In a long-anticipated move, President Trump has replaced his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, with Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC). Mick Mulvaney, in a series of verbal flubs, made himself less than useful to the president.

The president announced the change via twitter:

Mick Mulvaney became controversial during the"quid pro quo" Ukraine controversy which ultimately led to the impeachment and acquittal of the president. The House Democrats accused the president of using a quid pro quo with the president of Ukraine to get political dirt on a political rival, Joe Biden.

Mulvaney, apparently unaware that Democrats wait like spiders for verbal gaffes, put his foot in his mouth and said that the president does this all the time. Oops, now he is on his way to Northern Ireland, far far away from Washington D.C.

Meadows, a staunch conservative, along with Jim Jordan and other conservative House members, formed the Freedom Caucus during the Obama administration. Recently, Meadows and his conservative colleagues in the House played an important role defending the president during the unfair and biased proceedings during the House impeachment inquiry.

Meadows, Jordan, Elise Stefanik, John Ratcliffe, Louie Gohmert, and others were the only defense the president had as he was not even allowed to have counsel present in the secret and open impeachment meetings.

Meadows has served in Congress since 2013. He announced in December 2019 that he would not seek re-election. Meadows, having proven himself an able defender of the president, will now take on the important role of permanent Chief of Staff.

Watch:

New York City has experienced 22.5% rise in crime since the same time last year. Serious crimes such as robbery, assault, burglary, shooting, and auto crimes all saw increases.

The blame for the significant rise is being placed on new criminal justice reforms recently enacted into law. The NYPD stated in a press release, “Criminal justice reforms serve as a significant reason New York City has seen this uptick in crime."

According to Politico:

In the first two months of the year, the NYPD says 482 people who were released after being charged with a felony where cash bail is prohibited went on to be arrested for 846 new crimes. Of those, 299 were the seven major crimes the department uses to calculate crime stats.

Mayor Bill DeBlasio, one-time Democrat presidential candidate who supported bail reform, is now recognizing it as the source of the rise in crime in the city, saying,  “There’s a direct correlation to a change in the law, and we need to address it, and we will address it."

Governor Mario Cuomo, who previously demanded that the reforms be enacted, is now admitting that there are "unintended" consequences that need to be addressed. “We’re going to work on it because there are consequences we have to adjust for. There’s no doubt this is still a work in progress, and there are other changes that have to be made." He is now demanding reform of the reforms.

Many voices cautioned that the new law would lead to an increase in crimes. It did.

Take, for instance, the case of Tiffany Harris, a 35-year-old in Brooklyn who was arrested for attacking three Jewish women in Crown Heights. She was then released because of the new bail law. She assaulted someone else the very next day. Hers is just one of the hundreds of similar stories since bail reform became law.

New Jersey also enacted bail reform but gave judges the power to detain some criminals for trial with the proviso of a speedy trial. They also provided funding for more judges. New Jersey has seen a spike in crime but it is not as steep as New York's increases.

California lawmakers wrote SB10, a no-bail law that will go before the voters in the 2020 general election. Californians should look well to the New York and New Jersey before they approve such a law.

This video discusses the spike in crime one month after it took effect:

 

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chair, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis)  and his committee are conducting an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, and Joe Biden's son Hunter.
Senate leader Mitch McConnell has signaled his support for the investigation, saying, "I think it's worth taking a look." He revealed his hands-off approach, saying he does not tell committee chairpersons what to do.

Mitt Romney

The probe has been ongoing for  months but it has not garnered much media attention until this week when Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah)  said he would not support a subpoena of a witness in the probe, and then reversed course after he was assured that witnesses would be deposed privately.
Romney earned the ire of Republicans everywhere when he was the sole Republican to vote to convict President Trump for abuse of power in the impeachment trial in the Senate.
Some see his reversal on the investigation into Burisma and Biden as an attempt to appease his Republican colleagues. Romney's reversal should give the committee the needed number of votes to get a simple majority to approve the subpoena of Andriy Telizhenko, a former official at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington D.C.

