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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is taking heat from fellow Democrats for going on Sean Hannitys Fox News program Monday night. And saying she supports Donald Trump firing the impeachment witnesses, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.

Thats not a very popular idea among Democrats right now.

In fact, Democrats and even non-partisan media analysts have been discussing the firings as if President Donald Trump is some kind of all-powerful despot now.

They prove hes the dangerous and terrible autocrat Democrats warned about.

So we get headlines like, Trump weaponizes the Presidency after impeachment victory, and Donald Trumps Impeachment Revenge Has Only Just Begun.

The weaponizes headline comes from a CNN political analyst who says:

[Trump] is completing his project of fashioning the office around his own personality. Its unrestrained, unaccountable, often profane, impervious to outside influence and factual constraints of normal governance.

That does make a compelling, dramatic narrative, and happens to serve partisan Democratic campaign messaging (or so they think). But its groundless hyperbole.

Tulsi Gabbard, who served as a combat medic in Iraq knows what real unrestrained, unaccountable dictatorships look like. Actual autocrats, ruling over truly despotic regimes, would have disappeared Vindman and Sondland and their whole families.

In those countries, rebels assassinate, they dont impeach. And rulers execute.

But America is still America. And Donald Trump is not any more powerful than Barack Obama or George W. Bush were. Trump merely fired the witnesses. The brothers Vindman havent even lost their jobs. Theyre just transferring posts from the White House to the Pentagon. Sondland will land on his feet. Theyll all be fine.

Mid-tier government officials openly revolted against the sitting executive of the most powerful nation on earth, and simply had to change jobs as a consequence.

That proves what a great country America is.

Watch Donald Trump defend Tulsi Gabbard:

She not an asset of Russia. These people are sick. Theres something wrong with them.

Trump swept to power because of the kind of politics Tulsi Gabbard opposes. The middle got tired of Democrats blowing little things out of proportion. While twisting harmless things out of context. And doing it all with an animus of malice and hatred.

Tulsi Gabbard is the Democrat her party needs most at this moment, but she wont be elevated as their standard bearer. Because shes not the hero they deserve.

The most visible leaders of the party of Jefferson, in elected office and the media, have made a death pact with the cynical politics of arrogance and hatred.

But that made Donald Trump their North star. Everything they do is in relation to hating and opposing Trump, which brings them into his orbit.

By contrast, Tulsi Gabbard defines herself by her progressive politics, not knee-jerk hatred and heart palpitations any time Trump breathes.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

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Tulsi Gabbard Is The Hero Democrats Dont Deserve, But Need Right Now - CCN.com

After surveying the wreckage of the Iowa caucus clown car, scattered in pieces by the side of the road to defeat, a liberal friend of mine asked, This has to be on purpose, right? Nobody is this incompetent. Do they want Trump to win again?

The answer to that pained rhetorical question is yes.

For a number of liberal authors, editors, speakers, professors, celebrities, organizations, unions, political action committees, newspapers and cable networks, hating President TrumpDonald John TrumpWinners and losers from the New Hampshire primary Sanders on NH victory: Win is 'beginning of the end for Donald Trump' Biden, Warren on ropes after delegate shutout MORE has become a cash cow on steroids. They cant rake in the money fast enough before the next pile crashesin front of them.

With regard to the embarrassing meltdown in Iowa, the companies tied to the fiasco Acronym and the Shadow app seem to be doing quite well for themselves, if not for Democratic voters, since Trumps election.

Thats exactly the point: Many liberal operatives have never made this much money, and, for that reason, some need if not want Trump to be reelected. The We Hate Trump gravy train must not be allowed to derail.

Will they ever acknowledge that to thedesperate base of the Democratic Party, the supporters of Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersWinners and losers from the New Hampshire primary Sanders on NH victory: Win is 'beginning of the end for Donald Trump' Buttigieg congratulates Sanders on 'strong showing' in New Hampshire MORE (I-Vt.), dubbed the Bernie Bros, or the progressives who have pledged allegiance to The Squad? Of course not.

Those entrenched elite liberals purposely manufacturing, manipulating and exploiting the hatred and rage directed at President Trump, for personal gain or that of their organizations, will continue to utter pejoratives against Trump and publicly wish him ill will. But privately? Theyre probably thanking their lucky stars that the most unorthodox, boastful political outsider in the history of the presidency came their way.

It is a relationship forged by King Midas.

If you are one of the millions of Americans liberals have conditioned to hate President Trump regardless of his positions or any verifiable successes hes had that may positively affect your life you need to remember the golden rule of politics: Follow the money.

Instead of parroting the rumors about collusion with Russia, the need for his impeachment or how the president is a national embarrassment, take a long, hard look at those who profess to have your back.

