Trump approval rating rises to 49% — his highest since taking office
Nearing the end of his impeachment trial and on the eve of his third State of the Union address, President Trump’s job approval rating in the latest Gallup poll hit its highest level since he took office: 49 percent, compared with 50 percent of respondents who disapprove.
The survey, released Tuesday, showed a gain of 4 percentage points in Trump’s approval since early January. It also was 3 points over his previous high-water mark of 46 percent in late April 2019, around the time special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released.
When Trump took office in 2017, his approval rating was 45 percent. It has hit a low of 35 percent three times, all during his first year in office.
Gallup
Trump’s latest approval bump appears to have been driven by higher ratings among Republicans (94 percent, up 6 percentage points from the previous poll) and independents (42 percent, up 5 points). It also probably reflects Americans’ confidence in the economy, which according to Gallup is higher than at any point in the past two decades.
Additionally, Gallup’s pollsters noted that more Americans approved (53 percent) than disapproved (45 percent) of Trump’s controversial decision to launch the U.S. drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military commander.
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
The poll was conducted Jan. 16-29, during the president’s Senate impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the charges Wednesday, and Trump’s acquittal is considered almost certain.
The survey found that 52 percent of Americans would support his acquittal by the Senate, compared with 46 percent who want him convicted and removed from office.
Almost 80 per cent of Nigerians have said that corruption has worsened in the country in the last year.
This is according to an online poll conducted by PREMIUM TIMES with respect to Nigeria’s latest ranking on the corruption index by Transparency International – a global anti-corruption watchdog.
Transparency International placed Nigeria 146th on the ranking of its 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) – out of 180 countries that were surveyed worldwide.
This is despite the proclaimed war on corruption by the federal government as well as claims of winning the war on corruption.
THE POLL
A total of 4,922 voters participated in the poll which was conducted on the PREMIUM TIMES’ website and on its official Twitter account.
The poll lasted for about seven days and was conducted in a way that made it impossible for a respondent to vote more than once from the same computer or mobile device.
The participants were asked a single question: “Do you agree with Transparency International that corruption has worsened in Nigeria in the last year?” with options of “yes” and “no.”
A total of 3,760 respondents (76.4 per cent) aligned themselves with Transparency International’s ranking while 1,162 participants (23.6 per cent) disagreed with the report.
HOW NIGERIA WAS ACCESSED
Over the years, Transparency International has used the CPI to rate the supposed corruption in different sectors of different countries.
Nigeria’s current position of 146 on the corruption perception index has moved the country two places down to rank the world’s 34th most corrupt nation compared to the 2018 results.
According to the report, Nigeria scored 26 out of 100 points, falling by one point compared to 2018.
The ranking is done on a scale of zero to 100 – with zero ranked “highly corrupt” and 100 as “least corrupt” or “very clean.”
The Sub-Saharan Africa region was rated as the lowest-performing region while Western Europe was the highest-scoring region.
Of the 19 countries in the West African region, Nigeria was ranked the fourth most corrupt country.
Although the report does not show real incidences of corruption, it is a reliable indication of the perception of the Nigerian public and the international community about the state of corruption in the country, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), a branch of Transparency International, said.
It is, however, necessary to note that the report is solely based on how a country is perceived corrupt and not cases of corruption like fraud, bribery or other crimes reported by the police or other anti-graft agencies.
The Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani, had said the index is about the perception of Nigerians on the Immigration (Service), the Custom, the National Assembly, the judiciary, ease of doing business, getting employment, gaining admission.
It examined the lack of compliance for the rule of law, public procurement and disregard for extant law in the country, especially the FOI, he explained.
PREMIUM TIMES has reported the methodology used in the latest corruption index.
Furthermore, CISLAC has given reasons as to why Nigeria failed to improve on the CPI. Some of which are: selective rule of law, backlash against the media and civil society, corruption in key sectors, among others.
GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?
Although the Buhari-led administration has since 2015, promised war on corruption and even claimed to be winning the said war, the latest index says otherwise.
There have been some deliberate efforts by the federal government to tackle corruption, although it has, however, flopped in other important areas.
Going by the concerns raised by CISLAC for example, this government has a high record of attack on journalists and civic groups.
Since 2015 till date, journalists and human rights advocates have been harassed, arrested and insulted over posts, reports or protests.