Getting to the bottom of Ukraine affair

Johnson and Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) are also conducting a broader investigation of the Obama administration's White House meetings with Ukrainian officials in 2016.
Senator Johson expressed his desire to get to the bottom of this business, saying:
We are going to get to the bottom of what all has been happening here. Hopefully we will get access to the information to make it available to the American public so they really do understand what’s been happening.

Senate minority leader Charles "Chuck" Schumer is so rabidly pro-abortion that he went to the Supreme Court steps and threatened Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch if they dared to make "awful" decisions about any case concerning abortion.

Schumer and the radical Democrats are raging because the Supreme Court is now hearing arguments about the Louisiana law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at hospitals.

Democrats tried to equate what Schumer did with what President Trump said recently about Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg. In that case, Trump criticized Justice Sonya Sotomayor for a critical dissent that she wrote, implying that the court was favoring President Trump or his policies. Trump suggested that she and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from cases that concerned him or his policies. For more on this story go here.

Criticizing is not equal to threatening

Criticizing and asking or even telling justices to recuse themselves is not a threat. Telling justices that if they make "awful" decisions they will pay the price and they won't know what hit them is.

Schumer's office claimed that Schumer's words really meant that a grassroots movement would rise up and politically punish Republicans, but even CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin considered Schumer's words a threat, saying, "I’m certainly not going to defend what Chuck Schumer said. It did sound like a physical threat."

Chief Justice Roberts considered Schumer's statements threats and rebuked him, saying, “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

Senator McConnell rebukes Schumer

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opened the Senate with a strong rebuke for Schumer and read Schumer's threat into the congressional record. He addressed the first argument that Schumer wasn't threatening Gorsuch and Kavanaugh but Senate Republicans.

McConnell explained that the third branch of government, the judiciary, must remain independent from political passions in order to deliver justice. He reminded the Senate of the recent attacks made on the judiciary including Schumer's bullying of Justice Roberts during the recent impeachment trial of President Trump.

McConnell also reminded the Senate that reckless rhetoric had resulted in an enraged man shooting Republican congressmen at a baseball game in 2017. Congressman Steve Scalise nearly died from the gunshot wound he received. The shooter made sure the baseball players were Republican before he opened fire.

After McConnell finished his rebuke, Schumer rose to defend his indefensible words, saying that he would never threaten physical harm and that Republicans and McConnell were manufacturing the problem.

He said he believed passionately in "women's rights," using them to justify his threatening words, claiming that the right for women "to choose"(to abort their children) justifies the attack on the judiciary if that "right" is threatened by their decisions. If you dare to touch woman's right to choose (abortion), we'll burn the house down!

Chuck Schumer always gets plenty of screen time, so his defense is easy to find. McConnell's warnings are harder to find, but much needed so they are included in their entirety.

Watch McConnell explain the seriousness of Schumer's threats to the judiciary:

Former Vice President Joe Biden is once again a viable candidate for the Democrat nomination for president. Following a resounding win in South Carolina and endorsements of former candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Beto O'Rourke, Biden went on to win all of the southern states on Super Tuesday plus  Minnesota and Massachusetts.

Biden won a total of 9 of the 14 states voting on Super Tuesday including Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Massachusetts.

Biden's campaign appeared to be on its last leg just the week before the South Carolina primary,  but the DNC strategy to boost his campaign seems to have worked.  Many late voters decided to vote for Biden after Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Beto endorsed him. South Carolina congressman James Clyburn's endorsement also strengthened Biden going into Super Tuesday. Biden is expected to win the remaining southern states.

Senator Bernie Sanders won a significant number of delegates, but fewer than expected. Sanders won Utah, Colorado, California and his home state of Vermont. He is still a very viable candidate as the campaign goes on

Bloomberg

New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising his campaign, won American Samoa and picked up a few delegates in other states for a total of 44. The day after Super Tuesday, Bloomberg suspended his campaign and endorsed Joe Biden, saying that was what he needed to do to defeat Trump. Bloomberg's endorsement could also mean a welcome injection of funding for Biden's campaign.

Fox News hosts discuss Bloomberg:

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard finished behind Bloomberg. Pressure is building for Warren to drop out.

Delegates needed to win nomination

The candidates still have over 30 states to win before the DNC convention in July. In order to avoid a "brokered" convention, one of the candidates must arrive with 1,991 or more delegates. Biden and Sanders have a ways to go. By the end of March, 22 more states and territories will have voted in primaries, conventions, and caucuses.

