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In voting Thursday on whether to leave the European Union, the British people face perhaps the most momentous decision since Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century so he could marry as he pleased. Though lust is not the motivation this time, there are other similarities. The Catholic Church five centuries ago was run by an unelected supranational elite, answerable to its own courts, living in luxury at the expense of ordinary people, and with powers to impose its one-size-fits-all rules despite the wishes of national governments. We were right to leave. The European Union is quite unlike any of today’s international organizations and has never been emulated elsewhere. Britain has no desire to withdraw from NATO, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the Council of Europe or, for that matter, the Olympics. These bodies are agreements between governments. The EU is a supranational government run in a fundamentally undemocratic, indeed antidemocratic, way. It has four presidents, none of them elected. Power to initiate legislation rests entirely with an unelected commission. Its court can overrule our Parliament. This was deliberate. In the mid-20th century, French and German politicians, with bad memories of brief and chaotic democratic interludes between autocracies, designed a way to ensure that power would shift gradually to a technocratic elite. Britain’s history of democracy is happier. Long ago we had a “glorious revolution” to establish the principle that laws cannot be passed or taxes raised except by the consent of the people as represented in Parliament. A centrally planned, regional customs union—though not one run with a colonial mind-set, chaotic accounts, a bureaucratic surplus and a democratic deficit—might have made some sense in the 1950s. That was before container shipping, budget airlines, the internet and the collapse of tariffs under the World Trade Organization made it as easy to do business with Australia and China as with France and Germany. But today, Britain—the most outward-facing of the major European economies—will thrive if it leaves. Europe’s GDP has only just staggered back up to where it was before the 2008 financial crisis. This is because the EU’s obsession with harmonization (of currency and rules) frustrates innovation. Using as an excuse the precautionary principle or the need to get 28 countries to agree, the EU gets in the way of the new. “Technological progress is often hindered or almost impossible in Europe,” says Markus Beyrer, director general of BusinessEurope, a confederation of industry groups. Consequently, we’ve been left behind in digital technology: There are no digital giants in Europe to rival Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook. The EU is also against free trade. It says it isn’t, but its actions speak louder. The EU has an external tariff that deters African farmers from exporting their produce to us, helping to perpetuate poverty there, while raising prices in Europe. The EU confiscated Britain’s right to sign trade agreements—though we were the nation that pioneered the idea of unilateral free trade in the 1840s. All the trade agreements that the EU has signed are smaller, as measured by the trading partners’ GDP, than the agreements made by Chile, Singapore or Switzerland. Those the EU has signed usually exclude services, Britain’s strongest sector, and are more about regulations to suit big companies than the dismantling of barriers.
More on Brexit Even worse than in Westminster or Washington, the corridors of Brussels are crawling with lobbyists for big companies, big banks and big environmental pressure groups seeking rules that work as barriers to entry for smaller firms and newer ideas. The Volkswagen emissions scandal came from a big company bullying the EU into rules that suited it and poisoned us. The anti-vaping rules in the latest Tobacco Products Directive, which will slow the decline of smoking, came from lobbying by big pharmaceutical companies trying to defend the market share of their nicotine patches and gums. The de facto ban on genetically modified organisms is at the behest of big green groups, many of which receive huge grants from Brussels. In a fine speech in 2013, David Cameron, the British prime minister, called for fundamental reform, but this year he settled for far more modest demands in a travesty of a “renegotiation.” He has since campaigned for a vote to Remain, making increasingly implausible claims about the wars, depressions and plagues of Egypt that will follow if the world’s fifth-biggest economy tries to survive in a world where Norway, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore seem to manage fine. His latest claim is that the leaders of Islamic State would welcome Brexit, for which he has adduced no evidence. George Osborne, his chancellor of the exchequer, has bizarrely promised a punitive budget of tax rises and spending cuts to deepen any recession after our departure. The most striking feature of the campaign is that nobody on the Remain side is prepared to make a positive case for the European Union and its further integration. By contrast, the Leave campaigners, led by Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, and Michael Gove, the justice secretary, talk of Britain’s escaping a regional backwater and getting into the global mainstream, while remaining an ally and friend of Europe. I shall be voting Leave. Mr. Ridley is a columnist for the Times (U.K.) and a member of the House of Lords. Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Iraqi lawmakers approved a resolution Sunday calling to expel U.S. troops from the country, following an American drone attack that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.The resolution asks the Iraqi government to end the agreement under which Washington sent forces to Iraq more than four years ago to help in the fight against the Islamic State terror group."The Iraqi government has an obligation to end the presence of all foreign forces on Iraqi soil and prevent it from using Iraqi lands, waters, and airspace or any other reason," Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halboosi said in an address to lawmakers before the vote. Mourners carry the coffins of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias, at the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, Iraq, on Saturday. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil) IRANIAN MP THREATENS TO 'ATTACK THE WHITE HOUSE': REPORTThe majority of about 180 legislators present in Parliament voted in favor of the resolution. It was backed by most Shiite members of parliament, who hold a majority of seats. Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.But the Iraqi Parliament vote doesn't mean that the U.S. military has to leave the country immediately. It's a non-binding vote, which is seen as mostly symbolic. The 5,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq at the invitation of the country's executive branch, the Prime Minister's office -- not Parliament. It is up to the Iraqi Prime Minister whether the troops will be expelled.The vote came two days after a U.S. drone strike killed Soleimani at the Baghdad airport, ratcheting up tensions in the region and raising fears of war."The United States is disappointed by the action taken today in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. While we await further clarification on the legal nature and impact of today's resolution, we strongly urge Iraqi leaders to reconsider the importance of the ongoing economic and security relationship between the two countries and the continued presence of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. "We believe it is in the shared interests of the United States and Iraq to continue fighting ISIS together. This administration remains committed to a sovereign, stable, and prosperous Iraq."TRUMP WARNS IRAN: US HAS TARGETED ’52 IRANIAN SITES’ AND WILL ‘HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD’ IF NEEDEDThere are over 100,000 Iranian-backed militia fighters in Iraq. Their leaders have called for “revenge” for Soleimani’s death.Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq has officially “paused” the training of Iraqi forces and the support of their operations against ISIS to focus on protecting its troops and bases, according to a coalition statement released Sunday.CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APPThe coalition said the decision is subject to continuous review. Fox News' Rich Edson, Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A top Republican senator is casting aside an anti-tax pledge he signed, saying that solving the country’s looming fiscal crisis is more important than honoring the decades-old pact.Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., broke ranks with other conservatives Wednesday when he made the remarks to a local television station. Chambliss is a member of the Gang of Six, a bipartisan group of senators tasked with finding a solution to the country's fiscal woes."I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," he told WMAZ-TV. "If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."Congress and the White House face a year-end deadline to reach a deal that staves off an avalanche of tax increases and deep cuts in government programs – commonly referred to now as the “fiscal cliff.”Chambliss signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, authored by conservative activist Grover Norquist and embraced by the majority of congressional Republican lawmakers. In it, Norquist, an anti-tax lobbyist and head of Americans for Tax Reform, does not allow for tax rates to rise.More On This... Those who sign the pledge "solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases," according to the group’s website, which states that 39 senators, including Chambliss, and 219 House members support it.Chambliss acknowledged that distancing himself from the pledge might hurt him in his bid for re-election in 2014, but said he's not concerned about it."I don't worry about that because I care too much about my country,” he said. “I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.""I'm willing to do the right thing and let the political consequences take care of themselves,” Chambliss added.A senior aide to Chambliss confirmed the accuracy of his remarks to Fox News.Obama campaigned on a pledge to end the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 a year. Republican leaders say the lower rates from 2001 and 2003 should remain in place for everyone, including the rich.Both sides have dug in so deeply that it will be politically painful to back down. Republicans say tax increases on the rich would inhibit job growth. Democrats dispute that, and say it's only fair for the wealthiest to provide more revenue in this era of historically low tax burdens and a growing income disparity between the rich and the poor.The federal budget cuts would begin Jan. 2, part of a deal reached by Congress after failing to agree on a more measured solution to reducing the federal deficit. The cuts would total roughly $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, including $65 billion just in 2013.Most Republican lawmakers have signed a pledge not to allow tax rates to rise, even if they are scheduled to do so by law, as are the Bush-era cuts. Some Democrats say it may be necessary to let the Dec. 31 deadline expire and have everyone's tax rates revert to the higher, pre-Bush levels. Then, the argument goes, Republicans could vote to bring the rates back down for most Americans, but not the richest, without breaking their pledge.The tax rate issue is especially thorny because it doesn't lend itself to Washington's favorite tactics of postponing hard decisions. Lawmakers routinely resort to "continuing resolutions" to end budget impasses by keeping spending levels unchanged for yet another year. Politically, no one wins or loses.Obama's campaign promise to raise tax rates on the wealthy precludes that. Either rates on the rich will rise and Republicans will absorb defeat on a huge priority, or the rates will remain unchanged, a political defeat for Obama.Fox News' Mike Emanuel and the Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Let’s stipulate something about the current tussle at the edge of the fiscal cliff. President Obama and the Democrats and the media--the champions of expanding the public sector at the expense of the rest of us–are going to win, and the Republicans–the last remaining defenders of the private sector–are going to lose. Taxes will go up on upper-income Americans, and spending will continue to grow–and Republicans will glumly go along with it.But there are a couple things the GOP establishment might think about, before they capitulate.The goal of getting Republicans to agree to raise taxes is not to raise new revenues. After all, allowing the Bush tax rates to expire for wealthier Americans will bring in perhaps $67 billion a year; Warren Buffet’s plan for a thirty percent minimum tax rate for millionaires another $5 billion. That’s spit in the ocean compared to annual deficits of $1 trillion and counting–let alone a $16 trillion national debt.[pullquote]And contrary to reports from the media, the goal isn’t “to raise the morale of the middle class”by punishing the rich, or any such class warfare strategy.The real goal is to detach Republicans from their Tea Party and conservative base, and wreck any chance of a repeat of 2010's GOP surge–not to mention recapturing the White House in 2016.What a Republican capitulation on taxes will really mean is a future of political defeats stretching out beyond the horizon, as a disheartened base either stays home or wages bitter Tea Party versus Establishment primary fights like the ones that cost them the Senate this year.But there’s also more at stake than elections.What Obama and the Democrats are hoping is that GOP lawmakers will publicly abandon the no-new-taxes pledge they signed as part of their campaigns for office. The media like to blame Grover Norquist for the pledge, but he was only the instrument, and his Americans for Tax Reform the vehicle, made for the purpose. The pledge was simply a solemn promise to voters that this Republican candidate at least, when he went to Washington, would not be party to stealing more from the private sector in order to grow the welfare state.The pledge isn’t legally binding. As Vice President Al Gore would say, there’s no governing legal authority enforcing it. The only thing involved is honor, and trust–the honor of the candidate who took the pledge to voters not to raise their taxes, and the trust of voters that this time, unlike with President George “Read My Lips” Bush, they wouldn’t be betrayed again.Honor and trust. Breaking the no-tax pledge violates both–and it’s hard to see how either ever comes back. And the Democrats know it. That’s why they’ve focused on the pledge. They don’t just want to take away Republicans’ voters; they also want to destroy their sense of honor and integrity. They know it will make Republicans more compliant for future deals, and more alienated than ever from the voters they will need if they ever get another chance to salvage what’s left of this country.“The greatest way to live with honor,” the playwright Sophocles said, “is to be what we pretend to be.” Republicans have pretended to be the party of no new taxes. Let’s see them live up to it–and by saving their honor maybe they’ll save us all. | 2 |
UPDATE: Lots of recriminations and pearl-clutching on the Left yesterday and today after Bernie Sanders channeled Marco Rubio and called Hillary Clinton unqualified to be president. This, after Clinton tied Sanders' heterodoxies on gun rights to the Sandy Hook massacre of elementary school children. A very tame race is getting a bit heated, as Leah noted earlier. Watch:
Much of the Left is rallying to Hillary's defense, calling her eminently qualified to be president. They're fine with someone who lies to terror victims' families, lies about her email scheme that knowingly compromised national security, and whose 'accomplishments' they can't even list. Meanwhile, Socialist Sanders seems to have no idea how to actually be president.** Original Post **
Interesting approach here from Democrats' presumptive frontrunner, who's lost seven of the last eight contests to her Socialist opponent, yet whose invincibility narrative is being propped up by elitist 'Super Delegates'. Her team has been whining about Sanders' "tone," which seems positively quaint, given the verbal bazookas being fired daily on the GOP side of the race. She's also taken to patronizing many core Bernie supporters, saying that she feels sorry for them -- those sad, silly little mini-'protesters' who annoyingly keep voting for someone they actually trust. Now she's also questioning whether Bernie's even really a Democrat:Sanders had just told an interviewer that he was iffy about raising money for down-ballot Democrats, so I asked Clinton the obvious question: Did she think Sanders is a real Democrat? “Well, I can’t answer that,” she said with a smile. Then she proceeded to answer the question. “He’s a relatively new Democrat, and, in fact, I’m not even sure he is one. He’s running as one. So I don’t know quite how to characterize him.” Clinton’s stock line as she has watched Trump & Co. savage one another for months has been some version of don’t-speak-too-ill-of-any-Democrat. But things have changed over the past couple of weeks, with Sanders’ team ratcheting up its attacks and speaking openly about a contested convention, GOP style. She was ticked off — already factoring in an inevitable loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday...She even suggested for the first time (in public, anyway) that the septuagenarian from Vermont was feeding a simplistic, cynical line of argument to turn young voters against her. “There is a persistent, organized effort to misrepresent my record, and I don’t appreciate that, and I feel sorry for a lot of the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations,” Clinton said, a few minutes after talking herself hoarse at a rally here. “I know that Sen. Sanders spends a lot of time attacking my husband, attacking President Obama. I rarely hear him say anything negative about George W. Bush, who I think wrecked our economy.”
Her husband actually holds quite a lot of responsibility for "ruining the economy" by using coercive government social engineering to force lenders to artificially inflate the housing bubble that finally burst, but that's an issue for another day. Hillary is 'ticked off' because millions of center-left voters want nothing to do with her. She believes the presidency is her birthright, and now is finally her time, especially after the unpleasantness of 2008. She says she isn't sure whether Bernie Sanders should necessarily count as a Democrat. Voters in 16 Democratic primary and caucus contests thus far seem to believe that he does, choosing him over her. She gets consistently walloped by Democratic voters who prize trustworthiness as a candidate quality, particularly among Millennials. Perhaps rather than talking down to these voters and dispatching surrogates scurrying across the media with their latest "resistance is futile" talking points, she should stick to policy arguments against Sanders. He's handed her some easy material recently, showcasing his embarrassing lack of specifics on foreign policy, and betraying a bizarre insouciance about how he'd logistically implement his Socialist-Populist domestic agenda. Instead, she's flailing heading into her "home state" of New York, admitting on an open mic that she needs to turn the energy of the race around:
By the way, the strongest evidence that "Bernie's a DINO" won't work -- aside from the millions of Democratic voters who've sided with him -- is Hillary's rhetorical and policy migration in his direction. Hers is a hard-Left party, the heart and soul of which is embodied by the likes of Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. So transparently desperate is Hillary to pander to Bernie's improbable youth movement that SNL recently ridiculed it in a fake ad portraying Hillary Clinton gradually physically morphing into Sanders, begging young people to like her:
Maybe she's given up on winning their votes -- maybe ever -- so she's patting them on the head and sending them on their way, confident that party bosses will ensure her eventual victory, no matter how often Bernie beats her. I'll leave you with some advice from David Axelrod:Line @HillaryClinton should drop: "...I feel sorry for the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations." It's patronizing.— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 6, 2016 Recommended Townhall Video | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President Obama appears to be straddling both sides of the rhetorical border as he tries to explain why he's pushing off executive action on immigration until after the November elections.Obama, speaking June 30 in the Rose Garden, initially said he planned to use executive action and pointed to the border crisis as a reason to act -- blasting Republicans for using the surge of illegal immigrant kids as an "excuse to do nothing.""Their argument seems to be that because the system is broken, we shouldn't make an effort to fix it. ... It's just politics, plain and simple," Obama said at the time. The president said the humanitarian crisis "only underscores the need to drop the politics and fix our immigration system once and for all."But now Democrats and Republicans alike say the president is the one who's playing politics, by pushing off executive action until after the midterms.And the president, this time, is the one citing the border crisis as the reason to wait.In an interview over the weekend with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama said the surge has gotten “a lot of attention” and suggested that, even though the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is dropping, “that’s not what the impression is on people's minds.”Obama said he wants to “make sure that it's sustainable” when he does take action and suggested that would not be the case now. “It's going to be more sustainable and more effective if the public understands what the facts are on immigration, what we've done on unaccompanied children and why it's necessary,” the president said. “The truth of the matter is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem. I want to spend some time, even as we're getting all our ducks in a row for the executive action … to make sure that the public understands why we're doing this.”The president flatly denied that the real reason he’s waiting is he wants to protect vulnerable Democrats facing tough Senate reelection battles.His critics aren’t buying it.Immigrant advocates – who want imminent action from the president – as well as Republicans – who want him to scrap plans to take executive action entirely – both blasted the president for the move.“I think it's totally politically calculated,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s made this determination that if he gets out in front on this issue, it will hurt seven to eight Senate races and he could potentially lose the Senate. I think Harry Reid has sent that message clearly to the president, which is why I think you've seen him back off of this position.”McCaul called the decision “raw politics.” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called it “simply a political move.”Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., one of the biggest proponents for immigration action, complained on ABC’s “This Week” that the president was “playing it safe” and “walking away from our values and our principles.”Gutierrez is among those calling for a massive unilateral reprieve for illegal immigrants currently in the country, something Republicans adamantly oppose.When the idea was discussed over the summer, Republicans argued such a reprieve would only exacerbate the problem of illegal immigrant minors trekking up from Central America and into the United States.Obama, in confirming he would push off a decision, made clear he still intends to act if Congress will not pass a comprehensive bill on its own.“I want to make sure we get it right,” he clarified. | 2 |
President Donald Trump blasted special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation again Wednesday, demanding that Attorney General Jeff Sessions "stop this rigged witch hunt right now."
Trump cited comments made by Alan Dershowitz earlier Wednesday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings With Maria" program. The renowned law professor slammed rogue FBI agent Peter Strzok's involvement in the Russia probe, adding that Mueller is "creating an illusion of objectivity." “FBI Agent Peter Strzok (on the Mueller team) should have recused himself on day one. He was out to STOP THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP. He needed an insurance policy. Those are illegal, improper goals, trying to influence the Election. He should never, ever been allowed to........
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018
.....remain in the FBI while he himself was being investigated. This is a real issue. It won’t go into a Mueller Report because Mueller is going to protect these guys. Mueller has an interest in creating the illusion of objectivity around his investigation.” ALAN DERSHOWITZ....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018
..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018 Amid his attack on Mueller's probe, Trump also questioned why investigators failed to tell him that his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was under investigation. Paul Manafort worked for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other highly prominent and respected political leaders. He worked for me for a very short time. Why didn’t government tell me that he was under investigation. These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion - a Hoax!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018 Manafort's first trial began Tuesday in Virginia.
Trump returned with another tweet a half hour later, labeling accusation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign "a TOTAL HOAX." Russian Collusion with the Trump Campaign, one of the most successful in history, is a TOTAL HOAX. The Democrats paid for the phony and discredited Dossier which was, along with Comey, McCabe, Strzok and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, used to begin the Witch Hunt. Disgraceful!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018 He returned to Twitter an hour later to add a slam against his Democrat opponent in the 2016 election, with a quote attributed to Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen referring to a "smoking gun about a campaign getting dirt on their opponent, it was Hillary Clinton." “We already have a smoking gun about a campaign getting dirt on their opponent, it was Hillary Clinton. How is it OK for Hillary Clinton to proactively seek dirt from the Russians but the Trump campaign met at the Russians request and that is bad?” Marc Thiessen, Washington Post
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018 © 2022 Newsmax. All rights reserved. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon proposed the creation of a new, United States-funded television network to compete with CNN globally.“While CNN doesn’t do great in the United States based on ratings, outside of the U.S. they have very little competition,” Trump tweeted. “Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair.... and false way. Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”The president has had a rocky relationship with the network and recently revoked the hard press pass of CNN Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta. A federal judge later ruled in favor of the network after CNN filed a federal lawsuit. Acosta has since regained access to the White House.Acosta's press pass was suspended earlier this month after he engaged in a contentious back-and-forth with President Trump during a press conference. Acosta refused to pass the microphone to a female White House aide and there was brief contact between the two. Later in the day, the White House revoked Acosta’s credential.CNN filed the subsequent suit against the Trump administration, demanding the White House restore the star reporter's press pass, a move White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders labeled “more grandstanding from CNN.” Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report. | 2 |
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) predicted Monday that ten Republican senators will vote for a Democrat resolution to end President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build the wall.
