Retiring Rep. Jimmy Duncan salutes President Trump for troop withdrawal from Syria

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 9:00 AM PT — Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2018
A retiring Republican congressman salutes President Trump for his decision to bring home troops from Syria.
During his final speech on Monday, Tennessee GOP Representative, Jimmy Duncan Jr., said the U.S. cannot afford to be the policemen of the world.

FILE – In this April 4, 2018, file photo, a U.S. soldier sits on an armored vehicle on a road leading to the front line with Turkish-backed fighters, in Manbij, north Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

He added, wars in the Middle East have cost trillions of dollars, and resulted in the loss of thousands of young Americans, and thousands more innocent women and children.
He also said, the wars have created more enemies of the U.S. around the world.
Duncan will retire at the end of the year after serving 30 years in Congress.

Lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill amid partial shutdown with no obvious change to border impasse

It seemed so simple a few days ago.
Back when James Mattis was still Defense Secretary…
Back when kids calling the NORAD tracking hotline still held a marginal belief in Santa Claus…
Back when the government was fully funded.
All 100 senators agreed to a stopgap spending bill (a “Continuing Resolution” or “CR” in the Congressional lingua franca) a week ago Wednesday night. The bill would run the government until February 8. The House was poised to follow suit and pass the CR on Thursday or Friday, keep the federal lights on and dispatch everyone home for the holidays.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) deposited the interim spending bill on the Senate floor early in the day on Wednesday.
“I don’t believe he would bring it up unless he had assurances that the President would sign the CR,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL). “But you never know.”
Shelby’s instincts were right.
You never know with President Trump.
There were strong signals from the White House last Thursday morning that Trump would grudgingly sign a stopgap spending bill to fund the government – even though the package lacked money for a border wall.
But you never know.
Trump’s oscillation began when he got an earful from the conservative House Freedom Caucus Wednesday night. Freedom Caucus Leader Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) declared that Trump’s base would revolt if he signed the "Band-Aid" bill. Meadows predicted that signing the legislation would inflict “major damage” to Trump’s 2020 re-election bid.
The gig was up Thursday morning when Trump dialed House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), summoning him from a House GOP Conference meeting. It just wasn’t Freedom Caucus members who were upset about advancing a spending bill without the wall. Many rank-and-file members were irate. They felt hung out to dry – again. They campaigned on the wall. They swallowed hard when wall funding wasn’t tucked into the March package. Same with interim spending bills in September and November. Would the leadership wash their hands of the issue and rush home for the holidays?
Ryan puts the brakes on everything after the phone call. The House wouldn’t accept the Senate’s bill. The House would take the Senate’s “clean” spending measure and tack on $5 billion for the wall.
“We came out of our conference today more unified,” boasted Meadows. “I looked at (President Trump) in the eyes today and he was serious about not folding without a fight.”
Meadows said the GOP leadership realized they had to push for the wall. The “clean” Senate bill wouldn’t do.
“The assumption was that there were not enough votes there,” said Meadows.
+++++++++++++
Friday, December 21st was both the shortest and longest day of the year in Washington. However, the political day ran past midnight into Saturday, December 22nd.
The bill to fund the government - in any form - was still ricocheting around the Capitol, caroming from the House to the Senate, back to the House and returning to the Senate.
The Senate struggled to even start a debate on the House-amended plan that provided funding for the wall. A roll call vote started at 12:31 p.m. ET Friday to “proceed” to the House-plan. That required a majority vote. But many senators were absent, having already fled Washington for the holidays. The vote remained open for hours with the yeas, in favor of starting debate, lagging behind the nays.
Vice President Mike Pence and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney finally materialized at the Capitol to talk with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Pence’s services could be required to break a tie. Behind the scenes, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) helped broker an agreement just to initiate debate.
At 5:49 p.m. ET, the Senate finally closed the procedural vote after five hours and 18 minutes. It was the longest vote in Senate history, besting the five-hour-and-15-minute marathon from February 2009 on President Obama’s stimulus package.
On the government funding procedural vote, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) was a no. Flake then flipped to yea. Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate and facing a tough re-election in 2020, voted aye. Corker had lurked around the Capitol all day but had not yet cast a ballot. Corker voted yes, making it a 47-47 tie. Pence then broke the tie, 48-47, formally getting the Senate on the bill.
“Most of the conversation today has been about process and not the negotiations themselves,” said Flake. “The House bill is dead.”
In other words, it was a challenge to even convince a majority of senators to consider the House plan with the wall. That’s to say nothing of securing 60 votes to end a filibuster and usher a final version of the package to passage.
There was a flurry of activity at the Capitol late Friday afternoon. One senior House Republican source close to the negotiations indicated there was a “sense of optimism now,” adding, “I think they are trying to clear it with the White House.”
The prospective plan was to agree to brand-new, full spending measures for the rest of the fiscal year. Not interim measures through February or anything like that. But the wall was the holdup – as it’s always been the holdup.
By nightfall, the House adjourned for the day, with most lawmakers dashing to the four winds. That assured a partial government shutdown that night at midnight.
Congress would be in session on Saturday. But few lawmakers would be anywhere near the Capitol to solve the crisis.
+++++++++++++
Only a skeleton crew of staff and lawmakers darkened the door of the Capitol on Saturday. Members of the press corps certainly outnumbered the number of aides and members.
Ryan was at the Capitol to open up a rare Saturday session of the House at noon, precisely 12 hours after the government lurched into a partial shutdown. But what was the plan to bridge the impasse? Would Ryan’s Speakership end on January 3 at noon with parts of the federal government shuttered?
Ryan was having none of it, never breaking stride as he booked his way through Statuary Hall of the Capitol, bound for his office.
“It goes over there,” said Ryan, pointing toward the United States Senate chamber across the Capitol Rotunda. “Over there. You know that.”
Ryan portrayed himself as a mere bystander. And in this instance, he was more than willing to deflect the Christmastime quandary to the world’s greatest deliberative body.
That said, some whispered at the Capitol that the outgoing Speaker, off the job when the new Congress convenes, should have taken a hit. They suggested that Ryan should have taken the clean Senate bill, lacking wall money and put it on the floor. Lots of Republicans would have balked. But it likely would have passed with a coalition of many Democrats and some GOPers. What did Ryan have to lose? He’s out the door soon. His last act of Speaker may have been an effort to keep the government open.
But President Trump wouldn’t have signed the plan. And so Ryan went a different direction.
It was thought the administration had an outside chance to reach a deal Saturday afternoon with lawmakers and perhaps summon everyone back to Washington to vote Sunday night.
The sides were “swapping paper,” but in reality, they were nowhere near an agreement.
That afternoon, Trump summoned a group of hardline conservatives to the White House to discuss the border wall - a group that included Meadows, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) would only embolden the president on the wall fight.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby was also invited.
Multiple sources say the White House included Shelby as an effort to show him how serious they were about the wall.
But some Republicans fretted there could now be an issue with the conservatives. The House GOP brass did an about-face and pushed a funding bill on the floor with the wall late Thursday. That steeled their resolve. How could House Republicans now accept anything less than $5 billion since the leadership forced a vote on the revamped bill?
“We often have that problem when we over-conservatize,” said a senior House Republican leadership source.
And so the House and Senate return on December 27. But so far, there’s nothing obvious to break the dam.
British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once declared that the most important factors in politics were “events.”
We’ve seen other instances where “events” sparked expeditious resolutions to shutdowns.
Such was the case during the January shutdown. Democrats quickly folded after it was found the public was hammering them in public opinion polls.
A wild car chase and shootout at the Capitol in October 2013 – along with the debt ceiling – helped bring a hasty end a two-and-a-half week shutdown over defunding Obamacare. One U.S. Capitol Police officer was injured in the mayhem. Lawmakers put aside their differences and reopened the government. Lawmakers argued that USCP officers were on the job and willing to put their lives on the line to defend the Capitol - even though they weren’t getting paid.

