John R. Houk
© January 18, 2019
President Trump put the brakes on Speaker Pelosi’s intention
to use taxpayer money to finance a Dem Party political junket to Brussels,
Egypt and Afghanistan. This news went viral on Conservative Social Media
yesterday.
The President’s stated reasoning was because Pelosi and Dems
refuse to negotiate a political settlement to the government shutdown and
funding the border security Wall.
Most realize the probable true reason was because Pelosi
tried to silence President Trump from using the State of the Union (SOTU)
Address to influence Americans about Dem Obstructionism. Pelosi – typical of a
Democratic Party operative – LIED about security concerns for the SOTU due to the
lack of government shutdown funding. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and the Secret Service repudiated
Speaker Pelosi’s security funding propaganda.
GOOD FOR TRUMP! If Pelosi is so concerned about government
funding she and her MSM propaganda tools should not complain about President
preventing a Dem Party foreign junket on government funds not available due the
shutdown.
JRH 1/18/19 (Hat Tip:
P.
Jacobs - Let's Roll Trump Troopers!!)
Your generosity is always appreciated:
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Blue State Blues: Shutdowns Are
Different When Republicans Fight Back
January 18, 2019
Spare, if you will, a moment’s pity for Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). They are
not exactly enjoying the government shutdown as they might have hoped.
Pelosi had already packed her bags and boarded the Air Force
bus Thursday, along with a sizable delegation of House Democratic leaders, for
her overseas junket.
She and her comrades were, no doubt, looking forward to
touring NATO’s billion-dollar-plus new headquarters in Brussels; posing for
selfies on camelback by the pyramids in Egypt; grinning for photo-ops with the
troops in Afghanistan.
Then the order came from President Donald Trump to prohibit
her use of government aircraft.
Fly commercial, he suggested. There is a
government shutdown going on, after all.
And, as Trump noted, 800,000 federal workers will continue
to go unpaid — unless Democrats stay in town to negotiate.
The bus went ’round the block and back.
Pelosi’s shock must have been quite something to observe.
She is not used to being treated like this, you see. She
apparently expected she could cancel (ahem, “postpone”) the State of the Union
address due to the shutdown — and then disappear abroad.
Trump’s response — blocking Pelosi’s use of the aircraft —
was gutsy. It was a “drain the swamp” moment.
But the timing was pure comedy gold. (Adam Schiff, stepping off the bus,
looked like he’d seen a Russian.)
In a statement, Pelosi’s spokesman protested that the purpose
of the trip had been “to affirm the United States’ ironclad commitment to the
NATO alliance,” something the president had already done earlier
that day.
Her real goal was to conduct an alternative foreign policy —
as she did after being elected Speaker in 2007, when she paid a friendly visit to
Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad.
Pelosi’s flack complained that President Trump himself had
flown to visit the troops in Iraq early in the shutdown.
But Trump is the commander-in-chief, and Pelosi is not. How
jarring for her to be reminded that although she might pretend the Constitution
grants her equal power to the president, only Trump can turn the bus around.
It was just the latest setback for Pelosi in the shutdown
fight.
She and Schumer insisted on equal television time after
Trump’s Oval Office address last week — only to be mocked mercilessly for odd
staging and absurd makeup.
Pelosi must have thought her State of the Union gambit would
be a winner. And it was — with the media.
Politico’s lead headline Thursday morning blared:
“PELOSI PLAYS HARDBALL.” The article added: “The bold move also sent the
unmistakable signal that Pelosi holds all the cards in the lower chamber.” A
separate article in
Politico declared: “Donald Trump may have finally met his match in Nancy
Pelosi.” It described her as “satin and steel.”
CNN’s Chris Cilizza also chimed in, praising Pelosi’s
“major power move.”
But her decision was soon exposed as a major blunder.
First, Pelosi’s stated justification — security concerns —
was quickly debunked by the Secret
Service and Department of Homeland Security. (In other words: she lied.)
Second, by refusing to hear the president’s speech, Pelosi
effectively gave Trump license to give his speech anywhere — in the Senate,
perhaps, or in a football stadium, far beyond the frowns of Pelosi’s new
majority.
Believe it or not, Trump is winning the shutdown.
True, polls suggest a
majority of Americans blame him — not a surprise, since he told us he would be
“proud” to
take responsibility. And a National Public Radio poll suggested that
there are “cracks showing with his base.”
Moreover, though the public is somewhat inoculated against
the media’s usual shutdown horror stories — they have cried wolf too many times
before — there could be some real hardship ahead.
Yet Trump is winning — because he is fighting back.
That is partly a consequence of his position: the White
House always has the advantage in a negotiation with Congress, especially a
divided Congress.
But Trump is also winning because he is fighting harder —
and smarter — than any Republican has before.
He began by picking the right battle. The one reason for
which the public — or enough of the public — might forgive a government
shutdown is national security. And Trump has framed the border issue
as a national security problem, not a question of immigration policy.
That means the shutdown can never be entirely his fault: it
is his duty, as commander-in-chief, to refuse to sign a budget that places
Americans in danger.
Trump does not need to convince the polls that he is right.
He knows if he begins to solve the problem, his support will return.
Pelosi and Schumer are somewhat new to problem-solving. They
have also never seen a Republican who fights back. That is why they are losing
the shutdown.
____________________
The House Creates Funding but the President
Manages the Spending
John R. Houk
© January 18, 2019
__________________
Blue State Blues: Shutdowns Are Different When
Republicans Fight Back
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