I&I Editorial

The rending of garments, keriah in Judiasm, is an extreme form of mourning, and it also can express outrage and shock. At the trial of Christ, “the high priest, rending his garments, said, ‘What need we any further witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy!’”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, high priestess of the Democratic Party establishment, heard the blasphemy from President Donald Trump during the State of the Union (and no, we’re not comparing the commander in chief to the Messiah), and rather than rend her white dress suit, she ripped up the pages of Trump’s address to Congress.

She may well have been mourning the death of 2020 Democrat presidential hopes, perhaps even the demise of her majority in the House of Representatives, which in the wake of Trump’s acquital is now clearly much more possible. But she was also outraged by a president repeatedly brandishing successes for the identity groups who are supposed to be locked in as the exclusive domain of Pelosi’s party.

Democrats would have us believe Republican politicians (except for a few centrists in their midst) are hostile, or at best indifferent, to the plight of black Americans. But Trump shone the spotlight on 13-year-old Arizona 8th grader Iain Lanphier, “first in his class and among the youngest at an aviation academy,” who “aspires to go to the Air Force Academy, and then, he has his eye on the Space Force,” newly established by Trump.

To Pelosi, and the many congressional Democrats to her left, the new U.S. Space Force is a superfluous warmongering enterprise. Those belonging to the identity groups her party provides for aren’t supposed to aspire to have anything to do with it.

Beside Iain was his great grandfather, Charles McGee, a surviving Tuskegee Airman. “After more than 130 combat missions in World War II, he came back to a country still struggling for Civil Rights and went on to serve America in Korea and Vietnam,” Trump told those assembled in the House chamber. “On December 7th, Charles celebrated his 100th birthday. A few weeks ago, I signed a bill promoting Charles McGee to brigadier general. And earlier today, I pinned the stars on his shoulders in the Oval Office.”

Why, Pelosi likely wondered, is a conservative president giving such a high honor to a distinguished black war hero? That kind of thing is not to be found in the Democrat script.

Then, how incensed Pelosi must have been when the president pointed up to the gallery at Philadelphia 4th grader Janiyah Davis and her mother, and announced “that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available, it is going to you, and you will soon be heading to the school of your choice!” After which Trump said, “Now, I call on the Congress to give 1 million American children the same opportunity Janiyah has just received. Pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act – because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.”

The already-massive power that public school teachers unions have in the Democratic Party may increase significantly in this year’s presidential election. And so any talk of offering poor minorities alternatives to sub-par public education in the country is an affront to politicians such as Pelosi who have spent a lifetime getting failed public schools as much taxpayer money as possible, and is a threat to their power.

The 2012 Loser Chooses A Losing Path In 2020

Alongside Pelosi’s fury over it becoming clearer and clearer that her impeachment has backfired disastrously, we have the loser of the 2012 presidential election, Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney, and his calculated decision to be the lone elected Republican in Washington to call for reversing the 2016 presidential election.

Both Pelosi and Romney – and probably almost all political figures and analysts of politics in America – have continually grossly underestimated Donald Trump.

It became clear at his East Room event in the White House on Thursday that despite his meager experience, this man is a shrewd, steely gladiator of the political arena. Romney was looking to the post-Trump era when he cast his impeachment vote with the Democrats, betting that the GOP and the country will be pining for a washing away of Trumpism.

It’s more likely Romney will soon find himself an ostracized, impotent legislator whose phone calls are left unsenatorially unreturned. Meanwhile, decidedly red, Trump-friendly Utah will find the former Massachusetts governor – who has flip-flopped on every issue one can name – to be less and less attractive.

Trump spent an hour thanking an endless number of political allies in the East Room on Thursday, thus cementing their loyalty to and affection for this most unusual of presidents. He showed off the Washington Post front page reporting his exoneration like Give ’em Hell Harry holding up the infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” banner headline. And Tuesday night’s address to Congress, with its awarding of the Medal of Freedom to conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, its surprise arrival of Sgt. First Class Townsend Williams back from Afghanistan to see his wife and children for the first time in months, plus other inspired stratagems, was one of the most successful and politically effective ever.

It isn’t “Teflon Don” occupying the Oval Office; it’s more like some alien force from a science fiction movie that consumes every weapon launched at it and becomes stronger because of the attacks. The exasperated Pelosi is at a loss as to what to do now. And Romney has likely placed himself at the onset of a long obscurity.

— Written by Thomas McArdle

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