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Failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams prepared the Democrats' response to President Trump's State of the Union address. Going into it, none of us really knew what to expect but honestly, the bar wasn't set too high. Abrams never conceded to Brian Kemp and she's continually pushed the idea that "voter suppression" (not the people's voice) is what kept her from winning her bid for governor of Georgia. Although the Democrats might not have known exactly what President Trump was going to address on Tuesday night, whoever wrote her speech cast a really, really wide net. She mentioned issues Trump didn't even touch on,...

UPDATE: Schumer responds. Thanks for watching my speech but you must have missed this line: “Even more empty than his policy promises are President Trump’s calls each year for unity�#SOTU https://t.co/dtKUKBnNlK— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 5, 2019 ***Original post***President Trump took to Twitter Tuesday morning and slammed Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. I see Schumer is already criticizing my State of the Union speech, even though he hasn’t seen it yet. He’s just upset that he didn’t win the Senate, after spending a fortune, like he thought he would. Too bad we weren’t given more credit for the Senate win by...

Sen. Ben Sasse and his Republican colleagues did not receive the unanimous consent they were looking for on legislation that would’ve outlawed infanticide.  Democratic Washington Sen. Patty Murray blocked the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” presented by Sasse, that would’ve given infants who survived abortions medical care and protections under the law.“Frankly, this shouldn’t be hard,” he said.  In this country, all of us are created equal. If that equality means anything, surely it means that infanticide is wrong. Frankly, this shouldn’t be hard. pic.twitter.com/9MyPVGpw7p— Senator Ben Sasse (@SenSasse) February 5, 2019 Murray argued the legislation is not necessary because...

KERRICK, Minn. – Driving through this small farm town in rural east-central Minnesota, it would be easy to miss the fact that a special election is just days away. The typical trappings of campaign season — lawn signs, back-to-back attack spots — are few and far between. Talk of frozen pipes and a spike in winter ice cream sales, not politics, dominates chatter at the general store off Hwy. 23. But the tiny Pine County township (population 63) is at the center of a hotly contested and consequential special election for a state Senate seat. A few miles up the...

The U.S. government is preparing to begin construction of more border walls and fencing in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, likely on federally owned land set aside as wildlife refuge property. Heavy construction equipment was expected to arrive starting Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. A photo posted by the nonprofit National Butterfly Center shows an excavator parked next to its property. Congress last March approved more than $600 million for 33 miles (53 kilometers) of new barriers in the Rio Grande Valley. While President Donald Trump and top Democrats remain in a standoff over Trump’s demand for $5.7...

Presidents often use the State of the Union address to pay homage to Americans who have persevered and overcome adversity. During Tuesday night's address, President Donald Trump plans to honor these men, women and children who come from various walks of life but represent Americans across the country. Debra Bissell, Heather Armstrong, and Madison ArmstrongGerald and Sharon David of Reno, Nevada, were tragically murdered in their home in Nevada by an illegal immigrant in January 2019. The terrible loss has devastated both their community and three generations of their family who will be represented at the State of the Union: the...

Russian Lobbyist Linked to Hillary Clinton at Infamous Trump Tower Meeting — Received Half-a-Million Dollars in Suspicious Payments Before and After Meeting Jim Hoft by Jim Hoft February 4, 2019 81 Comments California US Representative Devin Nunes shared on FOX News that Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, working with Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, likely set up the entire Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner as a way of entrapping the Trump campaign. The whole thing was a setup! On FOX News, Nunes, who sat through hours of testimonies related to the Trump – Russia farce, said...

(KGTV) - The California Supreme Court Monday upheld the conviction and death sentence for David Westerfield, the man found guilty of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam in 2002. Young Danielle was reported missing from her Sabre Springs home on Feb. 2, 2002, and her disappearance led to a search that spanned all of San Diego County. Investigators gathered enough evidence to arrest Westerfield, a neighbor of Danielle and her family, for her disappearance and death on Feb. 22. Five days later, Danielle’s badly decomposed body was found along Dehesa Road in Harbison Canyon. In August 2002, Westerfield was found guilty...

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily halted a Louisiana abortion law late Friday which had been set to go into effect Monday. The law is halted through Thursday and Alito noted in his brief order that the Justices need time to review the filings in the case and the order “does not reflect any view regarding the merits of the petition for a writ of certiorari that applicants represent they will file.” The 2014 law requires doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. The Center for Reproductive Rights petitioned...

