NEW DJT
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1127632644471128065
DJT RETWEET
https://twitter.com/GOPChairwoman/status/1127242329222451202
Strengthened Trump crippling Democratic Senate recruitment, 0-7 so far
President Trump, riding the surging economy to better approval ratings, is giving top-tier potential Democratic Senate candidates pause as they mull taking on Republican candidates with strong ties to the White House in 2020.
At least seven Democrats have refused to enter Senate races in states the party has invested in, a surprise since some of those states have been judged on the verge of turning liberal blue.
As a result, the party is scrambling for new challengers to Republican incumbents in Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Colorado, Montana, and Maine.
“The president’s policies to make America great again are working and his message is resonating. What Democrat wants to run against success?” said GOP and Trump 2016 pollster John McLaughlin.
Considered an easy target during the 2018 midterm congressional elections, when special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia election interference investigation was hot and the economy not, the White House has seen the playing field radically changed in Trump’s favor.
“In 2020, the Democratic party is facing a president with a record setting economy, complete and total exoneration from the Mueller report, and he’s got a nimble and well-organized reelection campaign and that’s paired with a fully integrated Republican Party apparatus,” said a Trump insider.
Trump believes that his turnaround, and the threat he poses to foes in states he is welcomed in, have scared off challengers to his Senate supporters.
Some of those who have decided against running are major Democratic Party stars, leaving the Oval Office giddy with their rejection of a Senate run.
They include former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams who balked at challenging Trump ally Sen. David Perdue. The White House believes that Trump’s eleventh-hour visit to Georgia during the gubernatorial campaign helped to defeat Abrams in 2018. She has hinted this week of a 2020 presidential bid.
Also, former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke has passed on a second shot at the Senate in Texas where Sen. John Cornyn is up for reelection. O’Rourke did so well against Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 that many in the media suggested the state was turning Democrat. Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro also said no.
In Iowa, Rep. Cindy Axne and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack decided against challenging Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.
In Maine, former Obama aide Susan Rice decided against running against Sen. Susan Collins.
And in Montana, Republican Sen. Steve Daines looks good now that Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock has decided on a presidential bid.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee expects the trend to continue as wary Democrats reject wooing from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Schumer’s struggle to land his most sought-after recruits is a good indication of difficult it will be for Democrats to mount successful campaigns against our well-funded, battle-tested Republican incumbents,” said NRSC’s Jesse Hunt.
The White House, GOP political establishment, and pollsters said the improving economy and end of the Mueller investigation have been the key factors in boosting the president well before the reelection campaign kicks in.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen noted that Trump’s approval ratings have been slow to rise, but he expects it to happen — and right before the 2020 election.
“It is possible that opinions about President Trump are so hardened that nothing will change them. However, it often takes time before growing economic confidence translates into political benefits for the party in power. If that’s the case, the president’s ratings should start to inch up this fall,” he said.
A key ally of Trump said the struggle the Democrats are having wooing top-tier Senate candidates is a leading-edge indicator of 2020 and a sign the opponents feel Trump and his Senate ticket will be hard to beat.
“If the president were weak we’d see these people in these races. I think that they see a strong president, they see a strong group of Republican senators right there with him,” said the ally on background.
“He is the turnout factor and the turnout driver in 2020. And if people thought he was vulnerable, then Democratic candidates would be getting on the coattails of their 2020 presidential candidate and coast into office. And we just aren’t seeing this across the states,” added the insider.
cont:https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/strengthened-trump-crippling-democratic-senate-recruitment-0-7-so-far
tyb
MIAMI (AP) — The Rolling Loud Music Festival celebrating global hip-hop artists in South Florida did not go so well for Kodak Black and Lil Wayne.
The U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release that Black was arrested Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. The statement said he was charged with a crime in connection with weapons, but didn't elaborate.
Meanwhile, Lil Wayne said on social media that he refused to perform after being subjected to a search by security personnel or police. It wasn't immediately clear Sunday who had done the pat-down on the superstar rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.
But here's what he had to say on Twitter:
"To all my fans who came to see me at Rolling Loud, I'm sorry but I won't be performing," the post says. "The Festival Police (Not Rolling Loud) made it mandatory that I had to be policed and checked to get on the stadium grounds. I do not and will not ever settle for being policed to do my job."
Lil Wayne has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
As for Kodak Black, whose current name is Bill Kapri and who was born as Dieuson Octave to Haitian American parents in Florida, this arrest is the latest in a lengthy rap sheet he has assembled at the age of 21.
Authorities say Black will make an initial appearance in Miami federal court Monday. Court records don't list a lawyer for him.
Most recently, Black was arrested last month on drug and weapons charges as he crossed from Canada into the U.S. near Niagara Falls, New York. In Florida, he has been charged at different times with drug and weapons possession, armed robbery, sexual assault, probation violations and fleeing from officers.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Miami-Dade County police were also involved in his most recent arrest.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/florida/articles/2019-05-12/officials-rapper-kodak-black-arrested-on-weapons-charges
A professional wrestling star who played the villain in the film “Nacho Libre” has died after collapsing during a show in north London.
Silver King, 51, is believed to have suffered a heart attack in the ring while fighting Youth Warrior at the Greatest Show of Lucha Libre event on Saturday night. The former World Championship Wrestling star could not be saved despite the efforts of a medical team.
https://twitter.com/NewsBreaking/status/1127579970673491968
https://newsbreakinglive.com/2019/05/12/wrestler-and-nacho-libre-star-collapses-and-dies-during-show/
eyes on
>Anybody listening? I sincerely doubt it.