One of the most popular was the arrest and illegal detention of journalist and advocate, Omoyele Sowore, over a planned protest to call for a revolution in August 2019.
Mr Sowore was detained for over 100 days despite a court order granting him bail.
Only recently, Nigerian soldiers arrested a Daily Trust reporter, Olatunji Omirin, in Maiduguri, Borno State, over a report about the Boko Haram war.
He was arrested because “the military was not happy with some of his reports”, and that the officer demanded to know his sources.
Not forgetting the recent arrest of campus journalist, Ayoola Babalola, “for publishing articles critical of President Muhammadu Buhari and some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress” and the detention of PREMIUM TIMES’ journalist, Alfred Olufemi, over a report that exposed an Islamic cleric who raped a 16-year-old girl in Osun State.
These are a few of the many cases of attacks against journalists.
There have also been reports of corruption in key sectors including the legislature which ranges from budget padding to siphoning funds from the Zonal Intervention Projects.
DEFENCE
The federal government was very swift to react to the CPI, describing it as baseless and untenable.
The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), condemned the report, saying Transparency International ignored the “achievements” of the Buhari-administration in its resolve to tackle corruption, one of its three cardinal campaign promises.
Mr Malami said, “the facts on the ground do not correlate with the information dished out by the group”.
In terms of the fight against corruption, we have been doing more, we have done more, and we will continue to do more out of inherent conviction and desire on our part to fight against corruption devoid of any extraneous considerations relating to the rating by Transparency International,” he argued.
The EFCC described the report as baseless and appalling.
Another anti-graft agency, ICPC, also faulted the report while the Presidency said it was not based on “facts”, but on perception and hearsay.
WHAT MUST BE DONE
Akinloye Oyeniyi, a director in the Inter-Party Advisory Council of Nigeria (IPAC), said TI was only echoing the obvious.
He faulted the nation “whose federal Attorney General hired lawyers to sign papers on repatriation of Abacha loot and got paid in billions of naira.
“Look at the amount voted to be used in renovating the National Assembly, despite Nigerians uproar against the humongous N37 billion, the nation whose government Secretary once used hundreds of millions to cut grass in its war-ravaged North East, is yet going ahead to carry out the renovation for such a ridiculous amount.
“So, there is nothing ordinary in what the index said, it is simply indexing the reality on the ground in Nigeria under the current government that came to power with anti-corruption as (its) campaign policy.”
Mr Oyeniyi believes the problem started when the body language of the current government against corruption became all about the opposition or Nigerians not in the government or the ruling party.
“A government that came to power with so much noise about anti-corruption but ended up covering up its own officials who are neck-deep in corruption scandals like never before. A government in whose presidential campaign, the national chairman of the ruling party openly announced that all sins, including ongoing corruption cases of defectors from any other parties, are forgiven once they join the ruling party,” he said.
“For years, Nigerians have been crying about federal appointments made by the president being nepotistic and unconstitutionally favourable to a section of the country, yet new key appointments are going to the same section; that too is an empirical sample of corruption.
“There is nobody else to be blamed for what has happened except Mr President, President Muhammadu Buhari, because the bulk stops in his desk and he should do something about it.”
When asked what should be done to improve Nigeria’s position on the ranking, he said nothing extraordinary other than giving reality to the fight against corruption, one of the two campaign areas which the government came to power in 2015.
People inside and outside Nigeria are seeing what has happened to corruption cases of the likes of Danjuma Gojes, Timi Silvas, Babachir Lawals, Hope Uzodinmas, Godswill Akpabios and many others who are key members of this government; and those and many more are data that will eventually decide our position on the table, he said.
He urged the president to “take his anti-corruption fight serious and reign in on his government’s handlers to always see data like this as an opportunity to adjust and do well rather than seeing them as attacks thereby making them to always defend the obvious.”
The management of ThisDay newspaper has announced the suspension of two of its editors over a report published about the General Overseer of Living Faith Church, David Oyedepo, which turned out to be false.
According to the controversial story published last Friday, Mr Oyedepo was denied a visa at the US embassy.
However, the US embassy, on the same day, debunked the story, alleging that it was a ‘manufactured’ report.
