What Newt’s Reading: May 12, 2020

What Newt’s Reading Attempts to block new court justices in the Senate are backfiring on Democrats. – Newt No Vacancy By Fred Barnes Washington Examiner “The biggest, boldest, and most lasting triumph of the Trump era is about to be completed: filling the federal courts with younger, smarter, and more reliably conservative judges, especially at the appeals court level.” These judges are textualists and originalists, interpreting laws as they written, not as a way to impose social reform from the bench. One of these judges, Justin Walker, 37, was nominated for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. His Senate hearing was last week, and Democrats and left-wing activist groups tried to derail his nomination with accusations. But this effort “blew up on the Democrats,” said Mike Davis of the Article III Project, which backs conservative judges. This conservative “judicial revolution” seems poised to continue. Democrats can only stop it if they win the Senate and the White House in November. RussiaGate (hoax) is quickly transforming into ObamaGate. – Newt It Looks Like President Obama Ordered Up Phony RussiaGate Scandal By The Editorial Board New York Post “RussiaGate is now a complete dead letter — but ObamaGate is taking its place.” It’s now clear that the Obama-Comey FBI and Justice Department never had sufficient evidence to justify its probe into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia. “Information released as the Justice Department dropped its charges against Gen. Mike Flynn shows that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, played a key role in fanning the flames of phony scandal.” Obama knew the FBI had nothing despite months of work, but he still told officials who were staying on in the new administration to hide key facts from President Trump’s team. The Obama administration leaked countless “anonymous” allegations to a friendly press about Trump-Russia collusion even though investigators found nothing. The FBI played along. In the end, “Pulitzer Prizes were won for blaring utter fiction; the Trump administration was kneecapped out of the gate. Innocents like Flynn were bankrupted along the way.” Joe Biden looks to restore compensation payments to terrorists who kill Israelis. – Newt Biden Calls for Resumption of Palestinian Aid as New Payments to Terrorists Revealed By Adam Kredo Washington Free Beacon Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group, reported last week that the Palestinian Authority’s “monthly financial documents for 2020 show that the PA is, again, trying to hide its monthly salary payments to the Palestinian terrorist prisoners from the international community.” The PA is still paying monthly salaries to terrorist prisoners but trying to hide them by listing the allocations under a different category. These new disclosures came just days after Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called for a full resumption of American aid to the Palestinian Authority. Congress froze aid to the PA because it sends money to imprisoned terrorists and their families as a form of reward for attacking Israelis. "I will reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem, find a way to reopen the PLO's diplomatic mission in Washington, and resume the decades-long economic and security assistance efforts to the Palestinians that the Trump administration stopped," Biden said in a statement. A contrast in leadership: Leader McCarthy wants to investigate China and the source of the pandemic. Speaker Pelosi kills bipartisan efforts and sides with the Chinese Communist Party in blaming the president. – Newt Kevin McCarthy on House’s China Task Force: China Wants to ‘Defeat America,’ USA Must Be United in Response By Matthew Boyle Breitbart House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said over the weekend that, under the orders of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), Democrats backed out of a planned bipartisan commission to investigate the Chinese Communist Party, especially over its role in the outbreak of the coronavirus. McCarthy added that Democrats have instead launched an impeachment-style House Select Committee to investigate President Trump’s response to the pandemic. “McCarthy noted that Democrats had been working with Republicans to launch a task force in the House to investigate China for more than a year — but just before the pandemic struck the United States, Pelosi pulled the Democrats back. Despite Pelosi backing out on holding China to account, McCarthy extended an open invitation to Democrats to join the Task Force and work on this critical issue as they originally intended to do.” A smart and safe economic recovery must focus on America's small businesses. – Newt Reopen America Smartly, Let Small Businesses Jumpstart the Economy By Alfredo Ortiz and Jeff Colyer Fox Business The coronavirus and the efforts to combat it have led to an unemployment rate of 14.7 percent. About one-third of small businesses have closed down. Some will never reopen. “To prevent the coronavirus-induced economic recession from turning into a depression, society must intelligently reopen now.” Americans must be able to provide for their families. Of course, we must reopen safely and protect the most vulnerable. And we must also chart a new course in a world with the coronavirus. “If we use strategic testing, tracing, and smart business innovations, we can isolate the few to protect the many instead of isolating the many to protect the few.” Each state and county should decide how to reopen based on its own circumstances. Rural areas with few cases should be treated differently than major cities. Some states, however, such as California, are lumping together these kinds of areas under one plan. Other states, such as Florida and Indiana, are following a smarter, more localized approach. Still, some universal recommendations apply across the whole country. This is not a zero-sum game: we can reopen and protect the vulnerable at the same time. “Yet just because businesses are allowed to reopen does not mean that customers will show up. Local officials can decide when businesses can reopen, but it will be up to private industry to determine how to safely operate.” Businesses should decide for themselves how to keep their customers safe and increase consumer confidence. They are innovative and the best equipped to do so. They can bring back the economy if unleashed. President Trump can spark an economic recovery by appointing a higher education task force to create guidelines and health protocols to open colleges and universities in the fall. – Newt Trump Should Create a Higher Education Task Force to Reopen Colleges in the Fall By Gene Crume Washington Examiner President Trump can show how serious he is about opening the country to trigger an economic recovery by creating a task force of professionals in higher education to create guidelines and protocols to open universities this fall. A diverse group of college presidents and university leaders should represent this group. Their professional experiences have taught them how to “close a community temporarily and then reopen it efficiently, effectively, and safely,” and how to “address prudence, liability, and risk.” One broad, sweeping set of guidelines won’t do; what works for one campus may not be appropriate for another. Higher education leaders just need the support of the federal government to get to work. Latest News from Newt:

Which is worse: A default on the U.S. debt or continued increases in spending and taxes?