Liberal authors are getting six- and seven-figure book advances for hating Trump. Their liberal publishers make millions off those books. The liberal political action committees have enjoyed record-setting fundraising for the past three years. Marginal celebrities tweet self-serving hateful comments. Liberal speakers command thousands of dollars in fees. And the liberal cable TV hosts and their networks are realizing millions of dollars in profits from attacking Trump.

Do you honestly believethey want the riches money, career advancement, personal recognition to stop? Do you think any of them would sacrifice that gain to rectify the pain and suffering that might be plaguing downtrodden Americans?

Beyond that, look at the politicians who swear they are advocating on your behalf chief among them House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Reps.Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Their public profiles and power bases grew exponentially with Trumps election and their constant vilification of the president.

Imagine where they would be now had Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonWinners and losers from the New Hampshire primary Sanders wins New Hampshire primary Trump swipes at resigned prosecutors, judge in Roger Stone case MORE won in 2016. They would be but a shadow of their manufactured selves.

Make no mistake: This same formula existed when former President Obama was in office and scores of conservatives and Republicans got rich by attacking and demeaning him. During the Obama years, the Republican Congress and elite GOP establishment did next to nothing for their base. We can only imagine how many of them secretly prayed for Obamas reelection in 2012.

As the Disney song tells us in Beauty and the Beast, its a tale as old as time.

And precisely because of that sort of fairy tale, Trump was elected president. Across the country, millions of Americans realized that both political parties and their respective power brokers have played them for chumps for years for their own gain. They decided to cast the elites aside and vote for Trump.

Its likely to happen again in November maybe even in greater numbers. And you can bet thatsome liberal Democrats who stand to profit from Trumps reelection will secretly root for that to happen.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.

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The betrayal of Democratic voters: Many 'liberals' need Trump to win | TheHill - The Hill

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) The Iowa Democratic Party released partial results of its kickoff presidential caucus after a daylong delay late Tuesday showing former Midwestern mayor Pete Buttigieg with a slight lead over progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the opening contest of the partys 2020 primary season.

The results followed 24 hours of chaos as technical problems marred the complicated caucus process, forcing state officials to apologize and raising questions about Iowas traditional place atop the presidential primary calendar.

It was too early to call a winner based on the initial results, but Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar were trailing in the tally of State Delegate Equivalents, according to data released for the first time by the Iowa Democratic Party nearly 24 hours after voting concluded.

The results reflected 71% of precincts in the state.

The two early leaders, Buttigieg and Sanders, were separated by 40 years in age, conflicting ideology and more.

Sanders, a 78-year-old self-described democratic socialist, has been a progressive powerhouse for decades, while the 38-year-old Buttigiegs early standing cemented his transformation from a little-known Indiana mayor to a legitimate force in the 2020 contest. Buttigieg is also the first openly gay candidate to earn presidential primary delegates.

We dont know all of the numbers, but we know this much: A campaign that started a year ago with four staff members, no name recognition, no money, just a big idea a campaign that some said should have no business even making this attempt has taken its place at the front of this race, Buttigieg, declared, his voice filled with emotion, as he campaigned in next-up New Hampshire with his husband looking on.

Buttigiegs early rise was rivaled for possible importance by the struggle of another moderate, Biden.

One of his partys most accomplished figures, the former two-term vice president and longtime senator was mired in the second tier of Iowa candidates with almost two-thirds of precincts reporting. Bidens campaign sought to downplay the caucus results even before they were released, hardly a measure of strength for a high-profile contender who has led national polls for most of the last year.

We believe we will emerge with the delegates we need to continue on our path to nomination, said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser.

While all campaigns were eager to spin the Iowa results to their advantage, there was little immediate indication that the incomplete results erased the confusion and concern that loomed over the caucuses. It was unclear when the full results would be released.

During a private conference call with campaigns earlier in the day, state state party chairman Troy Price declined to answer pointed questions about the timeline -- even whether it would be days or weeks.

We have been working day and night to make sure these results are accurate, Price said at a subsequent press conference.

The leading candidates pressed on in New Hampshire, which votes in just seven days. And billionaire Democrat Michael Bloomberg sensed opportunity, saying he would double his already massive advertising campaign and expand his sprawling staff focused on a series of delegate-rich states voting next month.

The partys caucus crisis was an embarrassing twist after months of promoting Iowa as a chance for Democrats to find some clarity in a jumbled field. Instead, after a buildup that featured seven rounds of debates, nearly $1 billion spent nationwide and a year of political jockeying, caucus day ended with no winner, no official results and many fresh questions about whether Iowa can retain its coveted first status.

Iowa marked the first contest in a primary season that will span all 50 states and several U.S. territories, ending at the partys national convention in July.

Before he left Iowa late Monday, Sanders said, Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump.