The day after Super Tuesday, the delegate count, according to Newsweek is:

Biden 453

Sanders 382

Warren 50

Bloomberg 44

Buttigieg 26

Klobuchar 7

Gabbard 1

One day after the South Carolina primary, former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg announced the end of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. Tom Steyer, the billionaire also-ran, bowed out the same day. And Monday, Senator Amy Klobuchar quit the race and endorsed Joe Biden.

Its all very good news for Biden, who can expect to pick up much of Buttigieg and Klobuchar's support.

Buttigieg Out

Buttigieg ran a strong campaign and surprised everyone when he vied for first place with Senator Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucuses. He surprised again in New Hampshire, placing second to Sanders. But his momentum didn't last. Buttigieg came in a distant third in the Nevada caucus, and fourth behind billionaire Tom Steyer in the South Carolina primary. Buttigieg wasn't polling well with black voters, and he was not expected to do well in South Carolina.

Buttigieg's candidacy drew its share of controversy, especially about racial issues while he was mayor of South Bend. He was also targeted by his fellow candidates for working for Wall Street and receiving funding from billionaires. Remember the "wine cave" flap that Elizabeth Warren brought up at one of the numerous debates?

During Buttigieg's campaign, some noticed Buttigieg emulating former President Obama.

When Sanders became the frontrunner after the New Hampshire primary, Buttigieg started ringing alarm bells about what a Sanders nomination would mean for the Democrat party, pointing to Sanders' socialism and his radical approach to health care. Buttigieg warned that America was not ready for a socialist, and now he is admitting that America is not ready for him either. At least he has another four years to perfect his impersonation of President Obama.

The invisible man

Tom Steyer, the nearly invisible billionaire, who seemed to be jumping up and down for attention in the debates, also ended his campaign on Sunday. After spending $24 million dollars on advertising in South Carolina hoping to win the state, he only placed third behind Sanders.

Joe Biden, as predicted, won South Carolina handily, almost 30 points higher than Sanders. Steyer just couldn't generate enough interest in his campaign, and struggled to prove that he had something different to offer Democrat voters, but in the end, he was just another white male billionaire. Steyer left the race with zero delegates and a viral video of him dancing.

If you haven't seen Steyer dancing yet, brace yourself:

Klobuchar out

On Monday, Amy Klobuchar dropped out and threw her support to Joe Biden.

The Hill reports:

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) joined former Vice President Joe Biden on stage at a rally Monday evening in Texas to throw her support behind him for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Standing next to the former vice president, Klobuchar called for a return to "decency and dignity" in the White House.

"If we spend the next four months dividing our party and going at each other, we will spend the next four years watching Donald Trump tear apart this country," Klobuchar said.

Buttigieg and Klobuchar are likely vying for cabinet positions and/or the vice-presidency. But others like Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg don't have the time to wait their turn.

How many voters will they take from Biden and Bernie? That's what we'll find out next.

President Trump spoke at the 2020 Annual CPAC event in the closing speech. In some ways, the speech was a repeat of the State of the Union, as the president reiterated the policies he and his administration are pursuing.

The speech was also very different than SOTU when the president was in enemy territory. At CPAC, he was among friends and seemed at ease. His speech included stories, jokes, concerns, hopes, and encouragement that his supporters would appreciate and understand. As some would say, there was plenty of "Red meat."

Coronavirus

On a serious note, the president addressed Coronavirus and elaborated on the measures that the CDC is taking to keep Americans safe during this outbreak. He reminded the audience of his early actions to enact travel restrictions from China and the benefit of taking that action.

He addressed how the Democrats politicized and criticized him for taking decisive action. New travel restrictions have been enacted to keep people from certain affected countries out. He said, "We will do everything to keep the virus from entering our country."

The president called for an end of politics saying, "It is time for all Americans to put politics aside and come together to  work for the health and safety and security of the American people."

In discussing "the swamp"  the president said he believed that justice will be had. Let's hope he is right.  He, like us, is amazed at how deep the swamp is, and full of bad people. When he said, "I never knew the swamp was so bad.  I didn't know how dirty it would be, how deep it would be," he spoke for many of us.

