Winners and Losers Part 1

Connor Merk, Editor

Winners:

Martha MacCallum:

As a longtime Fox News anchor she was recently given the 7 o’clock slot as the host of the new show, “The First 100 Days” referring to the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. MacCallum will be replacing Tucker Carlson who has since moved to the 9 o’clock spot replacing Megyn Kelly. MacCallum has been with Fox for the past twelve years and was most recently an anchor of “America’s Newsroom” with Bill Hemmer.

 

Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham:

Former primary challengers are teaming up to introduce a bill that will cut off U.S. funding to the United Nations after the U.N. passed a resolution that condemns Israeli Settlements. They appeared together on the MSNBC Morning show, “Morning Joe.” This is a great sign for the Republican Party that they are united and ready to get stuff done in this Congressional session. Senator Graham once said, “You could kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and if the trial was in the Senate no one would convict you.” This partnership between the two Senators show that they are working together despite their past conflicts. This also shows progress with our relationship with our ally in the Middle East, Israel.

Losers:

Senator Kamala Harris:

It is crystal clear that the Democrats are in need of new blood. With Republicans gaining control of the House, Senate, and the White House, Democrats will try their best to set themselves up for the 2018 midterm election where they could try to take back either one or both of the houses and 2020 when they can take on Trump.

Keeping this in mind, many Democrat Senators are attempting to get into the spotlight. A freshman Senator from California, Kamala Harris questioned Representative Mike Pompeo who Trump nominated for CIA Director about Climate Change. According to The Washington Free Beacon, “Harris quoted a statement from current CIA Director John Brennan in which he argues that climate change has contributed to political instability around the world.” She then asked, “Do you have any reason to doubt the assessment of these CIA analysts?”

This is alarming to me because this is how they are spending their time. As examples of other questions to ask during the short period of a time they have to ask, Conservative Review put forward a couple of other topics, “Naturally, with the threat posed by the global jihadist movement, a nuclear North Korea and nuclear-enabled Iran, and Chinese and Russian threats, we need to know what the potential director of the CIA thinks about the climate. After all, a major component of his job would be gathering intelligence on the weather, since communism, jihadism, nationalist aggression, and the rest of our major security threats have far less to do with ideology and ambition than they do the temperature in a given area.”

I completely agree. The weather is the least of our problems when we have an enemy in the Middle East that is trying to kill all of us and defeat the West no matter the cost. When a Senator has a short time to ask questions of an important nominee, they should use it to ask more important questions.

Pompeo brilliantly responded to the question: “I haven’t had a chance to read those materials with respect to climate change.”  He then assured her that if the CIA under his leadership found climate change to contribute to political strife around the globe, he would “report that information back to the Senate.”

To go back to my earlier statement about the state of the Democrats, they are going to be desperate to get the attention of the mainstream media to get it off of Trump and talk about them so that they remain relevant and to have some rising stars in the party. I believe Harris’ attempt at tripping up Congressman Pompeo was trying to do that.  

 

Congressman John Lewis:

Congressman John Lewis called Trump’s presidency illegitimate. It is highly disrespectful to the office of the presidency to basically tell the incoming President that won fair and square that he is illegitimate. I find it very hypocritical when Democrats were all up in arms when Trump wouldn’t commit to accepting the election results and Clinton said she would.

When we all look back to this a couple of years from now we are going to remember this infamous act of Lewis’ statement. He also stated that he would not be going to the inauguration. This then led to many other Democrats announcing they will not be attending.

Here is the list of all of the members of Congress not attending. This is further dividing our nation that direly needs healing and unifying.

Some might compare Lewis’ move to Trump’s when he questioned if Obama was born in the United States. In this case, Trump’s actions were uncalled for and so are Lewis’. NBC published an article on why Trump’s attack in response to Lewis was at a bad time. No one should be immune to criticism in particular Lewis just because he is a Civil Rights icon.

Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump’s closest advisors responded perfectly to a question regarding Trump’s response in an interview with Fox News. She described Trump as a “Counter-puncher” which he has the right to stand up to himself when people are attacking his legitimacy.

These people cannot just blame Donald Trump for “dividing our nation” when they need to look in the mirror.