No one died after Iran launched a missile at a U.S. base in Iraq on January 8, but 34 U.S. soldiers have now been diagnosed with concussions or traumatic brain injuries.
NPR reported that eight of the troops with the brain injuries have been moved to the United States for treatment. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a press briefing on Friday that the troops were injured after Iran fired missiles at the al Asad airbase where the troops were station in Iraq. The attack was Iran’s response to the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which was in response to Iran’s escalated attacks on U.S. bases and an embassy in Iraq.
President Donald Trump initially said “No Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime,” but the Pentagon has now had to correct his remarks. Trump was correct to say that “We suffered no casualties.” Trump later downplayed the severity of the injuries, according to The Guardian, saying: “I heard that they had headaches. And a couple of other things. But I would say, and I can report, it is not very serious.”
Hoffman said during his press briefing that “This is a snapshot in time, what he wanted to make sure is that you’re provided with the most accurate numbers.”
Hoffman also suggested that news about the injuries was slow to develop based on the timeline of symptoms for brain injuries.
“What we saw was the number of people who were initially screened for concussion-like symptoms that showed up at one of the medical providers on the base saw their conditions improve rapidly,” he said during the briefing. “Others we saw their conditions didn’t improve — some got worse and had severe enough symptoms that they were transported on for further treatment.”
More from NPR:
The 8 wounded American soldiers who arrived in the U.S. are part of a larger contingent of 18 troops diagnosed with TBI who were initially medically evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Those now in the U.S. will be treated on at out-patient basis either at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. or at their home bases, according to Hoffman.
The 9 U.S. troops who remain in Landstuhl will continue to undergo evaluation and treatment there. One American soldier who was diagnosed with TBI after the Iranian attack and transported to Kuwait has now returned to duty in Iraq; 16 others who stayed in Iraq after being diagnosed with TBI have also returned to duty.
Hoffman was questioned whether the soldiers who received traumatic brain injuries would be awarded Purple Hearts, since the injury qualifies for the award. Hoffman wouldn’t confirm or deny any awards, saying, “That is a decision the services will have to make in due time.” He added: “I’m not going to get ahead of the service secretaries on that.”
Hoffman also said that Defense Secretary Mark Esper called for acting under secretary for personnel and readiness Matt Donovan to help staff review the procedures for reporting injuries.
“The secretary’s direction is focused on the fact that if you look at the different types of reporting systems that we have, sometimes the administrative reporting of an injury is different than the medical reporting. We need to get that clarified, we need to get a little better handle on it,” Hoffman said. “We need to be as transparent as possible on this.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is a Democratic socialist. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is a Democratic socialist. And the new star of the Democratic Party has already endorsed Sanders in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
So it made perfect sense that with Sanders stuck in the Senate listening to Democrats drone on endlessly about President Donald Trump as they seek to remove him from office, AOC would step in to substitute for the Vermont senator at a campaign rally in Iowa.
But the 29-year-old — who spends a lot of time taking selfies and posting on Instagram — completely forgot to mention Sanders’ name during her speech in Iowa City, Iowa.
With Sanders indisposed, he also tapped film director (and longtime Trump Derangement Syndrome) sufferer Michael Moore to deliver some remarks.
Moore remembered his job: He breathlessly praised Sanders, even going so far as to say that watching the 77-year-old senator on the campaign trail has made him cry.
“I’m so excited about our possibilities here. Right here in Iowa,” Moore said. “Bernie was in Dubuque a couple of weeks ago and I scribbled this down here -– I came to tears watching him say this.”
“It was a Q-and-A at a big town hall and someone asked him if he thought he was too old to be president of the United States [and Bernie said] ‘I’ve been saying for months, I’ll tell you what’s too old — 40 million people in this country not having health care. That’s too old.’”
Moore said Sanders is right on climate change, the minimum wage, and civil rights, then added that he’s the only candidate who can beat Trump in November.
“We have to crush Donald J. Trump with the truth and with a candidate who is the opposite of Donald J. Trump,” he said.
Then Moore introduced AOC.
The first-term lawmaker said voters should not accept the same old kind of candidate. “It is bold and it is a risk,” she said. “We hedge our bets, we get more of the same. And the same has not been helping. So our job right now is to come together …We’ve got 10 days left, 10 days,” she said, referring to the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3.
AOC then launched into a diatribe about one of her pet issues, immigration policy, before advocating for Medicare-for-all and her expansive environmental policy, the “Green New Deal.”
“This is not just about how we win, it’s about how we heal,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “From our bodies to this land, we are going to need entirely new paradigms of public policy in order to heal.”
