January 1, Democrats Warns Against 2020 Overconfidence

This Day in HIstory | 1950

President Truman orders U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea.

Good morning Middle Americans, 

If the 2020 election were this coming Tuesday, instead of 18 Tuesdays from now, President Trump would be in deep trouble. That’s why some of the smarter Democrats are warning about overconfidence among the ranks. The Wall Street Journal has already declared this coming election will be a referendum against Donald Trump. Voters are hardly thinking about Joe Biden, they are either all-in for Trump or all-out. And right now there are more people who are all-out. 

Also today, we have a story about a KKK church bomber who died in prison yesterday in Alabama. He was 81 years old. It’s a reminder of a darker time in American race relations. Yes, compared to 1963, race relations are better today. 

The Democrat led House of Representatives passed a bill to make Washington D.C. a state. This bill has less than zero chance of becoming a law. It was just the latest symbolic effort from Democrats to make people think they care more about social justice than getting re-elected. 

Finally, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on President Trump to respond in a forceful way if our last story today pans-out. Russia apparently paid Taliban fighters to attack US forces in Afghanistan. This is quite ironic, of course, considering the U.S. paid the Taliban’s forefathers, the Mujahadeen to kill Soviets in the 1980s. We even supplied them with surface to air Stinger missiles that took out many Soviet choppers. Funny how things come full circle. But lets not kid ourselves. All things being equal, things are not equal. Russia is run by a murderous tyrant named Vladmir Putin, who is planning on staying in power for life.  The United States is run by Donald Trump, who looks like he might only be in office for about 6 more months. 

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-Fraser Dixon

Democrats Warn Against Overconfidence in Fight Against Trump

(Houston Chronicle) – President Donald Trump is entering the final four-month stretch before Election Day presiding over a country that faces a public health crisis, mass unemployment and a reckoning over racism. His Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, is raking in cash. And a series of national and battleground polls suggests growing obstacles to Trump’s reelection.

But the election is far from locked in.

Biden and his leading supporters are stepping up warnings to Democrats to avoid becoming complacent. Former President Barack Obama and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insist that plenty could change between now and Nov. 3 and that the party must be vigilant against Trump, who knows few boundaries when it comes to his political foes.

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KKK Bomber of Alabama Church in 1963, Dies in Prison

(NBC News) – Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., the last of three one-time Ku Klux Klansmen convicted of a 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four Black girls and was the deadliest single attack of the civil rights movement, has died in prison, the governor’s office said Friday. He was 81.

In May 2001, Blanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

When asked by the judge if he had any comment, Blanton said: “I guess the good Lord will settle it on judgment day.”

Gov. Kay Ivey’s office said Blanton died of natural causes.

The church bombing, exposing the depths of hatred by white supremacists as Birmingham integrated its public schools, was a tipping point of the civil rights movement. Moderates could no longer remain silent and the fight to topple segregation laws gained new momentum.

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House Passes Bill to Make Washington DC the 51st State

(CNBC) – House Democrats passed a bill Friday to make Washington, D.C., the 51st U.S. state, a historic move unlikely to gain traction in the Republican-held Senate. 

The chamber approved it by a 232-180 vote. 

The legislation would give Washington residents, who have long decried the fact that they pay federal taxes but have no voting representation in Congress, one House member and two senators. A smaller area encompassing the White House, U.S. Capitol, and other federal buildings and monuments would remain under U.S. oversight. 

Washington’s longtime nonvoting House delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced the bill, which would change the name of the district to the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. In advocating for the legislation Friday, she noted that D.C.’s population of about 700,000 is larger than that of Wyoming or Vermont, and that the district pays more federal taxes than 22 states. 

“As we approach July 4th, it is long past time to apply the nation’s oldest slogan, ‘no taxation without representation,’ and the principle of consent of the governed to District of Columbia residents,” Norton said. 

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Russia Reportedly Paid Taliban-Linked Militants Bounty Money to Kill American Troops

(Business Insider) – US intelligence officials assessed that Russia’s military intelligence agency paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill NATO troops in Afghanistan — which include American forces, according to a New York Times report on Friday.

US officials discovered information about the bounties earlier this year. Some of the bounty money was collected by either Islamist militants or those associated with them, The Times reported.

In 2019, 17 US troops were killed in combat in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.

Interrogations of Afghan militants and criminals yielded the information indicating that Taliban-linked militants were offered bounties from Russian forces, The Times reported. The intelligence officials believe the bounties involve Unit 29155, a branch of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

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