Donald Trump Has a Big Problem in the Senate – The Atlantic

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The New York Times reports:

After another private meeting Monday night with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, Mr. Trump began complaining privately that he did not think Senate Republicans were doing enough to have his back. For days, some allies of the presidents eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., had agitated on Twitter for Mr. Graham to do more to try to counteract Democrats in the House.

One line of pressure has been for Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, to call witnesses in that chamber as a sort of counterprogramming, though on Thursday he said that made no sense to him.

David A. Graham: Nothing and everything changed on impeachment

But Graham is not the problem; hes signaled a willingness to stand by Trump through thick, thin, and horrific lynching analogies. The White Houses challenge is other senators. Some Republicans have been notably open to an impeachment inquiry, but most have been conspicuously quiet. Some use the time-honored excuse that theyd serve as jurors in a trial and therefore ought not to weigh in; many more are simply dodging questions. What theyre mostly not doing is mounting substantive defenses of the presidents behavior. A Daily Caller canvass found only seven of the 53 Republicans were willing to rule out voting to remove Trump.

Republican senators have always been less tractable for Trump than representatives, though the GOP controls the Senate but not the House. The president has many rah-rah fans in the House, and House members are also more vulnerable to pressure from Trump-loving constituents if they get out of line with the White House. (Francis Rooney of Florida, the most outspoken Trump critic on the Ukraine matter in recent weeks, has announced hes retiring.) Senators are more insulated from immediate political pressure, more rooted in Washington and the party structure, and less fond of the president.

Nonetheless, it would take a major change in the evidence against Trump, or a vast shift in polling, for enough Republican senators to support conviction that the president would be in serious danger of removal in a Senate trial. Yet its clear that Trump does care a great deal about senators positions. The impetus for his hasty cancellation of plans to host the Group of Seven summit at this resort in Doral, Florida, was apparently the anger it provoked among Republican senators. In the past, Trump has been content to weather their displeasure, but this time he folded.

David A. Graham: Get over it is the Trump Doctrine

Perhaps Trump believes that a unified GOP Senate response will persuade Democrats not to vote to impeach; I am skeptical that will work. Or perhaps Trump worries about the political damage if a majority of the Senate voted to convict, even if it didnt lead to removal. It would take only four GOP defections to reach a majority for conviction in the Senate.

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Donald Trump Has a Big Problem in the Senate - The Atlantic

The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry: Live updates – CNN International

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There is no evidence to support President Donald Trump's claim, made repeatedly this past week, that top US diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor is a "Never Trumper."

The low-key diplomat rose to global attention after testifying on Capitol Hill in the impeachment inquiry. He provided a damning account of how Trump told his appointees to establish a quid pro quo, trading much-needed US military aid for political favors from Ukraine.

Trump first made the unfounded accusation against Taylor in a tweet on Wednesday, and repeated it twice on Friday to a gaggle of reporters on the White House lawn.

"Here's the problem," Trump said, referring to Taylor. "He's a Never Trumper and his lawyer's a Never Trumper."

Facts First: There is zero public evidence that Taylor is a Never Trumper. All available information paints him as respected and apolitical public servant. But Trump is correct when it comes to Taylor's attorney John Bellinger, who helped lead the charge of Republicans against Trump in 2016.

Taylor's career

There is no indication that Taylor has ever donated to political candidates for federal office, according to Federal Election Commission data. Taylor has a relatively common name, but there are no records matching his name, home state of Virginia and employment history.

After he was appointed by then-President George W. Bush to be the US ambassador to Ukraine in 2006, he told lawmakers that he never contributed to any political campaigns, according to the congressional record. He was confirmed by voice vote by the Republican-controlled Senate.

At that time, Taylor disclosed that his wife made one political donation before: She gave $150 in 2003 to 21st Century Democrats, a political action committee that backs "genuinely progressive" and "populist" Democrats. The group endorsed Barack Obama's campaign for Senate in 2004.

In the Senate disclosures, Taylor detailed a slew of donations his parents gave to Republicans over the years. This included money to Arizona Sen. John McCain, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

"I've known Bill Taylor for 26 years, and he doesn't take positions based on politics," said former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton and stayed on during the Bush administration. "Bill Taylor is a guy who volunteered for Vietnam. He isn't a radical. Anyone who starts barking up that tree has got to get their facts straight."

Nine additional former State Department officials who previously spoke to CNN described Taylor as a person of high character who was more likely to put sound foreign policy before politics.

He was so respected that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked him to come out of retirement to lead the US embassy in Kiev this year, a position he first held during the Bush administration.

Trump's disdain for Taylor apparently isn't shared by Pompeo, one of the President's closest allies. In an interview on Friday with The Sunflower, the student-run newspaper at Wichita State University, Pompeo voiced some subdued approval of Taylor's performance since taking over in Ukraine.

"He and I both share this vision for how American interests in Ukraine can properly be represented. I have every reason to think that he's still out there, banging away at that problem set," Pompeo said.

What about Taylor's lawyer?

Unlike Trump's claims against Taylor, his criticism of Taylor's lawyer John Bellinger is accurate.

Someone as outspoken as Bellinger is surely an interesting choice of attorney for Taylor, who has been described as a "quiet guy" by people who know him well. But associating with Bellinger does not make Taylor a Never Trumper himself. He may have just wanted an attorney with strong credentials in DC.

A registered Republican, Bellinger served under the Bush administration first as senior associate counsel to the President and later as legal adviser to the State Department.

In August 2016, months before the general election, Bellinger drafted a letter that was co-signed by 50 senior Republican national security and foreign policy experts and stated that Trump was "not qualified" to be President and "would put at risk our country's national security and well-being."

"(Trump) weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world," the letter said. "He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary."

After Trump was elected, Bellinger joined "Checks and Balances," a group of conservative lawyers formed to speak out against Trump. The group also includes George Conway, husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who supports impeachment and rails against Trump almost daily on Twitter.

Bellinger told The New York Times that the group came together because they felt "conservative lawyers are not doing enough to protect constitutional principles that are being undermined by the statements and actions of this president."

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The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry: Live updates - CNN International

Donald Trump wants the iPhone home button back – The Verge

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President Donald Trump seems to have recently switched to an iPhone without a home button, and he doesnt seem to like it very much. So much so that he decided to casually subtweet Apple CEO Tim Cook with a bit of light tech commentary.

We cant tell if Trump recently upgraded to the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, or one of the iPhone 11 variants. But all the top-of-the-line Apple smartphones since last year have ditched the home button last seen on the iPhone 8 for the edge-to-edge design first introduced with the iPhone X in 2017.

We learned in March 2017 Donald Trump switched from Android to iPhone, but we didnt know which iPhone he switched to. It definitely had a home button, since the iPhone X wasnt out at that time.

Perhaps Trump will be first in line for the rumored iPhone SE 2, which will reportedly look like an iPhone 8. That means itll have the home button Trump sorely misses.

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Donald Trump wants the iPhone home button back - The Verge

James Comey says he will move to New Zealand if Trump wins in 2020 – The Guardian

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The former FBI director James Comey has joked or not that he will move to New Zealand if Donald Trump is re-elected in 2020.

Comey was interviewed on C-Span and asked what he would do if Trump was returned to office. From my new home in New Zealand, I still will believe in America, Comey said, to laughter from the audience.

The former FBI boss worked for the Obama administration and was fired by Trump in May 2017, fuelling concerns for the bureaus investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. The comment was apparently made in jest but he joins a long line of prominent Americans to float the idea of emigrating to New Zealand as a way to escape Trumps chaotic presidency.

Relocating to the nation has become something of an obsession for Silicon Valley billionaires and preppers who fear the apocalypse is looming. Immigration to the country hit a record high in mid-2017 with many seeing the politically stable country as a refuge from the likes of Brexit and a divided America.

In 2016 the supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the New York Times Now its time for us to move to New Zealand if Trump was elected. One week after Trumps inauguration the New Yorker ran a piece that referred to New Zealand as a favoured refuge in the event of a cataclysm for the super-rich.

After the Trump election and Brexit referendum the Immigration New Zealand website experienced unprecedented traffic. Typically the site receives 3,000 registrations a month from British nationals interested in moving to, working or investing in New Zealand. On the day of the Brexit referendum the website received 998 registrations from Britons, compared with 109 at the same time the year before.

High-profile Americans who have bought property and sometimes live in New Zealand include the PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and the disgraced NBC host Matt Lauer.

Professor John Morgan, a British expat and academic at the University of Auckland, said there was an ingrained idea in the northern hemisphere that New Zealand was an undisturbed haven from the modern world. There is this pervading idea that New Zealand is some sort of relic of 1950s Britain, a place to escape, a place to go back in time. That is not true, but it is generally true that New Zealand does avoid the worst trappings of modern, consumerist culture. There is a rush hour but it is just an hour.

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James Comey says he will move to New Zealand if Trump wins in 2020 - The Guardian

Ousted Republicans plot rematches with Trump back on the ballot – POLITICO

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Still, Trump holds a grip over the Republican base that seems unshakable, even amid the ongoing investigation into alleged efforts by the president to withhold military aid unless Ukraine publicly investigated his political rivals.

Trumps most ardent supporters have already begun organizing in Brindisis district, more than a year out from the next election. Pro-Trump groups staged protests outside the freshman Democrats office and at some of his public events including a town hall here in October to rally local support in New Yorks 22nd Congressional District.

Many of those who have picketed, including Mount Vernon, N.Y. resident Gilda Ward, have focused squarely on Democrats impeachment push. And it doesnt matter to them that Brindisi, one of the most vulnerable freshmen, remains one of seven holdouts in his caucus who oppose the impeachment inquiry.

If he did come out in favor, Ward predicts, It would be a death knell.

I am totally opposed to any kind of impeachment, she said in an interview after attending a Brindisi town hall. It really bothers me, and it bothers many of us who voted for Trump.

