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KEY POINTS Senate Democrats won two key last minute changes to the rules of Trump’s impeachment trial. Each side will now have three days to make its opening statements, instead of two. The Senate will also automatically admit evidence from the House investigation into Trump last fall. WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats won two key changes to the rules of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial as proceedings kicked off Tuesday afternoon. The changes will permit each side to stretch out the 24 total hours they’ve been allotted for making arguments over three days, instead of two, as McConnell had initially proposed....

Similarly, today, it is surprising to hear with what composure, and how glibly, members of the public, and even politicians, talk of a second American civil war. Some conservatives assume that they, having more arms and more training and practice in using them, would quickly prevail over the soy-boy Left. Proficiency with firearms will be no match for nuclear bombs, which Democrat Eric Swalwell has already suggested deploying domestically. The Democrats are busy even now destroying the institutions of government, the institutions for the peaceful adjustment of differing interests. They are doing this through the Mueller witch hunt, bureaucratic and...

s this our new normal? During my FBI career as a Special Agent and ultimately Assistant Director, the FBI, police, and domestic security agencies viewed terrorist incidents through a black and white, binary lens. If we “allowed” an attack to happen, we had failed. If we prevented an attack, we had succeeded. Yet, the increase in lone wolf, soft-target attacks — particularly attacks where trucks and cars are driven into large, vulnerable crowds — can actually be viewed as a symptom of our success. The Halloween terror attack that occurred in New York City raises an important question: Do we...

A league spokesman said owners will consider player input on the issue, but suggested that a rule change would not require player approval. The National Football League’s owners will discuss next week whether to unilaterally change league policy and require players to stand during the national anthem. The decision to consider the change came after weeks of persistent criticism from President Donald Trump about players protesting during the anthem, including his call for fans to boycott games if the demonstrations continue. On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence left an Indianapolis Colts game after members of the San Francisco 49ers took...

UPDATE: Conservative commentator Ann Coulter says she has canceled her speech planned for this week at UC Berkeley

Full title: Sarah Palin: Russia Wins While America Sits On Its Ass (pardon my Великорусский язык) Russia just built and employed icebreakers to control Northern passageways while busily flagging life-sustaining resource-rich underseas acreage, with zero pushback from the U.S In laymen’s terms, The Great Bear seized on America’s weak “uni-party” that controls our government, and watched our politicians go along to get along with Obama’s agenda built on disdain for an “all of the above” energy plan, a nonchalant attitude about bankrupting our government, and overall ignorance about purpose of national borders. Way to go Democrats. And capitulating Republicans. The uni-party was...

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Monday called for armed protesters who occupied a federal building in Oregon to "stand down peaceably." "Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds," Cruz told reporters in Iowa. "But we don‘t have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence against others. So it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation."

New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade capitulates in a two-decade-long dispute with gay groups. One of New York City’s longest-running civic and political battles came to an end this week, not with a bang but a whimper. The organizers of the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade announced that they would allow the Lavender and Green Alliance—a group composed of gay, lesbian, and transgender people of Irish descent— to participate in the annual march up Fifth Avenue. The group’s application to join the parade had been denied every year since 1994 due, parade organizers said, to its advocacy of...

14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, who made headlines last week after he was arrested for bringing a homemade clock into school, has already received praise from a number of familiar names such as Barack Obama and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Now, to Mohamed’s further delight, tech giants Microsoft have pledged their allegiance to the whizz-kid in generous fashion. The multinational technology firm expressed their support for Ahmed, not through kind words, but by sending the young engineer a huge hamper of tech goodies, including a Cube 3D printer.

GEORGETOWN — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that he hoped Congress could override a veto of a resolution that disapproves of President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with the Iranians, but he acknowledged the president still had "a great likelihood of success." In remarks to the Scott County Chamber of Commerce, McConnell said he hoped "to have a respectful, uplifting debate" when the Senate returns to vote on the resolution. But McConnell, who repeatedly has called the deal with the Iranians "flawed," cautioned that Democrats could sustain a veto of the resolution Republicans will offer when they return...

Obama is on his way to decimating the greatest military organization on the planet. He has already fired much of the cream of the officers’ corps, letting go of hundreds of our most experienced, battle-hardened combat leaders, and now he's about to gut the rank and file, the soldiers, the grunts, the mainstay of any army. I have stated many times, as one who remembers Pearl Harbor and the dark days of World War II, that only two things protect America: (1) the grace of Almighty God and (2) the United States military. It was that way in 1941, and...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-14/hillary-clinton-aide-iran-nuclear-deal-really-significant-

....Obama heralded a historic nuclear agreement with Iran Tuesday as an opportunity for the longtime foes to move in a "new direction," while sharply warning Congress that it would be irresponsible to block the accord.

The final nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 world powers reportedly set to be announced on Monday complies with all the “red lines” set out by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Iranian semi-official news agency Fars reported citing a “source privy to the talks.” The deal, to be known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPOA), amounts to “a collection of multiple agreements that all fall within the red lines specified by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,” Fars said. Khamenei doubled down on his set of demands during a meeting with Iran’s President Rouhani in Tehran...

Channel 2 analyst Ehud Yaari says agreement will be signed early next week after US drops demand for snap inspections; Obama faces challenge of securing Congress’ approval A deal has been reached between the world powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program after a series of major American concessions, Ehud Yaari, the Middle East affairs commentator for Israel’s Channel 2 television, said Friday night. “It is done. It is done,” he said, and will be signed “early next week.” The aim of the agreement is to put a negotiated end to a 13-year standoff with Iran over its suspect...

A Maersk ship flagged under the Marshall Islands is forced to sail to southern Iran by its Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran appears to be testing the resolve of the United States and President Barack Obama in its latest adventure with a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces operating in the region heard and responded to the distress call sent by the M/S Maersk Tigris, sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands, during a confrontation with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Marshall Islands are under a defense treaty with the United States; the U.S....

March 17, 2015 Special Dispatch No.5996 Iranian Leader Khamenei: A Society Steeped In The Spirit Of Martyrdom Is Unstoppable; Khamenei's Representative In IRGC Qods Force: We Shall Not Rest Until We Raise Flag Of Islam Over The White House In statements on February 26, 2015, both Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ali Shirazi, his representative in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) elite Qods Force, stressed the need to instill the values of jihad and martyrdom in Iranian society, and reiterated the ideological principles of the Islamic Revolution – enmity towards the U.S. and opposition to American hegemony and...

The legal principal is that if you ratify through funding of the illegal act of a president gone berserk, you have just ratified his illegal act, waived objection and approved of his decree. STOP THIS!!

Terrorist factions in Gaza are apparently split once again over the possibility of accepting an Egyptian ceasefire proposal, with Hamas stubbornly refusing to accept it and at least two Islamic Jihad leaders claiming a truce will come into effect imminently. Islamic Jihad official Khaled al-Battash told interviewers a ceasefire would be coming into effect "within hours", along the same basis as the ceasefire following Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, as outlined by an Egyptian proposal. The truce deal would include provisions for the rehabilitation of Gaza after a month and a half of fierce fighting, as well as an...

As the well-coordinated, Russian and Militant Muslim giant military pincer maneuver continues to rapidly succeed for control of the Eastern Mediterranean formerly Sovereign Nations, will NATO's Turkey soon have to decide if Obama's failed "Pen and Phone, Whack-a-Mole" Military Exceptionalism, is better or worse than Putin or ISIS? Control of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Suez Canal by Russia's Navy would allow the free flow of Muslim Militant's Oil to the Russian-controlled Ukraine Oil Pipelines to Europe, at a mutually beneficial price to Putin and ISIS, of course.