Also, the chairman, Editorial and Media Board of Winners, Sheriff Folarin, said the bishop was at no time denied an entry visa into the US and could not have applied for any, as he still has a valid US visa on his passport.
“Mainstream and online media spaces this morning (yesterday) were abuzz with the news that Oyedepo was denied an entry visa to the US on Thursday, January 30, this year,” Mr Folarin, a professor, said on Sunday.
#FalseNews Alert! Be advised, the reports making the rounds about a visa being denied to Nigerian Bishop Oyedepo are false. If you have seen this manufactured item in the media, help defeat this #misinformation by communicating to everyone that it is completely false. pic.twitter.com/H1pDwhf9XW
Meanwhile, in a statement on Tuesday, the management of THISDAY Newspapers Limited noted that it “has suspended two of its deputy editors, Yemi Ajayi and Olawale Olaleye, over the story: “Drama as US Embassy Denies Bishop Oyedepo Visa,” published last Friday.”
The newspaper company said it “investigated the publication and found that the two deputy editors failed to follow its well-established traditions of carrying out the necessary checks and confirmations expected of personnel of their status in a sensitive story of that nature.”
While he enjoys immunity from prosecution and unfettered access to taxpayers’ fund as the executive governor of Kebbi State, the United States and Jersey authorities have repatriated N112.05 billion ($308 million) stolen and laundered by Abubakar Bagudu on behalf of the infamous military dictator, Sani Abacha.
Before he became governor, Mr Bagudu, was a prolific bagman for Mr Abacha helping the kleptomaniac tyrant who died in 1998 to launder a large chunk of the estimated $2.2 billion stolen from Nigeria’s coffers.
The amount was described as the “largest single asset repatriation the Island (Jersey) has undertaken, and among the largest in the world,” in a joint press statement on Monday by the Nigerian government, US Department of Justice, and the government of Jersey.
Yesterday’s repatriation is the latest in a series of other funds stolen by Mr Abacha and his family, repatriated from Europe and the United States, which the Nigerian media now describes as the Abacha loot.
The amount to be repatriated to Nigeria following a tripartite agreement on Monday does not include the more than N59.3 billion ($163 million) Mr Bagudu agreed to return to Nigeria in 2003 in exchange for Jersey’s withdrawal of an extradition request to the United States for him to face criminal prosecution in the island nation.
Last September, PREMIUM TIMES had obtained a January 2019 ruling of the US District Court of Columbia in a suit between Ibrahim, Mr Bagudu’s elder brother, who was laying claim to $287 million deposited in one account owned by Doraville Properties, a shell company set up by Mr Bagudu to primarily launder funds stolen from Nigeria.
This newspaper revealed that Mr Bagudu spent six months in federal detention in Texas while awaiting extradition to Jersey. However, before he was handed over to criminal trial in Jersey, he quickly agreed to return $163 million to Nigeria and was released on bond to Nigeria where he was meant to be prosecuted for money laundering. However, on returning to Nigeria, he was neither questioned. He was instead cleared to contest in three different election cycles – one as a senator and two as governor – all of which he won.
Battle to repatriate laundered funds
The tripartite statement revealed details of how the funds were stolen and laundered through the United States banking system before being held in bank accounts in the name of Doraville Properties in Jersey.
According to the statement, Doraville was registered in British Virgin Island, a notorious tax haven, in the name of the elder son of Mr Abacha, Mohammed.
“In 2014 a U.S. Federal Court in Washington DC forfeited the money as property involved in the illicit laundering of the proceeds of corruption arising in Nigeria during the period from 1993 to 1998 when General Abacha was Head of State,” the statement revealed.
“This case is a result of extensive co-operation between the Jersey authorities, the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Republic of Nigeria, with crucial assistance from other governments around the world.
“At the time the case was filed as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative in 2013, it was the largest U.S. kleptocracy forfeiture action ever commenced. In 2014 the Attorney General of Jersey applied for and was granted, a Property Restraint Order over the Jersey bank account balance of Doraville.
“This was challenged in the Royal Court of Jersey and Court of Appeal, and an application for permission to appeal to the Privy Council by Doraville was refused. France and the United Kingdom restrained additional funds at U.S. request,” it added.