Tenney an enthusiastic Trump supporter who appeared alongside the president and his family at campaign events in 2018 plans to once again embrace the president. The former congresswoman said that since announcing her campaign in late September, shes gotten calls from Republican friends who say Trump is happy shes running again.

Brindisis campaign is eager to zero in on his House opponent and avoid the presidential politics.

This district has long turned the page on Claudia Tenney, who delivered for late night TV more than she ever did our district, said Luke Jackson, a Brindisi campaign spokesperson.

Republicans are betting that if Trump remains popular with the GOP base, he could significantly ramp up turnout clawing back seats that were lost in the 2018 wipeout.

That includes the district where Tenney and Brindisi will battle it out next year. Trump won nearly 160,000 votes in the district in 2016. Turnout plummeted two years later when Tenney got less than 124,000 votes.

GOP campaign operatives are looking at the same math for Trump-backed districts across the country that are now held by Democrats.

Young said in an interview he is working to find Trump voters who stayed home in 2018 through a data deep dive as he plans his rematch against Axne. He added that he senses an energy from voters in his Des Moines-based district that are frustrated by Democrats obsession with trying to remove the president.

Trump won nearly 193,000 votes in Iowa's 3rd District in 2016. Young won just under 168,000 when he lost to Axne by 2 points two years later. Activists on both sides are motivated, Young said, but he argued Democrats neared their high-water mark in 2018. Axne came close to matching Hillary Clinton's 2016 vote total but Young won far fewer votes than Trump.

In November 2018, the Democrats had high voter turnout, almost presidential levels, Young said. I think to some extent they may have peaked or are getting close to peaking, but Republicans have so much more room to grow.

In the midterms, dozens of Democratic candidates outperformed Clinton in their districts. But its not clear if they achieved those margins because Trump voters stayed home. Those candidates likely owe their victories in part to two other factors: their ability to persuade Trump voters to back a Democrat for Congress as well as their skill at turning out Democratic voters who typically sit out the midterms.

Rob Simms, a top strategist for Handel, who is seeking a rematch with McBath in suburban Atlanta, blames her loss on high Democratic turnout caused by Democrat Stacey Abram's narrow loss for governor.

The Democrats, really the Abrams campaign, did a tremendous job at bringing out voters who would not typically vote in an off year elections, said Simms, a former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Georgia will be more of a battleground in 2020, he said, and Republicans will be ready.

But particularly in suburban districts with highly-educated voters like Georgia's 6th, the momentum is moving away from the GOP and there may be a large chunk of persuadable voters up for grabs. Mitt Romney won the seat by 24 points in 2012 but Trump carried it by 1 point.

Fundraising appears to be an early advantage for McBath, too. The Georgia Democrat outraised Handel nearly 2 to 1 in the last quarter, and has a fundraising war chest of $1.3 million, compared to Handels roughly $630,000. Handel also has to clear a GOP primary before she can challenge McBath again.

Meanwhile, few ousted GOP lawmakers seem eager to try again in districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. (Former California Republican David Valadao is a rare exception, as he tries to reclaim his Central Valley-based district that Trump lost by 15 points.)

Two Republicans who once represented suburban districts are running again in different, more GOP-friendly spots, an indication that they still view the climate as unfavorable in their old seats.

Republican Pete Sessions who lost a Dallas-area district is now running 100 miles south in Waco. And Darrell Issa, who retired in 2018 from a Clinton-won seat, is running in a neighboring San Diego district held by embattled GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter.

Still, Republican strategists see a path back to the House majority through the 31 Democratic-held seats that Trump won in 2016.

The dynamics in 20 are going to be much different, Simms said of GOP chances in suburban Georgia. We have an incumbent president. We have an incumbent senator whos going to be on top of the ticket. Their campaigns are already organized and functioning and working in the state today.

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Ousted Republicans plot rematches with Trump back on the ballot - POLITICO

On Human Scum and Trump in the Danger Zone – The New Yorker

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At 1:48 p.m. on October 23rd, Donald Trump posted a tweet that, in any other political moment, would be a strong contender for the worst public statement ever made by a President of the United States. Attacking enemies within his own party, Trump wrote, The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!

But, of course, this is not any other moment. The Times has tracked hundreds of insults that Trump has already made since entering public life. He has called his critics dogs, losers, and enemies of the people; praised racists and trafficked in casual misogyny; derided people from nations he calls shithole countries; and labelled American cities where he is unpopular as rat-infested hellholes. This is not even the first time that Trump has used the word scum; in June, 2018, he referred to the lead F.B.I. officials who had investigated him as the scum on top of the agency. Perhaps its unsurprising, then, that, with such a record, his Never Trumper tweet was not treated as major news (although a Republican House member from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger, did say on CNN that it was beneath the office of the Presidency). Arguably, the tweet was not even his most offensive and inflammatory of the week, a distinction that might belong to Trumps self-pitying, racially charged, and willfully ahistorical lament, from Tuesday, that the impeachment proceedings against him in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives amounted to a lynching. In some ways, these Trumpisms have become so abhorrentand frequentthat it may be easier to ignore them than to contemplate them.

Still, the Presidents human scum tweet bears noting. First of all, it is quite simply the language of tyrants and those who aspire to be tyrants. Hitler called his enemies human scum, and so did Stalin. In recent years, the Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, often referred to as the Trump of South America, denounced refugees as the scum of humanity, and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, denounced Sergei Skripal, the former spy recently poisoned by Russian agents, in Britain, as a disloyal scumbag. The North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, with whom Trump says he has a love affair, executed his uncle after a show trial in which he was called despicable human scum... worse than a dog. Kims regime, it should be noted, also called Trumps former national-security adviser John Bolton, who differed with the President on the subject of North Korea, a bloodsucker and human scum.

The other reason to consider Trumps words this week is because of what is happening around him. In the twenty-four hours between Trumps lynching tweet and his human scum tweet, William B. Taylor, Jr., the acting Ambassador to Ukraine, offered the most damning testimony against the President yet in the month-old congressional impeachment inquiry. Taylor, a Vietnam veteran and career Foreign Service officer, was called out of retirement by the Trump Administration to serve in Ukraine after the President fired the previous Ambassador at the behest of his private attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Taylor flew in from Kiev in defiance of a State Department demand that he not coperate with the House probe, and he brought with him a fifteen-page opening statement, which offered specific, detailed evidence of the pressure campaign waged by Trump and Giuliani to force Ukrainian officials to investigate the former Vice-President Joe Biden, and which discredited conspiracy theories about Ukraines role in the 2016 U.S. election. This campaign, Taylor said, included explicitly linking Ukraines willingness to undertake these investigations to nearly four hundred million dollars in security assistance and a Presidential meeting. Trump even personally insisted that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announce the probes himself, to put Zelensky in a public box. Committee sources told reporters that there were gasps in the room when Taylor testified. The diplomat was describing not one but multiple quid pro quos, in which Trump appeared to condition American assistance to a beleaguered, war-torn ally on actions that would be taken for his personal political benefit. Even the Senate Majority Whip, the Republican John Thune, of South Dakota, called the emerging picture not a good one for Trump.

The Presidential freakout of recent days can only be understood in that context. Trump is adjusting to a new political reality, one that is taking shape in a secure conference room on Capitol Hill, and it is a dangerous one for him: he now faces the very real possibility of impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate, and just in time for the start of the 2020 election year.

For the first thousand or so days of the Trump Presidency, it has been a near-certainty in Washington that Trump might someday be impeached in the House, but he could never be convicted by the Republican-controlled Senate. And by near-certainty I mean as close to absolutely, a hundred-per-cent positive as is possible in an uncertain world. There might be one or two or five wobbly Republicans, it was believed, but never twentythe number of votes needed to convict him, assuming all Democrats and Independents also vote for his removal. Essentially, the political world agreed with the premise of Trumps tweetthat the Never Trump opposition to him within the Republican Party had faded to the point of political irrelevance, leaving those remaining against him within the G.O.P. an outnumbered minority, if not actually on respirators.

As a strict matter of numbers, that is still correct. Public polls have shown a dramatic increase in support for impeachment, but largely among Democrats and, increasingly, Independents. Most surveys now find a majority of Americans in favor of Trumps impeachment and removal from office, but still the number is well below the percentage of Americans who disapprove of his performance as President. Even more significantly, Trumps backing among Republican voters has yet to suffer much, with fewer than ten per cent of themso farsaying they would favor impeachment. Republican members of Congress have largely held firm with Trump, too, though each day brings more examples of isolated individuals like Thune and Kinzinger publicly expressing concern. In terms of the Senate, the jury pool that may ultimately be called on to render a verdict on Trump in the Ukraine affair, most Republicans have either stayed resolutely silent or ostentatiously demonstrated their loyalty to Trump. Mitt Romney has been the only Senate Republican to forcefully question Trumps actions. When Trump furiously attacked Romney over it, not a single one of his Senate colleagues rose to his defense.

And yet something does feel different around Washington. Republicans, and not just Trump, seem visibly nervous. This is shaping up to be a very dark moment for the Trump White House, a Republican source close to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the National Journal Hotlines Josh Kraushaar. Even the Senate vote in an impeachment trial shouldnt be taken for granted, the source said. Its getting to be a harder choice for more people. Whether thats enough for enough senators to take decisive action... every single move has been in the wrong direction for Trump.

Its early days yet, of course, but since Taylor testified, political operatives have openly struggled to figure out whether this time might really be it. Everyone has his or her own little anecdotal data points, like the veteran Republican who told me he now thinks theres about a twenty-five per cent chance the dam breaks in the Senate and they turn on him and convict, or the fervent Never Trumper who, buoyed by the recent news, texted me that he was sure DT will be CONVICTED! Although, he added, in a nod to a more likely reality, unless, of course, that doesnt happen. Another Never Trumper, the former Republican senator Jeff Flake, said a couple of weeks ago that thirty-five Republican senators would probably vote to convict the Presidentif the vote were held in secret. Only 7 (!) Republican Senators are ruling out removing Donald Trump a headline on an article by the CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza read. The Senate Minority Whip, the Democrat Dick Durbin, from Illinois, claimed in a TV interview this week that Republican leaders were having second thoughts about the President.

