NAFTA no more as President Trump wins USMCA passage in Senate, keeps signature campaign promise to put America first on trade:
http://dailytorch.com/2020/01/nafta-no-more-as-president-trump-wins-usmca-passage-in-senate-keeps-signature-campaign-promise-to-put-america-first-on-trade/

A little more than a year after President Donald Trump promised to withdraw from NAFTA if Congress did not adopt the USMCA — on Dec. 1, 2018, he said, “I’ll be terminating it within a relatively short period of time. We get rid of NAFTA. It’s been a disaster for the United States… And so Congress will have a choice of the USMCA or pre-NAFTA, which worked very well…” — on Jan. 16, the Senate has overwhelmingly adopted the USMCA 89 to 10. Senate passage came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) finally relented and allowed the trade deal to come up on the House floor, followed shortly thereafter by House passage 385 to 41 on Dec. 19, 2019. None of this is surprising. President Trump won in 2016 in the Rust Belt particularly on the political strength of his trade agenda, uniting conservative and union households and savaging Hillary Clinton as a pro-NAFTA pretender. Now, Trump’s success in reshaping American politics around trade has now been confirmed by the massive bipartisan support for the USMCA. Both Democratic Michigan Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters voted for it. That tells you everything you need to know right there. The blue-collar Democrats who supported President Donald Trump in 2016 and put him over the top ended up supporting the Trump trade agenda, making passage of the USMCA a political certainty even as Democrats in Congress were itching to impeach Trump and get the Senate trial underway. This tells you there was greater political risk in going against Trump on his signature issue than anything else. What do you think?

President Trump is overseeing the best peacetime labor market and economy in modern history as 2020 election looms:
http://dailytorch.com/2020/01/president-trump-is-overseeing-the-best-peacetime-labor-market-and-economy-in-modern-history-as-2020-election-looms/

With 3.5 percent unemployment, the lowest since 1969 when U.S. involvement the Vietnam War was still at its height, and 6.7 million jobs created since Jan. 2017 — President Donald Trump is presently overseeing the best peacetime labor market conditions in modern history. And it could get even better, the reason being because working aged adults 16-to-64 continue to pour into the U.S. economy at levels nobody expected prior to 2016. In 2019, 1.1 million more 16-to-64-year-olds found jobs, even as the population of 16-to-64-year-olds decreased by 238,000, according to the latest average, annual, seasonally unadjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the good news economically is those developments will continue for the next several years, which, barring a recession, promise to drive unemployment even lower than its currently historically low numbers. This economy is great, making a strong case for Trump’s reelection in 2020, where he can point to his tax cuts, deregulation and new trade deals as being big difference makers, and where everyone who wants a job can find one. It’s tough to argue against success. What do you think?

Iranian terrorist general would still be dead under Senate resolution on use of force:
http://dailytorch.com/2020/01/iranian-terrorist-general-would-still-be-dead-under-senate-resolution-on-use-of-force/

Iranian general Qasem Soleimani would still have been a legitimate military target in Iraq under a resolution proposed by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), that on the surface promises to limit the use of force but in reality simply accepts the status quo of U.S. forces in Iraq and the Middle East. The resolution “directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military… unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.” So, except as otherwise authorized to use force by Congress, the President cannot engage in hostilities with Iran. Which means, given standing authorizations use force against Iraq and against terrorists globally, the drone strike in Iraq by U.S. forces against Soleimani would have been authorized as a legitimate military target, and he would still be dead even if this resolution had been in place. What do you think?

Experts predicted Trump trade recession in 2016 if he won, instead the opposite happened:
http://dailytorch.com/2020/01/experts-predicted-trump-trade-recession-in-2016-if-he-won-instead-the-opposite-happened/

In 2016, experts warned that if elected, President Donald Trump would levy tariffs and the world would fall into recession, or maybe even another Great Depression. A Moody’s Analytics prediction by Mark Zandi in 2016, prepared for the Washington Post, predicted that as many as 4 million jobs would be lost and the U.S. economy would either flatline or go into recession if President Trump levied tariffs against China and Mexico. Zandi called tariffs a disaster, saying, “This is a pretty ugly scenario, one that I think any rational person would want to avoid.” It turns out that, quite rationally, Americans voted in their economic self-interests in favor of the Trump trade agenda in 2016, and Trump won the election. Trump never levied additional tariffs against Mexico — although he briefly threatened to do so — but he did levy them against China. But the outcomes were not as expected. Instead of losing 4 million jobs, in the establishment survey published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6.6 million jobs have been created since Jan. 2017. Moody’s said we would only have 139 million jobs. Instead we have 152 million. They were only off by 13 million. Unemployment is at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent. As for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it has stayed very much in the positive, with mid-2 percent growth levels, with no recession in sight.And rather than provoking too much trade retaliation, Trump’s tariffs and tariff threats respectively have resulted in new trade agreements with China and Canada and Mexico. Who are the American people going to believe in 2020, the critics or their own lying eyes?