Facing New Hampshire voters a day later, Sanders said thank you to Iowa and, tongue in cheek, expressed confidence that New Hampshire election officials would have more success counting votes.

And when you count those votes, I look forward to winning here, he said.

For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party reported three sets of results this year: a tally of caucusgoers initial candidate preference; vote totals from the final alignment after supporters of lower-ranking candidates were able to make a second choice, and the total number of State Delegate Equivalents each candidate received.

The Associated Press will declare a winner based on the number of state delegates each candidate wins, which has been the traditional standard.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who represents Iowa neighbor Minnesota, was also in the early running, while outsider candidates including entrepreneur Andrew Yang, billionaire activist Tom Steyer and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lagged behind.

Campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Warren also said she was feeling good about her performance in Iowa.

The state party told campaigns Tuesday the problem was a result of a coding issue in the reporting system that it said had since been fixed. It said it had verified the accuracy of the collected data and said the problem was not a result of a hack or an intrusion.

A Biden campaign representative objected to the partys plan to release partial results before checking them against paper records, saying in the conference call that the plan didnt address growing reports about problems on caucus night, such as precinct captains unable to get through on the phone to report results.

Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver thanked party officials, and encouraged other campaigns not to undermine the party.

Folks who are just trying to delay the return of this because of their relative positioning in the results last night, I think thats a bit disingenuous, Weaver said.

Bloomberg announced plans to double his national television advertising spending which has already exceeded $100 million as he expands his paid staff to more than 2,000 people.

Bloomberg is looking to next month, having decided to bypass Iowas contest and the three other states voting this month in favor of the delegate-rich states in March.

After more than a year of this primary, the field is as unsettled as ever, Bloomberg spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said. No one has made the sale or even come close to it.

Beyond 2020, Mondays debacle invited fresh criticism about Iowa caucuses, a complicated set of political meetings staged in a state that is whiter and older than the Democratic Party in general. Many questioned anew whether it was a quaint political tradition whose time had passed.

I think Iowa is a dumpster fire, said Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina state senator and longtime Biden supporter, who served as an Iowa precinct captain for Biden on Monday.

___

Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, Ground Game.

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Buttigieg slightly leading Sanders in partial Iowa results - The Associated Press

Nancy Pelosi looked like a malfunctioning Stepford wife as she sat behind President Trump during his State of the Union Address last week. Her lower face twitched, she muttered to herself, shook her head, smiled inappropriately, gazed around, chewed her lip or remained glued to her seat during standing ovations in honor of special guests.

It was a bizarre enough performance before she rose to her feet and dramatically ripped up her copy of the presidents speech in what will go down in history as the most unseemly display of partisanship in this partisan era.

That moment was when the myth of the master political strategist was busted, and we saw Pelosi, 79, for what she is. Pretending to be classy and prayerful when she is full of petty hatreds and is incapable of holding her party together, a woman who parades her Catholicism while advocating no-holds-barred abortions, feigning to pray for the president while deriding him as sedated.

As the leader of the Democrats until they select a presidential candidate, Pelosi is everything that is wrong with the party.

She told reporters that ripping up the speech was a very dignified act the courteous thing to do, considering some of the other exuberances within me.

But her petulant vandalism was the opposite of courteous, quite obviously.

It only underscored the desperation of a party which has lurched to the left in pursuit of Bernie Sanders supporters, as the president reaps the reward of a booming economy and his opponents continual miscalculations.

Pelosi showed no contrition for ripping up the speech, nor for the political catastrophe of her failed impeachment drive.

That failure is the albatross around the neck of her partys presidential candidates as they flail their way through icy New Hampshire.

Bereft of economic ideas, they are reduced to espousing electorally unpalatable policy positions: radical abortion, gender quotas in the Cabinet, wholesale drug legalization and the kind of criminal-justice reform that has turbo-charged crime in New York.

If Pelosi meant to delay handing over the impeachment articles to the Senate as a strategic masterstroke to tie up ascendant socialist Sanders in the Senate and give Joe Biden three weeks on his own in Iowa, that, too, backfired big time.

The more Iowa saw of Biden, the less they wanted him, and the candidate who benefited most from those moderate votes was Pete Buttigieg, who has done a good job of disguising his radical views on the campaign trail.

The former South Bend, Ind., mayor said last month that theres no place for pro-lifers in the Democratic Party, and claimed the Bible says a babys life begins with breath.

In Concord, NH, Saturday, he was vaguer when asked about the comment.

Were a big tent What Im not going to do is get someones vote by tricking them.

But Sanders was less coy: Being pro-choice is an absolutely essential part of being a Democrat.

Like Biden, Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang, Sanders wants to enact a litmus test for judicial appointments:

I will never nominate anybody who is not 100 percent pro-Roe v. Wade.