But Trumps outbursts can still produce the shows of loyalty that the insecure President craves. On the same day as his human scum tweet, some two dozen Trump supporters in the House stormed into the closed-door secure facility where the impeachment depositions are being taken and disrupted the planned testimony of a Pentagon official for more than five hours. The representatives complained about the unfairness to the President of taking impeachment testimony in private, which has been Trumps constant gripe. In fact, it soon was reported that Trump had been in on the stunt before it occurred, and the President took to Twitter to thank the protesting House Republicans afterward for their vigorous defense of him. There is no room for wobbling, as far as Trump is concerned. By Thursday, John Thune appeared to have got that message, and CNN reported that he walked back concerns he raised in the wake of Taylors testimony, which Thune now called, in keeping with the Party line, secondhand information. He joined other senators, including a number of moderates, such as Ohios Rob Portman and Tennessees Lamar Alexander, at an Oval Office lunch with the President, the message of which was a not-so-subtle show of theyre still with me. As for Trumps hateful tweet, not a single Republican senator called him out on it, even as his press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, went on Fox News on Thursday morning to underscore the point. Those Republicans working against the President, she said, are in fact human scum, adding, They deserve strong language like that.

All of which is to say that Trump was crude in his tweet, but he was also right: his internal enemies in the Republican Party are weak and few in number. For now. One thing missing from all the Republican complaints about impeachment this week, however, was a robust defense of what Trump actually did. And that, in the end, is exactly what the Senate jurors will ultimately have to make up their minds about.

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On Human Scum and Trump in the Danger Zone - The New Yorker

Human Scum, Lynching and Trumps Tortured English – The New York Times

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In a speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, he crowed that were building a wall on the border of New Mexico. And were building a wall in Colorado. He added that were building a wall in Texas, and were not building a wall in Kansas, but they get the benefit of the walls that we just mentioned.

Jared Polis, Colorados governor, responded with a tweet that noted that Colorado doesnt border Mexico. Good thing Colorado now offers free full day kindergarten so our kids can learn basic geography. Trump should join them, not just for stuff about maps but also for the lessons on reading comprehension and the vocabulary-building exercises.

His own recent tweets included that doozy that identified his defense secretary not as Mark Esper but as Mark Esperanto, a mistake too grand to be chalked up to autocorrect. No, its more likely the sign of a haunted mind.

Ive written before that Trump, in terms of the transparency with which he shows us the most eccentric and ugliest parts of himself, may inadvertently be the most honest president in my lifetime. His language is obviously central to that. Its a glimpse into his fury and fears.

It becomes sloppier when hes panicked, more visceral when hes vulnerable, more wildly hyperbolic and wickedly imprecise when hes making a counterfeit show of strength.

Hes in a bad spot now, and perfect reflects that, an adjectival overreach so ludicrous that it doesnt make you rethink the negative (and accurate) interpretations of the phone call; it makes you think Trump has lost his marbles.

Lynching raises the temperature dozens of degrees from hoax and witch hunt, his go-to phrases for Robert Muellers investigation. Human scum is the howl of a trapped animal. And his unfinished thoughts, enigmatic references and sentence fragments reflect his confusion about how to wriggle free.

His torture of English is rooted in the torture of being Trump with all those wants, all that need, all that vanity, all that spite. Hes never eloquent and barely articulate but always expressive, because you say a lot when you say it all wrong.

I invite you to sign up for my free weekly email newsletter. You can follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni).

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Human Scum, Lynching and Trumps Tortured English - The New York Times

The other ‘Nixon’ leaves ultimate responsibility for Trump’s removal with Congress – CNN

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But when it comes to the last word on an actual House impeachment and Senate trial, the justices have previously said it will not be theirs. Under the Constitution, the two chambers of Congress have the ultimate power to determine whether a President is removed from office.

But a different Nixon case stands for the proposition that an actual House of Representatives impeachment or Senate trial would not be settled by the justices.

The determination involved not the former president but US District Court Judge Walter Nixon of Mississippi, who had been impeached and convicted in 1989. He subsequently challenged the Senate procedures used.

Today, as members of the US House continue hearing witnesses related to Trump's dealings with Ukraine, that Supreme Court decision could become more salient. A new CNN poll found that half of Americans now say Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

Earlier this month, he dismissed reporters' questions about the House's inquiry spurred by a whistleblower complaint, saying: "The whole thing is a scam. It's a fix. And we wrote a letter yesterday, and it probably ends up being a big Supreme Court case. Maybe it goes a long time."

He was referring to White House counsel Pat Cipollone's October 8 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders deeming the impeachment inquiry unconstitutional and vowing not to cooperate.

Any attempt to induce the Supreme Court to intervene to stop a House impeachment would slam into that court precedent from a quarter-century ago, which reinforced the political character of an impeachment and trial, along with the constitutional roles of the House and Senate.

Rehnquist grounded the court's decision in the words and history of the Constitution and added, "opening the door of judicial review to the procedures used by the Senate in trying impeachments would expose the political life of the country to months, or perhaps years, of chaos.

"This lack of finality would manifest itself most dramatically if the President were impeached," he stressed.

In her dissent, Rao contended that the US House could investigate Trump for wrongdoing only as part of an impeachment process. She referred to Nixon v. US as she asserted that the Supreme Court "has long recognized the enhanced protections required by impeachments functions, even if such matters are generally not justiciable."

The 1993 case, coincidentally, was handled by a number of Department of Justice lawyers who have become more prominent and positioned for roles in a Trump impeachment battle.

Roberts was then principal deputy to US Solicitor General Ken Starr, who took the lead in the case. Starr's independent counsel investigation of Bill Clinton would lead to Clinton's impeachment in 1998.

'Most fit depositary of this important trust'

Judge Nixon had first been convicted in a criminal trial for lying to a grand jury about his efforts on behalf of a defendant whose father had given him money. After his conviction and sentencing, Nixon faced impeachment by the House of Representatives and a Senate trial.

Federal judges are appointed for life, and impeachment is the only way to strip them of their post and stop their judicial salary. The process for impeaching a federal judge is the same as impeaching a president.

Challenging his Senate conviction, Nixon claimed senators' use of a committee to take evidence violated the constitutional mandate that the Senate "try all impeachments."

Solicitor General Starr argued at the time that only the "politically accountable" branches of Congress, not the "life-tenured judiciary," had authority over the impeachment process.

The Supreme Court agreed. All nine justices rejected Nixon's complaint about the Senate rules and seven justices, including Rehnquist, concluded that Nixon's claim presented a "political" question beyond review by judges.

In his opinion for the majority, Rehnquist delved into the constitutional history and debates among the framers to support the notion that impeachment was not the business of the judiciary.

"The Framers labored over the question of where the impeachment power should lie," Rehnquist recounted. "Significantly, in at least two considered scenarios, the power was placed with the Federal Judiciary. .... Despite these proposals, the Convention ultimately decided that the Senate would have 'the sole Power to Try all Impeachments.'

"According to Alexander Hamilton, the Senate was the 'most fit depositary of this important trust' because its members are representatives of the people," he added.

In a practical vein, Rehnquist said judges should stay out of impeachment disputes because of the potential "lack of finality." If a President were removed and a court challenge continued, Rehnquist explained, "the legitimacy" of a successor would be undermined, especially if the Senate held a new trial and reversed the conviction.

Most broadly, the court rejected Judge Nixon's assertion that some constitutional "check" was needed on Congress' impeachment process.

"The Framers anticipated this objection and created two constitutional safeguards to keep the Senate in check," Rehnquist wrote. "The first safeguard is that the whole of the impeachment power is divided between the two legislative bodies, with the House given the right to accuse and the Senate given the right to judge. ... The second safeguard is the two-thirds supermajority vote requirement."

Today that means that even if the Democratic-led House votes to impeach Trump, with the requisite simple majority vote, he could be convicted only if the Republican-controlled Senate produced a two-thirds majority against him.

At the same time, the Nixon ruling means that the Supreme Court -- with its justices already worried about becoming ensnared in Washington's politics -- would be shielded from perhaps the ultimate battle over Trump's presidency.

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The other 'Nixon' leaves ultimate responsibility for Trump's removal with Congress - CNN

Why Donald Trump and Other Powerful Men Love to Cast Themselves As Victims – New York Magazine

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Donald Trump. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Long before this week, when he referred to himself as the victim of a lynching, Donald Trump has been fluent in the language of a racist mob. It ran underneath the full-page newspaper ads he paid $85,000 for in 1989, in which he called for the execution of the five black teens about to be tried for the rape of a white female jogger in Central Park. In that ad, he fretted for families who could no longer enjoy strolls in the park thanks to the presence of wild criminals roaming the streets. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand [these men], Trump wrote. I am looking to punish them I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid.

The anger Trump wanted these kids who would spend 13 years in jail before being fully exonerated in 2002 and the public to understand was the anger of a powerful white New Yorker who did not want to tolerate the presence of less powerful New Yorkers. More than that, he wanted millions of readers to understand the potency of that anger: its money, its influence, its public reach, its ability to cast the mere presence of people he didnt like on the street as a violent threat to him and others like him.

These were the dynamics fury at any disruption to his presence or preferences in the world, or to a social order which would keep him at the top that Trump was so adept at conveying on a campaign trail in 2016, when he encouraged his massive, screaming, mostly white crowds to enact physical violence against any protesters who might take up space or challenge them. After one Black Lives Matter protester was beaten following one of his events, Trump told Fox News, Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. At another rally, in Las Vegas, Trump told his jeering crowd, as a man was led out by police, You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a place like this? Theyd be carried out on a stretcher, folks.