“We are going to win because we are developing an unprecedented multigenerational, multiracial, working-class movement which is prepared to take on the corporate elite and the entire One Percent and put together an administration that stands for justice,” he said. “Economic justice, social justice, racial justice, and environmental justice,” she said.
But she never once mentioned Sanders name. Not exactly what you want when you have someone fill in for you at a campaign rally.
Amidst the president’s historic in-person speech at the March For Life in Washington, DC, the Trump administration has put one of the most liberal states in the country on notice: Stop forcing insurance providers to cover abortion, or risk financial consequences.
“Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), announced an action to protect human life and the conscience rights of all Americans,” said the office in a statement.
The statement serves as a formal notification to California “that it cannot impose universal abortion coverage mandates on health insurance plans and issuers in violation of federal conscience laws,” reads the statement.
If the state refuses to comply with the government’s mandate after 30 days, the Trump administration has declared that it will take steps to prevent California from using HHS funds. It’s currently unclear what specific funds would be at risk.
According to statements reviewed by the New York Times, California leaders have reacted to the decision with indignance.
“The Trump Administration would rather rile up its base to score cheap political points and risk access to care for millions than do what’s right,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who mentioned a previous federal opinion that agreed with his stance. “California will continue to protect a woman’s right to choose, and we won’t back down from defending reproductive freedom for everybody — full stop.”
Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, revealed in a statement on Twitter that he would “fight this by any means necessary,” reports the news agency.
Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, has implied that this decision may just be the beginning of a trend.
“We’re sending a message that if any state has done what California has done, they should expect to be found likewise in violation,” said Severino, reports the news agency
“No one in America should be forced to pay for or cover other people’s abortions,” announced Severino in a press release. “Stop forcing people of good will to subsidize the taking of human life, not only because it’s the moral thing to do, but because it’s the law.”
Alex Azar, the secretary for HHS, also lauded the decision, noting how it delivers on the Trump administration’s “promise to protect human life and all Americans’ freedom of conscience.”
“Under President Trump, HHS has been vigorously enforcing the statutes Congress passed to protect Americans’ consciences and institutionalizing these protections within the department’s civil rights work,” continues Azar.
As the Daily Wire previously reported, President Trump announced Friday that he would work together with conservatives to champion the pro-life cause as a “voice for the voiceless,” and hammered Democrats for promoting abortion.
“Together we are the voice for the voiceless, when it comes to abortion Democrats, and you know this, you’ve seen what’s happened, Democrats have embraced the most radical and extreme positions taken and seen in this country for years and decades and you could even say for centuries,” Trump announced in front of tens of thousands of pro-life advocates gathered in the capital. “Nearly every top Democrat in Congress now supports taxpayer-funded abortion all the way up until the moment of birth.”
“Senate Democrats even blocked legislation that would give medical care to babies who survived attempted abortions and that’s why I’ve called on Congress, two of our great senators here, so many of our congressmen here, and called upon them to defend the dignity of life and to pass legislation prohibiting late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in their mother’s womb,” said Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff has been holding court for days in the Senate, laying out the House’s case against President Donald Trump.
But no one cares. On the second day of the trial, the snoozefest drew fewer than 9 million viewers (that’s a million or so fewer the average nightly viewing of Jeopardy, the Washington Examiner noted).
And senators are shocked that the galleries above the Senate — where average Americans can sit during the supposedly historic trial — have been half empty day after day.
Here’s something less shocking: “President Trump’s approval rating has climbed to match the highest of his presidency, boosted by majority approval of his economic stewardship even as Americans remain deeply divided on whether the Senate should remove him from office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.”
That’s right, Trump’s approval has been going up, not down, during the impeachment trial.
“The Post-ABC poll finds 44 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s overall job performance and 51 percent disapprove. While views of Trump remain negative, Trump’s approval rating is significantly improved from his 38 percent mark in late October,” The Post wrote.
But there were a few interesting findings in the data. Among registered voters, those considered more likely to vote, that 44/51 split rises to 47/50. And among independents, which helped push Trump to victory in 2016, the numbers are even better at 47/48.
More: 56% of those surveyed approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, up 10 percentage points from September and his highest mark since he took office on January 20, 2017.
“The findings suggest the country’s strong economy and heightened support from men and independents are helping Trump weather an impeachment trial in which Democrats have argued Trump abused his presidential powers and obstructed a congressional investigation of his actions. Trump’s 44 percent approval mark is similar to other recent national polls, though other polls have shown Trump’s rating stable or increasing slightly,” The Post wrote.
