Hope everyone had a great Halloween last night! We had a neighbor offering full-sized candy bars to any kid who could recite a Bible verse; fun sizes for all the rest. My kiddo rocked John 3:16 like a boss and snagged herself some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Whilst perusing the internet after trick-or-treating, I found myself spooked to the core to hear The Hillary Cackle. I had hoped we were done with that. The Washington Examiner explains:
Trevor Noah, the host of the Daily Show, asked Hillary Clinton in an interview about conspiracies that suggest the Clintons have murdered people.
"I have to ask you a question that has been plaguing me for a while, how did you kill Jeffrey Epstein?" Noah asked Thursday night, which prompted laughter from Clinton. "Because you're not in power, but you have all the power. I really need to understand how you do what you do, because you seem to be behind everything nefarious, and yet you do not use it to become president."
Noah, 35, did not give the former secretary of state a chance to answer and instead asked how Clinton felt being the "boogeyman of the Right."
Cackle, cackle.
(More here.)
Also, and don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend to usher in the dark months. Those areas that refuse to do that are heroes!
Anyway, it’s been a crazy week of wildfires and whistleblowers. Let’s get on with the newsletter!
Teri Christoph (teri@smartgirlpolitics.org)
PS -- Don't forget to join us over on our Facebook page, join our private Facebook group and subscribe to our podcasts on: iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, iHeartRADIO or Stitcher.
POLITICS
President Trump Thumbs Nose At New York Tax Collector With Move To Florida
From Forbes:
In a bold move, President Donald Trump changed his legal domicile from New York to Florida—from his glitzy Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to his Mar-a-Lago Club, the one-time estate of cereal-company heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Pretty big move for a native New Yorker like Trump, but can you blame him?
By moving to Florida, he and Melania could escape New York State and New York City’s combined income tax of 12.7%. If he and Melania are still Florida domiciliaries when they die, they’ll escape New York estate tax (a 16% levy on assets over $5.75 million) on much of their wealth (New York state can still levy its estate tax on their New York property).
Here’s how NYC media is reacting:
More here.
Senate Republicans Accuse Democrats of Blocking Aide to Ukraine for Political Reasons
The irony, it burns. From CNSNews.com:
Senate Republicans accused Democrats Thursday of prioritizing “picking fights with the White House” over funding for America’s armed forces, after the minority blocked a defense spending bill for the second time.
Several Republicans saw irony in the fact that the stalled legislation includes military aid for Ukraine – the very issue Democrats are seeking to impeach President Trump over, alleging he delayed assistance to Kyiv for his own political purposes.
Up is down and down is up. Republican Senator Tom Cotton summed it up nicely: “Democrats just voted to block security assistance to Ukraine for political reasons – the very thing they accuse the president of doing.”
More here.
The racial wealth gap among 2020 Democrats
The left, always making it about skin color. From Axios:
The leading white candidates in the Democratic presidential primary combined have nearly four times as much cash on hand as all five non-white candidates.
And here’s their handy chart:
Here’s a question: Couldn’t it just be the case that the frontrunners are pulling in more cash? As is precisely indicated in the above chart?
More here.
Army versus Marines as Afghanistan hero seeks to win Pennsylvania seat for GOP
From The Washington Examiner:
Army combat veteran Sean Parnell kicked off his race as a Republican running for the U.S. House here at Pamela’s Diner. It's within a stone’s throw of the district office of Rep. Conor Lamb, the Democrat he is challenging for the 17th Congressional District seat in 2020.
It’s great to see so many strong candidates in 2020, especially in an important state like Pennsylvania. Parnell’s race could be a bellwether of Trump’s chances of winning there again.
More here.
Kamala Harris Laying Off Staff in Latest Campaign Shake-Up
From The Washington Free Beacon:
Kamala Harris's presidential campaign is laying off dozens of staffers and giving top officials pay cuts as it struggles to "effectively compete" with the frontrunners, according to a Wednesday campaign memo.
The memo, first reported by Politico, reveals major changes, including mass layoffs, pay cuts, and a redeployment of field staffers in key primary states around the country to Iowa, where the campaign is going "all-in."
As the Axios chart above indicates, fundraising has not been great for Kamala. She was doing so much better before the debates began; I suspect her performances turned off many voters. Kamala, for her part, is playing the victim card, saying her dismal showing is due to misogyny and racism.
Could it be that she’s just a terrible candidate?
More here.
Democrats wallow in gutter to attack judicial nominee
From an editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
It’s no longer enough for Democrats to simply oppose judicial nominees with which they have philosophical disagreements. Instead, they default to the vicious politics of personal destruction that defines so much of today’s progressive discourse. See: Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The latest unfortunate nominee to face a congressional auto-da-fe is Lawrence VanDyke, a former Nevada solicitor general nominated by President Donald Trump to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Wednesday, Mr. VanDyke — a former editor of the Harvard Law Review with extensive litigation experience in the federal courts — appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democrats met him waving pitchforks and torches.
President Trump doesn’t always make conservatives happy, but his judicial nominations have been one area on which most of us agree: Trump is killing it. After eight years of Obama placing judicial activists on the courts, it’s a welcome development that Trump is keeping his campaign promise to nominate Constitutionalists.
And because Trump is involved, the Dems’ pavlovian instincts kick in. Also:
Mr. VanDyke’s real crime, in the mind of Senate Democrats, is his religious faith and the fact that the president nominated him without honoring tradition by consulting Nevada’s two Democratic senators. Democrats might want to discuss the latter with former majority leader Harry Reid, who knows a thing or two about upending Senate traditions regarding judicial nominees.
More here.