These calls echo the language and thinking of lynching, the extrajudicial torture and murder of mostly nonwhite people, and especially African-Americans, that was most common in the Jim Crow South. According to the King Center in Atlanta, More than 4,400 African-American men, women, and children were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. This is the greatness of American history to which Trump has promised his fans a return; these are the flames he has consciously stoked: the return of the mob, and with it the ability, via public spectacle, to punish and hurt those with less power who would challenge or inconvenience an old kind of authority. The cruelty, as Adam Serwer has written, is the point. Yet when Trump is leading the mob, he is rarely fully explicit in his evocation of an era of racist violence.

On Tuesday, he made his reference plain, at the moment that he decided to reverse the lynching framework by casting himself, and imagined future Republican presidents, as powerless victims of a punitive Democratic crowd. So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, Trump tweeted, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here a lynching. But we will WIN!

This was the text of Trumps barely cogent missive, which not only made the vile comparison between a House impeachment inquiry and extrajudicial murder, but was also inaccurate in its assessment of congressional power dynamics and everything else, including spelling. Tactically, this gambit was not so different from Trumps previous claims that he was victim of mobs and witch hunts, but when he used the word lynching outright, it was too much even for a couple of his party peers, including Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins, both of whom offered (extremely) tepid rebukes.

Yet it was just the thing for some other Republicans, chief among them South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who wasted no time getting in front of news cameras: When [an investigation is] about Trump, Graham said, claiming to describe the Democrats approach to impeachment, who cares about the process, so long as you get him. So yeah, this is a lynching. In case anyone wasnt clear, Graham also said, This is a lynching in every sense, and later told Bob Costa, If [the word] lynching bothers you, Im sorry its literally a political lynching.

The willingness to abuse power and then protect ones power by casting oneself as abused, via a fantasy of victimhood, surely has a lengthy history, but has become a particular hallmark of the post-Obama political era. The inversion of vulnerability so that it applies nonsensically, ahistorically, yes, but too often, persuasively to the least vulnerable is pervasive and effective. Those who were lynched were, definitionally, powerless. This makes it both particularly rich and particularly potent imagery for the powerful. It enables them to appropriate one of the only tools available to the powerless: the moral claim to a tale of injustice. Often, and often more subtly than how it unfolded on Tuesday, we are seduced by those with the loudest voices into seeing them the most mighty as the most mistreated.

Trump and Graham are not even the first politicians this year to compare the experience of public censure in response to alleged abuses to being lynched. Virginias lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax, a Democrat who in 2019 was accused on the record by two women of sexual assault, gave a speech in front of the Virginia State Senate in February in which he compared himself to a lynching victim. And its not just elected officials. In 2018, the musician R. Kelly, who has since been indicted on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against minors, claimed that the Times Up Women of Color Branch, which was then advocating a boycott of his music, was tantamount to the attempted public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture. That public lynching is the same language that Bill Cosbys publicist used about his conviction on sexual-assault charges in 2018; Cosbys wife, Camille, wrote a three-page statement comparing her husbands treatment to lynching. And one of the most famous uses of the lynching metaphor as defense of power came from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who asserted in 1991 that the accusations of sexual harassment made against him by Anita Hill (and corroborated by three other women who were not asked to testify at his Judiciary Committee hearing) constituted a high-tech lynching.

Thomas, Cosby, Kelly, and Fairfaxs use of the lynching comparison is different than Trumps; they are black men, recognizing in the metaphor its very real history, in which (mostly fantasized or invented) claims of sexual aggressions against white women were used to justify the torture and murder of black men. These men deployed the analogy in the face of multiple, credible allegations lodged against them, strategically using the history of racist violence as a shield, while in all cases except Cosbys, these mens accusers were primarily black women. (This is crucial, as Salamishah Tillet has argued, citing the journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells, because while white womens sexual violability has too often been used as the justification for racist violence, the very real sexual violence done to black women has just as often gone not only unpunished, but unnoticed).

None of this particular subtext applies to either Donald Trump or Lindsey Graham, both of whom are white men. Nor does it apply to the many lawmakers, including current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who defended Bill Clinton during his 1998 impeachment proceedings by comparing that inquiry to a lynching (a partisan lynching, was Bidens phrase). What they all have in common is a readiness to turn to a metaphor that erases their power, when charged with abusing it, and presents them instead as the real victims of injustice.

Trump has repeatedly called the investigations into him by special counsel Robert Mueller and now House oversight panels a witch hunt, and Trumps private counsel Rudy Giuliani tweeted that Even Salem witch trials didnt use anonymous testimony. The reference to a period of 17th-century violence in Salem, Massachusetts, carries far less historical weight than the callback to lynching a widespread practice that was common for decades and arguably extends to this day. But it relies on the same strategy: the pretense of defenselessness against a mob. Giuliani, appearing on Fox News with Laura Ingraham, would double down on his preposterous witch-trial assertion, telling her that the women and men accused of sorcery in 1692 Salem had more rights than President Donald Trump in 2019. (For what its worth, many of the women and men who were imprisoned, tortured, and killed in the 17th century were convicted based on spectral evidence, i.e., the testimony of spirits who appeared to random people sitting in the courtroom.)

The performance of inequity and injustice invites the public to view the powerful with a kind of sympathy that, ironically enough, is rarely available to those who have less power. This is the truly grotesque factor: It is power itself that renders people recognizable to us, affords them our sympathy and empathy; its power that makes them more likely to be believed when they tell us of the injustice they have suffered.

This is why Brett Kavanaugh, a wealthy white federal judge who was credibly accused of sexual violence yet was nonetheless elevated to the most powerful court in the country, managed to so successfully present himself to the nation as mortally imperiled. My family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed, Kavanaugh said, while Trump postulated that its a very scary & dangerous time for young men in America, describing those who opposed Kavanaughs appointment as a liberal mob and suggesting that those on the right who defended him should get security to protect themselves. (Its certainly not just big bad Republicans who do this kind of inversion. In 2018, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw described himself as having been taken to the guillotine after having been accused by one woman of having kissed her against her will in the 1990s; the British director Terry Gilliam claimed in 2018 that actor Matt Damon, after having been criticized on Twitter for comments he made about Me Too, had been beaten to death.)

The impulse to revert to falsified claims of vulnerability and physical suffering reflects the sense of many who believe themselves to have some innate claim to power or maybe even just the experience of holding it that that claim is being compromised, and that that loss of unchallenged primacy is tantamount to actual harm. The claim that established power is being threatened is also, circularly, the very imagined conviction that undergirded the practice of lynching itself. Black Americans were often lynched in response to the imagined or invented sexual incursions on white bodies, but also simply after moving into or nearby white communities, attempting to vote, or building successful businesses that interfered in any way with unfettered white profit.

Its this sense that is, to some degree, the distinguishing undercurrent of the era were living through.

Its behind the MAGA hats and the nostalgia for a more officially stratified America; it underpins the drive to build courts that will reverse voting and reproductive and collective bargaining rights; its what permits Trump to brag about grabbing women and hearken back at his rallies to the days when protesters would be taken out on stretchers and compare himself to a victim of lynching and not suffer for it with his base, but in fact become more warmly embraced as an expressor of their own convictions. Its what gives a crowd of white, suited Republican men the idea of barging into legitimate, regulated impeachment inquiry hearings in an effort to shut them down as they did on Wednesday, delaying the deposition of a Defense Department official by five hours. It was simultaneously a piece of inane political theater, but also a frightening visual reminder: a taste of what a mob of powerful white men claiming to be seeking justice for a man who says hes been victimized are capable of.

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Evangelicals have stuck by Trump. But polls hint at trouble ahead. – POLITICO

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This gives evangelicals pause because now theyre wondering, Hmm, that was not a good move. Whats next? Does this mean hes going to throw Israel under the bus if he threw the Kurds under the bus? a longtime friend of the president said. Another evangelical Trump ally told the president he was offended by a comment the president made about Kurdish fighters having plenty of sand to play with, according to a person briefed on the conversation.

Its a first for Trumps presidency: The same evangelical leaders whove been notoriously unmovable through prior controversies have spoken out forcefully to condemn his policy toward Syria. Televangelist Pat Robertson said Trump was in danger of losing the mandate of heaven. Family Research Council head Tony Perkins described the move as inconsistent with what the president has done previously.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee shake hands with then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

I was concerned about it, but feel more confident after talking with POTUS and seeing the results of the cease-fire and the economic sanctions, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who initially blasted Trumps decision to ditch the Kurds as a huge mistake, wrote in an email to POLITICO on Tuesday. (In remarks from the White House Diplomatic Reception Room less than 24 hours later, Trump announced he would be lifting those same economic sanctions against Turkey remarks that came a day after the U.S. special envoy for Syria engagement told a Senate panel the Turkish military offensive had killed hundreds of Kurdish fighters.)

The outrage over Trumps Syria decision, combined with the growing threat of impeachment, has left the president facing a new test in his relationship with white evangelicals as signs of tensions have begun to surface in recent polls. For some, his culturally conservative agenda may not be enough to keep them from walking away if the situation in Syria deteriorates further.

Its a dilemma that has left Trumps biggest religious boosters asking themselves whether his sky-high support with so-called values voters will last through next November.

If hes going to win in 2020, said the longtime Trump friend, he has to be north of the 81 percent [of white evangelicals] he won in 2016. Im not suggesting that the polling is all of a sudden going to show that his support is plummeting because of Syria. But if it stays stagnant, hes a one-term president.

White evangelicals have long grappled with a president they consider their greatest champion since the Reagan years, but who rarely approaches policy matters or discourse with their preferred tone or moral code. They have asked Trump not to curse at his campaign rallies, despite standing by him when he was caught on tape making vulgar comments about women in 2016. They have endorsed his hard-line immigration policies, but privately urged him to ditch the harsh language about immigrants and refugees. And they have consistently cited his appointment of anti-abortion judges as a hallmark of his presidency without mentioning the uncomfortable moment when, as a candidate, he suggested punishing women who choose to end their pregnancies.