Sen. Paul told reporters that he believes that ten Republicans senators will vote to end Trump’s national emergency declaration. Paul announced Saturday that he will vote for the Democrat resolution. “I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress. We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it,” Paul said. “If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing.”
The Kentucky Republican’s prediction arises as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly broke a promise to President Trump: McConnell promised to back the national emergency in exchange for Trump’s endorsement of a long-term spending bill. McConnell said that the Democrat resolution to end the national emergency will pass through the Senate. However, if Paul correctly predicts the Senate vote, then the resolution will pass through the Senate, but Senate Republicans and Democrats would not be able to defeat a presidential veto unless more Republicans defect.
“What is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House,” McConnell said.
Currently, four senators have come out in favor ofthe Democrat resolution. Sens. Paul, Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Tom Tillis (R-NC) have come out publicly against Trump’s executive action to secure the border.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) has not announced his decision regarding the national emergency, but said Monday he will reveal his decision at the “right time.”
Sen Romney says he will put out a statement on disapproval resolution “at a time that I think is the right time” but is still trying to decide when that will be
— Erica Werner (@ericawerner) March 4, 2019
McConnell later also said that he tried to convince Trump to not declare a national emergency, contending that future Democrat presidential administrations might abuse Trump’s precedent.
“That’s one reason I argued without success that he not take this route,” McConnell said.
“I was one of those hoping the president would not take the national emergency route,” McConnell added. “Once he decided to do that I said I would support it, but I was hoping he wouldn’t take that particular path.” | 2 |
$22 trillion. Let us repeat...$22 trillion. We know. It's just a number. It's just a number that rolls off the tongues. But we here like to simplify things. We here believe in reality. The reality is our leaders, our politicians, our elected officials...people that we elected to preserve our future, people we elected to make sure our children and their children were taken care of have spent $22 trillion more than we have sent them through the years and it is only getting worse.MORE FROM FOXBUSINESS.COM Just last week, President Trump did a 90 minute State of the Union address. Not one word was uttered about the debt and deficits. The Democrats had a rebuttal. Not one word was uttered about the debt and deficits. One politician was asked about the debt and deficits. his answer: "No one here cares!" Well many of us do care. We know it is our debt. We know it is the economy that will eventually take the fall, while most of these politicians will be retired. So what is the outcome of all this? It's not good. For starters, because of all this debt, the first $500 billion of our tax dollars will go towards interest on the debt next year. That's $500 billion going towards nothing. Not going towards children, the elderly, the downtrodden, the poor or the infirm. It's not going towards the roads, bridges, streets, sewers, trains or anything these same politicians complain we need to fix every day. $500 billion goes down the toilet because of the debt they created. We bet you haven't heard that one.How about this? Estimates are that in just a few years, we will be at $30 trillion of debt in where $1 trillion each year will be going towards interest on the debt. Feel better now? But let's simplify it even more.Every day, approximately $3 billion is added to our debt. Every day, approximately $1.5 billion is going towards paying the interest on the debt. Yet, upon agreement on the latest budget, we heard one politician who has been in DC for 40 years say that this latest budget represents their values. There was no mention of their values of massive debt and deficits.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APPWe would like to put lipstick on this pig, but there is just no way to spin it any other way. We are heading for something unfathomable because the numbers are now unfathomable and it is even more unfathomable that the people we are depending on to fix this are not even pretending they care.Wish we had better news. We just deal in reality.Gary Kaltbaum is a registered investment advisor with more than 30 years of experience in the markets. He is owner and president of Kaltbaum Capital Management, a financial investment advisory firm headquartered in Orlando, Florida. He is a Fox News Channel Business Contributor regularly appearing on Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. Gary is the author of the book “The Investors Edge” and is also the host of a nationally syndicated radio show with the same title “Investors Edge” which is broadcast on numerous stations across the U.S. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! America, we were introduced to our next president on Wednesday night. He’s not a politician. He is one of a kind. He is an American. Welcome President Donald J. Trump.I’m a cynical Jewish Ivy Leaguer from New York. Nothing gets me too excited. I don’t believe politicians. Nor do I believe in politicians. I don’t fall for theatrical political productions. I don’t believe rhetoric or propaganda. And I’ve never teared up over a political speech in my life.Until now. . .Wednesday night I found myself fist-pumping. I found myself chanting along with the crowd “USA, USA, USA.” And as the procession of mothers and fathers came up to the podium to state the name of their child -- who was murdered by illegal immigrants -- and then say “I’m voting for Trump” or “Trump is our last chance to save America” I found myself tearing up. And the amazing thing is… I couldn't stop. The tears rolled down my face.This speech in Arizona was the game-changer.Not just the speech, but the entire day. Trump accepted the invitation to meet with the President of Mexico. He showed he’s a man of action by flying to Mexico on a moment’s notice. Trump stood next to Mexico's president -- looking to all the world like President Donald J. Trump. Trump stated his case and never gave an inch to the president of Mexico. Trump turned a vision -- that was mocked and ripped to shreds for a year now -- into a reality. Who now believes that if Trump is elected a wall won’t be built?As a conservative, I’ve waited a lifetime for this speech. Why? Because it was a speech that didn’t back down by even one inch. It was a speech aimed at Americans, for Americans, delivered by a proud American, who values American exceptionalism.It was a speech that restores law and order.A speech that always put American citizens, workers and taxpayers first.A speech that recognized the right to safety and security for American citizens.A speech that recognizes that a foreigner here illegally does not have the same rights as an American-born citizen.A speech that pointed out that foreigners here illegally should not be treated better than our veterans.A speech that recognized that American citizens have every right to choose who comes into our country. And that we should proudly choose immigrants with skills, self-sufficiency and a respect for our common values.It was a speech that recognized that illegal immigrants do not qualify for welfare, food stamps and other entitlements -- and our government has a right, for the first time ever, to prioritize the deportation of illegal foreigners for abusing the welfare system.It was a speech that recognized that foreigners in American prisons for violent crimes and felonies should and will be deported immediately -- and that no country can refuse to take them back.It was a speech that recognized our right to practice “extreme vetting” on anyone who wants to come into America -- and that we can choose to exclude those who don’t share or respect our values, customs, laws and Constitution. Some people just won’t be allowed in. (At this point, I jumped up from my chair and screamed “YES!”)It was also a speech that recognized that the federal government must shut off all funding to Sanctuary cities. After all that's our taxpayer money being given to political leaders who are choosing to break the law. FINALLY, an adult has decided to just say "NO."And then there’s the wall… that great, big, beautiful Trumpian wall. I’ve waited a lifetime to hear that we have a right to build a wall, to protect and secure our borders and keep the bad guys out.Trump covered it all on Wednesday night. He never backed down to pressure from the corrupt mainstream media, billionaire titans, Wall Street moguls, Silicon Valley tech gurus, lawyers, lobbyists, liberals, the GOP establishment, Ivy League know-it-all intellectuals. He gave no quarter to any of them. He changed nothing to appeal to them.I could feel their mouths dropping open in disbelief.Trump is our last chance to save America. To restore law and order. To protect my four beautiful children. To save our economy. To rescue our middle class. We have only one choice. We have only one chance.Look at yourself in the mirror. If you’re American-born…if you’re a taxpayer…if you’re a parent…if you love America…if you agree this is the greatest country in world history….if you believe we are blessed by God…if you’re horrified at the prospect of bringing hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees into this country at a cost of $400 billion…if you’re scared to death about our soon-to-be-$20 trillion national debt…if you don’t want your child to become just another murder statistic…if any of those descriptions fits you and Trump’s speech didn’t move you…You suffer from a mental disease called liberalism.If everything Trump promised and everything I’ve just said doesn’t impress you, then just think of Trump as our TREXIT. Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C.And that, my fellow Americans, sounds like the dream of a lifetime to me. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! After Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s appearance on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, progressive media outlets and personalities mocked her performance as “trainwreck” saying that she “stumbled,” “struggled,” and “stunk up” the interview. Although Secretary DeVos did struggle to answer some questions on the spot, the substance and tone of the criticisms are inaccurate and unfair.None of this should be surprising. Secretary DeVos, a Christian grandmother and philanthropist who has spent her career trying to improve the quality of education for poor children, has been criticized and mocked relentlessly. And she is the only Cabinet secretary who travels with a cadre of U. S. Marshals because of death threats she’s received.So why, as “60 Minutes”’ Lesley Stahl put it, has Secretary DeVos become the “most hated Cabinet secretary?”One reason—as opinion pieces in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have argued—is that some of the Democratic party’s most deep-pocketed and powerful interest groups are teachers’ unions who realize that they will no longer have a near-monopoly on education.Another reason, as the New York Times’ Ross Douthat argued, is that the Democratic party’s upper-middle-class suburbanite constituency - who are big supporters, in theory, of public education – bristle at the idea of DeVos’ charters and vouchers being attractive to poor and minority families (who in their view belong in public schools) or families with ideological or religious convictions that differ from their own.On second thought, I guess it’s not so hard to understand why the left’s hard-core education bureaucracy is so opposed to her. She is a serious threat to the status quo that has served them – if not students – so well. Perhaps the most significant reason, however, is the one Secretary DeVos gave in response to Stahl’s question: more than anything else, she is misunderstood.To clear up any misunderstanding caused by the left’s holy war against her, here are four things Americans should understand about Secretary DeVos’ educational vision:First, as she noted in the “60 Minutes” interview, Secretary DeVos wants to liberate American education from encroachment by federal bureaucracy. Under the Obama administration, the federal government functioned as a giant octopus, bypassing families, communities, and states in order to reach its tentacles into school curriculum, teacher evaluation, values conformity, and even restroom policies. Betsy DeVos signals a departure from that era. Her stated educational philosophy suggests that she will not turn Democratic encroachment into Republican encroachment; instead, she will reduce federal encroachment in order to empower families, local communities, and states.Second, Secretary DeVos emphasizes freedom of thought. During her confirmation hearings, the media made much ado about her “Dutch Calvinist” religious views. But Dutch Calvinism is a rich religious tradition that emphasizes the rights and freedoms of families, communities, and religions. For that reason, it finds adherents on the right and on the left. Additionally, it places an especially high value on education, but emphasizes that a plural society should be tolerant enough to allow diverse families and communities to build their own educational institutions and choose which institution(s) their children can attend. Unfortunately, many liberal educators are quite illiberal, unwilling to tolerate any type of educational diversity that undermines the federal government’s impulse toward command-and-control.Third, she wants to empower financially-disadvantaged families to send their children to whichever school they deem best. Under the current system, the government taxes citizens in order to provide education, but then dictates and determines how the tax money can be used. The message is clear: the federal government—rather than the family or local community—is responsible for shaping the way a child understands and interprets the world.Under Secretary DeVos’ system of vouchers and charters, however, citizens will be able to exercise more influence over their own child’s education. They will also be able to send their children to a wider variety of schools, including those that would have been financially prohibitive without the vouchers. This sort of system is supported by prominent intellectuals and educators such as Anthony Bradley and has been supported in the past by Democratic politicians such as Cory Booker.Fourth, Secretary Devos does not come to her job as a career politician or an educational ideologue. She comes as a lifelong education advocate and philanthropist who has given tens of millions of dollars to public and private educational institutions.As her “60 Minutes” interview made clear, Secretary DeVos is an imperfect Secretary of Education, as all secretaries of education have been. She is neither a career politician nor a pundit.What she is is a skilled educational advocate and a lifelong educational philanthropist whose vision for education could reduce bureaucracy, increase free thinking, and empower the financially disadvantaged, thus helping children to get the education they deserve.On second thought, I guess it’s not so hard to understand why the left’s hard-core education bureaucracy is so opposed to her. She is a serious threat to the status quo that has served them – if not students – so well.Good-thinking Americans on the left and right should reject the mainstream media narrative and pull for Secretary DeVos as she tries to reform and shake up these aspects of our nations’ educational system. | 2 |
Tom Cotton, R-Ark. AP This week, The New York Times ran an op-ed by United States Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urging that the military be used to quell the fires, looting and violence gripping the nation’s cities.
A Morning Consult poll from this week found that 58 percent of registered voters agreed with that idea. But apparently it’s an opinion forbidden in the Times.
Black staffers at the paper said the column made them feel unsafe. The day after it ran, the paper folded like, well, The New York Times, and apologized for it.
Once, the separation between the news and Opinion page — church and state — at the Times was held up as an exemplar of objectivity in journalism. Now, reporters are dictating what views the paper is and is not allowed to publish.
Well, opinions of conservatives. If you’re the member of an organization that regularly blows up civilians and keeps women in servitude, come on in!
In February, the Times ran a piece by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader with a little organization known as the Taliban.
Let’s hear from someone else and trust readers can make up their mind — how quaint.
The outraged claim they are afraid that Cotton’s words endanger people, but what they are really afraid of is people agreeing with him. Because the only way the words could lead to any action is if Cotton is convincing.
What becomes obvious is that the Times’ Opinion page is no longer a marketplace of ideas, but rather a carnival barker for the far-left circus.
In frantic defense mode, the Times’ leadership is promising to fact-check op-eds, although they have done so for years and nobody claims Cotton got any facts wrong.
What they are likely actually introducing are sensitivity-readers to protect subscribers from problematic thoughts. The newspaper might also consider therapy puppies for its hysterical staff.
The Opinion section already was pretty one-note. After this, I’m sure the Times’ columns will remind me of Johnny Carson’s quip about Don Rickles, “He’s a wonderful comedian, I love his joke.”
Newspapers, of course, are allowed to decide what opinions they publish. There are liberal editorial boards. There are conservative editorial boards. But The New York Times can no longer haughtily pretend to be the public square of American life, to accurately represent the diversity of opinion of a nation. They are not a dispassionate paper; they are an advocacy group.
And if reporters can dictate what opinions the Times runs, how long before they start deciding what news is worthy of publication and not based on their own political beliefs?
That’s a trick question. They already do. | 2 |
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn take part in a head-to-head debate on the BBC in London, Britain December 6, 2019. (Jeff Overs/BBC via Reuters) Five years of BoJo beat five years of Jeremy Corbyn any day, and will likely guarantee Brexit. But they spell the death of sane economic policy. Although Boris Johnson may have defused a ten-megaton bomb of neo-Marxism in Britain and assured the final passage of Brexit, his Conservative victory is hardly a victory for conservatism. On the far side of the Atlantic, as over here, fiscal responsibility has taken a lethal beating.
Reviewing a failed campaign manifesto by Starbucks titan Howard Schultz a million years ago last spring, Andrew Ferguson wrote, with his typical combination of wit and sagacity, “Schultz hopes to define himself as the political equivalent of a jackalope: the ‘fiscally conservative social liberal’ that folklorists and mythologists have been describing for decades, though no one has ever seen one in the flesh.” Ferguson pointed out that the voters of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who gave us the Donald Trump presidency “are, alas, best described as ‘fiscally liberal social conservatives.’” Fiscally liberal social conservatism is a force whose potential electoral power has been greatly underestimated. It’s like a huge basin of light sweet crude that sat patiently about three feet beneath the surface of politics, just waiting for some ragged crew of Beverly Hillbillies to stumble upon it and reap gigantic rewards. Donald Trump achieved the presidency by sheer instinct, not by crunching data and judiciously weighing competing voter interests. He sensed that enormous success could be had by melding a pugnacious brand of cultural conservatism — opposing political correctness and loudly denouncing illegal immigrants — with a defense of the liberal welfare state and its entitlements.
The sources of Boris Johnson’s colossal victory are several: Some voters turned away from Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism and/or his hard-left economics, while others simply wanted to complete Brexit and move on. Yet despite all of those powerful factors, and despite his considerable advantages in personal appeal, Johnson felt it necessary to add another element to assure the outright majority he needed: a spending blowout. He campaigned against the Conservative party’s alleged post-financial-crisis “austerity” policies (in fact, UK debt has risen from 34 percent of GDP to 81 percent since 2008) and promised to deluge Britain with new spending. Even in the face of Corbyn’s Bolshie radicalism, he made no attempt to make the case for the wisdom of government’s getting out of the way of the private sector to unleash prosperity. He did the opposite, painting a picture of growth and economic security deriving from government spending. The Left denounced him as an apostle of austerity anyway, but it didn’t work. He successfully convinced the voters that if only they’d allow him to pull Brexit across the finish line he’d restore unabashed left-of-center economics. Thatcherism is dead.
Though Johnson proved much more formidable than Theresa May in fighting for Brexit, he has continued with her disturbing policy of simply conceding the premises of liberal economics; he once correctly termed fracking “glorious news for humanity,” yet on November 1 he put a moratorium on it, dealing a blow to British consumers and the country’s energy industry and accepting the Left’s ludicrous scaremongering about the tiny, unnoticeable earthquakes linked to the process. He begged the voters not to lump him in with those nasty Conservatives who advocate for some minimal level of fiscal realism, promising $125 billion in new infrastructure spending, $20 billion in additional annual spending on schools, a hike in the minimum wage, an increase in teacher salaries, and (of course) a huge increase in spending on the National Health Service, for which no amount of spending can ever be enough. He also promised not to raise taxes and to decrease the budget deficit. Good luck with that. Some of Boris’s fiscal liberalism is, like Trump’s, linked to social conservatism: He promised longer jail sentences for violent criminals, 20,000 additional cops, fewer limits on searching suspects, and limits on immigration through the use of an Australian-style points system to assess the value of incoming would-be Britons. Atop all of this, bringing home Brexit would be the signature social-conservative achievement of the British century and make Johnson’s premiership one of the most consequential in history.
In order to win his majority, Johnson had to vigorously contest seats in traditional Labour constituencies whose distaste for the Tory party is deeply ingrained. Perhaps free-spending promises were the only way to win those voters over, and thus to guarantee five years of Conservative government and achieve Brexit. But we should be clear about the cost: In order to win, he abandoned a core conservative principle and locked himself into an unrealistic economic platform. Though the liberal government Johnson heads is vastly preferable to Corbynista rule, the parameters of British economics just took a large step to the left. If a nominally conservative party lacks either the courage or the communications skills to sell conservative economics when it can boast of having reduced unemployment to a 44-year-low and when its opponent promises to implement unreconstructed socialism, it bodes ill for those on either side of the Atlantic who wonder whether any party will ever even gesture in the direction of sane fiscal policy again. Recommended RNC Should Take a Lesson from Mike Pence The RNC censure resolution was morally repellent, while the former vice president took a stand for the truth. NBC's 'Cataclysmic' Olympics-Coverage Flop How can anyone feel good about these Olympics? Nikole Hannah-Jones Responds to Our 1619 and Slavery Issue She reacted with a lot of sneering and ad hominem argumentation and nothing of substance. Joe Biden Doesn’t Know What You’re Talking About To watch Biden at the lectern was to experience shock and dismay interspersed with moments of alarm and dark humor. No wonder he hides from the media. Why Were Authorities So Evasive About the Synagogue Gunman's Motive? Why were President Biden and the FBI so reluctant to say that the synagogue gunman was motivated by antisemitism and jihadism? The Afghanistan Debacle Looks Worse and Worse The more we learn about the administration’s withdrawal, the more it becomes clear that its decisions were driven by political considerations and panic. The Latest Maskless Super Bowl Marks Our Return to Normalcy This collective moment was a warning to the Covid regime that its strictures won’t stand much longer. Russian Figure-Skating Prodigy Will Compete at Olympics Despite Failed Drug Test The IOC has decided it will not hold a medal ceremony for any event in which Valieva places in the top three while the matter remains under investigation. The IRS Wants Your Picture The agency’s plans for facial recognition might be abandoned for now, but its lust for data is never satiated. Why America’s Government-Debt Problem Endures Any meaningful change requires enough Americans deciding that they really do want less government in their lives, and then acting accordingly. ‘Blame America first,’ &c. On Jeane Kirkpatrick, today’s Russia debate, Edward Snowden, Ukraine’s right to exist, and more. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The National Archives on Saturday apologized for blurring out signs in a photograph of the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C., showcased at the museum -- saying it would review policies and replace the image.“We made a mistake,” it said in a statement.NATIONAL ARCHIVES BLURS ANTI-TRUMP SIGNS IN IMAGE OF 2017 WOMEN'S MARCH: REPORTThe photograph in question -- on display as part of an exhibit celebrating the centennial of women’s suffrage -- shows the 2017 march down Pennsylvania Avenue the day after President Trump was elected. The image, taken by Getty Images photographer Mario Tama, shows the street crammed with marchers, many showing anti-Trump signs.But The Washington Post first reported that many of those placards had been blurred out. Placards that read “God Hates Trump” had “Trump” blurred. Other signs that refer to women’s anatomy were altered, according to The Post. One that said “If my vagina could shoot bullets, it’d be less REGULATED” had “vagina” blurred out, while one that says “This P---y Grabs Back” had the obscenity blurred out.In its statement, the National Archives said that it was not an archival record, but one licensed to use as a promotional graphic: “Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image.” WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: Protesters walk during the Women's March on Washington, with the U.S. Capitol in the background, on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. Large crowds are attending the anti-Trump rally a day after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) “We have removed the current display and will replace it as soon as possible with one that uses the unaltered image,” the statement said. “We apologize, and will immediately start a thorough review of our exhibit policies and procedures so that this does not happen again.”In a previous statement to The Post, it had said that archivist David Ferriero -- appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2009 -- supported the decision.“As a non-partisan, non-political federal agency, we blurred references to the president’s name on some posters, so as not to engage in current political controversy,” Archives spokeswoman Miriam Kleiman told The Post.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPBut the decision quickly came under heavy criticism.Rice University historian Douglas Brinkey told The Post there was no reason to alter a historic photograph.”"There's no reason for the National Archives to ever digitally alter a historic photograph," Brinkley said. "If they don't want to use a specific image, then don't use it. But to confuse the public is reprehensible."The apology came as new Women’s Marches were scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., New York and in other cities across the country. | 2 |
In a surprise announcement that could derail a major trade deal, President Donald Trump says he is placing a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports, effective June 10, to pressure the country to do more to crack down on the surge of Central American migrants trying to cross the U.S. border.
