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News

Summary, MP3 audio, video clips, and Democrat responses for Trump’s 2020 State of the Union

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Trump State of the Union SOTU 2020
Trump State of the Union SOTU 2020

The speech is posted at the White House web site, along with a transcript. In this post, I’ll try to mention the main topics and the Democrat reactions. Summary: Trump didn’t appeal to feelings. He cited objective facts and figures to support his achievements, and he illustrated the benefits of his policies by pointing out the stories of specific people in the audience. Best! SOTU! Ever!

You can watch the video here: (transcript)

The MP3 file is here.

Main topics:

  • call for unity
  • tax cuts
  • de-regulation
  • job creation, especially in manufacturing
  • rising wages
  • millions of people lifted out of welfare programs
  • fair trade
  • new free trade agreements, e.g. USMCA
  • infrastructure improvement
  • immigration reform
  • border security
  • cracking down on human trafficking and sex trafficking
  • preventing crimes committed by criminal illegal aliens
  • rolling back Obamacare mandates
  • allow critically ill patients “right to try” lifesaving drugs
  • cutting healthcare costs
  • cutting prescription drug costs
  • reform VA healthcare
  • more spending on medical research
  • energy production boom
  • for the first time, USA is net exporter of energy
  • criminal justice reform to help non-violent offenders
  • school choice to put poor children in better schools
  • asks Congress to pass late-term abortion ban
  • America first foreign policy
  • more military spending
  • getting NATO allies to spend more on their military
  • making peace with North Korea
  • promoting democracy and prosperity in Venezuela
  • destroying Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East
  • focus on counterterrorism (not nation building) in Afghanistan
  • America’s greatness

Clips:

Celebrating child born at 21 weeks, calling for late term abortion ban:

Rush Limbaugh Presidential Medal of Freedom:

School choice scholarships for poor children:

Religious liberty and second amendment:

Surprise military homecoming for family:

Democrat reponses

Democrat sat on their hands for school choice:

Numerous Democrats appeared to not celebrate a fourth-grade black girl who received a scholarship on Tuesday night from President Donald Trump during the State of the Union Address.

[…]“The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity to achieve the American Dream,” Trump said. “Yet, for too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools. To rescue these students, 18 States have created school choice in the form of Opportunity Scholarships.”

“The programs are so popular, that tens of thousands of students remain on waiting lists,” Trump continued. “One of those students is Janiyah Davis, a fourth grader from Philadelphia. Janiyah’s mom Stephanie is a single parent. She would do anything to give her daughter a better future. But last year, that future was put further out of reach when Pennsylvania’s [Democrat] Governor vetoed legislation to expand school choice for 50,000 children.”

[…]“Janiyah and Stephanie are in the gallery this evening,” Trump continued. “But there is more to their story. Janiyah, I am pleased to inform you that your long wait is over. I can proudly announce tonight that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available, it is going to you, and you will soon be heading to the school of your choice!”

“Now, I call on the Congress to give 1 million American children the same opportunity Janiyah has just received,” Trump continued. “Pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act — because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.”

Democrats sat on their hands for record low unemployment, high wages, and a booming stock market:

Democrat members of the House and Senate largely refused to celebrate the Trump administration’s economic successes for minority communities and women on Tuesday night during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address.

[…]From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the United States economy — slashing a record number of job-killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts, and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements.

[…]Since my election, we have created 7 million new jobs — 5 million more than Government experts projected during the previous administration.

[…]The unemployment rates for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans have reached the lowest levels in history. African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low.

African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.

The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years — and last year, women filled 72 percent of all new jobs added.

The veterans’ unemployment rate dropped to a record low.

The unemployment rate for disabled Americans has reached an all-time low.

Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in United States history.

A record number of young Americans are now employed.

Under the last administration, more than 10 million people were added to the food stamp rolls. Under my Administration, 7 million Americans have come off of food stamps, and 10 million people have been lifted off of welfare.

In 8 years under the last administration, over 300,000 working-age people dropped out of the workforce. In just 3 years of my Administration, 3.5 million working-age people have joined the workforce.