The Senate should just proceed to the impeachment trial whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ready or not:
http://dailytorch.com/2019/12/the-senate-should-just-proceed-to-the-impeachment-trial-whether-house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-is-ready-or-not/

Does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have a heretofore unnoticed, unconstitutional power to hold up an impeachment that has already been voted on? That appears to be what she wants the American people to believe. That, articles of impeachment passed by the House, including H. Res. 755 that impeached President Donald Trump, are not actually “passed” unless and until she transmits it to the Senate. This is a work of fiction. Nothing in either the Constitution or House or Senate rules grants such power to the Speaker to “sit” on impeachment, thereby would prevent Senate action on such. It exists in the imaginations of liberal law professors. The Clerk of the House did certify the passage of H. Res. 755 impeaching Trump when it was posted at clerk.house.gov in the form of roll calls 695 and 696 on Dec. 18. Which is all the Constitution requires. The Constitution, under Article I, Section 2 states: “The House of Representatives… shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.” By that standard, President Trump is impeached. Article I, Section 3 states: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” So, very clearly, under the Constitution, the House has sole power to impeach, and the Senate has sole power to try all impeachments. There is nothing in there about transmitting anything to the Senate. All that is required for there to be a trial in the Senate is for the House to have acted to impeach an official, including the President, and, semantics aside, that threshold has clearly been met. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should just proceed to the trial, whether Pelosi is ready or not. The fact is, for better or for worse, the House has already voted to impeach President Trump. What’s done is done. If the case is that weak, then moving for a swift dismissal should be a short order. Let’s get this trial over with. What do you think?

John Bolton believes presidents can rescind treaties without the Senate, but objected to President Donald Trump pausing military aid to Ukraine, a non-treaty partner:
http://dailytorch.com/2019/11/john-bolton-believes-presidents-can-rescind-treaties-without-the-senate-but-objected-to-president-donald-trump-pausing-military-aid-to-ukraine-a-non-treaty-partner/

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has a long history of encouraging presidents to terminate treaties without going to the Senate for approval under the President’s inherent powers to conduct foreign affairs under Article II of the Constitution, vesting of executive power solely in the President. But he took issue with President Donald Trump briefly pausing and reviewing military and other foreign assistance to Ukraine on the grounds the President lacked legal authority. The funding included $250 million in military assistance and another $141 million in other foreign aid via the State Department to Ukraine. According to a Nov. 9 report from Bloomberg.com: “shortly before Sept. 9, Bolton had relayed a message to the State Department that the funding could go ahead. It’s not clear whether Bolton, who resigned from the job a week later, did so with Trump’s approval. Bolton’s handling of the funding struck officials in the White House as violating protocol and caught Mulvaney by surprise, according to another person familiar with the matter.” Did the President approve the transfer? When it comes to the execution of foreign affairs powers, employees of the executive branch must act in accordance with the President’s policies, or else it is they, and not the President, who are the ones acting above the supreme law of the land, the Constitution’s Article II vesting of executive power in the President. What do you think?

Sondland: ‘No one told me directly that the aid [to Ukraine] was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.’
http://dailytorch.com/2019/11/sondland-no-one-told-me-directly-that-the-aid-to-ukraine-was-tied-to-anything-i-was-presuming-it-was/

“No one told me directly that the aid was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.” That was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 20, destroying the concept that $250 million of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine was ever being leveraged by President Donald Trump in exchange for investigations being pursued by Ukraine against Burisma Holdings. Sondland had previously testified on Nov. 4 that he “presumed” military assistance to Ukraine was “likely” being conditioned by the administration when he spoke to a Ukrainian presidential aide on Sept. 1, but that he “did not know… when, why, or by whom the aid was suspended…” So why is there an impeachment inquiry into conditioning military aid to Ukraine on investigations?

If the State Dept., Yovanovitch and Ukraine were all concerned about Hunter Biden at Burisma, then why aren’t Trump and Zelensky allowed to be concerned, too?
http://dailytorch.com/2019/11/if-the-state-dept-yovanovitch-and-ukraine-were-all-concerned-about-hunter-biden-at-burisma-then-why-arent-trump-and-zelensky-allowed-to-be-concerned-too/

Even former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was concerned about Hunter Biden’s appointment to Burisma Holdings’ board of directors in 2014, and the potential for a conflict of interest with having the son of the Vice President serving in a company under active investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors for corruption. So, everyone agreed Burisma had a corruption problem and that the Bidens created conflicts of interest: the State Department, Yovanovitch, Ukrainian prosecutors, the current Ukrainian President Zelensky and yes, President Trump. But if everyone was concerned about Hunter Biden at Burisma, then why aren’t Trump and Zelensky allowed to be concerned, too?