The poll’s finding were predictable when it came to partisan politics. “Partisans continue to be starkly divided on Trump’s fate, with more than 8 in 10 Democrats supporting his removal and more than 8 in 10 Republicans opposed. Independents narrowly lean against removal, with 42 percent saying the Senate should remove Trump from office while 51 percent say it should not.”
In another poll, this one by Gallup, Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy was even higher — in fact, the highest at any point in about two decades. “The latest figure from Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is +40, the highest reading recorded since +44 in October 2000.”
Gallup also noted that “tracking of economic confidence over the past 28 years has recorded index readings at or above the +40 mark in just nine other measurements, all between 1998 and 2000 — with the highest level recorded in January 2000, at +56”:
Americans’ buoyant confidence in the economy in Gallup’s latest poll, conducted Jan. 2-15, likely reflects the U.S. unemployment rate’s continued stay at a 50-year low. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to reach record highs — and flirts with reaching the 30,000 marker.
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is the average of two components: Americans’ ratings of current economic conditions and their views on whether the economy is getting better or getting worse. The index has a theoretical maximum of +100, achieved if all Americans believe the economy is excellent or good and getting better. The theoretical minimum is -100, if all Americans say the economy is poor and getting worse.
The current conditions component score of +54 is the result of 62% of Americans saying the economy is “excellent” or “good” and 8% describing it as “poor.” Meanwhile, the economic outlook component score of +26 is the result of 59% saying the economy is “getting better” and 33% saying it is “getting worse.”
Trump Attorney Blasts Dems for Using ‘Completely Out of Place’ Quote from Founding Father Against Trump
Samuel Corum / Getty ImagesJay Sekulow, a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team, speaks to journalists in the Senate subway during a short recess in the Senate impeachment trial of Trump on Jan. 24, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum / Getty Images)
By Jack Davis Published January 25, 2020 at 7:52am
Democrats who use comments from Founding Father Alexander Hamilton to buttress their attacks on President Donald Trump are taking Hamilton’s words out of context, according to one of Trump’s attorneys.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff of California and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York have each used Hamilton’s words during Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.
“They did not intend for the power of impeachment to be used frequently or as a matter of policy… but they put it in the constitution for a reason”
During Jerry Nadler’s opening remarks at the impeachment trial, he referenced Alexander Hamilton’s 1792 letter to George Washington but the graphic he used said it was written in 1972 pic.twitter.com/peGDLX7nlK
Hamilton, then the treasury secretary, was writing to then-President George Washington in 1792 on a variety of issues, including the possibility that America could become a monarchy, when he wrote the words currently being cited by the Democrats.
“When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanor — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind,’” Hamilton wrote.
Using the quote was “inapplicable and completely out of place,” Sekulow told reporters Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
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Democrats “used this famous quote from Alexander Hamilton about impeachment,” Sekulow said, as Fox News reported.
“It wasn’t about impeachment. It was a letter regarding policy disputes between Hamilton and Washington 5 years after the Constitution was adopted.”
“So they’re not only taking the wrong law, they’re taking the wrong quotes from the Founding Fathers,” he said.
“It would be really appropriate if they cited the right provisions and what the Founding Fathers were actually talking about,” Sekulow added.
So Adam Schift admits his actions are meant to void the votes of millions of American voters because he doesn’t like their choice. Alexander Hamilton warned about political parties weaponizing Impeachment and here we have it! https://t.co/iFtbcvRbLV
Democrats have weaponized (and trampled on) the Constitution!
Our Founding Fathers would be appalled:
HAMILTON: called impeachment “the greatest danger” when decided “by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt”
In a Jan. 7 Op-Ed for Fox News, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wrote, “In Federalist 66, Alexander Hamilton argued that dividing the power of impeachment and removal between the House and Representatives and the Senate would ‘guard against the danger of persecution, from the prevalency of a factious spirit’ in either chamber.”
“Considering how deeply divided our nation is, there can be little doubt that a ‘factious spirit’ is driving this impeachment,” Lee wrote.
“It was both prescient and providential that our founding fathers saw fit to guard against this by placing the final say on conviction and removal not in the hands of the House of Representatives, a court, some specialized tribunal, or even a jury, but in the Senate.”
Elsewhere in his Op-Ed, Lee noted that impeachment was inextricably linked to politics.
“[T]he authors of the Constitution knew impeachment — for good or ill — was an inherently political act,” he wrote.
“James Wilson, one of the nation’s first Supreme Court justices and one of the principal architects of the Constitution, described impeachment as “confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishments.”
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Impeachment Audience Shrinks as First Week of Trial Winds Down
As House Democrats make their impeachment case against President Donald Trump, Americans are increasingly tuning out.
