The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Top Headline Summary
The attendance for tonight’s State of the Union Address will reflect the two major parties’ immigration split, The Wall Street Journal reports. Illegal immigrants will sit alongside Democrats, while law-enforcement personnel will accompany Republicans. Meanwhile, the Associated Press says that “President Donald Trump will call for optimism and unity in his State of the Union address, using the moment to attempt a reset after two years of bitter partisanship and deeply personal attacks.”
Speaking of political theater, at the request of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Ana Maria Archila will also be attending the State of the Union. National Review reminds us that Archila “publicly confronted Senator Jeff Flake over his support for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.”
From the New York branch of the Trump #Resistance: Prosecutors continue to fish for any crime that can implicate the president. NBC News reports, “Federal prosecutors have issued a subpoena for documents from President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, a representative of the committee said Monday night. The U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York is investigating allegations that the committee misspent some of the tens of millions it raised from donations and that some donors gave money in exchange for access to influence Trump administration policy positions.”
Gov. Ralph Northam isn’t the only Virginia executive official in hot water. Fox News reveals that “Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax issued a forceful pre-dawn denial on Monday to an allegation of sexual assault that surfaced after 15 years, in the latest political bombshell to rock Richmond where Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam is battling resignation calls over a racist photo from his medical school yearbook.” The Washington Post — which “could not find anyone who could corroborate either” side’s claims — shelved the allegation more than a year ago, but didn’t mind depicting Brett Kavanaugh as irrefutably guilty.
Voters have very little trust in the government, a new Gallup survey finds. In fact, “Just 35 percent trust the government to handle domestic problems and 41 percent international issues,” the Washington Examiner reports. Alarmingly, “Republican trust has dropped the most, a possible 2020 election warning sign.”
Judicial activism: According to The Daily Signal, “Federal district judges who preside over a portion of a single state have been able to block President Donald Trump’s actions 30 times through nationwide injunctions — far more than any other administration in history, according to the Justice Department. The trend has prompted the Trump administration’s Justice Department to seek an end to nationwide injunctions, following a similar argument made by the Obama administration.”
Sen. Patty Murray single-handedly quashed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have prohibited infanticide. Democrats needed a volunteer from a safe seat in a blue state to be a lightning rod for the party’s infanticide support.
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that state income tax revenues plummeted by $2.3 billion since he introduced his new budget plan last month — a bombshell that will force him to curb spending,” the New York Post reports. Predictably, “Cuomo’s preliminary analysis claims much of the impact is coming from a drop in revenues from the state’s highest income earners most impacted by the loss of write-offs of state and local tax deductions, known as SALT.” Keep in mind, lavish SALT deductions largely benefit the wealthy in blue states with high taxes at the expense of taxpayers in low-tax red states.
By 2060, the Census Bureau estimates that the number of foreigners coming to live in the U.S. will equal the current populations of France and Belgium. According to the Washington Examiner, “The figures shows that of the 79 million more [people living in the U.S.] in 2060, 75 million will be legal and illegal immigrants and their families.” Moreover, “Without immigration, according to the Census analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies, the U.S. population would increase by just 3.7 million, the latest sign that the country is on a path to zero native population growth.”
On the mend: After weeks of seclusion following cancer surgery, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has made her first public appearance, The Washington Post reveals. “The 85-year-old justice attended a production of ‘Notorious RBG in Song’ at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington.”
Warning signs: “The Islamic State group is regrouping in Iraq faster than in Syria, according to a new Pentagon report, underscoring the fluid nature of the security threat in the Middle East. The assessment of the efforts by ISIS to reestablish a foothold in the region comes as the U.S. military is moving forward with a plan to pull out of Syria.” (NBC News)
Humor: After the Northam blackface controversy, Democrats are suddenly concerned about due process, teases The Babylon Bee. “At publishing time, the nation’s Democrats had confirmed that they would return to ignoring due process completely the next time a Republican is accused of anything.”
Policy: “If nothing else, President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been unconventional, bucking orthodoxies of the Washington establishment,” Aaron Kliegman assesses of Trump’s foreign policy in The Washington Free Beacon. His conclusion? “Trump should continue casting aside the tenets of Obama’s foreign policy that so emboldened America’s enemies.”
Policy: Socialism has decimated Venezuela, thanks in large measure to that regimen’s hostility toward property rights, says Alexander Hammond at the Foundation for Economic Education. “The now-impoverished nation offers a clear reminder of the necessity of property rights for any functioning economy.”
For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.