So what will end this shutdown? An unforeseen event? Terrorism? An international crisis? A deeper market shock? President Trump signing a bill without full wall funding? Democrats accepting wall funding?
You never know.

Ocasio-Cortez says Jesus was a 'refugee' in Christmas tweet

In this June 27, 2018 file photo, Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reacts while talking to the media, in New York. Ocasio-Cortez is running in New York's 14th Congressional District. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

U.S. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. wished her Twitter followers a Merry Christmas Tuesday by referring to the newborn Jesus as a "refugee."
"Joy to the World!" Ocasio-Cortez wrote. "Merry Christmas everyone - here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)"
Mary and Joseph are not depicted as refugees in the Nativity story. According to the Gospel of Luke, Joseph brings the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem so that he may enroll in a census ordered by the Roman emperor Agustus. The couple are forced to take shelter in the stable where Jesus is born due to a lack of room at the inn.
However, in the Gospel of Matthew, Mary and Joseph flee into Egypt with the infant Jesus after King Herod of Judea orders the murder of every boy aged two and under in Bethlehem after the Magi ask him where to find the newborn "King of the Jews." The Holy Family escape the slaughter and are told by an angel to return to Israel once Herod is dead.
Ocasio-Cortez, who unseated veteran Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary earlier this year, has form when it comes to making eyebrow-raising comparisons on social media. Last month, she compared members of a Central American migrant caravan approaching the U.S. border to Jewish families fleeing Nazi Germany, victims of genocide in Rwanda and refugees from Syria's ongoing civil war.
That tweet drew an irate response from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who suggested Ocasio-Cortez visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which he said, "Might help her better understand the differences between the Holocaust and the caravan in Tijuana."
Ocasio-Cortez shot back: "[T]he point of such a treasured museum is to bring its lessons to present day. [The Trump] administration has jailed children and violated human rights," she added. "Perhaps we should stop pretending that authoritarianism + violence is a historical event instead of a growing force."