TV ratings of the proceedings slipped on Thursday afternoon, marking the second straight day of declines. ABC, NBC and CBS collectively drew about 3.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen data shared by Fox Corp., down more than 20% from the trial’s first day on Tuesday.
Fox News, CNN and MSNBC attracted about 4 million viewers together, a 32% plunge from Tuesday.
According to TV Newser, a total of 7.83 million tuned in on Thursday, a drop of 12 percent from Wednesday and 29 percent from Tuesday, which was opening day.
Naturally, far-left CNN attracted fewer viewers than any of the other six networks covering impeachment. Get this… CNN was only able to attract an average of 991,000 viewers. The President of the United States is on trial and CNNLOL can’t even average a million viewers.
Fox News beat everyone, with 1.531 million viewers.
Basically, cable news ratings are normal, or essentially what they are when the president is not on trial, which tells you just how disinterested the American public is.
And if that doesn’t tell you how bored real Americans are by impeachment, people aren’t even showing up in person to watch this “historic event.”
Try not to laugh, but “The Senate spectator gallery was at least half-empty throughout the first week of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial,” reports the New York Post.
Here’s the bottom line…
A Gallup poll taken at the time showed 71 percent of the public watched Nixon’s Watergate hearings. A new Emerson polls shows “about one-third of voters (33%) are watching almost all or a lot of the impeachment trial, while 36% are watching hardly any or none of the trial. 31% said they are watching some of it.” But even that’s a lie. The ratings prove it. If 33 percent were, in fact, watching almost or all of the trial, ratings would be ten times higher. People are just saying they are watching; then, they obviously are not.
Keep in mind that these evermore dismal TV ratings are coming after the media elite attempted to juice interest in the trial with all that fake gushing over Pencil Neck’s opening statements on Wednesday.
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, who really should know better, told all 14 people who watch CNN that Adam Schiff’s summation was so perfect, so sexy, so orgasmic, Toobin found himself pregnant with Schiff’s love child and having contractions right there on the CNN set — or words to that effect.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin said that after Schiff finished off his statement, she smoked a Lucky, rolled over, and fell into the deepest and most satisfying sleep of her spinster life — or words to that effect.
It was all bullshit, of course, all a gaslighting campaign to con the public into tuning in the next day. But because the media have no credibility, viewership crashed by double digits the next day and by nearly a third on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in the real world…
Trump’s job approval rating just hit a new high in, of all places, a far-left Washington Postpoll.
Among registered voters, Trump enjoys 47 percent support, with 50 percent disapproving.
Trump sits at about even with independents: 47 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove.
A blazing 58 percent of registered voters approve of the job Trump’s doing with the economy, with only 36 percent disapproving.
Oh, and…
A majority of registered voters oppose Trump’s removal from office, 51 to 45 percent.
Even among all adults — meaning not screening out registered voters, meaning a bigger pool of Democrats — a plurality of 49 to 47 percent oppose removing Trump from office; Trump’s job approval number hit a new high of 44 percent approve (51 percent disapprove); and 56 percent approve of his handling of the economy, a ten-point bump from September.
Other polls reflect the same.
Since the impeachment hoax, Gallup’s poll of all adults shows Trump’s job approval rating climbing from 39 percent to 44 percent. Among independents, approval climbed eight points, from 34 to 42 percent.
Currently, a majority of 51 percent oppose removing Trump from office, while only 46 percent support removal. Independents oppose removal by a 49 to 46 percent margin.
Couple closing points…
This week, I noted how the right track/wrong track numbers are in the best shape we’ve seen in more than a decade. Gallup’s latest polling backs this up.
On the economy, Gallup shows economic confidence at a +40, the highest level in 20 years. That’s not a typo — the highest number since October 2000.
Overall satisfaction with the way things are going in America just climbed to 41 percent, the highest level in 15 years. Fifteen!
What’s happening here are two things, and that they are happening while Trump is on trial is fairly amazing…
Although Democrats and the corporate media are literally spending billions of dollars to destroy Trump, it is not working. The public is not only tuning it all out; Trump’s average job approval rating today is only 1.5 points lower than Barry Obama’s was at this same point in his failed presidency.
The reason for this is that the media’s worst nightmare is coming true. The public is starting to see Trump as a president and to notice the superb job he is doing both at home and abroad, a true era of peace and prosperity, our first since September 11, 2001.
The media are probably keeping Trump’s job approval rating down a few points. Trump’s Twitter account is probably keeping it down a few more. But everything changes once it’s mano y mano, once Trump can get out of the White House and on the campaign trail to make his case — and he has a great case to make.
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