Afghanistan

Addressing the agreement the US and the Taliban signed to end the war in Afghanistan after 19 years of conflict, the president said: "We can't be democracy builders and the "policeman" of the world, emphasizing that we need to take care of America first...  " After years of building foreign nations, he said, it is time to rebuild our nation." "It would be so much easier for our country if we had a press that told the truth."

Broaching the problem of sanctuary cities and states and the dangerous gang MS-13, the president brought up a recent court ruling that gives him some leverage against the sanctuary cities. The radical left and activist judges have been able to block much of ICE is supposed to be doing.  According to The Hill,

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that the Department of Justice (DOJ) could withhold funding from cities and states that refuse to cooperate with the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Billions of dollars are at stake.

Sleepy Joe and Crazy Bernie

The president was very funny when talking about his Democrat rivals Sleepy Joe, Mini Mike, Pocahantas, Crazy Bernie, and Alfred P. Neuman (Buttigieg), conducting a poll to see which candidate the CPAC audience favored. Crazy Bernie seemed to be the favorite of the crowd. Regarding Bloomberg, he said, "How would you like to spend $700 million dollars and end up with nothing?"

When talking about border security, he said, "We are determined to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country."

The president was at his best when talking about the radical left,

"Far-left radicals are dangerous and are trying to transform our lives. They want total control,  they want to raise taxes, they want to bury us in regulations, they want to control children's educations, they want to impose fanatical political correctness, they want your money, they want to take away your choice, your speech, your guns, your history,  your future, and your freedom."

Thanking God

While wondering what he might have accomplished if the entire Democrat party and media weren't doing everything to stop him, the president said that what they were able to accomplish was "sort of a miracle." Pointing upward he said,  "Maybe it's right there, thank you, thank you, God."

President Trump spoke for over an hour and seemed to please the crowd. They often broke into chants of "USA" and "Four more years!"

The president promised to be at CPAC in 2021.

President Trump talks about Warren and Bloomberg:

There is much speculation and discussion about a Bernie Sanders' presidency. Some say that America would never elect a socialist as president. Others, like Tucker Carlson, warn that Bernie could win.

Sanders has 45 delegates going into the South Carolina primary. Pete Buttigieg has 25, Joe Biden has 15, Elizabeth Warren has 8, and Amy Klobuchar has 7. If he does well in South Carolina on Saturday and California on Tuesday Bernie will be unstoppable.

He is polling at 30% in California which has a whopping 415 delegates. The other candidates can't get over 15% there.

The primary season is for the faithful, the grassroots, the true believers. Rhetoric from either party is going to be aimed at them. Sanders rhetoric is definitely aimed at what used to be considered the fringe extreme left.  More conciliatory and centrist rhetoric is saved for the general election where either party is hoping to pick up the independents and the undecideds.

The 2020 race for the Democrat nomination is bringing the socialism of the Democrat party into the open for all to see as Senator Bernie Sanders, an avowed and lifelong socialist, takes the lead. He actually had a good chance of winning in 2016, but the Democrat National Committee robbed him of the victory in favor of Hillary Clinton. So, we could say that the Democrat party has been openly leaning to the left since 2016. Can an open socialist actually win the presidency of the United States?

When Sanders won the Nevada Caucus, people like Chris Matthews and James Carville sounded alarm bells warning that a Sanders' ticket means a Trump win in 2020. Carville even said a Sanders' win would be the "end of days."

But others, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, warn that a Sanders win is possible and that conservatives should not get complacent. Both conservative and leftist pundits insist that Sanders could never win in 2020, but Carlson pointed out that the last person that the media said couldn't win the presidency was Donald J. Trump.

So here are some reasons Sanders won't win:

  • Sanders will abolish ICE, end deportations of illegal and criminal illegal aliens, provide amnesty for all illegal aliens, abolish Border Patrol
  • Sanders will bankrupt the country with medicare for all, free college tuition, the green new deal,  and free childcare
  • Sanders praises totalitarians like Fidel Castro and Xi Jinping

Here is why he might win:

  • He is a populist  like President Trump
  • He has a diverse strong grassroots organization
  • He promises free stuff
  • Conservatives may become complacent and think that Sanders can't win

A Sanders presidency would end any chance of a Republican ever winning the presidency again because he would grant amnesty to all the illegal aliens in the US. The number of illegals in the US range from the admitted number of 11 million to high estimates of 22 million. Conservatives and Republicans cannot afford to be complacent.