Since my election, the net worth of the bottom half of wage-earners has increased by 47 percent — 3 times faster than the increase for the top 1 percent. After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast — and, wonderfully, they are rising fastest for low-income workers, who have seen a 16 percent pay-increase since my election. This is a blue collar boom.

Real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded!

Since my election, United States stock markets have soared 70 percent, adding more than $12 trillion to our Nation’s wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible — this, as other countries are not doing well. Consumer confidence has reached amazing new heights.

All of those millions of people with 401(k)s and pensions are doing far better than they have ever done before with increases of 60, 70, 80, 90, and even 100 percent.

Democrats sat on their hands for tax cuts for investments in poorer neighborhoods:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona broke from her Democratic colleagues by giving a standing ovation for “opportunity zones” during President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday. While the majority of Democrats sat as Trump commended Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., for his work on opportunity zones, Sinema stood and applauded her colleague.

Opportunity zones were created in tandem with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. They provide tax advantages for certain investments in lower income areas.

“Jobs and investments are pouring into nine thousand previously neglected neighborhoods, thanks to opportunity zones. A plan spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott as part of our great Republican tax cuts,” Trump said as Sinema stood to clap.

Trump’s approval rating is now at 49%, the highest it’s ever been. Higher than Obama’s was at this time in his presidency, and Obama won re-election.

News

Impeachment hearings causing Independent voters to turn against Democrats

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Trump reading out impeachment hearing testimony to reporters
Trump reading out impeachment hearing testimony to reporters

Good news, everyone! Last week, I was posting a lot of videos from the impeachment hearings, featuring Devin Nunes, Elise Stefanik, John Ratcliffe, Jim Jordan and others. Although the mainstream news media reporters were anxious for the Democrat witnesses to provide evidence to impeach Trump, it didn’t work out. And now independents are turning against the Democrats.

Here’s a good summary from The Federalist:

Emerson polling showed that support for impeachment flipped since October from 48 percent support with 44 percent opposing to now 45 percent opposed and 43 percent in support. Among key independents, the switch was even more pronounced. In October, 48 percent supported impeaching President Donald Trump, with 39 percent opposed. Now, 49 percent of independents oppose impeachment, while only 34 percent support it.

A new Marquette University Law School poll found that 40 percent of registered voters in the swing state of Wisconsin think that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 53 percent do not think so. Another 6 percent weren’t sure.

A new Gallup poll shows that Trump’s approval has ticked up two points since the impeachment drama began, with 50 percent of Americans opposed to it and 48 percent in support. Henry Olsen notes that Gallup polls all adults, not just registered voters, meaning that a poll of registered voters would have Trump’s job approval even higher and impeachment opposed by closer to a 52-46 margin.

Even more interesting are the numbers for black voters, who traditionally vote Democrat. The Epoch Times reports:

Both polls—Rasmussen, which usually tilts Republican, and Emerson, which is considered even-handed—came out almost exactly the same, putting Trump’s support among blacks at a surprising, almost astonishing, 34 percent. Typically, Republicans poll in single digits among blacks.

“Game Changer” may be one of the great clichés of our our time, but this would actually be one. If even remotely true, Democrats should be having a nervous breakdown. They depend more than ever on African-Americans for success in elections. If Trump were to garner even 18 percent of the black vote, he would easily win in 2020. If he had anything close to the 34 percent, it would be a runaway, a disaster for the Democrats.

So, those are good numbers for Trump. What happened at the hearings? Well, the Democrats were trying to prove that Trump had held up foreign aid to Ukraine, in order to get them to investigate why Joe Biden’s son was collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars when Joe Biden was vice president. But it turned out that no one in the new Ukrainian government thought that their aid was being held up. And that the aid was released after a short delay over concerns that the new Ukraine government was as corrupt as the last one. Once those concerns were investigated, the aid was released. And the aid included lethal defensive anti-tank weapons, something that Obama had never done for Ukraine. And there was never any investigation of Hunter Biden before the aid was released. So, there was no quid pro quo.