To end shutdown, Trump needs to ‘put something on the table’: Morgan Ortagus

Amid the partial government shutdown, President Trump may have to offer something in return for funding his border wall, national security analyst Morgan Ortagus suggested on the "Special Report" All-Star panel Tuesday night.
Now several days into the partial closure, which began at midnight Saturday, the president is standing firm with his demand for border funding, something Democrats on Capitol Hill are refusing to hand over.
“I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you that it’s not going to be open until we have a wall or fence -- whatever they’d like to call it,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office.
Tuesday's All-Star panel, which included Ortagus, Bloomberg opinion columnist Eli Lake and Washington Post opinion writer Charles Lane, weighed in on who has the better standing during the shutdown.
Ortagus began by saying neither side has been “willing to take a loss” and that the “only way out of this” is for President Trump to “put something on the table.”
“Once when they go into the new Congress, as we know, the Democrats are even going to have more power as they will be in control of the House. So what I’m looking for is a long few weeks going into the new year where we’re trading a lot of back and forths. But until the president and his team put something like DACA or something on the table that will make Democrats salivate, I think we’re going to be at status quo,” Ortagus told the panel.
DACA refers to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program for assisting the U.S.-born children of parents who entered the country illegally.
Lane questioned whether it was more important to Trump and likely incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to "get a deal" or show their supporters they're "willing to shut down the government," something he thought “played into their interests.”
Lane agreed with the other panelists that ending the shutdown would require a “bigger solution” to address immigration, adding that the shutdown also benefits both sides politically.
The Washington Post opinion writer also noted how the president’s rhetoric on the border wall has shifted and how he’s “modifying his position” in the interest of ending the partial government shutdown.
“All along, this has been about posturing on both sides towards those parts of the party base that wants to see a struggle over this," Lane said. "Possibly in between the lines of that statement, you see the beginning of the end of this crisis, but it could go on well into next year.

Francis B. Church

Editor of the New York Sun

1897

Virginia O’Hanlon

“Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps

 

The Editorial

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
 VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

 

Christmas Cartoons

Who is Patrick Shanahan? A look at Trump’s new acting secretary of defense

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan will take over as acting secretary on Jan. 1 to cover the accelerated departure of Jim Mattis, President Trump said Sunday in a tweet. (U.S. Army / Monica King)

President Trump on Sunday said deputy defense secretary Patrick Shanahan will take over as acting secretary of the department on Jan. 1 to cover the accelerated departure of Jim Mattis — after a string of disagreements between Trump and Mattis.
“I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019,” Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday morning. ”Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!”
Read on for a look at five things you should know about Shanahan.

His role is unusual.

Lt. Col. Joseph Buccino, a spokesman for Shanahan, said the former Boeing Co. executive will accept the appointment as acting secretary.
“Deputy Secretary will continue to serve as directed by the president, and the Department of Defense will remain focused on the defense of the nation,” Buccino said on Sunday.
It is unusual for the Pentagon to have an acting secretary of defense. Historically when a secretary has resigned, he has stayed on until a successor is confirmed. For example, when Obama-era Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced his resignation in November 2014, he stayed in office until Ash Carter was confirmed the following February.

He was a Boeing “fix-it” man.

Shanahan, a former Boeing Co. executive, was nominated for the job of deputy defense secretary in early 2017.
He'd moved up through the management ranks at Boeing over a career that began in 1986. The Puget Sound Business Journal called him a Boeing “fix-it” man in a March 2016 report. He oversaw the company’s global supply-chain strategies and use of advanced manufacturing technologies. Shanahan was central to getting the 787 Dreamliner on track after production problems in the program’s early years, the report said.
The pedigreed engineer, according to his bio, has two advanced degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering, and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

His father, a military vet, taught him manhood is about “service before self.” 

Shanahan is the son of Vietnam veteran Mike Shanahan, who served in the U.S. Army. “He returned home and continued his selfless service to his fellow Americans with another 25 years in law enforcement,” Shanahan said, according to an October 2017 article on the Department of Defense’s website. “Growing up, my understanding of the war came from my Dad, his friends and the few stories they would share.”
The Washington state native also said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee that his veteran father raised him and his younger brothers with the American ideology of “service before self.”
Before Shanahan was confirmed by the Senate in a 92-7 vote, the late Arizona Sen. John McCain said he wasn’t overjoyed that a defense industry executive with no prior military experience would come to lead the Pentagon.