Trump said the percentage will gradually increase — up to 25% — "until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied."
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quickly fired back in a letter to Trump saying that "social problems are not solved with duties or coercive measures" adding that he was dispatching his foreign relations secretary to Washington Friday to try to negotiate a solution.
The decision showed the administration going to new lengths, and looking for new levers, to pressure Mexico to take action — even if those risk upending other policy priorities, like the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement , a trade deal that is the cornerstone of Trump's legislative agenda and seen as beneficial to his reelection effort. It also risks further damaging the already strained relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, two countries whose economies are deeply intertwined.
Trump made the announcement by tweet after telling reporters earlier Thursday that he was planning "a major statement" that would be his "biggest" so far on the border.
"On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP," he wrote. "The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied."
In his response, the Mexican president also alluded to the United States' history as a nation of immigrants. "The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol," he wrote.
Trump, in his growing fury over an increase in border crossings that he has likened to an "invasion," has blamed Mexico for failing to stop the flow of asylum seekers from countries like El Salvador and Honduras who pass through its territory. And he has been itching to take increasingly radical, headline-grabbing action on the issue, which he sees as critical to his 2020 campaign because it energizes his base.
But the sudden tariff threat comes at a peculiar time, given how hard the administration has been pushing for passage of the USMCA, which would update the North American Free Trade Agreement. It comes less than two weeks after Trump lifted import taxes on Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminum, a move that seemed to clear an obstacle to its passage, and the same day that both Trump and López Obrador began the process of seeking ratification. The deal needs approval from lawmakers in all three countries before it takes effect.
"The tariffs certainly put the USMCA on ice," said Gary Hufbauer, an expert in trade law at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who panned the move but said Trump does have the legal authority to impose the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by citing a national emergency.
"The drama is legal, but it's preposterous," he said.
Daniel Ujczo, a U.S.-based international trade lawyer, said the threat would likely slow the deal's progress in Mexico and put U.S. lawmakers who want to vote "yes" in a difficult position because companies in their districts will end up paying the tariffs.
Still, Ujczo and others wondered whether Trump — who has a habit of creating problems and then claiming credit when he rushes in to solve them — would go through with the threat.
"This seems more theater and tactics than a strategy to solve the migration crisis and rebalance North American trade," Ujczo said.
It wouldn't be the first time Trump has punted on an immigration threat. In late March, Trump threatened to shut the entire U.S.-Mexico border if Mexico didn't immediately halt illegal immigration. Just a few days later, he backed off the threat, saying he was pleased with steps Mexico had taken in recent days. It was unclear, however, what Mexico had changed.
Indeed, on a briefing call with reporters Thursday evening, administration officials said Mexico could prevent the tariffs from kicking in by securing their southern border with Guatemala, cracking down on criminal smuggling organizations, and entering into a "safe third country agreement" that would make it difficult for those who enter Mexico from other countries to claim asylum in the U.S.
"We fully believe they have the ability to stop people coming in from their southern border and if they're able to do that, these tariffs will either not go into place or will be removed after they go into place," said acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
He also insisted that tariffs were "completely" separate from the USMCA because one pertained to immigration and the other trade.
Still the threat drew a withering response from Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a usual Trump ally, who slammed it as "a misuse of presidential tariff authority" that would burden American consumers and "seriously jeopardize passage of USMCA."
Mulvaney said the White House had briefed a number of Republicans on the plan and acknowledged that some — particularly in the Senate — had raised concerns about the president invoking such powers.
The threat comes at a time when Mexico has already been stepping up its efforts to crack down on migrants, carrying out raids and detaining thousands of people traveling through the country en route to the U.S.
The crumbling city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, has become the epicenter of the crackdowns, with thousands of migrants stranded because the Mexican government isn't providing them visas to travel. In addition, the Mexican government has allowed the U.S. to send back hundreds of asylum seekers from Central America and other countries, forcing them to wait out their cases in Mexico.
But that hasn't satisfied Trump, whose White House laid out an escalating schedule of tariff increases if his demands are not met: 10% on July 1, 15% on Aug. 1, 20% on Sept. 1 and 25% on Oct. 1.
After that, the White House said, "tariffs will permanently remain at the 25% level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory." © Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | 2 |
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- He needed a game-changing performance. He didn't deliver one. Advantage, Hillary. Some thoughts:
(1) At the risk of being accused of homerism (disclosure: I'm a Fox News contributor), Chris Wallace was superb in his moderating duties last night. He eschewed the temptation to come barging out of the gate with questions about salacious news cycle-driven dramas, opting to save "fitness to be president" themes for much later in the evening. He led with issues. This was a debate that primarily focused on issues. The Fox News Sunday host held each candidate to account for the proposals they've put forward, and the things they've said. He pressed Trump for specifics. He challenged Clinton with honed evidence. He was tough on both of them, directed the (sometimes wild) rhetorical traffic with laudable poise, and afforded the candidates a fairly wide berth to engage each other, but without allowing the exchanges to spin out of control. A-plus work. And I'd be saying the same thing if he worked for another network.
(2) Hillary Clinton began the night with a breathtaking mischaracterization of the Supreme Court's Heller decision on guns, and whitewashing her extreme stance on abortion as if it were perfectly normal -- as opposed to radically out of step with most voters. Alas, because Trump was under-prepared to correct and clarify on both issues, most viewers probably thought she "won" that segment. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court is the top reason for conservatives to oppose her. On immigration, she complained that her Wikileaks-provided "open borders" speech excerpt was taken out of context. The problem? She's withheld the transcripts of her Wall Street addresses, which makes her dings on Trump's hidden tax returns less impactful. She much preferred talk about Russian meddling in the election to the content of the leaks -- and Trump probably helped her by refusing to accept Russian guilt as a fact, which our intelligence says it is. As a result, her slams on him for being a Russian puppet had some bite. Her economic answers were dull, predictable, and full of lefty tropes and poll-tested buzz phrases. She pressed her toughest case against Trump's temperament, drawing some blood throughout that extended back-and-forth, I suspect. Her "horrifying" denunciation of his refusal to pledge to accept the election results (more on that later) was a memorable moment that will get a lot of play, and her rundown of all the times Trump has screamed "rigged!" was powerful. (Trump's interjection about The Apprentice deserving an Emmy was genuinely funny, and she almost laughed). One assertion she issued at least three times is that she will not add "a penny" to the national debt. This is absolutely, positively ludicrous and false. GOP ad-makers should already be saving those clips for 2020, assuming she wins. That pledge will be broken on day one.(3) Trump was subdued and controlled at the beginning, hitting his talking points on guns and abortion, but allowing her to control both topics. He rebounded in the immigration segment, his comfort zone. The press room groaned and gasped at the "bad hombres" line, but he was obviously talking about illegal immigrants who've committed violent felonies on our soil. I think he won that skirmish. In general, Trump counter-punched throughout the evening, with mixed results. One of his better moments was challenging Hillary to return Clinton Foundation cash donated by misogynistic and homophobic regimes. He pointedly asked whether she'd do so, then rambled on too long, distracting himself with another point. She never answered. He let her off the hook. Trump's blanket denials of all the sexual misconduct allegations against him were not credible, and his mentions of the Project Veritas videos (as we predicted) were insufficiently explanatory. At the very least, he may have driven Google traffic to that investigation from curious debate viewers. Though she was much more fluid and informed on foreign policy than he was, Trump got some good jabs in about her record. His effective message: How do you expect this person to fix the mess we face when she's been at or near the center of US power for decades, and she's contributed to the mess? Her failures and unlikeability kept him in the game.(4) Despite again communicating in his patented sentence-fragment-sprinkled word salad, I think he probably battled Clinton to an approximate draw for most of the debate. The big exception was the "fitness for office" stretch. She clearly won that exchange, and his decision to repeatedly equivocate on accepting the electoral outcome in November (the "leave you in suspense" line felt flat and felt cheap) will dominate a lot of the coverage for the next few days. Trump surrogates will respond with the parable of Al Gore, who dragged the 2000 election out for weeks on end, arguing in court for partial, cherry-picked recounts of counties that he thought could tip Florida's overall tally into his column. (He lost, no matter how you slice it). But Clinton defenders will say that Gore didn't call the legitimacy of the process into question prior to the voting ending, and only pursued a recount under very unusual circumstances. There's a difference between not conceding an historically close election, and baselessly alleging widespread fraud in advance. Both sides will have their talking points on this, but I'd guess the American people want to hear their candidates promise to honor the process. Even Trump loyalists like Laura Ingraham quickly conceded this point. And if CBS News' Luntz focus group -- which split almost right down the middle for Trump and Clinton overall -- is any indication, Trump's "rigged" flirtations on stage hurt him:— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 20, 2016 (5) One policy point that's stuck in my craw: The final question of the night was about entitlement reform. Chris Wallace laid out the mathematical reality very succinctly. Donald Trump pretended the problem will be solved with magical economic growth. Hillary Clinton talked about taxing the rich and expanding entitlements. Neither of these people is remotely serious about the wave of debt (fueled historically during the Obama era) that is building, and that non-partisan bookkeepers keep warning will swamp us. Very disheartening. I'll leave you with this...interesting tweet from Trump's campaign manager, who (along with Mike Pence and Reince Priebus) insisted in the spin room that yes, Trump will abide by next month's outcome:--- > https://t.co/hE5b2ghYjN— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 20, 2016 This is the tweet she was highlighting. Hmm:"Bad hombres" = Trump being TrumpTrump's other answers = Conway-esque— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 20, 2016 Finally, for what it's worth, the first two scientific-isa snap polls from CNN and YouGov both gave Hillary the edge last night, but by relatively close margins compared to the previous two debates.
Recommended Townhall Video | 2 |
The Republican controlled Michigan legislature passed right-to-work legislation late Tuesday morning as union members loudly protested inside and outside of the Capitol in Lansing. Michigan Democrat Rep. Douglas Geiss threatened on the House floor this morning "there would be blood" if the legislation passed. Riot police have been on the scene since early this morning bracing for violence. The Michigan House Democrats reiterated their threat on their Twitter page, but have since deleted it. Outside of the building a tent owned and set up by the conservative group Americans For Prosperity has been torn down by cheering union protesters, trapping elderly volunteers inside.
Conservative comedian Steven Crowder, who is in Lansing, has reported being punched in the face four times. According to reporters on the ground in Michigan, troopers in riot gear are headed to the steps of the Capitol to try and prevent any further violence. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The mayor of Portland, Ore., said Saturday night that his city had avoided the "worst-case scenario" after members of far-right groups and far-left members of Antifa held dueling demonstrations in the center of the city that lasted for hours on end."Given the continuing movement and the number of people involved, I am grateful that this was a largely peaceful event," Mayor Ted Wheeler told reporters. "Police did an exemplary job of de-escalating the situation, keeping the extremists on both sides separate for the most part, and of limiting interactions between individuals."TRUMP THREATENS TO DESIGNATE ANTIFA A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION AHEAD OF EXPECTED PORTLAND CLASHESAt least 13 people were arrested. Police Chief Danielle Outlaw said at a press conference that possible charges against those arrested include disorderly conduct, interfering with police, resisting arrest, possession of a weapon in a park and unlawful use of a weapon.Earlier in the day, police tweeted images of weapons it had seized from multiple groups, including bear spray, shields and metal and wooden poles."At this time, we know of six force-events involving officers," Outlaw said. "There was one instance where an officer deployed pepper balls. The other instances involved take-downs or control against resistance."Six people suffered minor injuries and one of them was taken to a local hospital. Another individual was treated for a medical condition unrelated to the demonstrations, police spokeswoman Lt. Tina Jones said.Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys and Three Percenters militia group began gathering late in the morning, some wearing body armor and helmets. Meanwhile, black-clad, helmet and mask-wearing Antifa members were also among the several hundred people on the streets. The groups gathered on both sides of the Willamette River, which runs through the city.Authorities used sound trucks and loudspeakers to remind demonstrators of both sides to stay out of the streets or they would be arrested. They also set up concrete barriers and closed streets and bridges in an effort to contain and separate the rival groups.Roughly 700 law enforcement officials from local, state and federal agencies, including the FBI, were in the city for the right-wing rally, which was expected to draw people from across the country. Portland Police said all of the city's 1,000 officers would be on duty for the gathering that was hyped on social media and elsewhere for weeks.Not all who gathered Saturday were with right-wing groups or Antifa. Also on hand were people dressed in colorful outfits and those who attended a nearby prayer service, holding signs that had slogans such as "No Trump, No NRA."Police formed a physical barricade beneath the Morrison Bridge in Tom McCall Waterfront Park to separate the rival groups from sparring. The Proud Boys and their supporters were on the south side of the divide while the counter-protesters remained on the north side, according to reports by The Oregonian.TRUMP THREATENS TO DESIGNATE ANTIFA A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION AHEAD OF EXPECTED PORTLAND CLASHESFOX 12 Oregon and The Oregonian newspaper reported that some of the demonstrators began to leave in the early afternoon, with authorities briefly re-opening the Hawthorne Bridge to allow them to pass. Police used officers on bikes and in riot gear to prevent members of Antifa from following them. The Oregonian reported that a group of left-wing demonstrators attacked a bus carrying a group of Proud Boys out of downtown Portland, breaking some windows."The Proud Boys contacted us or contacted the units on the ground saying that they wanted to leave and so we facilitated for them to leave the area," Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Brandon White told the newspaper. "It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t orchestrated. We had a request that they would like to leave the area and so we facilitated."But hundreds of people remained downtown and on nearby streets, and there were skirmishes throughout the day. At around 4:15 p.m., police declared a gathering of mostly left-wing protesters near Pioneer Courthouse Square a "civil disturbance" and told people to leave.Later in the afternoon, The Oregonian also reported that a group of left-wing counter-demonstrators had surrounded two people wearing American flag-themed clothing and were "taunting, threatening, and chasing them."Among those attending the demonstration was Patriot Prayer's Joey Gibson, who organized similar rallies in 2017 and 2018 that erupted in clashes. Gibson surrendered Friday on an arrest warrant for felony rioting but was released on bail hours later."I’m just here for the ride," Gibson told The Oregonian.Organizer Joe Biggs told the paper that the demonstrators "wanted national attention and we got it.""Go look at President Trump’s Twitter,” Biggs said. “He talked about Portland, said he’s watching Antifa. That’s all we wanted ... Mission success."President Trump tweeted Saturday morning that he is considering designating Antifa a domestic terror group."Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an ‘ORGANIZATION OF TERROR,’” Trump said. “Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!”Late Saturday, the Proud Boys issued a statement vowing to return to Portland every month until Wheeler “takes charge and removes the scourge of violent domestic terrorists from his city,” referring to Antifa.CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APPWheeler responded Saturday night by imploring Biggs to think about the millions of dollars in taxpayer money used to police and provide security for demonstrations. The mayor also said that Biggs' rhetoric was stoking an "environment of fear nationally.""We do not want him here in my city. Period," Wheeler said.Wheeler's message was similar to his warning to protesters on both sides prior to the demonstrations."We don't want your hatred, we don't want your violence, but if you come here, we're going to be prepared," he said in an interview on Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime" on Friday."Again, when it comes to enforcement of our community standards, we support people's rights to demonstrate, but we don't care about who you are or your politics are," he said. "If you engage in violence in this city, you will be held accountable."The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Then-President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the "Stop The Steal" rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) A top House Democrat and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sued former President Donald Trump and attorney Rudy Giuliani over their respective speeches to supporters on Jan. 6.
“While the majority of Republicans in the Senate abdicated their responsibility to hold the president accountable, we must hold him accountable for the insurrection that he so blatantly planned,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement. “Failure to do so will only invite this type of authoritarianism for the anti-democratic forces on the far right that are so intent on destroying our country.”
The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were also named as defendants in the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump and Giuliani, a former prosecutor and New York City mayor, worked with the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to target Congress.
“The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy,” the lawsuit says. “The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.” Attorney Rudy Giuliani at the Stop the Steal rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Jenny Jing/The Epoch Times)
Trump was acquitted during an impeachment trial over the weekend for allegedly inciting violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The president, for his part, told supporters to protest “peacefully and patriotically” and later told them to go home. Meanwhile, no criminal charges were filed against either Trump or Giuliani.
Trump’s lawyers, during the impeachment trial, argued that House Democrats presented a flawed case.
“Burden of proof was on them, and they didn’t meet their burden of proof,” said attorney Bruce Castor, referring to the House impeachment managers.
Trump in a statement after the vote said it was part of the “greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.”
“No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago,” he said, adding that his Make America Great Again movement “has only just begun.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Giuliani’s team and Trump’s team for comment about the lawsuit. Follow Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A video of President Trump walking toward a helicopter on the White House lawn then abruptly turning away that claims to show Trump is "deep into his degenerative neurological disease" has 2.7 million views on Twitter, although journalists were quick to point out the video leaves out key details.Twitter on Monday added a "manipulated media" tag to the video, but allowed it to remain on the platform."Trump was simply walking back to wait for FLOTUS here," ABC News campaign reporter Will Steakin wrote on Twitter. "This false tweet has over 23K retweets and the deceptively edited video has over 2 million views."On Sunday, a Twitter user named Tom Joseph shared the video with the following caption: "Trump is lost [and] disoriented here. His mind goes blank and he doesn’t remember what he's supposed to do next. He's deep into his degenerative neurological disease — Frontotemporal dementia — mindlessly lumbering and zigzagging in the grass towards a puddle."Fox News' inquiry to Twitter was not immediately returned.STEVE SCALISE REMOVES VIDEO ACCUSING BIDEN OF WANTING TO DEFUND POLICE AFTER BACKLASH OVER ALLEGED MANIPULATIONIn August, Twitter flagged a video of an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and progressive activist Ady Barkan, marking it as doctored.The House Democrats' campaign arm filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., for posting the video. The video edited a question Barkan was asking Biden about redistributing police funding to add the words "for police" that Barkan had said at another point in the conversation (when he asked Biden if he agreed "we can redirect some of the funding" for police to things like social services).CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPFox News' Tyler Olson contributed to this report. | 2 |
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump took a hand-in-hand stroll Monday through the well-manicured grounds and along a reflecting pool of the famed Taj Mahal in India.
On their flight to Agra during the president’s first official visit to the country, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he’d never been to the iconic 17th-century mausoleum, but that he’s heard it’s “incredible.”
Larger-than-life-size cutouts of Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the president along the route from the airport as crowds waved tiny Indian and American flags.
They arrived at the UNESCO world heritage site just as the sun was beginning to set.
The first couple held hands in front of the iconic symbol of lasting love before walking back toward the mausoleum. “It’s truly incredible,” Trump said. The first lady described the Taj Mahal as “lovely” and “beautiful.”
“Do you want to do a press conference now?” the president jokingly asked reporters, CNN reported.
Noticeably absent were the hordes of rhesus monkeys that roam the site and that local police were prepared to shoo away if they posed a threat to the commander-in-chief.