Now, the presidents evangelical allies are pressing him to consider the consequences of pulling troops from Syria, which he has cast as a financially sensible decision. And they are warning him of trouble ahead if he doesnt both in the region, where U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters have been killed by Turkish airstrikes in recent days, and with his political standing back home.

This is a danger zone for this administration when it comes to evangelicals. They see religious persecution, Iran gaining a foothold, Israel facing threats and the possibility of ISIS reemerging, and what Trump keeps talking about is the land, and the money, and the deal-making, said the longtime Trump friend. The moral compass is missing, and hes off balance here with evangelicals.

Unlike other voting blocs that have slowly moved away from Trump, white evangelicals have displayed a certain level of elasticity in their support for him opting to adapt to the worst moments and elements of his presidency, even when they have shown initial signs of shock.

Hes a blue-chip stock for evangelicals and theyre cashed in fully. If theres fluctuation in the market, they always ride it out, said the Trump pal.

Its an enduring mystery of the Trump era and one that prompts questions about tribalism and the state of both major political parties. Do white evangelicals stand by Trump because there is no suitable Republican or Democratic alternative? Or do they embrace him because thats what theyve seen the most prominent among them do?

My gut says white evangelicals will jump when and if Fox News does, said Elesha Coffman, a scholar of American religion at Baylor University. Any movement, if we see it, isnt going to come from within their religious communities.

A lengthy study released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute offers other clues about the current state of Trumps relationship with white evangelical voters, as well as why it could change between now and Election Day. In striking terms, the survey captures just how substantial the presidents support is among white evangelicals: 99 percent of GOP-leaning white evangelical Protestants oppose impeaching and removing Trump from office and 63 percent say he has done nothing to damage the dignity of the presidency, separating them from majorities across all other major religious groups that said he has.

Other figures raise questions about the durability of white evangelicals support for Trump, particularly given the precarious position he finds himself in with Syria.

For example, 63 percent of white evangelical Protestants in the PRRI study said terrorism is a major concern for them more than immigration (55 percent), which has been Trumps single biggest issue, or health care (53 percent). Those figures come amid warnings that the U.S. pullout from Syria could rekindle terrorism in Europe and cause a resurgence of the Islamic State. Already, a separate NPR/Marist survey found that nearly 30% of white evangelicals believe U.S. security has been weakened by Trump.

The worse the situation becomes in Syria the more comfortable white evangelicals might feel about distancing themselves from Trump, Coffman said. That happened gradually during the Watergate era, when rank-and-file evangelicals slowly walked away from President Richard M. Nixon.

After the Syria cease-fire, will things get much worse? Will we get pictures of children who get victimized by chemical weapons? Will there be enough of a rebuke from Republicans or more voices inside white evangelicalism speaking out about this? Coffman asked, adding that its possible well see movement then, but I wouldnt bet on it.

There is also the shadow that impeachment has cast over Trumps presidency, and how white evangelicals are responding.

A much-discussed Fox News poll found that nearly three in 10 white evangelicals want the president impeached and removed from office a figure that startled some officials on Trumps 2020 campaign, according to an outside adviser. And in the NPR/Marist survey, which was taken after House Democrats began their impeachment inquiry, only 62 percent of white evangelicals said they definitely plan to vote for Trump next fall.

Thats the number Trumps top evangelical supporters are closely monitoring and cautioning the president not to ignore. Eighty-one percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016 was enough to carry him to the White House, they say, but with underwater approval ratings among other key constituencies he needs to do even better next fall.

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Evangelicals have stuck by Trump. But polls hint at trouble ahead. - POLITICO

Donald Trump’s Televised Cabinet Meeting Was Another Nutty Episode – Esquire

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Does it even matter any more that, on Monday, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago had another televised nutty in the White House? Does it matter more that, in the course of his televised nutty, the president* expressed virulent contempt for the Constitution he swore to preserve, protect, and defend. I mean, I was sitting there when he did it. I had to sit through that awful Roger Corman film of an inaugural address. Did I do that for naught?

Anyway, on Monday, the president* unburdened himself of the following thought-like objects.

On the war on terror:

On the whistleblower:

And then, the piece de resistance, in which Alexander Hamilton and James Madison become operatives of The Deep State...

I know he burbled on about George Washington and Barack Obama and Netflix and how unprecedented it is that he's not taking a salary. (Herbert Hoover didn't, nor did JFK.) But I think I briefly went to another place when he said that thing about the Emoluments Clause. How about the Bill of Rights? How about the powers of Congress? How about the impeachment provisions? What other parts of the Constitution does he consider "phony"?

All of them, Katie.

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Donald Trump's Televised Cabinet Meeting Was Another Nutty Episode - Esquire

Conservatives in Iowa kick off race to 2020 election with unflinching support for President Trump – Des Moines Register

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Trump rally in Texas Courtney M Sacco, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Jeff Kaufmann looked out onto the group of hungry conservatives.

The chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa was trying to get a message out, but he was also competing with several hundred people eatingtheir dinner.

"This is Trump country in a place where we really don't care what Mitt Romney thinks!" Kaufmann said, referencingthe former Republican nominee for president and now U.S. senator from Utah who has clashed with the president.

The attendees of the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition fall banquet, who just seconds earlier were digging into fried chicken and green beans, dropped their forks and clapped enthusiastically.

Inside abuilding on the Iowa State Fairgroundsoften used for trade shows, Christian conservatives kicked off their race to the 2020 election Saturday.

On the agenda: Unflinching support for Trumpand other Republicans seeking to defeat Democratsup and down the ballot. The key to ensuring that, according to the multiple speakers, will beto elevatewhat they see as Trump'saccomplishments: improving theeconomy, appointing conservative judges, enforcing immigration laws and realizing an anti-abortion agenda.

"You cannot find another president in history that has laid out exactly what he was going to do, and then turned around like clockwork predictability, trust and integrity and carried it out to the T," Kaufmann said to the receptive crowd.

Several speakersalso said that conservatives must use their voices towarn about what could happen if Trump is defeated.

Kayne Robinson, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party of Iowa who has recentlyworked for the National Rifle Association,laid out a scenario in whichDemocrats reclaim the U.S. Senate and remove the chamber's 60-vote requirement that currently prevents simple majority votes to advance most pieces of legislation.

Democrat's priorities, according to Robinson:"Tax churches out of existence. Muzzle our speech. Physical roundup of guns and taxing ammunition out of existence. Socialized medicine... doubling the nationalspending. And taxes."

Robinson said he's heardcomplaints of "Trump's tweets and the way he talks."

"If Trump didn't do thisthe way he does it, every word he says would be translated to you by some so-called 'news people' who loathe himwho hate him and who loathe you and I, also,"Robinson said. "We would never really hear from Trump. It's his way of leaping over them."

The fall banquet had capped a remarkable day of politics in Iowa. It was 100 days until the first-in-the-nation caucuses, though not a single presidential candidate was in the state.

Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had appeared hours earlier at Drake University. At the event, which included protesters outside, the powerful Democratic leadertalked about her reasoning for launching an impeachment inquiry against the president.

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee,acknowledged Pelosi during his keynote address to the coalition.

"Speaker Pelosi, understand something:If you have it in you to bring it to the floor to impeach this president, then have the audacity and have the fortitude to bring it to a voteand make sure everybody knows where you stand," he said.

Ralph Reed, chairman of the national umbrella of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, spoke about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Reed said Democrats process in 2018 for investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh was unfair. Kavanaugh has denied all allegations against him.

This is what they do, Reed said of Democrats. And I dont know about you, but Im ready to not only get on my knees and pray that God have mercy on our nation again, as he did in 2016, but I will work my fingers to the bone for the next 12 monthsto make sure that they never have power in the White House or the U.S. Senate,Nancy Pelosi isnt speaker of the House ...

Reeds words became inaudible over the loud applause.

I not only want to ensure that Donald Trump serves another four years, I'm ready to repeal the 25th Amendment, after what hes done, Reed said. The 25th Amendment to the constitution lays out presidential succession and impeachment procedures.

Some nervous laughs followed from the audience before Reed quickly added: Not really."

Deborah Smithof West Des Moinessaid she left the event feeling empowered. The 63-year-old retiree has been attending the banquet for several years, and this year's was particularly important to her:Shedoesn't buy the impeachment inquiry and she supports the president.

"Over and over again, these people have taken lies and just made mountains out of molehills," she said. "It's just such an injustice to a man who is trying to do everything he can to turn this country around."

Barbara Rodriguez covers health care and politics for the Register. She can be reached by email at bcrodriguez@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8011. Follow her on Twitter @bcrodriguez.

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Conservatives in Iowa kick off race to 2020 election with unflinching support for President Trump - Des Moines Register

Bruce Springsteen: Donald Trump "doesn’t have a grasp" on what it means to be American in Gayle King interview – CBS News

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Legendary singer and songwriter Bruce Springsteen says Americans are living in "a frightening time" because of the country's leadership. In an interviewwith "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King, Springsteen responded to President Trump's comments at a Minneapolis rallyearlier this month on how he "didn't need little Bruce Springsteen" and other celebrities like Beyonc and Jay Z, who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

King asked, "So he's going back to 2016. And this is now 2019. You surprised that he's trash-talking you after all this time?" Springsteen laughed.

"Not really. Anything's possible," he said.

"I know. I mean, a lot of people are very concerned about the direction of the country," King said.

"It's just frightening, you know? We're living in a frightening time," Springsteen replied. "The stewardship of the nation is has been thrown away to somebody who doesn't have a clue as to what that means ... And unfortunately, we have somebody who I feel doesn't have a grasp of the deep meaning of what it means to be an American."

Springsteen is out with a new film, "Western Stars," which hits theaters nationwide this weekend. It features his first collection of new music since 2012.

Watch the extended conversation with Springsteen on our streaming network, CBSN, at 8 p.m. on Friday.