Negotiation to repatriate funds
The statement also revealed that negotiation to return the stolen funds started in 2018. It was agreed that the funds would be used for projects administered by the Sovereign Investment Authority of Nigeria and would be independently audited. The Nigerian government was also required to set up a Monitoring team to oversee the implementation of the projects and to provide regular progress reports.
“The Nigerian government, in consultation with the other Parties, will also engage Civil Society Organisations, who have expertise in substantial infrastructure projects, civil engineering, anti-corruption compliance, anti-human trafficking compliance, and procurement to provide additional monitoring and oversight,” the statement explained.
“This Agreement represents the culmination of two decades of intensive work by Law Officers in Jersey, the United States and Nigeria. The return of the assets to Nigeria had been delayed by a number of hard-fought challenges by third parties which were defeated in the Courts in Jersey and the United States, said Mark Temple, The Solicitor General and Attorney General designate of Jersey.
“The Agreement establishes a framework based on fruitful co-operation, trust and respect so that the forfeited funds can be repatriated to benefit the people of Nigeria, from whom they had been taken. The use of the funds will be subject to monitoring and reporting obligations.
“This is a very significant achievement, and, once again, demonstrates Jersey’s commitment to tackling international financial crime and money laundering,” he added.
Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Nigeria who signed on behalf of the Nigerian government noted that this agreement has “culminated in a major victory, for Nigeria and other African countries as it recognizes that crime does not pay and that it is important for the international community to seek for ways to support sustainable development through the recovery and repatriation of stolen assets.
More funds expected
According to the statement, another $18 million could be repatriated to Nigeria after a pending resolution of Jersey’s Royal Court.
The amount is being withheld after a claim on it was made by an unnamed third party, believed to be Ibrahim, Mr Bagudu’s elder brother who court documents revealed is the only party still challenging the repatriation of some of the funds.
Meanwhile, Jersey and the United States will keep $5 million each to cover the costs and expense in the recovery of assets.
According to the agreement, the repatriated funds would be spent on the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, Abuja – Kano Road and the Second Niger Bridge.
The Plateau State Government says it will establish community policing, using “indigenous options,” to secure the state.
Governor Simon Lalong said this on Tuesday while declaring open a meeting on Peace, Security and Community Dialogue at Government House, Jos.
Mr Lalong urged community leaders to examine what the conventional security agencies are doing, with the aim to create synergy between their work and that of the community policing structure.
He said the enlarged Peace and Security Dialogue, themed: “Domestication of Community Policing in Plateau State: Exploring Indigenous Options,” was organised to put forward practical and proactive measures that will address violent attacks in the state.
“Sadly, we are compelled to hold this meeting once again instead of ordinarily coming together to celebrate peaceful coexistence and prosperity of our land and its good people, as we were looking forward to during the forthcoming Forgiveness Day,” he said.
Mr Lalong urged participants at the dialogue to engage in “frank, open and solution-driven interaction that will enable the state key into the community policing model in dealing with the state security situation more effectively.
“Happily, we already have structures on ground which are in tandem with the Community Policing model such as the Operation Rainbow, Early warning System, Vigilante Volunteers and Community-based Intelligence Volunteers,” Mr Lalong said.
: “We should also examine what the conventional security agencies such as the Police, State Security Service, Operation Safe Haven, Civil Defence and related agencies are doing in securing lives and properties in the State.
“What do we need to do in creating synergy between their work and that of the Community Policing structure in order to achieve better results.”
The Federal Government had on January 23 directed the police to recruit special constables nationwide preparatory to the implementation of its community policing policy.
The state police commands are awaiting further directive from the force headquarters on the recruitment of special constabulary for the proposed community police force
Already, most of the commands had set up screening committees to kick start the process of the implementation of the new policing system.
The police have set up a screening committee in some states to assist in screening volunteers whose ages will be between 21 and 50 years.
The police said the community policing service would be purely voluntary and the constables would not receive salaries.
Mr Lalong said from the outcome of the meeting state governors had with the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) last month in Lafia, they have resolved to domesticate policing service in the North-Central region as part of efforts to tame criminality.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Tuesday dropped a bombshell on the Senate floor, reading the name of the “anti-Trump CIA operative” believed to be the “whistleblower” who filed the complaint that triggered impeachment, Eric Ciaramella.