Earlier, the president was greeted and cheered by a raucous crowd of more than 100,000 people inside a huge cricket stadium. | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) - After a week of hints and uncertainty, President Donald Trump said Thursday he would announce tariffs on imported steel and aluminum but with temporary exemptions for Canada and Mexico as he seeks to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement. He suggested Australia and "other countries" might also be spared, a shift that could soften the international blow amid threats of retaliation by trading partners.
The White House said Trump would sign the orders on Thursday afternoon as opponents of the tariffs engaged in last-minute lobbying to blunt the impact.
"We're going to be very fair, we're going to be very flexible but we're going to protect the American worker as I said I would do in my campaign," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting.
The president reiterated that he would levy tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum but would "have a right to go up or down depending on the country and I'll have a right to drop out countries or add countries. I just want fairness."
The president indicated Canada and Mexico's treatment would be connected to the ongoing NAFTA talks, which are expected to resume in early April.
The process of announcing the penalties has been the subject of an intense debate and chaotic exchanges within the White House, pitting hard-liners against free trade advocates such as outgoing economic adviser Gary Cohn aiming to add more flexibility for U.S. trading partners.
The fight over tariffs comes amid intense turmoil in the West Wing, which has seen waves of departures and negative news stories that have left Trump increasingly isolated in the Oval Office, according to two senior officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking. Trump was still hearing last-minute pleas from opponents of the tariff plan, and White House officials said they couldn't predict how the day would shake out.
Steel and aluminum workers were invited to the White House for the afternoon announcement with Trump.
Peter Navarro, Trump's trade and manufacturing adviser, said in an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday that the tariffs would go into effect within about 15 to 30 days and that the proclamation signed by the president would include a clause that would not immediately impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters the exemptions would be made on a "case by case" and "country by country" basis, a reversal from the policy articulated by the White House just days ago that there would be no exemptions from Trump's plan.
Congressional Republicans and business groups are bracing for the impact of the tariffs, appearing resigned to additional protectionist trade actions as Trump signals upcoming economic battles with China.
The looming departure of Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive who has opposed the promised tariffs, set off anxiety among business leaders and investors worried about a potential trade war.
"We urge you to reconsider the idea of broad tariffs to avoid unintended negative consequences to the U.S. economy and its workers," 107 House Republicans wrote in a letter to Trump.
At the White House, officials were working to include language in the tariffs that would give Trump the flexibility to approve exemptions for certain countries.
"He's already indicated a degree of flexibility, I think a very sensible, very balanced degree of flexibility," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC. "We're not trying to blow up the world."
Trump signaled other trade actions could be in the works. In a tweet, he said the "U.S. is acting swiftly on Intellectual Property theft." A White House official said Trump was referencing an ongoing investigation of China in which the U.S. trade representative is studying whether Chinese intellectual property rules are "unreasonable or discriminatory" to American business.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said an announcement on the findings of the report - and possible retaliatory actions - was expected within the next three weeks.
Business leaders, meanwhile, continued to sound the alarm about the potential economic fallout from tariffs, with the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raising the specter of a global trade war. That scenario, Tom Donohue said, would endanger the economic momentum from the GOP tax cuts and Trump's rollback of regulations.
"We urge the administration to take this risk seriously," Donohue said.
The president has said the tariffs are needed to reinforce lagging American steel and aluminum industries and protect national security. He has tried to use the tariffs as leverage in ongoing talks to renegotiate NAFTA, suggesting Canada and Mexico might be exempted from tariffs if they offer more favorable terms under the trade agreement.
(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A UN official warned of pending "humanitarian tragedies" and pleaded desperately with the world to intervene on behalf of Kurds trapped in a Syrian city near the Turkish border, as Islamic State fighters stood on the brink of taking it.Kurds from villages throughout northern Syria have fled to Kobani for a final stand as the terrorist group has marauded across huge swaths of land, leaving a trail of death and destruction. With the city under siege for three weeks, the black-clad fighters have begun to raise their flag over neighborhoods and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said the city was about to fall."The world has seen with its own eyes the images of what happens when a city in Syria or in Iraq is overtaken by the terrorist group called ISIS or Da'esh: massacres, humanitarian tragedies, rapes, horrific violence," De Mistura said. "The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS."The world, all of us, will regret deeply if ISIS is able to take over a city which has defended itself with courage but is close to not being able to do so," De Mistura added. "We need to act now."[pullquote]More On This... With the fighting taking place with view of the Turkish border, international pressure increased on Ankara to get involved militarily. Turkey has already taken in an estimated 200,000 refugees, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the coalition air campaign launched last month would not be enough to halt the Islamic State group's advance."Kobani is about to fall," Erdogan told Syrian refugees in the Turkish border town of Gaziantep, according to The Associated Press.Erdogan, whose troops are massed near the border but have so far not taken an offensive posture, called for greater cooperation with the Syrian opposition, which is fighting both the extremists and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad."We asked for three things: one, for a no-fly zone to be created; two, for a secure zone parallel to the region to be declared; and for the moderate opposition in Syria and Iraq to be trained and equipped."The capture of Kobani would give ISIS control of a large swath of land bordering Turkey and eliminate a vital pocket of Kurdish resistance. It would also provide a link between the group's territory near the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo and its largest operations base at Raqqa in northeastern Syria.The Associated Press reported that warplanes believed to be part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, struck militant positions Tuesday. Journalists on the Turkish side of the border heard the sound of warplanes before two large plumes of smoke billowed just west of Kobani. A Fox News crew on the Turkish side of the border reported only one U.S. airstrike in the previous five days.Fighting continued into Tuesday morning on the outskirts of the town. One coordinator with the Kurdish defenders told The New York Times that their defenses benefited from the new round of airstrikes, but they were still outmatched by the more heavily armed militants.On Tuesday morning, the AP reported that occasional gunfire could be heard in Kobani, also known by the Arabic name Ayn Arab. A flag of the Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, was seen flying over a hill in the center of town.The Wall Street Journal reported that ISIS fighters had entered the eastern outskirts of the city on Monday after capturing more than 300 surrounding Syrian Kurdish villages in the previous three weeks. The paper also reported that the militants raised their black flag in two separate places, one on top of a civilian apartment building and another on a hilltop near a checkpoint at the city’s eastern entrance. The flag at the checkpoint could be seen by reporters watching from across the border in Turkey.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurds forced the jihadists to withdraw from the eastern part of the town in heavy clashes after midnight Tuesday, adding that five loud explosions were heard in the town as warplanes soared overhead. However, a local Kurdish militia commander estimated to The Journal that ISIS fighters were still a mile from the city center. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that ISIS had also taken over several buildings in the southwest of the city.Before the recent fighting began, the city had been a focal point for refugees fleeing Syria's three-years-long civil war. Between 160,000 and 180,000 people are believed to have fled into Turkey since the ISIS advance began. A Kurdish politician told Reuters that more than 2,000 Syrian Kurds, including women and children had been evacuated from the town in the midst of the fighting Monday.State Department officials told the Journal that U.S. officials will travel to Turkey later this week to discuss the status of the international coalition. Retired Marine Gen. John Allen, the White House's special envoy in the fight against ISIS, is among those traveling to Turkey.Despite U.S. pressure to become a full-fledged member of the coalition, and despite the Turkish parliament passing a law giving the government authority to conduct operations against ISIS in Syria or Iraq, Ankara has largely stayed on the sidelines. Fox News reported Monday that twenty Turkish tanks have been stationed on a hillside overlooking Kobani, ready to strike the city on short notice. However, Turkish authorities have mostly been preoccupied with attempting to control the flow of Kurdish refugees across the border and deal with their protests at the government's inaction.Also Tuesday, Turkish media reported that police in Istanbul and at least six other Turkish cities clashed with hundreds of demonstrators. The private Dogan news agency clashes broke out in several Istanbul neighborhoods overnight, as protesters set up barricades, hurled stones, fireworks and firebombs at police and set a bus on fire. One police officer was injured.Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse similar protests in the mostly Kurdish-populated cities of Diyarbakir, Batman, Van, Sirnak, Sanliurfa and Hakkari.Fox News' Greg Palkot and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, abruptly ending a rocky year-long stretch for the top law enforcement officer who came under fire for his handling of the Clinton email probe -- and whose agency has been investigating whether Trump's campaign had ties to Russia.“The FBI is one of our nation’s most cherished and respected institutions, and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” Trump said.The president told Comey in a brief letter that he could not “effectively lead” the bureau and called for “new leadership that restores public trust and confidence” in law enforcement.White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president’s decision was based on “the clear recommendations” of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.A search for a new permanent FBI director will begin immediately. In a message to FBI employees, Sessions said Andrew McCabe, the bureau's deputy director, had assumed the position of acting director. The White House made the stunning announcement shortly after the FBI corrected a sentence in Comey's sworn testimony on Capitol Hill last week. The director had told congressional lawmakers that Huma Abedin, as a top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had sent "hundreds and thousands" of emails to her husband's laptop, including some with classified information. On Tuesday, the FBI said in a two-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that only "a small number" of the thousands of emails found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most had simply been backed up from electronic devices.But that error was apparently unrelated to the Comey firing. DOJ officials instead cited his handling of the Clinton probe.Comey first ran into problems during the 2016 presidential race when he tried to conclude his investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server system for emails while at the State Department.He concluded that Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, had not acted criminally with classified emails but said she had been “extremely careless.”He then announced a revived probe regarding the emails and Abedin’s handling of them in the closing days of the race.Clinton has said that largely contributed to her loss to Trump, while Comey has defended his actions.The FBI and other members of the U.S. intelligence community, as well as Congress, are now investigating the extent to which Russia was involved in stealing and making public emails from Clinton’s presidential campaign.“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” Trump said in a letter to Comey, obtained by Fox News.Comey, 56, was nominated by President Barack Obama for the FBI post in 2013 to a 10-year term. Praised for his independence and integrity, Comey has spent three decades in law enforcement and has been no stranger to controversy.Sessions said Comey was fired because the FBI needs a "fresh start."In his letter to Trump, Sessions said the next FBI director must be someone who follows "faithfully the rules and principles" of the Justice Department.Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Comey had lost the "public trust and confidence."He also said Comey's decisions on controversial matters, including the Clinton email matter, "have prompted concern from across the political spectrum" and from career law enforcement experts."Democrats are further insisting on an independent prosecutor to investigate possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, following the firing. "The only way the American people can have faith in this investigation is for it to be led by a fearless special prosecutor," said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y.Fox News’ Joseph Weber, Serafin Gomez, Lesa Jansen and John Roberts and the Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
A Texas man convicted of killing married youth ministers before setting their car on fire while they were inside was executed Thursday night, despite last-minute appeals from Democratic officials and Kim Kardashian West. Brandon Bernard, 40, was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. after getting a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. He is the ninth federal inmate executed this year. The execution came after the Supreme Court denied last-minute legal challenges from Bernard’s attorneys, who had argued that newly-discovered evidence suggested he did not play an active role in the murder of Todd and Stacie Bagley in Killeen, Texas. Although the Supreme Court refused to postpone the execution, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying had the new evidence been presented to a jury, Bernard would have most likely been spared the death penalty. The evidence defense attorneys say was withheld by prosecutors was the testimony of an expert who was prepared to testify that Bernard was a low-level member of a gang that killed the Bagleys and he did not plan the carjacking and robbery that led to their deaths. “Many things went wrong to put Brandon on death row, including egregious government misconduct in concealing evidence and misleading the jury, which the courts refused to remedy,” Bernard’s attorney Robert C. Owen said in a statement after his death. “Brandon’s execution is a stain on America’s criminal justice system,” he continued. In a statement, the family of Stacie Bagley said their lives were changed forever with her death. “I pray that Brandon has accepted Christ as his Savior, because if he has, Todd and Stacie will welcome him into Heaven with love and forgiveness. God will forgive us of our sins, but the consequences of our sin will always play out,” her father, Charles Woodward, said. Todd Bagley’s mother, Georgia, asked Bernard’s supporters to remember her family’s pain and suffering. “When someone deliberately takes the lives of others, they suffer the consequences of their actions,” she said. “This senseless act of unnecessary evil was premeditated and had many opportunities to be stopped at any time during a 9-hour period. This was torture, as they pleaded for their lives from the trunk of their own car.” Earlier Thursday, a federal appeals court also denied a last-minute emergency request to halt the execution, the ninth inmate death sentence carried out this year by the Trump administration. In a brief, one-page order, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the request without explanation. Bernard’s case attracted attention from Democratic lawmakers and celebrity activists, who pleaded with President Trump to commute his sentence to life in prison. Since the Trump administration resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus, Democrats have largely been mum about the eight federal inmates put to death so far. But they say Bernard’s case is different because of the newly uncovered evidence. In a joint statement, Democratic Sens. Cory A. Booker of New Jersey and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois called on the president to commute Bernard’s sentence. “Since he was sentenced to death, new evidence has come to light and a number of deficiencies in his initial defense have been exposed,” they said. “Mr. Bernard’s post-conviction attorneys have continued to seek legal relief in the courts and Mr. Bernard should be allowed to keep pursuing available legal avenues to challenge his death sentence.” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts Democrat, flanked by Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and noted death-penalty activist, urged supporters to petition the White House to stop Bernard’s execution. “We need to fight for Brandon like he is our own son,” Ms. Pressley said in a media appearance with The Appeal. “We need to fight for him like he is a member of our family because he is. We are all one human family.” “Murdering Brandon will only further the cycles of trauma and harm,” she continued. Lawmakers aren’t the only ones advocating for Bernard. Kim Kardashian West also issued a public plea aimed at Mr. Trump to commute the sentence. On Thursday night, she detailed her final moments on the phone with Bernard before he was killed. “Just spoke to Brandon for what will likely be the last time. Hardest call I’ve ever had,” she tweeted. “Brandon, selfless as always, was focused on his family and making sure they are OK. He told me not to cry because our fight isn’t over.” Although Bernard was not involved in the carjacking, he participated in burning the vehicle while the Bagleys were inside it. Mr. Bagley’s death came as a result of gunshot wounds, but Mrs. Bagley died of smoke inhalation while unconscious from the gunshot wound, according to autopsies. Bernard and his three accomplices were convicted, but two have been released. A third, Christopher Vialva, was executed earlier this year. | 2 |
President Barack Obama gestures toward the crowd after participating in a roundtable discussion with working parents, small business owners, students and faculty, Friday, Oct. 31, 2014, at Rhode Island College in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia) NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! There are a number of basic questions that will be answered very soon. We will know if Democratic control of the Senate continues and what kind of support President Obama will have for his agenda over the next two years.Crucially, we will know whether we will get any compromise or conciliation before we elect a new president in 2016.If the past six years are a good guide – and I believe they are – we’re most likely to see more of the same. Confrontation and discord will continue to characterize inter-party dealings, and even intra-party dealings.Divisions within both the Democrats and Republicans were on full display during the midterms, with challenges from Tea Party and Independent candidates highlighting a lack of cohesive ideology and shared sense of purpose on both sides of the aisle.It follows that even if Republicans control the Senate – the most likely outcome as final polling shows toss-up races across the country steadily shifting toward the Republicans – it is unlikely that they will be able to govern effectively. This is partly due to internal divisions that will make it difficult to come together in support of an agenda – or significant bills for that matter.[pullquote]Compounding this problem is the fact that it’s extremely unlikely that President Obama will be doing anything other than vetoing Republican bill after Republican bill. Considering that the president has shown little interest in compromising with Republican lawmakers over the course of his tenure, even when Democrats had at least some control of the House, I can’t imagine a scenario wherein the legislation Republicans come up with on their own will become law.Key figures in the Republican leadership have acknowledged that they’re going to have to change the way they operate in order to take advantage of controlling both chambers.House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy bluntly told a group of donors, “I do know this: If we don’t capture the House stronger, and the Senate, and prove we could govern, there won’t be a Republican president in 2016.”In an interview with the Atlantic’s Molly Ball, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman said that a Republican-controlled Senate would be committed to working with President Obama. Portman “mentioned tax reform, a 'grand bargain' on the budget, an energy budget – perhaps something that combines Keystone XL pipeline approval with reductions in carbon emissions – and new free trade agreements.”There is much to be excited about in the agenda that Sen. Portman laid out. But there’s also very little reason to think that anything like that would even get enough Republican support to get to President Obama’s desk.And then there’s Obama’s preference to govern by executive order, which is top of mind for the Republicans and even some Democrats.The president's promise to deliver comprehensive immigration reform after the election by way of executive order has naturally ruffled feathers. McCarthy left open the possibility of an immigration overhaul, but added that if the president approached it by executive order it would “stop everything.”Judging by the president's attitude, I think we’re headed for the “stop everything” scenario, as well as the possibility of a constitutional crisis and a renewed push for impeachment.In other words, w e will be right back where we started.The Republicans will continue to seek to repeal ObamaCare. And there will be more investigations by the Republicans like the ones we saw with the IRS, NSA and Benghazi.Truth be told, there’s no reason for the Republicans to do anything differently. If they take the Senate, they will have managed to win the election without a clear plan or strategy.The New York Times panned their so-called economic plan as just a bunch of small ideas, and Republicans have yet to offer a meaningful reform package for health care or immigration reform.It follows that the Republican take-away from this victory will be that the way to win in 2016 is with more attacks.So what’s at stake? Everything and nothing at the same time. | 2 |
Both initial and continuing claims were above expectations The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, according to the Labor Department. Data released Thursday showed 719,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ended March 27. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting 680,000 filings. The prior week’s reading was revised down to 658,000 from 684,000. The increase comes a week after first-time filings fell to their lowest level since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continuing claims for the week ended March 20, meanwhile, rose to 3.794 million, up from last week’s downwardly revised 3.84 million. Analysts had expected 3.775 million Americans would file for continuing claims.GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE President Biden on Wednesday unveiled his more than $2 trillion infrastructure plan, the so-called American Jobs Plan, which he billed as a “once-in-a-century capital investment” in U.S. infrastructure that will create millions of good-paying jobs. The U.S. economy has since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic lost about 9 million jobs that have not yet been recovered. An update on the health of the labor market is due Friday with the release of the March jobs report.Economists are expecting U.S. nonfarm payrolls to add 647,000 new nonfarm jobs as the unemployment rate 6%, the lowest since March 2020, according to Refinitv. | 2 |
The Trump campaign wants more campaign debates between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden and it wants them to start sooner, campaign manager Bill Stepien said Monday. "The first debate is scheduled by Sept. 29," said Stepien on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "By that time, 16 states will already have been voting. That's a concern for me."
Joe Lockhart, former press secretary under President Bill Clinton, has said in a CNN opinion piece and commented over the weekend that Biden shouldn't debate Trump, calling it a "fool's errand to enter the ring with someone who can't follow the rules or the truth."
Stepien said that comment marked yet another attempt from the left and liberal media to "create trap doors for Joe Biden to escape his commitment and his obligation to debate Donald Trump on a debate stage in front of the American people."
Stepien also commented on statements made over the weekend by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., calling for Democrats to come together to elect Biden and saying that Biden's administration would be "the most progressive administration that it can become."
"I don't agree with Bernie Sanders on much but I think he laid out the case for the Biden presidency and what measures we can expect should he somehow get elected," said Stepien.
Meanwhile, Biden must be judged by "the people he has surrounded himself with at every step of his campaign," said Stepien, as "he is an empty vessel of the radical left."
The Trump campaign is rolling out new ads focusing on Biden's progressive leanings after last week temporarily halting ad spending while it reviews its messaging strategy.
One of the ads shows how the "radical left" has taken over Biden and the Democratic Party, said Stepien.