I am and in total agreement with both of you.
All is what I have been saying since it started
China expected to retaliate, Trump likely to meet with Xi at G-20, Kudlow says
White House Opens a New Window. economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he expects China Opens a New Window. to retaliate against the U.S. Opens a New Window. after President Trump increased tariffs Opens a New Window. last week on Chinese goods.
“The expected countermeasures Opens a New Window. have not yet materialized,” Kudlow told “Fox News Sunday.” “We’ll see what they come up with. So far we haven’t heard on that basis.”
The U.S. increased tariffs Friday on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent after trade negotiators from both countries failed to come to an agreement. Additionally, Trump called for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to begin raising tariffs on “essentially all remaining imports from China, which are valued at approximately $300 billion.”
The president told reporters last week that the tariffs would be paid for “mostly” by China, though Kudlow said Sunday that “both sides will pay,” noting that the tariffs will cause China to suffer GDP losses as its export market diminishes. “Both sides will suffer on this,” Kudlow said.
He also said trade talks will continue, though there are no set plans yet, and the likelihood of Trump meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month during the G-20 summit in Japan is “pretty good.”
In order for the U.S. to sign a trade deal with China, the White House economic adviser said Beijing must, in part, agree to stop stealing American intellectual property, end the practice of forced technology transfer and cyber intervention and fix tariff and non-tariff barriers.
“Things seem to be taking too long and we can’t accept any backtracking,” Kudlow said. “We don’t think the Chinese have come far enough. We will wait and see.”
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/china-tariffs-trump-xi-jinping-kudlow-trade
he said we are on the 5-7 yard line….
A recent report indicates that President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner suggested that then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other policy makers read a January 2018 Wall Street Journal piece regarding the cutoff of American funding for UNRWA, the international agency for Palestinian ‘refugees.’ As authors of the piece referenced in the leak, we are flattered. With the administration’s much discussed peace plan to be announced in June, let us offer some last minute suggestions.
Information regarding President Trump’s “plan of the century” is vague, with Kushner and other administration sources saying only that it will require “compromises from both sides” and that in the words of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it will “represent a significant change from the model that’s been used.”
Our first suggestion is therefore to not reveal the plan but to continue floating rumors and possibilities as a means of elucidating intentions.
Palestinian PM Shtayyah has already announced the plan will be “born dead” and that it is “financial blackmail.” But Shtayyah also hinted that the Palestinian Authority would seek to develop the Palestinian economy and to reduce dependence on Israel. This leads to our next suggestion. Outside of the plan itself, American policy should offers development aid to specific sectors of the Palestinian economy in exchange for an enhanced version of the current status quo. Aid and normalization should be exchanged for security.
Importantly, US aid should not provided to the corrupt Palestinian Authority or even through traditional American means such as USAID, but rather through bilateral mechanisms directly to Palestinian industries through trade organizations and free trade agreements. Expediting visas, educational exchanges, arranging lines of credit, and other mechanisms that provide access to US markets will do more to develop industries and prosperity than top-down aid in the form of money to corrupt oligarchs.
The worst possible approach would be a titanic development plan such as that proposed by the RAND Corporation in 2007, which would sink billions into towns, roads, railroads, and other infrastructure. Elegant, artificial, and imposed, it would founder under its own costs and be crushed by corruption. The prognosis for economic development furthering normalization and peace with Israel is mixed. There are encouraging examples, such as the growing Palestinian high tech sector, which has important connections with its much larger Israeli counterpart and with global markets.
Wealth is no guarantee that animosity will be overcome. For example, Palestinian billionaire industrialist Munib al-Masri recently claimed that “No Palestinian can agree to less than what Yasser Arafat agreed to: the 1967 borders, East Jerusalem as the capital, and the return of the refugees. It’s impossible for anyone to agree.” Traditional elites will not accept new realities, not least that the ‘right of return’ for Palestinians to homes formerly in Israel is off the table. But new elites might.
As for borders, the recent claim by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that in 2008, then Israeli PM Ehud Olmert offered PA President Mahmoud Abbas more than 100% of the West Bank, throwing in additional square kilometers so Abbas could claim victory, symbolizes the problem. But such offers are no longer on the table, thanks to both the growth of Israeli communities across the Green Line and Hamas’s rule in Gaza. This is why any plan for Gaza must be separated from that for the West Bank. Most Israelis have been vague about the plan, but the far right expressed strong opposition, particularly before the Israeli election. Palestinian rejection of the plan will further embolden the Israeli right and impel PM Benjamin Netanyahu to extend sovereignty to Israeli settlements or even annex the entire West Bank, while simultaneously empowering Islamists in Qatar, Iran, and elsewhere. Preemptive Palestinian rejection is a strategic mistake that gives up the chance for meaningful pressure on Israel regarding borders and Palestinian autonomy.
Global responses are also revealing. Outgoing French ambassador to the US Gérard Araud lauded Kushner’s approach but predicted its failure for being too pro-Israel. Araud also praised a host of Trump administration policy initiatives but predicted that “when Trump leaves power, everything will go back to business as usual. That’s the dream of Washington, DC.” Our final proposal is therefore that the administration delay revealing the plan in order to continue taming the foreign policy “blob.”
moar https://www.weeklyblitz.net/news/a-memo-to-president-trumps-adviser-jared-kusher/
I feel they already have on twatter…
I noticed today that in addition to moms, and mothers day, and so forth, that FATHERS is trending…
My first thought was they were posting for the dads who are also moms….