But most Democrats dont share these intolerant views. As Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, who challenged Buttigieg in a live Fox News town hall last month over his pro-abortion stance, points out, 59 percent of Democrats support restrictions on abortion.

With Mike Bloomberg waiting in the wings, maybe the candidates in New Hampshire have thrown caution to the wind in the hope of stopping Sanders.

But theres one metric that tells you why Democrats are so morose: the presidents job-approval ratings among nonwhites, according to Gallup.

That group, thought to be a lock for Democrats, is coming loose. Approval of Trump by all voters is at 49 percent, the highest of his presidency and higher than for Barack Obama (45 percent) at the same point in his presidency.

Trump has gained 10 points since impeachment began in October. Nice one, Nancy.

But nonwhites approval of Trump also is at a high: 28 percent, up 10 points in a year.

When it comes to Trumps handling of the economy, he gets 67 percent overall job approval and a resounding 49 percent among nonwhites, the beneficiaries of lower unemployment and higher wages.

So almost half of all black and Hispanic voters think Trump is doing a good job with the economy. That makes him hard to beat.

As well, 23 percent of non-whites say Trump deserves to be re-elected, 13 percent say they will vote for him regardless of who is the Democratic nominee and 36 percent will decide once they see whom the Democrats choose.

The Democrats counteroffer is unpalatable social policy and tantrums from Pelosi.

Hating Trump is not enough, as you can tell from the subdued applause in New Hampshire when candidates rip into the president.

Yang knows real reason Don is prez

Andrew Yang may be lagging behind the field of Democratic presidential candidates in New Hampshire, but he is the only one with a clear-eyed view of his ultimate potential opponent.

Why is Donald Trump our president? he asked 7,000 Democrats on Saturday night at the McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club gala dinner in Manchester.

Its not Russia. He is our president because we lost 4million manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania [and] New Hampshire. Those towns have never recovered.

We make a mistake when we say Donald Trump is the source of all our problems. Hes not. He is the symptom of a disease.

Liz blames racism on racism

Elizabeth Warren, who launched her academic career by falsely posing as a Native American to get favorable treatment at Harvard, would make Martin Luther King roll over in his grave with her push for race-conscious laws.

No surprise, then, that she is in denial about race problems in her own campaign. Asked about a furor in which why six women of color quit her Nevada campaign, complaining of tokenism and a toxic work environment, Warren told MSNBC it was the fault of Americas long legacy of racism and oppression [which] creates the kinds of toxicity where people take advantage of other people. Huh?

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Petulant Nancy Pelosi is everything wrong with Democratic Party: Devine - New York Post

This past Friday night, in addition to getting bested by Steve Bannon, Bill Maher also welcomed Fareed Zakaria as his guest on HBOs Real Time. Zakaria returned the favor, hosting Maher on his Sunday morning CNN show.

And just as Maher opened his interview with Bannonyour boy had the best week so farhe told Zakaria he thought it was Trumps best week ever, and therefore his own most depressing week of the Trump presidency.

From the Teleprompter Trump that America saw at the State of the Union to veiled threats against political enemies at his impeachment victory lap speech two days later, Maher said, The worst thing that could possibly have happened, that we all feared and talked about, has happened. Hes normalized. Anything you see enough becomes normal. You dont notice it.

Admitting that Trump is going to be hard to beat in November, Maher said, If this was a superhero movie, this is the moment when Superman is on the ground, adding, I dont how we get from here, this week, to November 3rd where [Trumps] defeated and leaves, which I dont think hes going to do.

Asked by Zakaria how he manages to make comedy out of someone who has become so normalized, Maher said there is no shortage of comedy with Trump. Im not worried about the comedy, he said. Im worried about the country.

Maher then turned his attention to the Democrats, or as he called them, the gang that cant shoot straight after the chaos surrounding the Iowa caucuses. If they cant get their act together, soon, its going to be over before it begins, he said. Citing a recent poll that shows only 44 percent of Democrats think they can beat Trump in 2020, Maher summed up their current attitude as No we cant.

Later in the interview, Maher explained why he believes one of Trumps favorite campaign lines, You have no choice, is likely to work. Hes saying, Yeah, you may not like me, I may be crude and vulgar and horrible, but theyre crazy, Maher said as Trump. As himself, he then added that he agrees there is a lot of crazy in the Democratic Party.

People read it every week, just these too far out left, woke-y stuff, Maher continued, warning that if Democrats continue down that path voters will say to themselves, Yeah, I dont like Trump, but hes right, Ive got to vote for him, theyre nuts.

For more, listen and subscribe to The Last Laugh podcast.

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Bill Maher Warns Trump Could Win Because Dems Too 'Woke' - The Daily Beast