During his remarks in the Senate impeachment trial, Paul read the question he submitted last week that was rejected by Chief Justice John Roberts. Ciaramella’s name is in the question, but Paul didn’t say he was the whistleblower.
In any case, Paul and other colleagues have argued the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 requires only that the inspector general not disclose the whistleblower’s name. It does not stop a member of Congress, the president or anyone else from identifying a whistleblower.
Paul’s question was: “Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together, and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings?”
Paul on Tuesday criticized “overzealous” protections for whistleblowers, arguing the American public needs to know of political bias that might influence the actions of intelligence agencies and secret courts, the Gateway Pundit reported.
“By having such overzealous protections we don’t get to the root of how with happened,” he said. “This could happen again.”
He warned that biased employees could “game the system to go after you.”
Americans should be concerned, she said, that under the Obama administration federal agents listened to telephone calls and read text messages.
He said intel agencies should be banned from going after political campaigns.
“We need to change the rules. We cannot have secret courts trying to change the elections,” he said.
Investigative reporter Paul Sperry has reported it’s an open secret in Washington that that the whistleblower is Ciaramella. Lawyers for the whistleblower have not made an outright denial that their client is Ciaramella.
Paul argued his question wasn’t necessarily about a “whistleblower,” explaining he had no independent confirmation of his identity.
“My question is about the actions of known Obama partisans within the NSC and House staff and how they are reported to have conspired before impeachment proceedings had even begun,” he wrote on Twitter.
Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., initially said the whistleblower would testify in the Senate trial. But Schiff changed his mind after he was caught falsely stating his office had no interaction with the whistleblower before the complaint was filed. And since Sperry reported the whistleblower is Ciaramella, the CIA analyst’s political bias and connections have been scrutinized.
Sperry reported that just two weeks after Trump took office, Ciaramella was overheard in the White House discussing with Misko how to remove Trump, according to former colleagues.
Ciaramella and Misko — who later joined Schiff’s staff — were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. Both, Sperry reported, expressed anger over Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy, a dramatic change from President Obama’s approach to international affairs.
(Natural News) Dr. Francis Boyle is perhaps best known for authoring the Biological Weapons Act. In an explosive interview with Geopolitics and Empire, shown below, Dr. Boyle reveals that the coronavirus now circulating in the wild, exploding as a pandemic, is indeed an “offensive biological warfare weapon.”
In this eye-opening interview, probably soon to be banned by YouTube, Dr. Boyle plainly confirms exactly what Natural News has been reporting for over a week now: that the coronavirus is a biological weapon system which escaped the Wuhan BSL-4 laboratory and broke containment in the local population, spreading uncontrollably.
In his own words, he says, “the coronavirus that we’re dealing with here is an offensive biological warfare weapon that leaked out of that Wuhan BSL-4 [lab].”
The mounting evidence of a laboratory origin is now irrefutable, yet the WHO is covering for China’s bioweapons program and trying to lie to the world about the origins of the virus, falsely claiming it came about from random permutations in the wild.
It does seem to me that the Wuhan BSL-4 is the source of the coronavirus, yes. My guess is that they were researching SARS, and they weaponized it further by giving it gain-of-function properties, which means it could be more lethal, and indeed the latest report now is it’s 15% fatality rate which is more than SARS, and 83% infection rate. So a typical gain-of-function is it travels in the air, so it could reach out maybe six feet or more from someone emitting a sneeze or a cough. Likewise, this is a specially designated WHO research lab, so the WHO is in on it, and they knew full well what was going on there.
Yes, it’s also reported the Chinese stole coronavirus materials from the Canadian lab at Winnipeg; Winnipeg is Canada’s foremost center for research developing and testing biological warfare weapons. It’s along the lines of Ft. Detrick in the USA, and yeah, I have three degrees from Harvard, it would not surprise me if something was being stolen out of Harvard to turn over to China… the bottom line is, …and I drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the biological weapons convention, that was approved unanimously by both houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Bush, Senior, that it appears the coronavirus that we’re dealing with here is an offensive biological warfare weapon that leaked out of that Wuhan BSL-4 [lab]. I’m not saying it was done deliberately, but there have been previous reports of problems with that lab and things leaking out of it, and I’m afraid that is what we are dealing with today. (emphasis added)
The full video is posted at YouTube at the moment, but is likely to be banned:
The “newsclips” channel has cross-posted the video on Brighteon in case YouTube bans it. This is too important to allow to be censored. We hope the journalists at Geopolitics & Empire — who produce an amazing assortment of podcasts and other materials — understand why it’s important to post this interview everywhere before the tech giants can extinguish it. All credit goes to Geopolitics & Empire, and we hope you will visit their podcast site to listen to their own fascinating interviews.