I posted a lot of videos showing all the admissions on Facebook, but this 1-minute video was the slam dunk of the hearing:

The mainstream media reported that Ambassador Sondland had said the exact opposite as what you see in the video above, and that’s just because they don’t expect American voters to look at the video of the hearing.

So, what did we learn from all this? We learned that Trump doesn’t like to give American taxpayer dollars to other countries. He thinks that their immediate neighbors ought to help them, not America. And we learned that Trump is concerned that we not throw money away to corrupt regimes. And we learned that far from withholding aid, Trump gave them USEFUL anti-tank Javelin missiles, something that Obama was never willing to do. And he didn’t get any investigation of any Bidens before that aid was sent.

The Federalist article notes that viewership of the hearings decreased as they went on, probably because people realized that there was no evidence there.

Media outlets did all they could to bolster Schiff’s show and ran the impeachment hearings non-stop, as if Schiff’s inquiry had a legitimacy it never quite managed to earn on the merits. But instead of viewership increasing over time, it decreased.

[…]While the argument for impeachment was difficult to understand, Democrats’ own witnesses kept making Trump’s case against “the swamp” for him. There is no question that these bureaucrats, sometimes using third-hand information, were deeply opposed to Trump, his policies, and his behavior. Their problem was that they were not elected president. In fact, they weren’t elected anything. Some of them were political appointees — a testament to the awful job Trump has done at finding personnel who can accomplish his policy goals — and other times they were career bureaucrats.

[…]In part because Schiff and his team seemed confused about what case they were prosecuting, questions to witnesses were almost always leading, but never focused on a particular or consistent goal. Conversely, Republicans kept focused during their questions, always pointing out that the witnesses didn’t actually have first-hand information, or were basing their views on their own conjecture, a shaky basis for impeachment.

In general, Republican members did a surprisingly good job on cross examining witnesses. The Democrats kept rolling out new star witnesses, and some, such as Gordon Sondland and Lt. Col. Alex Vindman had opening statements that were quite strong for Democrats. Their opening statements withered under strong GOP questioning.

I was thinking about what the Republicans should do next, and wondering whether they should vote to advance the impeachment investigation to the Senate. Democrats were able to make the hearings look bad for Trump at the beginning, before Republicans could question the Democrat witnesses.

Initially, Schiff insisted that this whistleblower testify. Schiff repeatedly demanded that testimony. That all changed the precise moment that it was revealed the whistleblower had communicated with Schiff’s staff, something both the whistleblower and Schiff had been dishonest about.

Republicans hammered Schiff about his self-serving about face, even if the media wanted to pretend it wasn’t a big deal. They also reminded him that they weren’t being allowed to call their own witnesses, ask questions, use transcripts of previous depositions, and other things that a fair proceeding would allow. It worked to their benefit.

But imagine if the Republicans were the ones calling witnesses, and they were given more time to ask questions of the leaker, the whistleblower, Adam Schiff, etc. to really find out who is behind all of this. It might be worth it to get all of this settled properly.

News

Trump takes action on unemployment, healthcare, environment, refugees, adoption

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I have a Canadian friend named McKenzie who sometimes reviews my blog post drafts. She usually says the same two things: 1) this post should be one third as long as it is, and 2) don’t tell me any more about why Democrats are bad, tell me why Republicans are good. So, in this post, I will tell you 5 reasons why Republicans are good, all from news stories about events from the last week alone.

Let’s start with healthcare. I’ve been bashing Elizabeth Warren on healthcare for a couple of posts. What are the Republicans going to do about healthcare?

Here’s Daily Signal:

The White House is making a strong push against Democrats’ “Medicare for All” proposal, laying out a “Health Care for You” agenda to boost competition and transparency, lower prescription prices, and produce greater affordability in health-related costs.

[…]The White House also has touted $6 billion spent over two years to target opioid addiction. This has contributed to a decrease in opioid deaths for the first time in almost two decades, officials say.

[…]Prescription prices are declining to levels not seen since the 1960s, according to the White House.