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Bruce Springsteen: Donald Trump "doesn't have a grasp" on what it means to be American in Gayle King interview - CBS News

How Donald Trump Turned to a Comics Titan to Shape the VA – ProPublica

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ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublicas Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

President Donald Trump personally directed administration officials to report to one of his largest donors, Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, according to a new book by former Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin.

Starting with Shulkins interview for the cabinet post, Trump routinely dialed Perlmutter into meetings and asked if the secretary was keeping Perlmutter informed and happy, Shulkin wrote. Perlmutter would call Shulkin as often as multiple times a day, and White House officials such as Stephen Miller would scold Shulkin for not being in close enough contact with Perlmutter and two of his associates at Mar-a-Lago, Trumps private club in Florida.

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I didn't reach out to these guys these guys had a prior relationship with the president and were advising him, Shulkin, who was fired by tweet in March 2018, said in an interview. There probably wasnt too many times I met with the president when he didnt say, Whats happening with Ike?

The unusual influence over the VA wielded by Perlmutter, along with doctor Bruce Moskowitz and lawyer Marc Sherman, was first revealed by a ProPublica investigation in August 2018, prompting ongoing investigations by the House Veterans Affairs Committee and the Government Accountability Office. But Shulkins book provides new details on Trumps direct role in initiating and encouraging the arrangement.

There was a second track of VA decision-making led by the presidents alternative advisers that didnt include me, Shulkin wrote in the book, the first inside account by a former member of Trumps cabinet. Ike, Bruce and Marc had the presidents ear in ways that I did not, even as his cabinet secretary.

The White House didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement, Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman said they had no official role or responsibilities at the agency. We were informal advisors offering our help in service of a cause we believe in, they said. The fact that Mr. Shulkin chose to read political tea leaves and interpreted our role otherwise is disappointing, but ultimately those were mistakes he needs to account for, not us.

In one incident, Shulkin attended a dinner with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the White House. Perlmutter, his wife and Moskowitz were already there, visiting with Trump in the residence. (Mattis didnt respond to a request for comment.)

This was the first time it hit me just how much the Mar-a-Lago crowd was going to be involved in my new life and in my ability to lead the VA, Shulkin wrote. I didnt need written instructions to understand this two-tiered social event the guests who waited downstairs and the guests who were entertained upstairs as a directive. Essentially, These people are my friends and confidants, and I expect you to listen to them and make them happy.

Perlmutter and his wife contributed almost $7.5 million to Republican causes in 2016, ranking them among Trumps biggest backers, according to federal data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2018, the couple donated $2 million to Ron DeSantis, a close Trump ally, in his successful race to become governor of Florida. They also lent him their private plane. Perlmutter shuns publicity, refusing interviews and photographs, but occasionally surfaces in court proceedings, including an acrimonious neighborhood feud and a New York police officers testimony that he got tickets to Marvel premieres and helped Perlmutter renew his gun permit. He frequents Mar-a-Lago and, at his nearby oceanfront apartment, collects exotic fish; Shulkin (a physician by training) observed that the Perlmutters aquarium required so much special equipment that it looked like they were operating a fish intensive care unit.

Trump gave Perlmutter and his associates sweeping influence over the VA the second-largest federal agency, with a $200-plus billion budget and almost 400,000 employees providing health care services and compensation benefits to 9 million veterans despite their lack of any relevant experience. None of them has ever worked in government or served in the U.S. military (Perlmutter served in the Israeli Army in the 1967 war).

Perlmutter was familiar with much-publicized scandals at the VAs hospitals and had a rosy view of private health care, Shulkin said. On one of their first calls, Shulkin wrote, Perlmutter suggested they go around the country showing up at VA hospitals unannounced to see what was really going on. When Shulkin said he didnt think it would be appropriate for a private citizen to be conducting unplanned inspections, Perlmutter said, OK, well give them 10 minutes notice.

Often their advice was unusable, because none of these men seemed to have much of an understanding of how the VA worked, nor did they possess any health system management experience, wrote Shulkin, who led the VAs health division before becoming secretary and previously ran private hospitals. Most concerning was that these VA advisers had never even been to a VA facility (which was also true of the president and his senior staff).

When Shulkin did bring Perlmutter on a tour of the VA in West Palm Beach, Perlmutter seemed genuinely surprised by the appearance and orderliness of this facility. Perlmutter pressed patients for complaints he seemed adamant about finding dissatisfaction, or better yet, horror stories, Shulkin wrote but heard only praise, according to the book.

The book recounts that Shulkin and the trio structured their interactions to avoid triggering disclosure requirements. Shulkin said he asked the agencys lawyers about the propriety of the Mar-a-Lago trios involvement, since a Watergate-era sunshine law requires federal agencies to disclose input from outside advisers. Shulkin said he explained the law to Perlmutter and Moskowitz, and they didnt want the obligations of becoming an official advisory committee. So they agreed to give advice as individuals.

I also knew the limitations placed on private citizens meddling in government affairs, and I was always cautious to make sure that these three did not cross the line, Shulkin wrote.

Since the Mar-a-Lago advisers had no official positions, they were not subject to laws requiring federal employees to disclose and divest assets to avoid conflicts of interest. Still, Shulkin said he never saw them use their influence for personal gain. Truthfully, he wrote, I think they mostly wanted to feel useful.

And they were useful to Shulkin, at least at first, as a sounding board and conduit to Trump. But they later grew frustrated that Shulkin wasnt communicating enough and told him hed lost their confidence. The three aligned themselves with other political appointees at the VA who distrusted Shulkin because he served in the Obama administration and accused him of undermining Trumps campaign promise to push more veterans health care into the private sector. During one visit to Mar-a-Lago, Sherman followed Shulkin into the mens room and, after checking that no one else was around, told him: Dont touch the politicals. Youre playing with fire.

Once the politicals impugned Shulkin to Perlmutter, according to the book, Perlmutter poisoned the presidents view of him. Trump had always been publicly effusive toward Shulkin, but after one trip to Mar-a-Lago he wouldnt acknowledge him and avoided eye contact. John Kelly, then the chief of staff, told Shulkin that Trump was upset with him because of what he heard from his friends in Florida. (Kelly didnt respond to a request for comment.)

Asked whether he was referring to Perlmutter, according to the book, Kelly responded, Yes, that guy tells POTUS what to do despite not knowing what hes talking about.

Shulkin called Perlmutter and demanded, What did you do? but Perlmutter refused to respond, Shulkin wrote.

Shulkins interactions with the Mar-a-Lago trio are just one thread in a detailed, diarylike account of his tumultuous tenure at the VA. He also recounts the policy and organizational changes he led. And Shulkin defends himself against findings, in a report by the agencys inspector general, that he misused government funds on a European trip, a scandal that became ammunition for his internal enemies.

Obviously I decided that it was important to describe the relationship with the Mar-a-Lago people, but I really dont want that to be the legacy of this book, Shulkin said in the interview. I spent three years working hard to fix the system, and I actually felt like we were making progress and we were on a path to making this a sustainable modern system. And then my time got cut short. So I felt like it was an obligation of mine to put down on paper what I felt was working and how I was doing it so that hopefully people in the future might refer to it and learn something from it.

The stakes for veterans could not be higher, Shulkin wrote, since the VAs other Trump appointees were determined to privatize more of their health care. Shulkin believes thats not the best outcome for veterans, he wrote, but its exactly the path the agency has taken since his ouster.

Shulkins successor, Robert Wilkie, has denied having an agenda to privatize the VA. But in June he approved new rules to dramatically expand the circumstances when the agency will pay to send veterans to private doctors instead of treating them in government-run health centers. Shulkin said this approach will cost more and result in worse care. A VA spokeswoman said, Thats a false, fringe view.

Empowering political appointees, with no experience in health care, no interest in involving industry experts, and no accountability to voters, will prove to be one of the larger mistakes of the Trump administration, he wrote. The path now chosen, if allowed to continue, will leave veterans with fewer options, a severely weakened VA, and a private health care system not designed to meet the complex requirements of high-need veterans. While largely unaware of his political appointees scheming, President Trump was most likely pleased with the result, because it fit well into a political sound bite and was consistent with his campaign platform. Most likely he does not realize the long-term implications.

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How Donald Trump Turned to a Comics Titan to Shape the VA - ProPublica

If it’s Donald Trump vs. Elizabeth Warren, his stronger base could be the key to victory – NBC News

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Despite having 17 candidates to choose from, the Democratic establishment politicos are apparently worried that the partys 2020 presidential field seems to be winnowing to four, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts showing the most momentum of those at the top. And they are right to be concerned: Warrens base to the extent she has one is much weaker than President Donald Trumps, and she faces nagging questions about her ability to inspire those other elements of the Democratic base that the party nominee will need in fall 2020.

The eventual Democratic pick will almost certainly run up against a virtual lock on support for Trump among GOP voters.

The eventual Democratic pick will almost certainly run up against a virtual lock on support for Trump among GOP voters. According to Gallup polls taken every two weeks, Trumps support among Republicans hovers in the high 80s to low 90s. And those numbers havent been affected by the impeachment inquiry by House Democrats against Trump over the Ukraine whistleblower affair. Paradoxically, Trump campaign officials are using the Capitol Hill proceedings to fire up the presidents bedrock of support to an even higher degree than when he took office in January 2017. Trumps base broadly composed of white evangelicals, the non-college educated and rural residents is staying loyal to him in the face of impeachment.

In one measure of this loyalty, a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll in September found that 72 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents prefer Trump to be the partys 2020 nominee over any other GOP candidate up from 59 percent in October 2017. Another is that, according to the same poll, 37 percent of Republicans say theres almost nothing Trump could do to lose their approval.

Indeed, the Republican party at present is effectively a personality cult around Trump. On the left, there's no equivalent though it is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, rather than Warren, who comes closest. Sanders has a passionate, even die-hard, following at the left end of Democratic politics that is helping him even with voters who arent as far left as him. The same PRRI poll found that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents view Sanders more positively than any of his 2020 opponents. Sanders has a net favorability rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable) of 55 percent slightly higher than Biden. Warrens net favorability rating is down at 43 percent.