"In that ad, you see exactly what a Joe Biden administration will bring to America," said Stepien. "Defunding or reimagination of the police, $4 trillion in new and higher taxes. Open borders, the Green New Deal. It's really concerning." © 2022 Newsmax. All rights reserved. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The leader of the Democrat-controlled Senate on Tuesday dropped a proposed assault weapons ban from the chamber’s gun-control package – dealing a blow to supporters of the ban, though it could still come up for a vote.The sponsor of the measure, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., revealed that Reid told her the proposed ban would not be in the initial package. Feinstein said she's "disappointed" with the decision, and is expected to nevertheless offer it as an amendment.But the move by Reid to cut it from the main bill signals a lack of congressional support for a proposal that would not only revive, but strengthen, the decade-long ban that expired in 2004.The proposed ban passed was passed last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with three other measures. The others dealt with providing more school safety aid, expanding federal background checks on potential gun buyers and helping authorities prosecute illegal gun traffickers.Feinstein has led the gun-control charge since President Obama called for federal legislation in the wake of the Newtown and other mass shootings.More On This... The assault weapons ban was the most controversial of the major proposals to restrict guns that have been advanced by Obama and Senate Democrats. Because of that, it had been expected that the assault weapons measure would be left out of the initial package the Senate considers, with Democrats hoping the Senate could in turn amass the strongest possible vote for the overall legislation.There are 53 Democrats in the Senate, plus two independents who usually vote with them.Having a separate vote on assault weapons might free moderate Democratic senators facing re-election next year in Republican-leaning states to vote against the assault weapons measure, but then support the remaining overall package of gun curbs.Gun control supporters consider a strong Senate vote important because the Republican-run House has shown little enthusiasm for most of Obama's proposals.Feinstein said Reid told her there would be two additional votes. One would be on her assault weapons ban, which also includes a ban on ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds. The second would just be on prohibiting the high-capacity magazine clips.Many Democrats think the ban on large-capacity magazines has a better chance of getting 60 votes than the assault weapons ban.The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Facebook announced this week it was sending employees out for retraining and would discontinue some of its practices as it sought to defend itself against charges of political bias against conservatives. The online giant denied that it’s shown “systematic political bias,” but admitted employees played a bigger role than previously acknowledged in determining what news is highlighted in the trending topics section. Facebook also acknowledged that it couldn’t rule out the possibility that rogue employees unintentionally discriminated against conservative stories or even acted with malice in “isolated improper actions.” In one instance Facebook rejected a story this year about the opening of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference — the largest gathering of right-wing activists in the country. Facebook says that was likely because there were already enough stories about the Republican presidential primary. But the company said since it allowed CPAC posts in 2015, and covered other parts of the 2016 conference, there wasn’t any discrimination. “Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature. In fact, our analysis indicated that the rates of approval of conservative and liberal topics are virtually identical in Trending Topics,” Colin Stretch, the company’s general counsel, said in an extensive reply to Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who is probing the allegations of bias. Former Facebook employees told Gizmodo earlier this month that they detected bias in the way news was “curated” by the site, with stories on top GOP figures, conservative commentators and right-wing causes getting short shrift. Conservative groups chimed in, saying they’d also seen evidence that stories about their issues and actions weren’t getting the attention they’d thought warranted. The American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC, said stories about the conference on Facebook did poorly, even though they did well on other online platforms such as Twitter — suggesting bias. Facebook said it probed seven separate allegations, including treatment of CPAC, conservative host Glenn Beck, former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner, the Drudge Report and others, and concluded there were no substantiated instances of political bias. Instead, some stories were rejected because the news sources were questionable, or because the topic was already represented, the company said. It said liberal and conservative topics saw “virtually identical” treatment, while “moderate” topics fared the best because they were “popular across the political spectrum.” Still, Facebook said it will retrain employees and impose new “controls and oversight” to try to cut down the chances for bias. It is also discontinuing the use of 10 outlets it used to judge stories’ importance — a list that included Fox News, but also included the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News and BuzzFeed. Mr. Thune said the review was a good start, and said the fact that the company admitted its limitations — including the larger role employees played — “lends credibility” to the findings. “Facebook’s description of the methodology it uses for determining the trending content it highlights for users is far different from and more detailed than what it offered prior to our questions,” the South Dakota Republican said. “We now know the system relied on human judgment, and not just an automated process, more than previously acknowledged.” Democrats had blasted Mr. Thune’s questions to Facebook, saying he was wasting taxpayer money in pursuing the probe. But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias could skew political conversations. Mr. Thune said he’s open to new information, but signaled the letter answered most of his questions. Earlier in the day, though, the ACU sent a letter of its own, asking Mr. Thune to seek out and interview whistleblowers to get to the bottom of their accusations. “This issue it still unresolved, even after these admissions of wrongdoing by Facebook,” said ACU chairman Matt Schlapp. “Facebook has admitted to harming CPAC, but they have not called us to apologize, and they have failed to explain what they did.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arranged a meeting with conservative figures last week to talk out the issue — a meeting Mr. Schlapp sat out — and tried to assuage concerns. The company’s letter Monday to Mr. Thune also gave more detail about its operations. Facebook said most users get their news from their news feeds. But the company also runs a “Trending Topics” section that promotes some stories, and that’s where the bias charges focused. The section was launched in 2014, and was based on an algorithm designed to pick out popular stories. But the company acknowledged in its reply Monday that employees play a significant role. “We currently use people to bridge the gap between what an algorithm can do today and what we hope it will be able to do in the future — to sort the meaningful trends from gibberish and duplicates, and to write headlines and descriptions in clear, natural-sounding language,” Mr. Stretch said. He said up to half of the topics selected by the algorithm are rejected by employees because they are duplicates or “do not make sense at the time.” Some topics that are removed were put on a “blacklist,” meaning they couldn’t be renewed for up to 24 hours, while employees tried to figure out the sourcing of the story or whether the story was already old news. Facebook said some stories were sidelined because employees questioned the reliability of sources, but said that put too much power in the hands of the reviewers. The company said it will cancel that power as part of its new steps. | 2 |
President Obama's new line of attack against Mitt Romney is that the Republican's tax plan would raise taxes on everyone except for the very wealthy:
“Pay attention here,” Mr. Obama said. “Folks making more than $3 million a year — the top one-tenth of 1 percent — they would get a tax cut under Mr. Romney’s plan that is worth almost a quarter of a million dollars. Hold on, it gets worse,” he added to a chorus of boos. “My opponent says he’s going to pay for this $5 trillion plan. But under this plan, guess who gets the bill for these $250,000 tax cuts? You do. And you don’t have to take my word for it.” Mr. Obama cited a new study from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two centrist Washington-based policy research organizations. The analysis concluded that the sort of tax code that Mr. Romney has proposed “would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.” Some thoughts:
(1) Right out of the gate, let's acknowledge that this is at least a legitimate and relevant subject of debate. Most of the Democrats' anti-Romney attacks have involved lying about his business record ("Four Pinocchios"), lying about his stance on abortion ("pants on fire"), and accusing him of being a criminal on two separate occasions, each time with zero proof. Therefore, a debate about tax plans and how they'd affect the country offers a welcome respite from silly season.
(2) As he distorts Romney's tax plan on the stump, the president bases his claim on an "independent" study. He fails to mention that this report was co-authored by one of his former advisors.
(3) As Phil Klein notes, the study itself doesn't even purport to "score Romney's plan directly:" The first paragraph of the study notes:
(We do not score Governor Romney’s plan directly, as certain components of his plan are not specified in sufficient detail, nor do we make assumptions regarding what those components might be.)
Yet here’s what Obama said yesterday at a campaign stop in Mansfield, Ohio:
Just today, an independent, nonpartisan organization ran all the numbers on Governor Romney’s plan. (4) AEI's Jim Pethokoukis runs down a litany of issues with the study's methodology and (crucially) growth assumptions, although he and I agree on one point: More details from Romney are in order. The presumptive nominee has given us the fun part (20 percent across the board rate reductions), without outlining the pain (which deductions will be limited or eliminated?) This makes sense politically, because the more details Romney reveals, the more Democrats will cherry-pick and twist them into attacks. So while I understand why Team Romney is reluctant to tip its hand too much here, we'll need more complete information eventually.
(5) Pethokoukis suggests one intriguing way for Romney to mitigate some of this criticism -- embrace the Obama Fiscal Commission's tax plan: So basically we would have a simpler system, less vulnerable to crony capitalism, with a top marginal tax rate back to where it was during the Reagan years. And on top of that, the corporate rate under Simpson-Bowles would be 28% vs. 35% today, helping offset the minor-though-regrettable rise in capital gains and dividend rates. One objection from the right is that this plan would raise taxes. This portion of the S-B plan would raise tax revenues, on a static basis, by $785 billion over a decade due to fewer tax breaks. But given the huge drop in individual and marginal rates — plus the efficiency gains from a less distorted system — I have a hard time believing this would not grow the pie, leaving taxpayers far better off than they would be after a decade of slow growth or Lost Decade. This would undoubtedly prompt significant push-back on the Right, but I'm inclined to agree with Pethokoukis on the net positive effect. He also describes the tantalizing political advantages of embracing the Simpson/Bowles tax structure: The political benefits would immense. Romney would be adopting the plan of Obama’s own bipartisan debt commission, which Obama stiff-armed after promising Simpson and Bowles that he would endorse its recommendations. (One big reason Obama rejected it is because it lowers marginal rates and keep taxes way too low to finance future liberal spending plans.) Romney would look like a leader who wants to get things done in 2013. And since the plan would actually result in Romney paying a great percentage of his income in taxes, it would help inoculate him on the fairness issue. Obama would surely demagogue the plan anyway, but Romney could turn around and hammer him over the fact that it's derived his own debt commission's proposal, which he ignored. (He appointed this commission after deriding and dismissing commissions as a candidate). It could also open the door to a renewed and serious discussion of entitlement reform, which Simpson/Bowles laid out and Obama neglected.
(6) The president has the vapors over Romney's "plan" to raise taxes on the middle class. Complication: His own policies have actually raised taxes on lower-income voters many times over. They've done so mostly through a litany of Obamacare taxes, including the mother-load: The mandate tax. Obama's current tax plan (calling it a "plan" is generous) involves destructive hikes on "the rich," including nearly one million small businesses. These businesses account for more than half of small business income in America. The Obama hikes would not dent the debt (Democrats want increased revenues to fund more spending anyway), but they would kill 700,000 jobs. Just what the economy needs! Wouldn't you say so, 2010's Barack Obama? | 2 |
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is the key link in the chain to implement immigration reform., his fellow Republican Sen. Jeff Flake has claimed.
Rubio has unique credibility as the most prominent Latino in American politics, his colleague says. Coming from a Cuban family, the Floridian has no peer in the Republican Party for his “vision of what being conservative . . . ought to mean, particularly in the context of immigration,” Flake told Politico.
It’s important that Rubio “has stepped forward” on immigration reform, the Arizona Republican said. “He’s the real linchpin in this effort.” Rubio will deliver the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address next Tuesday.
Both Rubio and Flake are members of the bipartisan “gang of eight” congressmen who are examining ways to implement reform to the nation’s immigration laws.
Flake says the thrashing Obama delivered to Mitt Romney among Hispanic voters – 71 to 27 percent – has opened Republican minds to changes in immigration policy. “Nothing focuses the mind like a bad election,” he said. “So, for a variety of reasons, it’s time.”
Immigration has particular meaning for Flake, given Arizona’s border with Mexico.
Democrats see Rubio as a crucial player on immigration as well. His work “is going to be a real service,” powerhouse Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, N.Y., told USA Today. © 2022 Newsmax. All rights reserved. | 2 |
All eyes are on the Supreme Court Thursday as the country anxiously awaits decisions from the Justices on two major cases regarding Obamacare and gay marriage. With the Court's season quickly coming to a close at the end of June, earlier this day an additional day was added for the release of opinions. Final decisions on remaining cases with be issued Thursday, Friday and Monday June 29. The two major cases with high impact on the country as a whole economically, socially and politically are King v. Burwell and Obergefell v. Hodges. At issue from SCOTUS blog: King v. Burwell: Whether the Internal Revenue Service may permissibly promulgate regulations to extend tax-credit subsidies to coverage purchased through exchanges established by the federal government under Section 1321 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. King v. Burwell is yet another case arising out of the Affordable Care Act. In 2012, the Court rejected a challenge to the ACA’s individual mandate, which requires everyone in the United States to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. Many people get health insurance through their employers, but the people who don’t – because they are self-employed or unemployed, for example – can purchase it through an online marketplace, known as an “exchange.” The drafters of the ACA had originally expected each state to set up its own exchange, but after many states declined to do so, the federal government stepped in to create them instead. Obergefell v. Hodges: 1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? 2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state? Should the subsidies in King v. Burwell be struck down by the Court, Obamacare will suffer a tremendous blow. Just a few weeks ago, an irritated President Obama said the case should have never been taken up and that he expects the court to rule in favor of the law. Keep in mind that Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber has been seen multiple times saying the law was written so that people who live in states without state exchanges cannot receive federal subsidies for their health insurance. A number of Christian pastors have vowed "civil disobedience" should gay marriage be upheld in states that have voted to ban it and many have warned a ruling against traditional marriage could jeopardize the tax exempt status of churches around the country. From CNN: New Mexico Pastor Steve Smothermon says he is ready to go to jail to protect his religious freedom. And he is not the only one.Smothermon is one of more than 50,000 people who have signed a pledge to engage in social disobedience if the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling this month that would legalize same sex marriage across the country."We want to help people, but we are not going to be forced by the government and society or the politically correct to say we are going to believe in it," said Smothermon, senior pastor of Legacy Church in Albuquerque. "If they said, 'Listen pastor, we are going to put you in jail if you don't honor this.' I am going to say, 'Then put me in jail.' " Decisions are released at 10 a.m. et. | 2 |
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sounded off on President Trump’s behavior toward his attorney general on Capitol Hill Thursday, telling him he is acting out of “weakness” by trying to intimidate Sessions to quit.“If he wants to fire him, fire him,” the senator said, but don’t resort to bullying.In particular, Graham was unnerved by the president's sending a series of tweets questioning Sessions's loyalty and fitness to serve."He's a good man who deserves better," Graham said.Sen. Lindsey Graham says President Trump is demonstrating "weakness" through his attacks on AG Jeff Sessions https://t.co/a92rbGyWC1— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 26, 2017Graham called Sessions to offer his support, telling him to "hang in there." If Trump does fire Sessions, there will be "hell to pay," because Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has indicated he will not hold any new confirmation hearings for the position. The committee's agenda is set in stone.Graham also took sides in Trump’s battle royale with special counsel Robert Mueller, who was chosen to lead the investigation into possible Russian collusion. Trump has dismissed it as a “witch hunt” and has even dropped hints about firing Mueller.If he follows through on that threat, Graham said there will be dire consequences. Lindsey Graham: "Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, unless [he] did something wrong”— David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) July 27, 2017The senator is determined not to let that happen, signaling to the press that he intends to introduce legislation to mandate that Mueller cannot be fired without a judicial review. This is not just for Trump, Graham said, but "any future president.""We need a check and balance here."Graham hopes that Trump will surround himself with good advisers that will prevent him from "turning democracy upside down." | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! About half of us make New Year’s resolutions at this time. Most of us end up not fulfilling them, whether it be losing weight, becoming more organized or getting out of debt.But here’s one resolution that may be easier to keep and help maintain your sanity during the upcoming presidential campaign. Stop letting all the “bad news” that floods your mobile phone or TV make you forget there’s a lot of good news out there that makes a bigger difference to all of us in the long run.Keeping a resolution against letting bad news dominate your media consumption won’t be easy. There’s an old saying among editors that “if it bleeds, it leads,” and 90 percent of news is negative because that’s what interests us.NOEL YEATTS: NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS THAT MATTER — FOUR WAYS YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLDDaniel Kahneman, who shared a Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, first noted that human nature has saddled us with some baggage. We suffer from “negativity bias,” which leads us to pay more attention to negative details than positive ones and also “confirmation bias,” which leads to look at information that reconfirms our negative expectations.There’s lots of evidence these biases affect our news judgment. In 2014, the Russian news site City Reporter decided to cover only good news and silver linings for an entire day. It lost two-thirds of its normal readership that day. When I was growing up in California, a businessman in my hometown launched "The Good News," an unrelentingly cheerful weekly paper that found subscribers in 50 states and 10 countries. But it went broke in 16 months.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR OPINION NEWSLETTERSo it may be obvious that calling on news outlets to publish more “good news” isn’t going to trump human nature. But we can at least take time to recognize our biases and resist them at times.More from Opinion In the best article this year that you probably haven’t read, science writer Matt Ridley writes in the British Spectator: "We’ve Just Had The Best Decade In Human History. Seriously." His thesis is clear: "We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history. Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 percent of the world’s population for the first time. It was 60 per cent when I was born. Global inequality has been plunging as Africa and Asia experience faster economic growth than Europe and North America; child mortality has fallen to record low levels; famine virtually went extinct; malaria, polio and heart disease are all in decline."While the news focuses on terrorism, Syria, economic inequality, the personality of Donald Trump and the legacy of slavery, Winston Churchill would remind us that “great forces are on the move in the world” that in the long run may be more important.While our populations and economies are growing, MIT scientist Andrew McAfee has demonstrated many nations are using less water, fewer minerals and less land even as they make more of everything. For example, thanks to better irrigation and technology, we use 65 percent less land to produce the same amount of food we did 50 years ago.Ridley points out the good news on using fewer resources that sits in our own hands: “Mobile phones have the computing power of room-sized computers of the 1970s. I use mine instead of a camera, radio, torch, compass, map, calendar, watch, CD player, newspaper and pack of cards.”For most of my life, I’ve grown up hearing doomsayers saying we are running out of energy. How many people grasp that the shale oil revolution and the explosion of renewable energy has brought the U.S. to the edge of being a net energy exporter?Time Magazine may make Greta Thunberg its "Person of the Year," but that obscures the news that U.S. carbon emissions actually declined in the last decade. Natural gas emits half as much carbon as coal, and as the U.S. Energy Information Administration points out, it was the "largest source," or about 35 percent, of U.S. electricity in 2018. Coal dropped from 45 percent in 2010 to 25 percent in 2019, and may drop to 22 percent in 2020.Ridley points out that we could make even more progress on carbon emissions if environmental opposition to the newer, safer generation of nuclear power wasn't so intense. Nuclear power uses the least land, least fuel and the least in building materials of any form of energy generation. As for the future, Ridley notes, “It is now possible that nuclear fusion will one day deliver energy in minimalist form, using very little fuel and land.”CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPSo by all means, let us not tune out the slinging of political mud in the coming campaign or the natural disasters that take human life. But let’s all resolve to put it all into some context, and carry with us the realization that human progress continues.Ridley, the author of the book “The Rational Optimist,” predicts that at the end of the 2020s “we will see less poverty, less child mortality, less land devoted to agriculture in the world. There will be more tigers, whales, forests and nature reserves. (We) will be richer, and each of us will use fewer resources.”Let me add to that a prediction that if more of us recognized our "bad news biases" and resolved to let a bit more sunshine into our lives, we would all live in a saner world.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY JOHN FUND | 2 |
