborated:
Obama officials asked the FBI if a quid pro quo had been discussed on the call, and the answer came back no, according to one of the officials, who like others asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. The topic of sanctions came up, they were told, but there was no deal.
Asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. That’s a good one. Let me translate. The officials did not want to identify themselves because they were committing a felony: FISA intercepts are classified, and disclosing them to unauthorized people, including the media, is a serious crime.
Two things, in any event, should be observed. First, the Flynn investigation was a vindictive farce: Even if there had been a substantive discussion of sanctions, there would have been no law violation. But there was no such discussion, just the mere mention of sanctions, prompting Flynn’s proper response: Don’t escalate. Second, the Flynn–Kislyak communication became the grist for an outrageous classified leak for which, to this day, no one has ever been prosecuted.
To view online: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/criminalizing-politics-the-investigation-of-general-flynn/