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And while an Emerson poll conducted from Oct. 18-21 found former Vice President Joe Biden leading the Democratic race with the support of 27 percent of primary voters, Sanders followed closely at 25 despite having just suffered a heart attack reflecting a resiliency among his hard-core support. Sanders also has the highest number of individual contributors of any 2020 Democratic campaign, as well as the most cash in the bank, $33.7 million to Warrens $25.7 million.

Sanders this weekend also scored the endorsement of 30-year-old New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC), doyenne of the Democratic congressional hard left and a bellwether for that consituencys support. Her pick demonstrates a generational span of enthusiasm for him and the fact that, while Warren has been running hard on a strongly progressive platform designed to appeal to the energized voters on the left who love AOC, she hasnt fully won them over.

Warren simply doesnt engender that same sort of enthusiasm (at this point). Sure, national polls show her leading Sanders and being competitive with their main rivals Biden and, significantly further back, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The RealClearPolitics polling average through Oct. 23 has Warren at 22.1 percent compared to Biden at 28.7 percent. Sanders comes in third at 16.7 percent.

Warren has made serious inroads in the 2020 Democratic race with a mix of left-wing populist positions, such as a wealth tax and breaking up big tech companies. Shes also made inroads among moderates. But while Warren leads Sanders in the polls, her base of support remains less firm than his. She clearly has many supporters and is continuing to gather them but she doesnt show evidence of the unmovable core that Trump has, and Bernies enduring appeal to a similar constituency underscores that.

In part, that is a reflection of her sometimes fuzzy answers about public policy issues and less-than-full devotion to far-left causes. Sanders characterized his differences with Warren in an interview with ABC as: She is a capitalist through her bones. Im not.Moreover, Warren has struggled for months to say how her Medicare for all plan would be funded. Sanders, by contrast, has for years on his Senate website offered a detailed proposal to pay for the universal coverage concept, which aims to eliminate private health insurance.

Sanders has always seen steady support on the left and far-left. In addition to his stellar fundraising numbers, hes turned out impressive crowdss. His New York City endorsement event with AOC drew more than 20,000 people, according to his campaign, more than attended Warrens recent rally in the city. Moreover, hes seen by supporters and even grudgingly by critics as strikingly consistent in his advocacy of causes and public policy stances.

The fact that energized support on the left hasnt so far coalesced around Warren could perhaps avoid being a fatal problem if shes able to appeal to other key Democratic constituencies. But so far there is little sign of that. Warren faces ongoing challenges with black voters, crucial to claiming the Democratic nomination. Shes also coming up short with blue-collar voters, a not insignificant element of the Democratic coalition.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 when she couldnt replicate the astronomical voter turnout for Barack Obama because she also faced shortcomings in the base though among different constituencies than Warren is struggling with. That largely explains how bond-rating firm Moodys Analytics assessed in a recent report that Trump is favored to win a second term, possibly by a blowout margin, with depressed turnout on the Democratic side a main factor in its analysis. Though the report has its flaws, its true that a Democratic voter turnout failure could allow Trump to squeak through.

While Democrats were able to grow voter turnout among minorities, young people and college-educated whites in their 2018 midterm successes, its also possible that 2020 turnout could surge among non-college-educated whites Trumps base. That demographic did not turn out at high rates in 2018, but could do so with Trump back on the ballot.

Democrats are not doomed to lose under Warren, of course. While Warren hasnt positioned herself as a moderate, the antipathy of many independents toward Trump leaves room for her to challenge him for swing voters. But here, too, unlikeability remains a persistent problem. Among non-Democratic voters, CNN reported, 11 percent viewed Warren favorably while 70 percent saw her unfavorably. That suggests Warren has little room for growth outside of base Democratic voters (though thats also true for Trump vis-a-vis the GOP base.)

Warren faces ongoing challenges with black voters, crucial to claiming the Democratic nomination. Shes also coming up short with blue-collar voters.

Sanders, its worth noting, is making a concerted effort to win over some Trump voters, trying to show that, as a fellow economic populist, hes their best bet. And back in 2016, about 12 percent of Sanders supporters in his primary fight against Clinton voted for Trump that November.

On the other hand, Catalist, Democratic-aligned data firm, recently estimated that voter turnout in 2020 could climb as high as 160 million people over 2016s 138 million, fueled by the same gains in the demographics that grew in 2018 to help the Democrats in the midterms.

But that kind of turnout for Democrats is a hope, not a plan. Even though Trumps aggregated approval rating has never escaped the 35 to 45 percent band, his supporters in that group are sticking with him. The same cant be said for his Democratic rivals, particularly Warren. Which is why a second Trump term, despite the utter hatred and contempt of him from many on the left, could very well happen.

David Mark is an editor, author and lecturer based in Washington, D.C.

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If it's Donald Trump vs. Elizabeth Warren, his stronger base could be the key to victory - NBC News

Around Ascension for Oct. 24, 2019 | Ascension – The Advocate

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Make plans for trunk-or-treat

Decorated cars with candy-filled trunks will line up for a trunk-or-treat event from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 29 at the Gonzales Healthcare Center, 905 W. Cornerview St. To register your trunk, call (225) 644-5358. Donations of candy can be dropped off in the admissions office through Oct. 25.

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Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office is hosting two Boo with the Badge events.

One is at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church's La LeFte des Bayous in St. Amant. Members of the Sheriff's Office and Ascension Parish Fire District 1 will join the festival for family night festivities from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. for a safe trick-or treating event. Local businesses and organizations will distribute candy.

The second Boo with the Badge is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 31 at the Hickley M. Waguespack Center in Donaldsonville.

The Ascension Parish 4-H is taking orders through Oct. 30 for sweet potatoes and pecans to support the Ascension Parish 4-H Foundation's scholarships and programs. The Thanksgiving feast essentials can be picked up between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Nov. 20-21 at the 4-H office at Lamar Dixon, 9039 S. St. Landry Road, Gonzales. (Thanksgiving is Nov. 28.)

The sweet potato prices are $12 for a 10-pound box or $25 for a 40-pound box. The price for peeled pecans is $30 for a 3-pound box. To place an order, contact an Ascension Parish 4-Her or the Ascension Parish 4-H Office at (225) 621-5799.

Online registration for the 2019 Ascension Youth Basketball Association program for boys and girls ages six to fifteen runs through Oct. 31. The registration fee is $80 per child. Visit http://www.ayba.info for the link and instructions.

The Ascension Veterans Memorial Park Foundation is taking orders for a wreath to place on the graves of veterans this Christmas season.

The deadline to order a wreath for veterans graves will be Nov. 30. The program is part of the nationwide Wreaths Across America program to remember and honor the deceased veterans during the holidays. The cost of a wreath is $15. Wreaths ordered through the AVMP Foundation can be specifically placed on the graves of Ascension veterans through volunteers or families can pick up the wreaths and place on the graves. Donations are also accepted to place a wreath on the grave of any veterans.

This year, the AVMP Foundation will be honoring peacetime veterans for their service. Wreaths will be available at the ceremony to be held at 11 a.m. Dec. 14 at the Ascension Veterans Memorial Park in Gonzales. For more information or to order a wreath, visit http://www.facebook.com/AscensionVeteransPark or email ascvetspark@gmail.com.

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Around Ascension for Oct. 24, 2019 | Ascension - The Advocate

Our Lady of the Lake Ascension plans health education programs – The Advocate

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Our Lady of the Lake Ascension will present these community education programs in October.

TOTAL JOINT REPLACEMENT: A free class for people considering knee or hip replacement surgery will be held at 11 a.m. Oct. 28, in the Sister Linda Conference Room at Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, 1125 W. La. 30, Gonzales. Participants will meet Our Lady of the Lake Ascension health professionals who will discuss the whole process,from pre-admission to rehabilitation. To register, call (225)621-2906 or email Diane.Hodges@fmolhs.org.

HEALING ARTS WORKSHOP: A free program on using art toincrease self-awareness, cope with symptoms, and manage stress will be held from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Oct. 22 in the St. Francis Conference Room in Medical Plaza I ofOur Lady of the Lake Ascension, 1125 W. La. 30, Gonzales. To register, call Rachel Mumphrey at (225) 644-1205.

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HEALTH FAIR EXPO: TheCapital Area Agency on Aging will hold its annual Health Fair Expo from 8 a.m. to noon Thursday, Oct. 31, at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, 9039 S. St. Landry Ave., Gonzales. There will be numerous free health screenings, plus educational materials and handouts. To register, go to http://www.capitalaaa.org.

LIVE WELL ASCENSION:Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Gonzales, in conjunction with the Gonzales Area Foundation, is providing free, convenient access to a host of cancer screenings at its Live Well Ascension event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, atJambalaya Park 1015 E. Cornerview St., Gonzales. Cancer screenings will include breast (appointment required), colorectal, oral, prostate and skin, as well as blood pressure and glucose checks. To make an appointment for breast screening, call (225)621-2906 or email Diane.Hodges@fmolhs.org.

GRIEF SUPPORT GROUP: The Grief Recovery Center holds a meeting for people who have experienced loss of any kind at 6 p.m. Thursdays in theSister Linda Conference Room at Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, 1125 W. La. 30, Gonzales. The next meeting will be Oct. 3.

SMOKING CESSATION Louisiana residents who smoked a cigarette before Sept. 1, 1998, are eligible for free medications and group and individual counseling to help them quit, through the Smoking Cessation Trust.Services are provided at Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, Our Lady of the Lake Baton Rouge and Our Lady of the Lake Livingston. Registration is required; to register for the program meeting in theSister Linda Conference Room at Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, 1125 W. La. 30, Gonzales, call (225) 757-2455.

MINDFUL YOGA: The Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center presents free yoga classes for cancer survivors and caregivers at 10 a.m. Wednesdays atThe City Room 1006 W. La. 30, Gonzales; the next class will be Oct. 9. To register, contact Rachel Mumphrey at (225) 644-1205 or rmumphrey@marybird.com.