When I wrote this analysis earlier, 'Plan B' was already on life support. Republican Senators Susan Collins and Shelley Moore Capito had signaled that they were no-go's on the GOP backup proposal, which would entail passing the same "clean" repeal bill approved by the upper chamber in late 2015. That was a show vote, I explained, and everybody knew it -- and if Senate Republicans were sweating a vote on a conservative-ish replacement/fix bill this week (replete with generous subsidies and gradual fade-outs), the notion that they'd fall in line behind much harsher and riskier plan was obviously risible on its face. With Rob Portman and Dean Heller pronouncing themselves 'troubled' and expressing telltale 'concerns,' it was only a matter of time before a back-breaking third "no" vote emerged, dooming the maneuver. My bet was on Heller, but Lisa Murkowski was always going to be a strong contender, too. Ta da:Lisa Murkowski just told me she'll vote with Democrats to block McConnell's repeal only health bill. That kills it— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) July 18, 2017That's three, with more to come. Goodnight. Now it's time for the ritual circular firing squad. Conservatives will rage at those Senators who are fleeing their own consequence-free 2015 vote, moderates will blame conservatives for tanking the previous bill (although centrists had a major role in that, too), with various factions fuming at leadership for steering events to an unhappy outcome for everyone. The breadth of this failure is truly impressive, even by GOP standards. We've already reviewed what comes next, and those pieces are already being set into motion. The president has declared that he'll now let Obamacare fail, and blame the Democrats. The other party is solely responsible for designing the disintegrating status quo, but Republicans now control everything. Whiffing on a pressing policy concern and a perennial campaign promise won't go unnoticed by voters. Washing their hands of the situation isn't going to cut it for Republicans, and the assignment of blame isn't going to go the way Trump wants it to. Meanwhile, are Senators going to just mosey along having taken zero votes on this issue, even after all those years of rhetoric? Apparently, McConnell isn't planning on letting them off the hook that easily. Despite the inevitable political pain and recriminations, leadership is reportedly intent on holding a 'motion to proceed' vote on the 2015 repeal bill, forcing every Senator onto the record:Sources say McConnell intent to hold vote to proceed on straight repeal, even if it fails— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 18, 2017This will result in a decent number of GOP members (a dozen? more?) refusing to allow a piece of legislation onto the floor that they voted to pass not too long ago. What's McConnell's angle here? Is he (a) using this threat as leverage to try to get people back to the negotiating table to revive the compromise bill? That may move some moderates, but guys like Lee and Paul are eager to cast another "clean" repeal vote that won't go anywhere. Is there really anything that can be attempted here that hasn't already been tried? Or maybe (b) McConnell is fed up with his recalcitrant conference and wants to subject his members to tough votes, out of frustration. If that's the case, isn't he putting some Senators in the line of fire for avoidable blowback? That seems very out of character for him. And if the goal is to showcase dysfunction, why not "spread the pain around," and hold a vote on the motion to proceed to the recently-defunct Senate bill, too? Leadership could then compare and contrast the totals to show which option is closer to being a reality, perhaps as a means of applying pressure to certain members. Or perhaps (c) he wants to have a roll call vote conclusively proving that due to infighting and disagreement, Republican-only solutions are dead in the water, hence the self-inflicted need for bipartisanship. For reasons that we outlined earlier, conservatives aren't likely to be at all pleased with whatever might emerge from that process. I'll leave you with West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, whose potential 2018 challengers are lining up, jumping into the fray to help jumpstart new talks: Scoop: Manchin starting bipartisan health care talks with former governors turned senators https://t.co/GmnaEaGu7n— Sam Stein (@samstein) July 18, 2017But don't lose sight of the anti-conservative demands from even the most "moderate" of Democrats as a precondition simply to sit down at the table. It's going to be bad, folks. | 2 |
President Trump confirmed Sunday that he spoke about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden in a midsummer call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but said he did nothing wrong, as Democrats warned these latest charges may have “crossed the Rubicon” and into impeachment territory. Leaving the White House on Sunday, Mr. Trump insisted the conversation that has consumed Washington for several days was “largely congratulatory.” But, he added, “it was largely corruption — all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.” Mr. Trump didn’t say whether he pressed Mr. Zelensky to investigate Mr. Biden, the front-runner to become his Democratic rival in the 2020 election, or other members of the Biden family during the July 25 call. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Mr. Trump urged Mr. Zelensky “about eight times” to cooperate with his personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani on investigating Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden over a possible nexus between the son’s business interests and the vice president’s push in 2016 to oust a Ukrainian prosecutor. The conversation is believed to be at the heart of a whistleblower complaint that the Trump administration is keeping out of the hands of Congress, sparking yet another investigation into whether Mr. Trump used foreign actors for political gain. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday that Congress needs to know whether Mr. Trump held up $250 million in aid to Ukraine as part of an attempt to extract dirt on Mr. Biden. The aid was released Sept. 12, but an unusual delay coincided with Mr. Trump’s interest in Mr. Biden’s activities. If Mr. Trump demanded such a quid pro quo, then impeachment “may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that conduct represents,” said Mr. Schiff, who long has pushed impeachment investigations against Mr. Trump. “This would be, I think, the most profound violation of the presidential oath,” Mr. Schiff told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We may very well have crossed the Rubicon here.” The inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community, who received a complaint about Mr. Trump’s interactions with the Ukrainian leader, deemed it an “urgent concern,” yet acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire won’t turn over the complaint to lawmakers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, urged Republicans on Sunday to join Democrats in calling for Mr. Maguire to “obey the law” and turn over the whistleblower’s complaint when he testifies before Congress at midweek. The law requires Mr. Maguire to turn over the complaint, she said, so failure to do so would endanger national security and have a chilling effect on future whistleblowers. “We must be sure that the president and his administration are always conducting our national security and foreign policy in the best interest of the American people, not the president’s personal or political interest,” Mrs. Pelosi said in a “dear colleague” letter that she sent to both Democrats and Republicans. Many Republicans have rallied to defend Mr. Trump, either by questioning the whistleblower’s motives or calling on the media to investigate Mr. Biden. Yet Sen. Mitt Romney, Utah Republican, said he needs to learn more about Mr. Trump’s conduct. “If the president asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme,” he tweeted. “Critical for the facts to come out.” Another Senate Republican, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, didn’t criticize Mr. Trump directly but did suggest it would be wrong for a president to seek a political leg up from a foreign nation. “Look, it is not appropriate for any candidate for federal office, certainly, including a sitting president, to ask for assistance from a foreign country,” Mr. Toomey told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That’s not appropriate. But I don’t know that that’s what happened here.” The president, traveling in Texas, said he will consider ways to release details about his call with Mr. Zelensky. He also said he would have “no problem” with Mr. Giuliani testifying to Congress about his recent meetings with Ukrainians. He called his attorney a “straight shooter.” But Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said forcing the president to hand over a full transcript of the Zelensky call would set a poor precedent regarding presidential power and diplomatic confidentiality. “These are confidential discussions between world leaders,” he said. Mr. Trump questioned the whistleblower’s motives, saying presidents should speak freely with foreign leaders and “you can’t have people doing this.” He tried to flip pressure back onto Mr. Biden, pointing to the former vice president’s claim that he never spoke about business with his son despite evidence to the contrary. “This is a very dishonest thing that Joe Biden did, and then he said he never spoke to his son. Does anybody believe that one?” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump also highlighted a statement from the Ukrainian foreign minister, who said his country did not feel pressured by the U.S. during the midsummer call. “It was a beautiful, warm, nice conversation. It was put out last night also by Ukraine,” Mr. Trump said. Democrats say they cannot rely on that statement because Ukraine is in an awkward diplomatic position and is beholden to the Trump administration for aid money for at least one year and possibly five. Sen. Christopher Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said Mr. Trump put Ukraine through a nervous ordeal by holding back expected aid this summer. Mr. Zelensky was “really worried about these overtures he was getting, from particularly from Rudy Giuliani, and he didn’t understand whether this was an official government position, these requests to investigate the former vice president,” Mr. Murphy told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” recounting a visit to Kyiv. Mr. Trump released the aid to Ukraine on Sept. 12 and even extended $140 million more. The president downplayed the delay by saying he was worried that the U.S. was shouldering too much of the financial burden. “I backed Ukraine from the beginning, but I’m very upset that other countries aren’t doing the same,” Mr. Trump said. “Germany should be spending much more, France, all of the European Union should be spending money. Why are we spending money and they’re not? Or at least they’re spending very little by comparison, so I’m not happy about that.” The White House confirmed that Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet with Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, a meeting that is sure to fan the flames of the saga. A senior administration official said Mr. Trump will focus on “congratulating President Zelensky on his election victories and the incredible energy and success President Zelensky has put forward in implementing the reform and anti-corruption efforts.” ⦁ Dave Boyer contributed to this story. | 2 |
Frederick Douglass.
July 4 is an appropriate time to remember Frederick Douglass' famous 1852 speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" The speech is - for good reason - most famous for its powerful condemnation of slavery, racism, and American hypocrisy. But it also includes passages praising the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. Both are worth remembering.
Here is, perhaps, the best-known part of the speech:
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
And there is much more material of the same kind in the speech, ranging from a denunciation of the internal slave trade, to an attack on the then-recent Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The key point is that slavery and racism made a mockery of America's professed ideals of liberty and equality. And, sadly, that legacy is far from fully overcome even today.
But Douglass' speech also includes passages like this one, praising the American Revolution:
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.
They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.
They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times….
Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!
Elsewhere in the speech, he also praises the revolutionaries' refusal to submit to oppression merely because it was backed by law. This is an obvious reference to the those who, in the 1850s, argued that abolitionists had a duty to submit to the Fugitive Slave Act and other unjust proslavery laws. It is also a rebuke to "just enforce the law" arguments backing submission to deeply unjust laws in our own day.
Douglass recognized that the American Revolution not only espoused high principles, but had actually made important progress in realizing them - even as he also condemned the failure to realize them more fully, and the hypocrisy of Americans for tolerating the massive injustice of slavery, which so blatantly contradicted those principles.
In other writings and speeches, Douglass also praised the antislavery potential of the Constitution(which, I think, he in some respects overstated). His purpose in the Fourth of July speech, was not to denounce the Founding Fathers, but rather the white Americans of his own time.
This raises the question of how we should think about slavery and the American Revolution today. Elsewhere, I have argued that, on balance, the Revolution gave an important boost to the antislavery cause, in both America and Europe - most notably by inspiring the "First Emancipation" - the abolition of slavery in the northern states, which was an essential prerequisite to eventual nationwide abolition.
I do not, believe, however, that this fact completely exempts the Founders from severe criticism on their record with respect to slavery. Most obviously, they still deserve condemnation for the fact that many of them were slaveowners themselves. People like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, and George Mason all owned slaves throughout most of their lives, even though they well knew it was wrong and a violation of their own principles.
Jefferson famously denounced slavery as "a moral depravity" and "the most unremitting despotism." Yet he kept right on owning slaves. The same goes for the others, though Washington did finally free his upon his death. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that they continued to perpetrate a grave injustice because they did not want to suffer the loss of wealth and social status resulting from manumission.
This isn't even a matter of "judging historical figures by modern standards." It is a matter of them failing to live up to their own standards.
In addition to failing to free their own slaves, most of the Founders also failed to prioritize the abolition of slavery as an institution. They did take some important steps, such as promoting abolition in the northern states, barring the spread of slavery to the "Old Northwest," and eventually banning the importation of new slaves from abroad. But they pretty clearly did not give abolishing the greatest moral evil in the new republic the priority it deserved.
Instead, they often prioritized less significant, but politically more advantageous issues. Alexander Hamilton (who was not a slaveowner) is often praised for his antislavery attitudes - in some ways justifiably so. But, throughout his political career, he repeatedly subordinated abolition to other priorities. Much the same can be said of most other political leaders of the day.
With great power, comes great responsibility. When it comes to slavery, most of the people who wielded great power in revolutionary America and the early republic failed to fully live up to theirs.
But the condemnation they deserve for that failure must be balanced against the very real progress they made possible - including on the issue of slavery. In addition, we should remember that we ourselves may not be free of the same types of faults.
It is far from unusual for people to set aside principles when they collide with self-interest. How many of us really prioritize doing what is right when doing so requires us to pay a high price? We like to think that, if we were in Jefferson's place, we would have freed our slaves and prioritized abolition. But it is far from clear we would actually have the courage and commitment to do so.
Modern politicians, too, rarely prioritize the most morally significant issues ahead of those that are most politically advantageous in the short run. Given that slaves could not vote - and neither could many free blacks - it is actually notable that the Founders did as much to curb slavery as they did, even if it was nowhere near as much as they should have done.
In sum, Frederick Douglass was right to praise the American Revolution, and right also to condemn the gross injustice and hypocrisy of the nation's failure to live up to its principles. In thinking about the Founders today, we too should praise the great good they did - which ultimately outweighed the harm. But we should also remember their greatest shortcoming. And we should be wary of too readily assuming that we ourselves would do better if faced with the same kinds of choices.
UPDATE: In previous posts, I have written about Douglass' underappreciated speeches on immigration and how we should remember the Civil War. | 2 |
Culture ‘It was apparent in Fed Up that all interviewees were not treated equally’ Katie Couric at the New York Premiere of 'Fed Up' / AP • June 8, 2016 10:40 am Katie Couric’s 2014 documentary Fed Up includes instances of deceptive editing similar to 2016’s Under the Gun, according to several people familiar with the making of the film.
Fed Up, which focuses on obesity and the food industry, was directed by Stephanie Soechtig and produced by Couric. The film includes two interviews with figures who hold viewpoints counter to the narrative of the film, and sources say both interviews include at least one misleading or deceptive edit intended to embarrass the interviewee.
Dr. David Allison, an interview subject in the film and the director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center, says he was a victim of shoddy journalism. "What she did to me is antithetical to not only just human decency and civility but it is antithetical to the spirit of science and democratic dialogue," he told the Washington Free Beacon.
After a brief exchange in the film between Allison and Couric over whether or not sugary beverages contribute more to obesity than other foods, Couric asks Allison about the science behind his objections. Allison then begins to explain before stumbling and asking Couric if he could pause to "get his thoughts together."
Allison said Couric had told him it would be all right to pause and gather his thoughts at any point during the interview if he felt he needed to.
"Ms. Couric had said to me at the beginning of our interview ‘You know, Dr. Allison, if at any point you need to go over an answer, you stumble on your words, just let me know, we'll stop, and you can go back over it,'" he said.
Couric responds to Allison’s on camera request by saying "Okay," but the film shows Dr. Allison sitting silently for another seven seconds before cutting to another interview.
Allison is not shown again in the film.
After the pause depicted in the film Allison said he did provide an answer to Couric's question. "I had what I thought was a very cogent answer," he said. "Of course I gave an answer. I gave an answer to every question she asked me in a 90-minute interview that was a barrage of questions. And out of a 90-minute interview she chose to show the approximately 10 seconds when I paused and said, ‘Let me collect my thoughts.'"
He said Couric's request that he use layman's terms during his answers led to the stumble seen in the film.
A second accusation comes from a scene featuring an interview between Soechtig and Lisa Gable, a spokesperson for the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation. Industry sources say audio of Soechtig’s voice was edited into an interview in an effort to embarrass the spokesperson.
The scene in question features Soechtig and Gable discussing whether the food industry would remove products from store shelves under a deal struck with the White House. At the end of the exchange the director can be heard off camera saying Gable was avoiding her question. The spokesperson is then shown sitting silently for about three seconds before the film cuts to another interview.
"She is badgered about companies’ willingness to reformulate their products, to which the producer answers, ‘It feels like you’re avoiding the question,'" an industry source told the Free Beacon. But "that response from the producer didn’t actually follow that particular exchange and was edited to make it look like that was how their conversation actually went."
A second person with knowledge of the incident confirmed the account, and said "It was apparent in the Fed Up documentary that all interviewees were not treated equally."
Numerous email and telephone requests for comment to Couric and Soechtig received no response.
The new accusations of misleading editing in Fed Up comes after of criticism of a deceptive edit included in Couric and Soechtig's 2016 documentary Under the Gun. The filmmakers edited in several seconds of silence during a scene featuring Couric questioning a group of gun rights activists. An audio recording of the interview shows the silence did not occur.
A number of people have called for Couric to be fired for the incident, while others have defended her.
The Washington Post criticized Couric's role in the Under the Gun edit but also noted that it is "one instance of bad judgment in a long career."
Couric posted a message on the Under the Gun website in response to the controversy. She said she takes responsibility for what happened and regrets that the inserted silence was misleading. Since then the filmmakers have been accused of breaking federal firearms laws during the production, and others interviewed for film have come forward to complain about being excluded from the final cut.
John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said a four-hour interview he did with Under the Gun producers was left on the cutting room floor. Virginia Citizens Defense League president Philip Van Cleave said his two-hour interview was also cut from the documentary.
"Couric’s approach appears to be to protect her viewers from even knowing that there are any arguments on the other side," Lott said.
Allison says the actions of Couric and her team have undercut the trust the public has in journalists.
"Obviously it's no fun when you're the one who's made to look bad but I don't really see that as the key point. I think the key point for our society as a whole is, can we trust journalists?" | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The number of people known to have attended the controversial June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower has grown to eight, including a Russian-American lobbyist who confirmed his attendance, and two more unnamed participants. The meeting, which paired Donald Trump Jr. and Kremlin-linked attorney Natalia Veselnitska reportedly lasted just 20 minutes, but has caused massive headaches for the Trump White House by reigniting claims the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort were known to have attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya and music publicist Rob Goldstone, who brokered the get-together promising campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton. FILE - In this June 5, 2017, file photo, Donald Trump Jr., executive vice president of The Trump Organization, announces that the family's company is launching a new hotel chain inspired by his and brother Eric's Trump's travels with their father's campaign at Trump Tower in New York. Trump Jr. shared a video on July 8, 2017, of an edited clip of the 1986 military thriller âTop Gunâ in which President Donald Trumpâs face is superimposed over Tom Cruiseâs character as he shoots down a Russian jet with a CNN logo on it. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File) (AP)Rinat Akhmetshin, who NBC identified as a Russian-American lobbyist, confirmed his participation to the Associated Press. Akhmetshin denied reports he has ties to Russian intelligence agencies. He told the AP Trump Jr. asked Veselnitskaya for evidence of illicit money flowing to the Democratic National Committee, but Veselnitskaya said she did not have that information. White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens during a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, Wednesday, May 3, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP)Akhmetshin also reportedly said that “they couldn’t wait for the meeting to end,” referring to Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner.Two more men are believed to have attended the meeting, including former State Department contractor Anatoli Samochornov, who has ties to Veselnitskaya, and another man. A State Department source said Samochornov was never an employee and that the department does not provide translators for non-government private meetings. Paul Manafort of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's staff listens during a round table discussion on security at Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., August 17, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri - RTX2LL4K (REUTERS)Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas, told Fox News he could not confirm Samochornov was at the meeting, but said one of the two other attendees was a U.S. citizen. Other reports characterized an unnamed attendee as a “former Russian counter-intelligence officer” and a friend of Russian singer and billionaire scion Emin Agalarov.Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the growing and still mysterious meeting roster “adds another deeply disturbing fact about this secret meeting.”“Whether the additional party or parties present during the meeting with these top Trump campaign personnel at the time Donald Trump had seized the nomination were connected directly with Russia intelligence or not, it is clear the Kremlin got the message that Donald Trump welcomed the help of the Russian government in providing dirt on Hillary Clinton,” Schiff said.Neither Kushner's attorney nor spokesperson, have commented on this. Goldstone and Manafort did not respond to Fox News' request to comment.The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris (Photo: AP)
The second night of the first Democrat presidential primary debate birthed a new star and knocked the luster off the frontrunner.
Over the course of two hours, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) distinguished herself by using her skills as a prosecutor to draw blood, targeting former Vice President Joe Biden's talk this week about his history of working across the aisle.
"It's personal and I was actually – it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country," Harris said solemnly while looking at Biden. "And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And you know there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day and that little girl was me," she recalled holding back emotion.
Biden responded defiantly, "That's a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I do not praise racists. That is not true."
"But Vice President Biden – do you agree today; do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America? Do you agree?" Harris asked.
"I did not oppose busing in America – what I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That's what I opposed," he said growing frustrated.
"But there was a failure of states to integrate public schools in America – I was part of the second class to integrate Berkley, California public schools almost two decades after Brown v Board of Education," Harris said.
"Because your city council made that decision," responded Biden.
"So that's where the federal government must step in. That's why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act," said Harris to growing thunderous applause from the audience. Throughout the debate, Biden worked to maintain his blue-collar appeal and make clear who he sees as his chief opponent.
"Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America – ordinary middle-class Americans built America," he said early on.
However, his exchange with Harris demonstrates he's likely to spend much of the primary on the defense as his opponents pick away at the intricacies of his 40-year legislative career that are hard to explain in 30-second bursts.
Another frontrunner, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), also had some explaining to do when he was asked the first question that forced him to clarify how his policies would require tax hikes on the middle class.
"People who have healthcare under 'Medicare for All' will have no premiums, no deductibles, no out of pocket expenses – yes they will pay more in taxes, but less in healthcare for what they get," he said to applause.
In the one real mention of faith, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has attacked Christians like Vice President Mike Pence for their stance on LGBT issues, lectured Republicans about migrants at the border.
"We should call out hypocrisy when we see it, and for a party that associates itself with Christianity to say that it is ok – to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, the Republican Party has lost all claim to ever use religious language again," he said doubling down on the fact he's one of the few candidates who regularly invokes his faith.
All of the candidates stretched their time to answer questions as long as the moderators would allow, but Biden was all too quick to announce his time was up and stop talking, including at the end of his emotional exchange with Harris over busing.