“I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019,” President Trump tweeted Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Trump and Pence like him.

The Hill reported that Shanahan wasn’t close with Mattis; however he is liked by the White House.
“He’s not a policy or geopolitics guy. He’s a business guy,” a source told Defense News. “But he’s spent the last year learning from the best. And Shanahan is known for having a good relationship” with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
The Hill reported that Shanahan frequently visited Trump and Pence as project leader within the Pentagon of the proposed Space Force military service.

He believes the Pentagon’s focus is “to increase our performance on lethality, alliances, and reform.”

“Too often we focus on process, or budget, or level of effort,” Shanahan told Defense News. “The Pentagon should focus on outcomes and outputs — our performance. This focus on performance should drive us to field unmatched lethality, execute on our modernization plans and achieve this affordably.”
“It’s all about the system and then the reinforcing mechanisms to make that change enduring. Without a system, things fall apart when the leader moves on,” Shanahan continued. “The system or the environment shouldn’t be dependent on the leader’s presence.”
“It’s very easy in a complex environment like this to get distracted. The tactical can consume an enormous amount of time,” he added. “But my job is really to drive change at scale and there’s a formula for doing that. And the formula really has to do with change [which] must be systemic.”

Rand Paul defends Trump plan on Syria, backs similar pullout in Afghanistan; others in GOP remain skeptical

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul reiterated his support for President Trump's decision last week to remove 2,000 American troops from Syria, appearing on Sunday talk shows to assert that the president had made the right move and was doing "exactly what he promised" voters when he campaigned in 2016.
Paul also urged a similar U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, a nearly two-decade undertaking that Paul compared to the ill-fated Vietnam War.
“We’ve been there 17 years. We think now we’re going to take one more village and we’ll get a better-negotiated deal?” Paul said during an appearance in CBS's "Face the Nation." "The North Vietnamese and Vietcong "waited us out and the Taliban are going to wait us out. They know we will eventually leave and leave we must.”
He added: “The president’s right and I think the people agree with him. Let’s rebuild America. Let’s spend that money here at home.”
Trump acknowledged Rand's support for an Afghanistan withdrawal in a Twitter message late Sunday night, in which the president simply quoted Rand's comments.
The president did the same earlier Sunday with a quote from Rand's appearance on CNN's "State of the Union," adding a simple "Thanks @RandPaul."
"This is exactly what he promised," Rand had said of the president's Syria announcement, "and I think the people agree with him. We’ve been at war too long and in too many places ... spent several trillion dollars on these wars everywhere. He’s different ... that’s why he got elected."
But other Republicans have been critical of Trump's decision, which reportedly prompted last week's sudden resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis -- and Trump's countermove this weekend of forcing Mattis to leave by year's end -- two months early -- and installing former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan as acting defense secretary.
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., cautioned that Trump’s base may not support his decision to withdraw troops from Syria “without a plan.”
“There are very few Rand Pauls in the United States Senate, there are very few Rand Pauls in the House,” Santorum said on CNN. “There are very few Rand Pauls in the Republicans Party. There are very few Rand Pauls in the base of Donald Trump’s voters.”
Santorum acknowledged the president’s campaign pledge to “get out of Syria,” but added, “I don’t know of too many Republicans, I don’t know of too many base voters, who believe that the president in response to a call from the Turkish president should be capitulating in front of the Turks and allowing our allies to be slaughtered by the Turks.”
Former Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey also expressed doubts about Trump's Syria withdrawal.
“There are good weeks and bad weeks when you’re an executive in government," Christie said on ABC’s "This Week." "And this wasn’t one of the best weeks that he’s had."
On Wednesday, Trump had declared victory over the Islamic State group (ISIS) and announced plans to withdraw some 2,000 American troops from Syria.
The U.S. began airstrikes in Syria in 2014, and ground troops moved in the following year to battle ISIS and train Syrian rebels in a country torn apart by civil war. Trump declared their mission accomplished in a tweet.
Trump later acknowledged that he had spoken with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and said the Turkish leader had affirmed his country’s ability to maintain order in the region.
ISIS is significantly diminished but remains a deadly force, military advisers say. U.S. partners warn that a premature American withdrawal will allow them to storm back.
ISIS militants still hold a string of villages and towns along the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, where they have resisted weeks of attacks by the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces to drive them out.
The pocket is home to about 15,000 people, among them 2,000 ISIS fighters, according to U.S. military estimates.