CANCER SUPPORT GROUP: The Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center presents a support group helpingcancer survivors and caregivers reduce stress, enhance the immune system, increase sense of well-being, and improve self-care at 1 p.m. Wednesdays at the center,1104 W. La. 30, Gonzales; the next class will be Oct. 9.

WALKING GROUP:The Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center has organized a walking group for cancer survivors and caregivers that meets at 9 a.m. Thursdays atJambalaya Park, 1015 E. Cornerview St., Gonzales. The next walk will be Oct. 10.

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Our Lady of the Lake Ascension plans health education programs - The Advocate

Syfy Limited Series Ascension Leaving Netflix in November 2019 – What’s on Netflix

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Ascension Picture: Syfy

One of Syfys best titles currently on Netflix is currently scheduled to be removed from Netflix in the United States and almost every other Netflix region in November 2019. Heres why you should revisit the series and when its scheduled to leave.

Syfy is mainly known for sci-fi series with smaller budgets to streamers such as Netflix, Amazon or HBO but this 2014 series broke most peoples expectations and delivered a fantastic well-received limited series.

The series follows an expedition to populate a new world that comes under fire when a womans murder puts the project at risk.

The series featured a relatively unknown cast including Tricia Helfer, Brian Van Holt, Andrea Roth, Gil Bellows, and Brandon Bell. Ascension was created by Philip Levens.

Now notably Netflix split the three-part limited series up into 6 episodes. Netflixs versions roughly span 40 minutes apiece whereas the original series aired episodes at an hour and a half each.

The series was added to Netflix in every region of the world in 2016 although the United States has had it streaming since June 18th, 2016.

Currently, all regions of Netflix will be seeing Ascension season 1 removed on November 17th, 2019.

Itll leave at roughly 12:00 AM PST.

The removal date applies to multiple regions that weve gathered thanks to Unogs.

There are also a few other regions that have it listed to expire come November too.

November will see quite a few big titles leave Netflix including Blue Bloods and Last Tango in Halifax.

No future streaming home for Ascension has been announced just yet but given the direction of travel at the moment, wed expect NBC Universal to keep it back for its upcoming Peacock platform.

The only other location could be of Debmar-Mercurys choosing who, alongside NBC, distributes the series.

Beyond the US, the series will likely be distributed in a case by case basis.

Will you miss Ascension once it leaves Netflix? Let us know in the comments.

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Syfy Limited Series Ascension Leaving Netflix in November 2019 - What's on Netflix

Protections for Ascension Island, the Crossroads of the Atlantic – The Pew Charitable Trusts

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Overview

Ascension Island lies in an isolated expanse of the South Atlantic Ocean midway between Angola and Brazil. Part of the United Kingdom Overseas Territory of St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha, the volcanic island measures just 88 square kilometres (34 square miles). The surrounding waters are rich with biodiversity and serve as a critical stopping place for migratory species, such as green sea turtles.

This critically important ecosystem warrants protection. Highly mobile species stop in these waters seeking food and shelter from the open seas as they travel across the ocean. The area supports healthy populations of marine mammals and fish, including 11 fish species found nowhere else. The island is home to the second-largest nesting population of green sea turtles in the Atlantic, along with 11 types of seabirds that nest on the island and feed in its rich waters.

The Ascension Island Council (AIC) and the U.K. Government both support steps to safeguard biodiversity in these waters through establishment of a large marine protected area (MPA). Encompassing the islands entire exclusive economic zone, the MPA would be twice the size of the United Kingdoms land mass. Industrial fishing and mineral extraction would be prohibited within its boundaries.

Recognising the declining health of the worlds ocean ecosystems, the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2016 recommended that 30 per cent of all marine habitats be protected in order to sustain and continue the growth of marine biodiversity. Later that year, the U.K. Government publicly committed to protect 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) of its waters through what is known as its Blue Belt policy. This ambitious framework included a goal of protecting at least 50 per cent of the area around Ascension Island.

In March 2019, the U.K. Government agreed to support the Ascension Island Councils proposal to designate a 443,000-square-kilometre (171,000-square-mile) MPA that would cover the islands entire exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Commercial fishing and mineral extraction would be banned throughout the MPA, but recreational and sport fishing still would be allowed up to 12 nautical miles (22 kilometres) from shore. If designated, the Ascension Island MPA would cover more than twice the area that the U.K. Government committed to protect in 2016. Such an action would represent significant progress in the national governments effort to implement comprehensive protections for the marine environment of its Overseas Territories.

Because of its isolation, Ascension has largely avoided intensive commercial fishing. As a result, these waters are among the most intact in the Atlantic, providing a home to some of the worlds largest tuna, marlin, and sailfish.

Green sea turtles return from their feeding grounds in Brazil and the Caribbean once they reach maturitywhich can take decadesto nest on the beaches of their birth. The turtles were regularly harvested on Ascension until the practice was banned in the 1930s. Theirnumbers began to recover in the 1970s, andalthough still listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red Listthe species is rebounding. Critically endangered hawksbill turtles also have been observed in local waters, although they arent known to nest on the island.1

A variety of marine mammals frequent Ascensions waters, including bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales, sperm whales, and Gervais beaked whales. Humpbacks return to these seas from the Southern Ocean during the late winter and early spring to mate and give birth.2

Sperm whales and other migratory species can be found in the waters surrounding Ascension Island. Getty Images

The fish that live in these waters include larger migratory species, such as various sharks, and smaller reef-dwelling species, such as the Ascension goby. There are 11 endemic species of fish, including the resplendent angelfish. Other common species include the rock hind grouper, yellowfin tuna, spotted moray eel, and Atlantic blue marlin.3 In addition, shoreline shark sightings have increased in recent years.

Experts believe Ascension provided a home for millions of seabirds before humans arrived in 1815. In the following years, those populations were almost entirely wiped out by predators introduced by early settlers. After feral cats were eradicated in 2009, bird populations began to rise. The island is now home to more than 500,000 seabirds of 11 species and is considered a haven for the brown noddy,sooty tern, 4 Boatswain Bird Island, a few hundred metres from Ascensions northeast coast, is an important nesting site and home to 10 per cent of the Atlantic population of masked booby and 17 per cent of the Atlantics red-billed tropic birds. Other species that dwell on Ascensions cliffs include the black noddy, white tern, yellow-billed tropic bird, brown booby, red-footed booby, and the Madeiran storm petrel.5 Fishing pressure remains limited in the region around Ascension, but the islands rich biodiversity remains at risk without protections in place.

Ten percent of the masked booby population lives on Ascension Island. Getty Images

Highly protected MPAs mitigate the effects of climate change by building resilience into the ecosystem, helping to buffer against future uncertainty in management and environmental fluctuations.6 Over time, the ability of Ascensions marine environment to cope with the impact of climate change could increase under strong protection, helping to safeguard the species that live there, area biodiversity, and the people who depend on a healthy marine environment.

Since 2015, Great British Oceans (GBO), a coalition of environmental non-governmental organisations that include the Blue Marine Foundation, Greenpeace-U.K., Marine Conservation Society, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Zoological Society of London, and The Pew Trusts, has advocated for an ambitious implementation of the U.K. Governments Blue Belt policy. With support from the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, GBO has called for the protection of Ascensions waters and has partnered with the Ascension Island Council over several years to study the best path forward.

A school of horse-eye jacks in the waters around Ascension Island. A wide range of fish, including larger species such as sharks, live in these waters. Paul Colley

Effective monitoring and enforcement is critical to an MPAs success. Remote monitoring can help solve the challenges posed by large-scale MPAs or those established in distant and isolated waters. That task can be handled in large part by capabilities such as Oversea Ocean Monitor, which was developed by Pew and Satellite Applications Catapult. Initially called Project Eyes on the Seas, the technology combines satellite data, fishing authorizations, and artificial intelligence to detect illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing for further assessment and investigation.

This platform has already been used extensively to monitor vessel activity in Ascensions waters and has helped enforce the Blue Belt policy. The analyses by Oversea Ocean Monitor have assisted in setting baselines to inform future management decisions. The technology helps ensure IUU fishing does not undermine marine conservation measures that ban commercial fishing.7

The Ascension Island MPA would help safeguard a critical and irreplaceable ocean ecosystem, and strengthen the U.K. and its Overseas Territories position as global leaders in marine conservation. Establishment of this protected area would also mean that the U.K. has protected over 30 per cent of its waters with fully protected MPAs.

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Protections for Ascension Island, the Crossroads of the Atlantic - The Pew Charitable Trusts

Free heart screenings at Ascension Borgess Hospital – MLive.com

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KALAMAZOO, MI -- Ascension Borgess Hospital will offer free heart screenings Saturday morning.

The Healthy Heart Project will run from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26 at Ascension Borgess Heart Institute located at 1722 Shaffer St.

Nearly half of all U.S. adults have some type of cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart Association.

In May, Borgess screened 185 patients. Of those, four were sent straight to the emergency room, Chris Hunt, Borgess Senior Marketing Specialist, said.

Participants will get free heart screenings with on-the-spot results and a one-on-one conversation with a doctor.

If additional treatment is needed after the screening it is no longer part of the free screening. The Healthy Heart Project include the following services:

Electrocardiogram (EKG). Measures the electrical activity of your heartbeat. Electrodes with adhesive pads are attached to the skin of your chest, arms, and legs.

Blood Pressure screening: Measures the pressure your blood is exerting against your artery walls. A blood pressure cuff is used.

Body Mass Index: A calculation to identify whether an adult is at a healthy weight.

Blood glucose test (no fasting required): Measures your blood sugar levels which may help to determine diabetes. A finger prick is required and a glucometer is used.

Heart Risk Assessment: May determines the likelihood of developing heart disease, heart attack or stroke in the future. A questionnaire is used.

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Free heart screenings at Ascension Borgess Hospital - MLive.com