There's no question this wasn't the kind of first debate Biden and his supporters wanted. Time will tell is he is indeed running out of time or this is just an early stumble in a long race. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President Trump is signing an executive order on law enforcement reform in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an event that tipped off weeks of protests, as the nation grapples with racial disparities in policing and the criminal justice system that have spurred calls as drastic as the dismantling of entire police departments.The president appeared Tuesday in the Rose Garden to sign the order, which is titled "Safe Policing for Safe Communities.""Both public safety and public trust are crucial to the law enforcement mission," the White House said in a tweet Monday night. "Tomorrow’s Executive Order will uphold clear and high policing standards, promote accountability in law enforcement, and help equip police officers for constructive community engagement."GEORGIA LIEUTENANT GOV SAYS STATE MUST ‘BUILD TRUST’ AFTER ‘VERY DISTURBING’ RAYSHARD BROOKS DEATHThe president took questions from reporters at a Monday roundtable and did not go into the details of the order, but said that it would have "some solutions.""The overall goal is we want law and order," Trump said of the executive order. "It's about justice also. It's about safety."According to the White House, Trump's order will touch on use of force best practices, information sharing to track officers who have repeated complaints against them and federal incentives for police departments to deploy non-police experts on issues like mental health, homelessness and addiction.Trump also addressed efforts in Congress to pass legislation on criminal justice reform, which appear to have already hit obstacles with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., saying on CBS Sunday that addressing qualified immunity -- a judicial doctrine that often protects officers accused of misconduct from liability -- is a "poison pill" for Republicans. Minutes later Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who has led calls to roll back qualified immunity in Congress, said he had received different signals from other Republicans.MULTIPLE ATLANTA OFFICERS HAVE RESIGNED THIS MONTH AS MORALE IS SAID TO DROP TO 'ALL-TIME-LOW'The White House, in a separate tweet Monday, said the order would "help law enforcement build trust and effectively serve the community as our first line of defense here at home," emphasizing that Trump "stands behind our dedicated law enforcement all the way."The order comes as Trump has been sparring with local officials and dealing with backlash over his handling of the unrest following Floyd's death, trying to balance his desire to be a "LAW & ORDER!" president with his campaign's efforts to court black voters. He often touts the criminal justice reform legislation he signed in 2018. Tuesday's executive order could be added to that record.His overall handling of the unrest has been controversial.A batch of current and former military figures pushed back against Trump, to varying degrees, on his reported push to consider having active-duty military handle the protests and riots. They specifically condemned an incident in which federal law enforcement cleared protesters from Lafayette Square minutes before Trump walked over to a church in the area that had partially burned the previous night.Critics have said that the two events were connected -- that the square was cleared so that Trump could visit the church -- while Trump allies, including Attorney General Bill Barr, have said that they were not and the clearing of the square had been planned well in advance.Meanwhile, Trump is now threatening to step in with federal forces to clear out protesters from a six-block area of downtown Seattle, named the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest," or CHOP, which has been declared "cop-free" by its occupants.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP"Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before," Trump said last week. "Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stopped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!"Neither Inslee nor Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has expressed much desire to take back the occupied part of their city. Durkin, when asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo how long the zone could look like it does, shrugged and said “I don’t know. We could have the summer of love.”Trump mocked the comment online, saying "Must end this Seattle takeover now!" though he didn't make clear how he believes that can be accomplished.Fox News' Matt Leach, John Roberts and Adam Shaw contributed to this report. | 2 |
Harvard University is planning to honor the former NFL quarterback turned anthem-kneeling activist Colin Kaepernick with a medal next month.
The university plans to honor Kaepernick and seven others with the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, which the university considers its “highest honor in the field of African and African American studies,” in a ceremony on October 11, WBZ reported Thursday. “The medal honors those who have made significant contributions to African and African American history and culture, and more broadly, individuals who advocate for intercultural understanding and human rights in an increasingly global and interconnected world,” the university said in a statement.
Comedian Dave Chappelle and Kehinde Wiley, the artist who painted former President Obama’s presidential portrait, are also among the award’s recipients.
Harvard’s announcement comes weeks after Kaepernick, who has still not appeared on the NFL’s roster, appeared as a spokesperson in a Nike ad campaign featuring athletes who overcame obstacles such as injuries or disabilities to succeed.
Kaepernick can be heard in the ad sporting the slogan, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
The ex-NFL player for the San Francisco 49ers became famous in August 2016 for kneeling during the national anthem to protest law enforcement, and many fans bristled at the idea of using someone who disrespected the national anthem as a spokesperson for an ad about sacrifice.
Police groups, colleges, and fans launched protests against Nike and boycotted the brand for using Kaepernick as a spokesperson. | 2 |
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Posted: May 30, 2020 12:01 AM The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com. This has nothing to do with Minneapolis, but there appears to be a real lack of understanding about police work on the part of many of the general public. Mainly because no one ever took the time to try to explain how cops do their jobs. Most people form their opinions about the police and how they operate based on what they see on TV or in the movies. So here’s a chance to test your knowledge on exactly how police do their jobs, and why police officers do certain things that often times don’t look so good on television. 1) Why do police officers take people down to the ground? Because they’re taught that it is easier to control a resisting suspect, or a suspect who is just starting to resist once you have them down on the ground. You can pin them down and get them handcuffed. This is also done to not only help prevent injury to the officer that might occur during a protracted struggle, but injuries to the suspect as well. And sometimes both officers and suspects just fall down. Feet often get tangled up, and weight shifts with someone who is struggling and resisting, balance is lost and suddenly everyone ends up in a pile on the ground. Once on the ground an officer does his best to recover control of and hold the suspect down until help can arrive. 2) Do suspects often still try to fight and resist after being handcuffed? The short answer is ‘yes, and often.’ It also regularly happens as a suspect is being escorted to and gets next to the police vehicle. It suddenly dawns on them that they really are going to jail and many will fight violently at that point. Handcuffed suspects can also still be dangerous (‘St. Louis Police Officer Robert Stanze’ a case in point. He was shot and killed by a suspect who had a hidden gun and who was handcuffed behind his back and seated in the police car. Or Missouri State Trooper James Froemsdorf who was shot and killed by his own gun by a suspect who was able to slip out of the handcuffs due to a previous hand injury and grabbed the Trooper’s gun and shot him several times, killing him on the side of a Missouri highway). Other handcuffed suspects have slipped out of their cuffs and escaped, or killed the officer, or perhaps even took an innocent bystander as a hostage after they escaped. 3) Do suspects stop fighting only to resume fighting after catching their breath? Yes. Which is why police officers will maintain control over them, using tactics like leverage, take down and control techniques, batons, pepper spray, and tasers that they are trained in and certified to use. Sometimes it comes down to just brute strength and additional officers piling onto a particularly violent or large and strong suspect. None of this looks particularly good to the uninformed TV viewer, and to an untrained and uninformed eye may appear to be excessive force when often really it’s a struggle for the officer’s very life. All police departments maintain and update regularly a Policy Manual, SOP, General Orders Manual (different names, same thing), that gives guidance, and department rules and regulations governing everything an officer does, including a ‘Use of Force’ policy. Each officer has a personal copy of this manual. These manuals are continually under review by department legal experts and officers regularly received updates, deletions, corrections, or further guidance to their manuals. Use of Force policies receive a thorough legal review and are based on court rulings and precedent, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court which may ultimately rule, or has ruled already on the Constitutionality of the use of force. All officers receive basic training in the police academy on most of these tactics. By successfully completing academy training police officers are considered trained and competent, and are then authorized to use these tactics while doing their job. As new tactics and techniques or technologies are introduced into police work, officers are trained to use them and then certified as having successfully completed the training. With a certificate usually going into their personnel file. This is recorded in order to protect the officer and his department from lawsuits claiming an officer was not trained to use a certain technique or type of equipment, and a suspect was injured as a result. In essence, if a tactic, technique, or piece of equipment is formally approved for officers to use, a policy is written guiding its use and is placed into the Policy Manual. If he is operating within the department’s policies then his actions are considered as being done in good faith, and following department policy and regulations. Officers are expected to abide by department policy, and with regards to techniques and tactics, “to employ them to the best of an officer’s ability.” 4) Do officers have discretion and can choose not to arrest people for committing a crime? Yes. Police Officers do have a limited amount of discretion when it comes to how they handle a minor offense. Which is why people are often let go with a warning instead of a speeding ticket. Rarely if ever is a person who is committing a felony not placed under arrest and conveyed to the police station for further investigation, or eventual transport to and confinement in the county jail. It varies from state to state, but officers have a limited amount of time to present their case to the prosecutor’s office for warrant application, and then it must be signed by a judge setting bail and release conditions. Do police officers often go ahead and arrest someone for what may seem to be a minor offense that doesn’t seem to be worth getting involved in a "resisting" event? Ever heard of "hunches”? Yes, police will often make a full custody arrest for a minor offense because they suspect there may be more going on, and they need to buy themselves some time to investigate more thoroughly. This often leads to solving a major crime. Think of Ted Bundy and many other notorious criminals who were at first arrested for something minor, but later their true identity or criminal activity was discovered. It happens often and what started out as an arrest for a minor offense turns out to be "damn good police work." 5) Why do officers shoot a suspect multiple times, it seems excessive? Because officers are trained to “shoot until the threat is over.” If an officer shoots someone ten times it’s because he was still standing and shooting at them, or charging towards them and still a threat when that tenth bullet hit them. 6) Can citizens file a complaint on a police officer? Yes, it happens all the time. Officers are expected to maintain professional conduct both on and off duty. They are expected to carry out their duties in a professional and fair manner, and abide by all laws and department regulations. The nature of the complaint that is "sustained against the officer" (found credible or proved) will determine the level of departmental disciplinary action, or even a criminal complaint if appropriate. An officer can receive a counseling from a supervisor, a verbal reprimand, a written reprimand, suspension, termination, and also be arrested. Officers also receive countless false charges levied against them all the time. The criminal element and those that associate with them know full well that they can ruin an officer’s day and cause grief by making a false allegation. Any allegation made has to be investigated by Internal Affairs. Officers are often charged with “Unprofessional Conduct” because for good reason they told a citizen to depart an area, or something similar, and the citizen didn’t want to do it. So the officer spoke louder and more forcefully, perhaps threatening arrest for noncompliance. Next thing you know a complaint is then filed for “Unprofessional Conduct,” with both sides being interviewed. Usually complaints of this nature are quickly dismissed for lack of evidence. Oftentimes citizens wishing to complain are required to come to the police station to put the complaint in writing, and they very often decline. No written complaint? Complaint dismissed. Often “excessive force” is claimed because an officer had to use force to effect an arrest. This is always a judgement call for Internal Affairs. Are there injuries to the citizen, or to the officer? Do the injuries reflect excessive force? If not and there are no other witnesses or evidence, the complaint is generally dismissed or "unsustained." Officers are allowed to use force necessary to arrest and to defend themselves. Many people view "any" force as excessive because it doesn’t look good on TV. Police officers themselves want dirty cops gone. They reflect poorly on all the good ones. But they also know that false allegations, or unfair allegations, also happen far too often. 7) Shouldn’t police officers be able to defend themselves without resorting to weapons or force? Police officers come in all shapes and sizes. Both men and women. Most departments have fitness standards and officers are expected to do their best to maintain department standards. Unfortunately police officers spend much of their careers sedentary, riding around in a police car. Not unlike many of us, police officers often lead an unhealthy lifestyle. Eating unhealthy fast food meals, eating quickly, not exercising. Also, physiologically most men are larger, stronger, and more powerful than most women. Do we relegate women to being Meter Maids, or not allow them to be police officers because they may not be strong enough to defend themselves without resorting to using guns or other weapons? My guess is a lot of people would be unhappy with that. And justifiably so. Do police officers make mistakes? Absolutely, they’re human, not RoboCop machines. They work in mostly "gray" areas where they have to make decisions, often without any help or guidance, and only their instincts and best judgment and training to rely on. Everyone has a "what about" or "what if" comment. Or the "bad cop" story they like to share. Most stories likely aren’t firsthand accounts, aren’t true, or are embellished greatly. Some people have a visceral dislike for authority and the police in general, and they will never believe anything other than the negative perceptions and comments they hear that line up with their own thinking. No sense in wasting time trying to convince them of anything. But for the rest of you reading this, most police officers are honorable men and women who serve their communities in a very difficult, often dangerous, and ever changing landscape. They deserve our support, just as those corrupt individuals within their ranks deserve our contempt. But the good ones far outnumber the bad ones. So take a moment during these tough times to let good police officers know that you’ve got their back. Recommended Townhall Video | 2 |
Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon said he will vote to support the Iran nuclear deal, a pledge that puts President Barack Obama only three votes short of protecting the pact in Congress.
Merkley issued a statement Sunday calling the accord “the best available strategy to block Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
Merkley’s support brings to 31 the number of senators publicly favoring the deal, which would ease economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on the country’s nuclear program.
Barring defections, Obama needs three more votes from 13 Senate Democrats who have yet to declare their position, to sustain a likely veto of legislation aimed at killing the pact.
If Obama can assemble 41 Senate votes by getting most of the remaining Democrats on board, the Senate may not vote on the agreement at all.
The Republican-controlled Congress has until Sept. 17 to pass a resolution disapproving the deal reached in July between six world powers and Iran. Obama has pledged to veto that resolution if it gets to his desk.
While Republicans have been united in opposing the deal, only two Democratic senators -- Charles Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the chamber, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey -- have joined them so far.
Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, plans to announce his decision on Tuesday. Among other Democrats yet to disclose a position are Maryland’s Ben Cardin and New Jersey’s Cory Booker.
The only uncertain Senate Republican vote is that of Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who remains undecided and is expected to make her decision after Sept. 7.
‘Significant Shortcomings’
Merkley, in a statement on his website, pledged to vote for the deal even while pointing to “significant shortcomings” that he said the U.S. must address with “a massive intelligence program” and monitoring.
Merkley said he was troubled that the deal allows Iran to import conventional arms after five years and ballistic missile technology after eight years, and sets no restrictions on how Iran can use money it reclaims when sanctions are lifted.
But he rejected a proposal from deal opponents to try to renegotiate the accord for better terms.
If the U.S. rejects the deal and Iran resumes its nuclear program, “the United States would be viewed by the international community as undermining a strong framework for peacefully blocking a potential Iranian bomb,” Merkley said.
While the Republican-controlled House has enough votes to pass a resolution rejecting the deal, it’s unclear whether the Senate does. Assuming all 54 Senate Republicans oppose the accord, they would need support from six Democrats to get the 60 votes necessary to advance a resolution. © Copyright 2022 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved. | 2 |
Quite rightly, Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist is lashing out at congressional Republicans -- especially Rep. Peter King (R-NY) -- for trying to “weasel” out of the anti-tax pledge they had previously signed but now (surprise!) no longer want to uphold: Anti-tax hike crusader Grover Norquist is slamming Rep. Peter King, saying he hoped “his wife understands that commitments last a little longer than two years” after the New York lawmaker said the no-taxes pledge is binding for only one session of Congress.
“The pledge is not for life, but everybody who signed the pledge including Peter King, and tried to weasel out of it, shame on him,” Norquist said on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” on Monday, adding, “I hope his wife understands that commitments last a little longer than two years or something.”
Norquist’s comments came as King and some other top Republicans said they were willing to end their commitment to the pledge as Washington scrambles to find a deal that will fend off the looming fiscal cliff. On Sunday, King said that the “taxpayer protection pledge” —first offered in 1986 from Norquist’s organization, Americans for Tax Reform — isn’t binding today.
“A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress,” King said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have supported a declaration of war against Japan. I’m not going to attack Japan today.”
Most of the Republicans in Congress have signed Norquist’s pledge.
“Hey, if you think a commitment is not for as long as you make it for, the commitment for the pledge, as Peter King well knows when he signed it, is that as long as you’re in Congress, you will [rein in] spending and reform government and not raise taxes,” Norquist said. “It’s not for 500 years or two generations. It’s only as long as you’re in the House or Senate. if he stayed too long, that’s his problem. But you don’t tell the bank, ‘Oh, the mortgage, wasn’t that a long time ago?’
“If you make a commitment, you keep it,” he continued.
Of course, King is not the only squishy GOP lawmaker now saying that the anti-tax pledge he once signed is no longer binding. And he certainly won’t be the last -- especially because the public at large (read this) will almost certainly blame Republicans if the debt negotiations head south and the country soars off the so-called “fiscal cliff” come January. | 2 |
| March 05, 2021 08:30 AM The economy added 379,000 jobs in February and unemployment ticked down to 6.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, as the pandemic receded and commerce revived faster than projected. Forecasters had anticipated fewer than 200,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs. “In the coming weeks and months, as weather improves across the country, businesses welcome back more customers, and more vaccinations are administered, we should see a more substantial pick-up in hiring,” said Bankrate.com's senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick. Friday’s report adds to the evidence that the economy is poised for strong bounce-back growth this year. Many households are flush with savings from successive rounds of federal relief and poised to begin spending as the vaccination campaign advances. The Congressional Budget Office expects the strongest growth in 17 years. PROMINENT ECONOMISTS WARN BIDEN RISKS INFLATION WITH $1.9 TRILLION RECOVERY PACKAGE Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is promising to maintain the central bank’s easy-money policies as President Biden and congressional Democrats line up a $1.9 trillion spending bill. Some economists warn that the result could be excessive inflation. Still, employment remains far below its pre-pandemic levels, down 9.5 million altogether. Businesses that involve gathering groups, such as restaurants, bars, and theaters, face an especially rocky path back to health. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The recovery has begun, though. Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 355,000 in February as restrictions eased in many places. Restaurants and bars were hammered in the winter by the combination of pandemic shutdowns and cold weather. Still, that increase is only about a tenth of the number of those jobs lost in the pandemic. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A federal appeals court on Wednesday handed a major win to the Trump administration in its fight against “sanctuary” jurisdictions, ruling that it can deny grant money to states that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York overturned a lower court ruling that stopped the administration’s 2017 move to withhold grant money from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which dispenses over $250 million a year to state and local criminal justice efforts.TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO DEPLOY BORDER PATROL TO SANCTUARY CITIES TO HELP ICE CATCH ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS“Today’s decision rightfully recognizes the lawful authority of the Attorney General to ensure that Department of Justice grant recipients are not at the same time thwarting federal law enforcement priorities,” a DOJ spokesman said in a statement. “The grant conditions here require states and cities that receive DOJ grants to share information about criminals in custody. The federal government uses this information to enforce national immigration laws--policies supported by successive Democrat and Republican administrations.”“All Americans will benefit from increased public safety as this Administration is able to implement its lawful immigration and public safety policies,” the statement said.The latest decision conflicts with rulings from other appeals courts across the country concerning sanctuary policies, indicating a Supreme Court review is ultimately likely.New York City and liberal states including New York, Washington, Massachusetts and Connecticut sued the government, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York backed them — ordering the money be released and stopping the government from putting immigration-related conditions on grants.But the appeals court ruled that it “cannot agree that the federal government must be enjoined from imposing the challenged conditions on the federal grants here at issue.”“These conditions help the federal government enforce national immigration laws and policies supported by successive Democratic and Republican administrations,” the court ruled. “But more to the authorization point, they ensure that applicants satisfy particular statutory grant requirements imposed by Congress and subject to Attorney General oversight.”It also disagreed with the district court’s claim that the conditions intrude on powers reserved only to states, noting that in immigration policy the Supreme Court has found that the federal government maintains “broad” and “preeminent” power.The ruling marks a key win for the administration in its efforts to crack down on the continued use of “sanctuary” policies that limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities in order to shield illegal immigrants from deportation.ICE SUBPOENAS NY FOR INFO ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF MURDER, AS SANCTUARY CITY FIGHT ESCALATESThe Heritage Foundation’s Mike Howell, a former member of Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Legal Counsel, told Fox News that the ruling is potentially an important development considering the dependence of states like New York on DOJ grant money.“When you look at the amount of money that flows in via grants generally, the federal government has a lot of power over states and localities,” he said. “If you open the door to the federal government being able to condition that grant money, it’s a huge deal.”Sanctuary policies generally forbid local law enforcement from honoring detainers -- requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that they be alerted to of an illegal immigrant’s release from custody so they can be be picked up by ICE and put through deportation proceedings.Proponents of the policies claim it makes cities safer because it encourages illegal immigrants to cooperate with police without fear of deportation. But the Trump administration has been relentlessly pushing back by highlighting cases in which criminals are released onto the streets only to re-offend.It has also deployed a series of measures to combat the practice, including deploying elite Border Patrol agents to sanctuary cities to help ICE track down and detain illegal immigrants.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe Justice Department recently announced a slew of measures, and President Trump has called on Congress to pass legislation that would allow victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants to sue sanctuary cities and states.“Not one more American life should be stolen by sanctuary cities; they’re all over the place and a lot of people don’t want them,” Trump said at the State of the Union address this month.The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Job creation was much stronger than expected in October.
The U.S. economy added 128,000 jobs for the month and the unemployment rate rose to 3.6 percent, higher than the month before but still near a 50-year low. Economists had expected the economy to add 75,000 jobs, with forecasts ranging between 55,000 and 155,000, according to Econoday. That unusually wide range was caused, in part, by differing views of how the General Motors strike would hit employment at suppliers and related businesses.
Unemployment was expected to tick up to 3.6 percent.
Prior months were revised upward, indicating that the labor market has been much stronger than initial reports suggested. August’s initial 168,000 was revised up to 219,000. September’s soared from 136,000 to 180,000. Those revisions brought the three-month average up to 176,000.
The strength of the labor market was even more impressive because of the drag created by the GM strike and the government shedding workers it hired to conduct the census. The manufacturing sector shed 37,000 jobs in the month, many of which economists expect will be added back now that GM workers are back on the job. The government cut back by 17,000 jobs.