Geopolitics & Empire also has a channel on Brighteon.com, but so far they have not posted this interview. If they post it, we will update the following link to their channel.
Massive cyber attacks leveled against Natural News, Zero Hedge, Great Game India and other sites reporting on the coronavirus
“Dr. Boyle’s position is in stark contrast to the mainstream media’s narrative of the virus being originated from the seafood market, which is increasingly being questioned by many experts,” reports GreatGameIndia.com, an independent news website that has also been subjected to aggressive cyber attacks after it began publishing information about the coronavirus pandemic (Natural News was also subjected to an extremely well-funded cyber takedown attack that disrupted our publishing operations for 2-3 days.)
As Great Game India now reports:
the mainstream media’s narrative still maintains that the origin of the 2019 Coronavirus is the Wuhan Seafood Market. After GreatGameIndia published the story on Coronavirus Bioweapon – not only were our databse tinkered with and our reports blocked by Facebook on the flimsy reason that they could not find GreatGameIndia Facebook page, but the report itself was viciously attacked by Foreign Policy magazine, PolitiFact (known widely as Facebook’s propaganda arm) and BuzzFeedNews.
China’s plan to weaponize viruses and wipe out the United States of America
The coronavirus biological weapon development program was part of China’s long-admitted effort to weaponize viruses and wipe out the USA by deploying them on U.S. soil.
“In a secret speech given to high-level Communist Party cadres nearly two decades ago, Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian explained a long-range plan for ensuring a Chinese national renaissance,” reports Great Game India:
“We are not as foolish as to want to perish together with America by using nuclear weapons,” said the general. “Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves.” The answer is found in biological weapons. “Of course,” he added, “we have not been idle, in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind.”
“In the long run,” said Gen. Chi, “the relationship of China and the United States is one of a life-and-death struggle.” This tragic situation must be accepted. According to Gen. Chi, “We must not forget that the history of our civilization repeatedly has taught us that one mountain does not allow two tigers to live together.”
According to Gen. Chi, China’s overpopulation problem and environmental degradation will eventually result in social collapse and civil war. General Chi estimated that “more than 800 million” Chinese would die in such a collapse. Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party has no policy alternative.
Either the United States is “cleaned up” by biological attacks, or China suffers national catastrophe.
In other words, China has been building a biological weapon to destroy the United States, and that weapon got loose in their own back yard. Now, it looks like China may have just nuked itself with that very same bioweapon, and the fate of China’s population, industrial output and political leadership looks very much in doubt.
Perhaps it’s fitting that the coronavirus may be the vector by which China destroys itself before its treacherous philosophy of communism, tyranny and mass death infects the entire world.
President Trump’s deputy counsel Patrick Philbin on Monday delivered his closing arguments ahead of the final senate vote.
“This was a purely partisan impeachment from the start,” Philbin argued.
Philbin then cited Federalist No. 65 to bring his point home.
Mr. Philbin previously used passages from Federalist No. 65 in his arguments, but he took it to another level on Monday.
“[Hamilton] warns that an impeachment in the House could be the result of the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives — then he goes on…” Philbin said.
“Though this latter supposition may seem harsh, and might not be likely often to be verified, yet it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men,” he said.
“Now that’s very 18th century language. We don’t talk about demons extending their sceptre over men, but it’s prescient nonetheless. We might not be comfortable with the terms but it’s accurate for what can happen,” he added.
A Rhode Island Catholic priest said he will refuse communion to politicians who voted to expand the killing of unborn babies in abortions in 2019 in his state.
![President Muhammadu Buhari [Photo: © Presidency]](https://i0.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2019/10/buharim.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1)
President Muhammadu Buhari [Photo: © Presidency]
Bishop David Oyedepo
Kebbi State Governor, Alhaji Atiku Bagudu [Photo: 
Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state
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by Cristina Laila February 3, 2020 183 Comments
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