President Trump announced Monday afternoon he will nominate Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to serve as the next Secretary of the Interior. Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump I am pleased to announce that David Bernhardt, Acting Secretary of the Interior, will be nominated as Secretary of the Interior. David has done a fantastic job from the day he arrived, and we look forward to having his nomination officially confirmed! 18.7K 12:13 PM - Feb 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 6,746 people are talking about this Bernhardt took on the acting position last fall when then Interior Secretary Ryan...

President Trump expressed optimism he’d reach a denuclearization deal with North Korea and said he’d announce the date of a second summit with Kim Jong-un likely by Tuesday’s State of the Union address. “I think North Korea wants to make a deal,” Trump told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in an interview that aired Sunday. Trump’s intelligence chiefs testified before lawmakers last week that it would be very unlikely that North Korea would give up its nuclear program. Trump, however, said that Kim Jong-un is “tired” and there’s a “good chance” of cementing a deal that could boost the North Korean...

Nearly 4,000 additional U.S. troops will be deployed to the southern border to assist Customs and Border Protection, the Pentagon announced Sunday. CNN reported that 3,750 troops will head to the border for 90 days to aid in placing razor wire along the border, as well as with mobile surveillance operations. The deployment will bring the number of active-duty forces in the area to roughly 4,350. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said last week that the department would send "several thousand" additional troops to the border, but declined to be more specific. The Hill has reached out to the Pentagon...

Virginia Republicans on Tuesday killed legislation that would have loosened abortion restrictions after the bill’s sponsor admitted it would allow the procedure even after a mother went into labor. A House subcommittee voted 5-3 to table H.R. 2491, called the Repeal Act, with all Republicans voting to table it and all Democrats voting against. “Virginia House Democrats proposed legislation to allow abortions up to just seconds before that precious child takes their first breath,” the Virginia House Republicans said on Facebook. “Watch for yourself. Thankfully, our strong conservative majority was able to defeat this bill.” In a viral video, Democratic...

EVMS President Richard Homan, MD, issued a statement Saturday saying the school shares "the outrage, alarm and sadness voiced by our alumni, the press and many on social media." Homan, who is also the dean of EVMS' School of Medicine, added that the photo is "absolutely antithetical to the principles, morals and values we hold and espouse of our educational and research institution and our professions."

"We are changing the size of the workforce to align with the revenue," says Jeanne Segal, McClatchy's director of public relations and communications.

As the national debate continues over new abortion laws in New York and Virginia, the latter of which includes comments from Governor Ralph Northam seeming to defend infanticide, many are questioning how legislation that far outside the mainstream could have been proposed and passed (in the case of New York) despite a new poll showing 81 percent of Americans actually support “substantial abortion restrictions.”The poll, conducted by Marist and commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, also shows that among those favoring restrictions on abortions, 66 percent were actually pro-choice proponents.…66 percent of those who identify as pro-choice would restrict abortion...

Across the country, Democratic officials are condemning party member Ralph Northam due to an unearthed medical yearbook photo of the Virginia governor dressed either as a man painted in stereotypical racist blackface or dressed as a KKK member. The photo from 1984 was first discovered by BigLeaguePolitics.com, has been confirmed, and has caused an uproar across the political spectrum as liberal elected officials call for Gov. Northam's resignation. Despite Democrats still praising an actual former Klansman from their party -- a la the dead Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia -- party officials are saying that Gov. Northam must resign and...

Democratic lawmakers and 2020 presidential candidates have largely avoided the quickly escalating national debate over late-term abortions prompted by state bills that would roll back those restrictions – and by controversial comments from supportive officials – as conservatives press party leaders to take a stand. After Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s comments about a late-term abortion bill in his state sparked outrage this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed not to be following the issue. “I just don’t know what he said,” she told reporters Thursday. Other congressional Democrats likewise declined to comment to Fox News, winding up a two-day...

Videos at link. The White House took a victory lap Friday after the Labor Department announced 304,000 jobs were created in January, some 139,000 more than economists anticipated. “Three hundred-thousand new jobs plus, 3.2 percent increase in wages, participation rates went up, hours worked went up, it doesn’t get much better than this,” National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said in a video posted to the White House Twitter page. “I hate to say I told you so folks,” he added. “We’re going at 3 percent plus, and I don’t care, you can line up 8,000 pessimistas, and they’re wrong....

A photo from Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook shows two men, one in blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, on the same page as the governor. The photo, which The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy of Friday from the Eastern Virginia Medical School library, comes from the 1984 yearbook, the year Northam graduated. On the half-page set aside for Northam, there is a headshot of him in a jacket and tie, a photo of him in a cowboy hat and boots and a third of him sitting casually on the ground, leaning against a convertible....