The Trump administration reduced approval times for medicines regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Trump signed into law Right-to-Try legislation to allow critically ill patients to access potentially lifesaving medicines that haven’t yet been fully approved by the FDA.

Trump also signed a $1 billion increase in funding for researching Alzheimer’s disease and launched the End HIV/AIDS in America Initiative to stop transmission of the AIDS virus in the nation by 2030.

The president last year signed the VA MISSION Act, which reforms existing programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide more care for veterans in the communities where they live, with the aim of minimizing travel. The measure includes paying for veterans to get medical care outside VA facilities and also established walk-in community clinics for veterans.

Are Republicans doing anything to earn the votes of black Americans in 2020?

Breitbart reports:

The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 5.4 percent in October, the lowest level on record.
This is the third consecutive month of record-low unemployment. September’s 5.5 percent matched the record set in August.

The unemployment rate for black men hit a record low of 5.1 percent, down three-tenths from the month prior. That was lower than the previous record low of 5.2 set in December 1973.

OK, I have white Democrat co-workers who think that this is proof of Trump’s racism. Not kidding. But I think it’s good.

But what about restrictions on energy production? We don’t want to end up with blackouts like those Democrats in California, do we?

The Daily Signal reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose easing rules on disposal of coal ash, the residue from burning coal, to make it less likely the federal government would shutter a coal-fired utility plant, in an announcement set for Monday.

The move is part of what has been a larger deregulation push by the Trump administration to roll back strict Obama-era regulations that the industry viewed as the previous administration’s “war on coal,” that pushed to shut down many coal-fired power plants.

[…]Coal ash is frequently recycled, and used as material for wallboard and concrete. Thus, according to the EPA, the rule could provide more resources for building the nation’s highways and for agricultural purposes. Coal ash reuse also conserves natural resources and provides viable alternatives to disposal, the agency contends.

“This demonstrates our support for reuse of coal ash,” Wright said.

More than 500 units at approximately 260 coal-fired facilities may be impacted by Monday’s proposed rule, according to the EPA.

More coal means lower energy costs, and recycling coal by-products to build and repair highways sounds good.

But what about life issues? What is Trump doing about abortion?

The Daily Signal reports:

Under a proposed new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday, the federal government no longer will withhold federal grant money from faith-based adoption providers that won’t compromise their views on same-sex marriage.

[…]The proposed HHS rule clarifies that the federal government won’t discriminate against charitable organizations that don’t handle adoptions for same-sex couples when it comes to allocating federal grants. The proposed rule clarifies all federal nondiscrimination laws enacted by Congress will be enforced in awarding grants. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not currently covered under nondiscrimination laws enacted by Congress.

OK, it’s hard to deny that more adoption means less abortions. It certainly won’t hurt to make it easier for adoption agencies to place unwanted children in loving homes.

OK, fine, but what about the refugees? There is a crime epidemic going on in Europe, because they keep welcoming in low-skilled non-English-speakers into their country, without checking them properly for risk factors.

Daily Wire reports:

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the administration was restricting the intake of refugees into the United States to the lowest-level on record under the current refugee system.

In a memo to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump announced that he was setting the refugee cap at 18,000 refugees for Fiscal Year 2020 — 12,000 lower than Trump’s cap for Fiscal Year 2019, and “the lowest number since the modern refugee system was created nearly 40 years ago,” The Washington Times reported.

The Trump administration reportedly considered going even lower when they first entertained the idea over the summer, cutting the number all the way down to nearly zero.

I remember when Obama wanted the cap set to 110,000 refugees. But he didn’t want them to live in his mansion or pay with him with his own money. He wanted them to live next to your children’s school, and pay for them with your money. So compassionate! Refugees are a problem for private voluntary charities, not for government, paid for by taxpayers who can barely make ends meet already.

Well, so I guess we do have reasons for wanting to elect Republicans in 2020! If you agree, then share the post! We can’t ALWAYS be relying on attacking Democrats to reach the people in the middle who decide elections. We have to tell them what Republicans will do that is different from what Democrats will do.