Willie Brown Throws Shade at Ex-Girlfriend Kamala Harris: Can’t Beat Trump

Former San Francisco mayor and California State Assembly speaker Willie Brown threw shade at his ex-girlfriend, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and the other contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020, writing Saturday that none of them can beat President Donald Trump.

In his weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle, Brown wrote:

Make no mistake, President Trump’s State of the Union address was the kickoff for his 2020 re-election campaign, and so far I’ve yet to see a Democrat who can beat him.

…

[T]he overnight polling after the speech showed that once again, he connected with voters, at least enough voters to make him a 2020 favorite.

You can’t say the same for the Democratic contenders. They all have impressive credentials, winning personalities and positive messages, but none displays the “people personality” that our media-savvy president has mastered.

…

Let’s just hope Democrats can figure out that we need to go beyond the left and motivate voters across the board, just as midterm congressional campaigns did under Nancy Pelosi’s leadership.

Brown acknowledged last month that he had dated Harris and given her jobs that helped her early political career.

Harris is running on a slate of left-wing policies, including “Medicare for All” and the so-called “Green New Deal,” which she embraced last week even though it calls for radical socialist measures such as paying Americans who are “unwilling” to work.

She has also said she would be willing to “eliminate” private health insurance, a position supported by only 13% of Americans.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/10/willie-brown-throws-shade-at-ex-girlfriend-kamala-harris-cant-beat-trump/

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar expected to join 2020 Dem race

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is set to join the 2020 presidential race Sunday, becoming the most prominent Midwestern candidate as the party tries to win back voters in a region that helped put Donald Trump in the White House.

Klobuchar said she would make a "big announcement" about her political plans at an event along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. She already is scheduled to speak Feb. 21 in Iowa, site of the nation's first caucuses on the nominating calendar.

Klobuchar, who easily won a third-term last year, has cited her broad appeal across Minnesota as she has discussed a potential campaign. She has drawn support from voters in urban, suburban and rural areas, including in dozens of counties Trump won in 2016.

She has said that success could translate to other Midwestern states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, reliably Democratic in presidential races for decades until Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton.

The list of Democrats already in the race features several better-known senators with the ability to raise huge amounts of money — Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The field soon could expand to include prominent Democrats such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

A Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll conducted by Selzer & Company in December found that Klobuchar was largely unfamiliar to likely Iowa caucus-goers, with 54 percent saying they didn't know enough about her to have an opinion, while 38 percent had a favorable opinion and 8 percent had an unfavorable opinion.

"She starts out perhaps with a better understanding of Midwestern voters, but I think she faces the same hurdles every one of them face, which is: Are Iowans going to find them either the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump or the candidate that most aligns with their ideologies and issues?" said John Norris, a longtime Iowa-based Democratic strategist. "I don't know that coming from Minnesota gives her any advantage with Iowans."

Klobuchar, 58, is known as a straight-shooting, pragmatist willing to work with Republicans, making her one of the Senate's most productive members at passing legislation.

The backdrop of Sunday's event is the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi. The span was built after the previous bridge collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people. Klobuchar had worked with then Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., to help fund the new bridge and get it completed at a faster-than-usual pace, and has cited it as an example of achieving results through bipartisan cooperation.

Klobuchar's focus in recent months has included prescription drug prices, a new farm bill and election security. She supports the "Green New Deal," a Democratic plan proposed this past week to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy.

But her legislative record has drawn criticism from both the GOP and some fellow Democrats. Some Republicans say Klobuchar is able to get things done because she pushes smaller issues. Some progressives say she lacks the kind of fire and bold ideas needed to bring significant change and excite voters.

Klobuchar, a lawyer and the former prosecutor in Minnesota's largest county, raised her national profile during a Senate Judiciary Committee last fall for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman when they were both in high school.

When Klobuchar asked Kavanaugh whether he ever had had so much to drink that he didn't remember what happened, he turned the question around. He asked Klobuchar, "Have you?"

Unruffled, Klobuchar continued as Kavanaugh asked again. Kavanaugh later apologized to Klobuchar, whose father is an alcoholic.

"When you have a parent who's an alcoholic, you're pretty careful about drinking," she said. "I was truly trying to get to the bottom of the facts and the evidence."

Among the other Midwestern lawmakers who could also seek the nomination are Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who has been visiting early-voting states, and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who established an exploratory committee last month.