President Trump is running against socialism and has openly said that America will never be a socialist nation. Let's hope he is right.

Trey Gowdy talks about socialism and South Carolina with Dana Perino. Watch:

Late-night comedian Seth Myers provided a humorous explanation of the conflict in the Democrat party over Sanders as frontrunner. We do need a little humor right now.

Watch:

The Coronavirus or Covid 19 outbreak is now on every continent except Antarctica.

It originated in Wuhan, China and is, as of this date, in 47 countries. There are 60 known cases in the US, most of them Americans that were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The Diamond Princess, an American cruise ship, has been quarantined in Japan for weeks. Hundreds of passengers have come down with the virus and 4 have died. A southern California town has banned passengers from the stricken cruise ship.

The financial markets are being roiled by the spread of the Coronavirus, both here and abroad. The US market has plummeted lower for six straight trading days with a record-setting 1200 point drop, today.

Coronavirus spreading in California

A new case of the virus has been identified in Northern California in a woman from Vacaville, California, just a few minutes away from Travis Air Force Base, where hundreds of Americans that have returned from China have been quarantined.

The case is being considered as the first "community spread" of the virus. The patient entered the hospital system and was not immediately tested for the virus as she did not meet the limited criteria of visiting China or being exposed to a traveler from China.

The patient was finally tested after days of being in the hospital and then transferred to UC Davis Medical.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said that 33 people have tested positive for the virus in California and 8,400 people are being monitored.

Coronavirus affects US medical supply chain

Supply chains dependent on Chinese goods are being affected and there is concern that the US, the most prepared of all countries for a viral outbreak, is still not prepared enough. US dependence on China for many of our medical supplies, pharmaceutical ingredients, medications and vaccines is under scrutiny.

Senator Josh Hawley is sponsoring a bill to bring the manufacturing of US pharmaceuticals back home. Currently, 70% of the ingredients for our pharmaceuticals are made in China and India. Hawley stated:

The coronavirus outbreak in China has highlighted severe and longstanding weaknesses in our medical supply chain. This is more than unfortunate; it’s a danger to public health. Our health officials need to know the extent of our reliance on Chinese production so they can take all necessary action to protect Americans.

Watch Hawley discuss the outbreak and our pharmaceutical supply chain.

 

During a press conference, while visiting the populous nation of India, President Trump addressed US relations with that country.

He also touched on US domestic politics, scolding Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a barbed dissent and her colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg for making political remarks. The president suggested that the right thing would be for Sotomayor and Ginsburg to recuse themselves from any cases that involve him, meaning his policies.

The president said that Supreme Court Justices should hold themselves to a higher standard,

Justice Ginsberg made political remarks during the president's campaign, expressing doubt about the future of the country if Trump became president and saying that Trump he is a "faker," which would suggest that Ginsburg is biased against President Trump.

This same person later weighed in on the president's impeachment trial in the Senate saying that if a senator expressed bias they should recuse themselves from the trial. Perhaps Ginsburg and Sotomayor should take Ginsburg's advice and recuse themselves from cases that involve the president's policies.

Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent complaining about the number of emergency appeals from the Trump administration, implying that the 5 "conservative" justices are partisans rubber-stamping the DOJ's requests.

Senator Ted Cruz, in a Senate hearing, addressed the issue pointing out that a small number of courts issued 55 nationwide universal injunctions, an unprecedented number, a third of them from California courts. Cruz said he believes these activist judges are acting as part of the resistance, "putting themselves in the way of Trump policies they disagree with," and that necessitates bringing the emergency appeals to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor was alone in her dissent and her criticism of her colleagues.

Justice Sotomayor has it backward. These activist appellate judges are the problem, not President Trump. If they weren't trying to block the president's policies, there would be no need for these emergency appeals to the Supreme Court.

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