Klobuchar campaigned with Democrats in Iowa last fall, and in December spoke to progressive farmers and activists about the importance of bridging the divide between urban and rural areas. She said the lesson learned after the 2016 election was "we are not going to leave the Midwest behind."

"This is the moment for the Midwest," she said, "and we don't want to be forgotten again in a national election."

https://www.ky3.com/content/news/Minnesota-Sen-Amy-Klobuchar-expected-to-join-2020-Dem-race-505633591.html

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>>5105730

WTF!?

'God Emperor Trump' at Italy's Viareggio Carnival Delights Internet

Social media users have been circulating images of a giant statue of US President Donald Trump dressed in a powerful armor that was presented in the annual Carnival of Viareggio in Italy.

Some suggested that the giant Trump depicted as “God Emperor Trump” refers to a famous miniature game called Warhammer 40k.

It came as part of the annual Carnival of Viareggio in Italy, where parade of floats and masks made of paper-pulp walk around the city depicting popular people, mostly political.

While the giant statue has impressed Trump’s supporters, it highlights Italy’s recent admiration and support of Trump’s administration.

https://www.albawaba.com/loop/god-emperor-trump-italys-viareggio-carnival-circulates-internet-1250164

Italians seem pretty obsessed….

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Border wall talks break down ahead of second possible government shutdown

With less than a week to go until another potential partial federal government shutdown begins on Friday, bipartisan compromise talks on funding for President Trump's proposed border wall have completely broken down, sources tell Fox News.

The sudden development again raised the possibility that Trump will declare a national emergency to access previously appropriated funds to initiate construction on a border wall. The White House agreed to a temporary spending bill late last month to end a 35-day government shutdown, although Trump said at the time that the move was not a "concession" and that he would not relent on his demands for a wall.

"Talks have broken down because Senate Republicans are refusing to compromise on limits to the Trump administration’s cruel immigration policies," a senior Democratic aide told Fox News on Sunday. "A deal that includes new physical barriers must also include limits on the number of ICE detention beds. If Senate Republicans won’t compromise with us on both, we can’t reach a deal.”

As recently as Friday, congressional negotiators said they expected a deal to be made, although they indicated that money for physical barriers would likely end up well below the $5.7 billion that Trump has sought to begin construction of the wall.

The amount discussed hovered much closer to $1.6 billion, participants in the negotiations said, a figure that was in a bipartisan Senate bill last year.

"That's what we're working toward," said California Democratic Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard.

On "Fox News Sunday," Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told Fox News that an emergency declaration remains on the table as one of many options.

"There are other funds of money that are available to [Trump] through something called reprogramming, there is money he can get at and is legally allowed to spend," Mulvaney said, noting that some funds were available even without declaring an emergency. "And I think it needs to be said again and again this is going to be legal –there are statues on the book as to how any president can do this."

Mulvaney added that a national emergency was "absolutely on the table."

Earlier this weekend, Democrats seemed to draw a firm line on spending.

"Throughout the talks, Democrats have insisted that a border security compromise not be overly reliant on physical barriers," said Evan Hollander, spokesman for Democrats who control the House Appropriations Committee. "We will not agree to $2 billion in funding for barriers."

The White House has previously offered a three-year extension of protections for 700,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, in exchange for the $5.7 billion Trump has been seeking for a barrier along the nation's southern border with Mexico. The offered deal would also extend protections for 300,000 recipients of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program – which protects immigrants from designated countries with conditions that prevent nationals from returning safely.

But Democrats have called the border wall nothing more than a political stunt that they will never agree to fund, while Republicans point to what they have called a "crisis" at the border. Central Americans are increasingly entering the United States illegally in groups of at least 100 people in rugged, remote stretches of the Mexican border, authorities said Friday upon releasing January figures that show total arrests fell for a second straight month.

A group of 325 Central Americans surrendered to agents Thursday near Lukeville, Ariz., according to Customs and Border Protection. Migrants told authorities that buses and trucks dropped them off throughout the night on a nearby Mexican highway that runs parallel to the border and they entered the U.S. together to wait for agents to find them. There were nearly 150 children, including 32 who were traveling alone.

The Border Patrol has encountered groups of at least 100 people 60 times since Oct. 1, compared to 13 during the entire 2018 fiscal year and two in the 2017 fiscal year, officials said. Many are in the desolate New Mexico Bootheel and Arizona deserts.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/talks-on-border-wall-break-down-ahead-of-second-possible-government-shutdown

Why are so many children getting cancer?

This is so sad, and so sweet…

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