The pace of average hourly earnings rose by one-tenth of a percent to a year-over-year 3 percent gain. The average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours. | 2 |
November 11, 2013: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, arrives with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE minister of foreign affairs for a join press conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the U.S. and its allies had agreed on the tenets of a deal on Iran's nuclear program, but the Iranians said they were unable to accept the proposal.But the Islamic Republic did agree to offer more information and expanded access to U.N. nuclear inspectors — including more visits to a planned reactor and uranium site.The flurry of announcements and comments showed both the complexities and urgency in trying to move ahead on an accord between Iran and world powers after overtime talks in Geneva failed to produce a deal that could curb Iran's uranium enrichment in exchange for a rollback in some U.S.-led economic sanctions.Iranian officials promoted the pact reached with the U.N. nuclear chief Yukiya Amano as a "roadmap" for greater cooperation and transparency, which could move the talks ahead. Under the terms of the deal struck Monday, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency would gain access to a key uranium mine and the site of a planned heavy water reactor, which uses a different type of coolant than regular water and produces a greater amount of plutonium byproduct than conventional reactors.But the plans do not mention some of the sites most sought by U.N. teams to probe suspicions of nuclear-related work, notably the Parchin military facility outside Tehran.Negotiations between the U.S., Iran, the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Great Britain, France, Russia, and China), and Germany ended Saturday without a wider deal being struck, though negotiations are scheduled to resume Nov. 20."It's an important step forward, but by no means the end of the process," Amano told The Associated Press in Tehran. "There is still much work to be done."Tehran has been eager to reach an agreement to ease international sanctions that have halted most oil exports and crippled the county's economy.Western leaders, meanwhile, were keen to display a unified front after suggestions that France had broken ranks in Geneva and demanded more concessions from Iran on enrichment levels and an under-construction heavy water reactor that produced a greater amount of plutonium byproduct, which could be used in eventual weapons production. Kerry said it was Iran that put the brakes on reaching a first-phase agreement, but gave no details on the Iranian concerns and suggested it was only a matter of time before a formula is found.In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged that an overall deal is likely between Iran and world powers, which would undercut Israeli threats to launch military action against Iranian nuclear sites. Yet he hailed the delay as a chance to "achieve a much better deal."For Netanyahu and his backers, however, hopes have all but evaporated that Iran can be forced by negotiators to completely end its ability to make nuclear fuel. It's now unclear what type of deal would satisfy Israel, which sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence.Kerry said the U.S. has "been meeting constantly" with the Israelis to understand the progress Iran has made in its nuclear program. "We are confident that what we are doing can actually protect Israel more effectively and provide greater security," he said.Kerry said there is no "end game" in motion and the Geneva talks were a first step in longer process of possible give and take.The reported agreement would allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to the Arak heavy water site and Gachin uranium mine.But a key stumbling block has been Iran's insistence that the international community recognize its "right" to enrich uranium as a signer of a U.N. treaty governing the spread of nuclear technology -- also frequently pointing out that Israel has not signed the accord. Kerry's comments challenge the Iranian view, but do not appear to significantly alter the currently Western effort that seeks to curb Iran's ability to make its highest-enrich uranium but possibly leaving intact the country's production of lower-level nuclear fuel.Iran's highest enrichment level, at 20 percent, is still below the more than 90 percent needed for weapons-grade material, but experts say the process could be done at a rapid pace. Iran insists that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and that it has no plans to produce a nuclear weapon.Reuters quoted Amano as saying in a news conference broadcast on state television in Iran, "The practical measures [in the agreement] will be implemented in the next three months, starting from today.''The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Labor Day was never intended as an homage to the organized labor movement. Unions, of course, vehemently disagree, and while the overwhelming majority of people have come to regard the holiday as nothing more meaningful than a three-day weekend commemorating the end of summer, labor leaders continue to delude themselves that the event somehow validates their dubious ideals and shady tactics. This would come as a profound surprise to those instrumental in its founding. For example, Rep. Lawrence McGann, an Illinois Democrat who sat on the House committee that approved the original Labor Day bill on May 15, 1894, had no doubt it was the workers, not the unions that purported to represent them, who were being feted. He wrote: “By making one day in each year a public holiday for the benefit of workingmen, the equality and dignity of labor is emphasized. Nothing is more important to the public weal than that the nobility of labor be maintained. So long as the laboring man can feel that he holds an honorable as well as useful place in the body politic, so long will he be a loyal and faithful citizen.” A cynic might argue the gesture smacks more of political expedience than genuine regard, and indeed, historians speculate President Grover Cleveland was only persuaded to sign the measure in an unsuccessful attempt to curry favor with unions, which enthusiastically supported it. Even so, it’s only fitting the same government that created Labor Day in the first place continues to disqualify unions from taking credit for it now. Simply put, unions may once have played a laudable role in calling attention to appalling work conditions in the mills and factories of America’s industrial age. But over the ensuing decades, they were rendered effectively irrelevant by a combination of their own corruption and the steady encroachment of government regulators gifted the power to ban with the stroke of a pen workplace abuses that once prompted violent strikes. Not surprisingly, few modern workers believe the benefits of union membership are worth the dues charged for them. In 2020, in fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the aggregate number of union members in this country decreased by 321,000 from the previous year. Currently, only 10.8% of the workforce is unionized — a precipitous drop from the 20.1% membership rate unions enjoyed among workers in 1983. But even that number is deceptive. In the private sector, the membership rate has plummeted to 6.3%. Arguably, the only reason unions remain viable at all is because of government employment at the state, county, and local level, where union membership and dues were still mandatory in many states until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such requirements three years ago in Janus v. AFSCME. Currently, 34.8% of the nation’s public workers are still unionized, and the unions argue they remain in the fold because they’re happy. But there’s no reason to believe government employees are any more eager than their private-sector peers to surrender a sizable portion of their salary every year to a powerful special interest that uses it to line the pockets of liberal political candidates and causes on their behalf. More likely, it’s because unions moved aggressively in the wake of Janus and its 2014 predecessor, Harris v. Quinn, to protect labor’s last stronghold. Union leaders have adopted a variety of sketchy strategies since then to make canceling union dues deductions as difficult as possible for dissatisfied members. The list includes: Unilaterally changing their own rules to permit departures only during arbitrary, union-determined annual two-week windows Simply ignoring opt-out requests, forcing workers to fight their own union in court Lying to workers considering opting out about what impact it will have on their benefits (short answer: none) When all else fails, forging workers’ signatures on new dues-authorization forms The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to hear Boardman v. Inslee, which concerns a 2016 Washington state ballot measure authored, sponsored, and financed solely by local unions. Initiative 1501, as it was designated, tricked voters into believing they were cracking down on identity theft when, in reality, the measure exempted about 50,000 union-represented, taxpayer-compensated home-care aides and home-based childcare providers from the information-disclosure requirements to which public employees are normally subject. By denying access to the workers’ contact information, the Service Employees International Union sought to prevent outsiders from informing its members about their newly affirmed rights not to associate with a union. More specifically, I-1501 was a frontal assault on the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit think tank that has developed a comprehensive outreach program designed to educate public employees about their right to abstain from union dues payment. But in order for that to happen, the organization must first know who they are and how to contact them. The initiative is clearly unconstitutional because it denies access to public information based purely on the political views of the requester. But when you’re fighting to preserve a multibillion-dollar monopoly, what’s a little thing like the Constitution? As the court continues to deliberate over whether to hear Boardman and other potential landmark public-sector union cases in the years to come, it’s fair to ask whether the organized labor movement that made them necessary is worthy of a national holiday at all. The nobility of work and those who perform it are certainly deserving of recognition. The unions that have justifiably lost all credibility with those they claim to represent emphatically are not. Jeff Rhodes is vice president of news and information for the Freedom Foundation. | 2 |
A Royal Saudi Air Force cadet who killed three U.S. sailors at a Florida Navy base last year had longtime ties to al Qaeda, top Justice Department officials said Monday, while slamming Apple for providing no help in the investigation. The gunman, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, had extensive contact with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operatives before the attack and before arriving in the U.S., said FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. “The evidence we’ve been able to develop from the killer’s devices shows that the Pensacola attack was actually the brutal culmination of years of planning and preparation by a longtime AQAP associate,” he said. Alshamrani, 21, killed three people and wounded eight others when he opened fire in a classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Dec. 6. A sheriff’s deputy responding to the scene fatally shot Alshamrani about 15 minutes into the attack. Mr. Wray and Attorney General William Barr stopped short of saying the terror group directed Alshamrani, but they said the gunman’s connections to al Qaeda were “significant” and dated to 2015. FBI investigators uncovered Alshamrani’s ties to the terrorist network by recovering data from two of his iPhones. Both Mr. Wray and Mr. Barr had sharp barbs for Apple for refusing to help unlock the device. Mr. Wray said the FBI “received effectively no help from Apple,” adding the delay stalled the probe for months and jeopardized public safety. Mr. Barr called Apple’s refusal to help “a great disappointment.” “Apple has made a business and marketing decision to design its phones in a way that only the user can unlock the contents no matter what the circumstances,” Mr. Barr said. “Apple’s decision has dangerous consequences for public safety and national security and is in my judgment unacceptable.” Apple fired back that it responded within hours to the FBI’s plea for help in December and provided “every piece of information available,” including providing access to iCloud, backups account information and transactional data. The tech giant also said that it offered technical experts to assist in the case. “The false claims made about our company are an excuse to weaken encryption and other security measures that protect millions of users and our national security,” Apple said in a statement. “It is because we take our responsibility to national security so seriously that we do not believe in the creation of a backdoor — one which will make every device vulnerable to bad actors who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers.” Justice Department officials did not offer details about how they were able to break into Alshamrani’s phone. The phone yielded a treasure trove of details for the investigation. It revealed that Alshamrani was “meticulous” in plotting the attack and had been coordinating “planning and tactics” with al Qaeda operatives ahead of the attack, Mr. Wray said. Alshamrani also wrote a “final will purporting to explain himself” that was saved on his phone, Mr. Wray said. “We now have a picture of him we didn’t have before we obtained this evidence,” he said. The Justice Department earlier this year called the naval attack an act of terrorism, motivated by jihadist ideology. The shooting has prompted the Pentagon to take additional “prudent and effective measures” to safeguard its people in the wake of the attack, Defense Department officials said Monday. “The Department of Defense is incredibly grateful for the diligent work by the FBI team investigating this horrific attack that took the lives of three American patriots,” said Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. The Pentagon stopped all international military student training at U.S. bases in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting. A review of vetting and security procedures was later instituted. Foreign military officers who come to the U.S. to train now have limited access to military installations and restrictions on the possession and use of firearms. The Pentagon also established new standards and training for detecting and reporting “insider threats.” Defense Department officials did not disclose the additional security steps that would be implemented following Monday’s announcement. But the Department of Defense said it will not discontinue training assignments for international military officers in the U.S. “Security cooperation directly contributes to U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives,” a Pentagon official said. “We will continue to work closely with them to counter the threats of international terrorism and protect our freedom.” The Saudi Embassy in Washington issued a statement Monday evening stressing the long-term alliance between the two countries. “As Attorney General William P. Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray noted, Saudi Arabia has fully cooperated with U.S. law enforcement on the investigation, and we are continuing to provide full support to our American counterparts,” the statement read. | 2 |
A masked student has his temperature checked before his first day of in-person school since the pandemic began in Los Angeles, Aug. 16. Photo: etienne laurent/Shutterstock The officials in charge of running the nation’s public schools had all summer—and $122 billion in Covid relief funds from Congress—to plan for the first day of school, so naturally chaos has ensued as students begin heading back to the classroom. San Francisco, Miami and Dallas haven’t decided on a quarantine policy or what infection-rate threshold will trigger school closures. In New York City, home to the nation’s largest school system, principals are wondering how every student can return to in-person learning full-time while still adhering to social-distancing requirements. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a vaccine mandate for all school staff, but teachers unions have vowed to challenge its implementation. School in parts of the South started earlier this month, at least temporarily. Burbio, a website that tracks school openings, has already “identified over 100 school closures across 70 districts” because of Covid. Classes haven’t begun yet in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, so those numbers will almost certainly rise as the Delta variant runs its course, but why are school and health officials keeping parents in prolonged suspense about contingencies? Last year, we were new at this game, and the people in charge arguably deserved some slack. Not anymore. The Rand Corp. has released the results of a nationwide parent survey on school hesitancy taken in July. Although Delta was already spreading by then, 89% of parents, including more than 80% of typically more hesitant black and Hispanic respondents, said they would opt for in-person learning for their children this year. Parents apparently understand the health risks, and they’re weighing them against the harm of another year of horribly substandard instruction via Zoom. What these families need is detailed information on the criteria used to determine whether schools stay open. Instead, they’re being kept in the dark by bureaucrats and politicians. And they’re being toyed with by union honchos who don’t mind the uncertainty because it can be used as leverage to negotiate better pay and benefits as a condition of returning to the classroom. Policy makers could also stand to be a little less cocksure about the “science” behind their recommendations. Last week, President Biden instructed the Education Department to “assess all available tools”—including the threat of civil-rights probes—for undermining governors who want to let parents decide whether their children will wear masks at school. For starters, Mr. Biden is butting into affairs best handled by state and local officials who understand the needs of their constituents and can be held accountable for their decisions. Even worse, the president and other supporters of mask mandates for pupils are pretending that the case for them is ironclad. Read More Upward Mobility A New York magazine article last week reported on the findings of a “mostly ignored, large-scale study of COVID transmission in American schools” that was published in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study matter-of-factly called into question the efficacy of face coverings for children in schools. “These findings cast doubt on the impact of many of the most common mitigation measures in American schools,” the magazine reported. “Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective.” The article also noted that many European countries—including Britain, Italy, France, Switzerland and all of Scandinavia—“have exempted kids, with varying age cutoffs, from wearing masks in classrooms,” yet “there’s no evidence of more outbreaks in schools in those countries relative to schools in the U.S., where the solid majority of kids wore masks for an entire academic year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.” The CDC study comports with the findings of Brown University economist Emily Oster and four co-authors, who analyzed student Covid rates in Florida, New York and Massachusetts during the 2020-21 school year with a focus on the effects of student density, ventilation upgrades and masking requirements. “We find higher student COVID-19 rates in schools and districts with lower in-person density but no correlations in staff rates,” they wrote in a paper published earlier this year. “Ventilation upgrades are correlated with lower rates in Florida but not in New York. We do not find any correlations with mask mandates.” If some parents want to be extra careful and have their children wear masks, that ought to be their prerogative. But when empirical studies, along with the experience of so many other Western nations, cast serious doubt on whether a policy is having the intended effect, it’s no wonder so many frustrated Americans are now telling policy makers what they can do with their mandates. Main Street: The CDC should scrap its confusing guidance and make Covid-19 vaccination the only priority. Images: AFP via Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the August 25, 2021, print edition. | 2 |
The nine Supreme Court justices pose for a group photo in Washington, D.C., April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff/Reuters) The Supreme Court is set to hear a major abortion case that will give the justices an opportunity to reconsider the precedent set by the landmark Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions.
The Court on Monday announced in an order that it would take the case involving a Mississippi law passed in 2018 that bans abortions after 15 weeks with limited exceptions. The law was blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as under existing precedent, states may not ban abortions before fetal viability, which is typically around 22 weeks or later.
The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, asks whether all pre-viability restrictions on abortion are unconstitutional.
Mississippi is asking the justices to review the viability standard, arguing that the rule prevents states from defending maternal health and its interest in protecting life. “It is well past time for the Court to revisit the wisdom of the viability bright-line rule,” Mississippi attorney general Lynn Fitch wrote in a brief filed with the justices.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an abortion clinic in Mississippi, asked the court not to take the case.
“In an unbroken line of decisions over the last fifty years, this Court has held that the Constitution guarantees each person the right to decide whether to continue a pre-viability pregnancy,” Hillary Schneller, an attorney for the clinic, wrote in a filing.
Schneller claimed that the state’s argument was “based on a misunderstanding of the core principle of” earlier Supreme Court decisions.
“While the State has interests throughout pregnancy, ‘[b]efore viability, the State’s interests are not strong enough to support a prohibition of abortion,'” she wrote.
It will be the first abortion case to be argued before the Supreme Court since Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed, creating a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.
In a statement on Monday, March for Life president Jeanne Mancini noted that the U.S. is one of only seven countries, including China and North Korea, that allows abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. “An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that this goes way too far, in fact 70 percent think abortion should be limited to — at most — the first three months of pregnancy,” she said. “States should be allowed to craft laws that are in line with both public opinion on this issue as well as basic human compassion, instead of the extreme policy that Roe imposed.”
The court will hear the case in its term beginning in October. It is likely to reach a decision by June of 2022.
Send a tip to the news team at NR. Recommended NBC's 'Cataclysmic' Olympics-Coverage Flop How can anyone feel good about these Olympics? Joe Biden Doesn’t Know What You’re Talking About To watch Biden at the lectern was to experience shock and dismay interspersed with moments of alarm and dark humor. No wonder he hides from the media. Nikole Hannah-Jones Responds to Our 1619 and Slavery Issue She reacted with a lot of sneering and ad hominem argumentation and nothing of substance. Maskless Super Bowl Marks Our Return to Normalcy This collective moment was a warning to the Covid regime that its strictures won’t stand much longer. The Perfect Storm Is Coming Not learning from the stagflationary past may lead to a stagflationary future. The Afghanistan Debacle Looks Worse and Worse The more we learn about the administration’s withdrawal, the more it becomes clear that its decisions were driven by political considerations and panic. The Latest Nikki Haley Blasts American-Born Skier Competing for China at Beijing Olympics 'Every athlete needs to know when they put their flag on, you're standing for freedom or you're standing for human rights abuses,' said Haley. San Francisco Voters Overwhelmingly Back Recall of Progressive School-Board Members More than 70 percent of voters supported the ouster of school board members Alison Collins, Gabriela López, and Faauuga Moliga. How Georgetown Is Stifling Speech on Campus The university is implementing the academic analog of a SLAPP suit against Ilya Shapiro. McKinsey Website Contradicts Denials of Chinese-Government Work; Rubio Claims ‘Cover-Up’ The consultancy once said it did work for China’s central government, undercutting recent statements. Imagine a Trumpdeau. You Can’t If Trump had gone after the 2020 rioters the way Trudeau is targeting truckers, the institutions and the permanent government wouldn’t have complied. Building Back Stagflation Our elected leaders must accept that inflation is a monster of their own making, and stop fanning the flames with ever-higher levels of government spending. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A new poll in the biggest of the general election battleground states shows a tightening race but with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden with a slight edge over President Trump.Two months to the day until Election Day on November 3 Biden stands at 48% and Trump at 45% among likely votes in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released Thursday.BIDEN TOPS TRUMP IN 3 KEY BATTLEGROUNDS IN NEW FOX NEWS POLLSAn average of the latest public opinion polls in Florida compiled by Real Clear Politics indicates Biden with a 3.3 margin over the president. The former vice president’s edge over the Republican incumbent in the White House stood at 6.2 points in the Real Clear Politics average from a month ago, on August 3.With 29 electoral votes, Florida is the biggest of the battleground states that will likely decide who wins the November election. Trump narrowly edged out 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to carry the state four years ago. President Obama also won the state by razor-thin margins in his 2008 and 2012 election victories.Twenty-seven percent of those questioned in the poll said that the economy was the most important issue in their decision on whom to vote for president, with 19% saying law and order, 15% naming the coronavirus pandemic and 13% saying racial inequality.Likely Florida voters give Trump a slight 2-point edge over Biden when it comes to handling the economy, with Biden holding a 5-point edge on combating the coronavirus and a 12-advantage on handling racial inequality.The Quinnipiac poll was conducted Aug. 28-Sept. 1, entirely after Republican National Convention.Quinnipiac University was also in the field the same days in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The new poll indicates Biden topping Trump 52%-44% among likely voters.A Monmouth University survey of likely voters in the Keystone State released on Wednesday showed a tighter race. A model based on a somewhat higher level of turnout than the 2016 election puts the former vice president over Trump 49%-46%. But a model reflecting lower likely voter turnout has the race virtually tied, with Biden at 48% and the president at 47%.Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have been carried by the Democrats in presidential elections for a quarter-century. But Trump narrowly edged out 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in all three states four years ago, helping him win the White House.Biden, who was born and spent his first 10 years in Scranton, Pa., before moving to Delaware, retains strong ties to the Keystone State. He’s held several campaign events in Pennsylvania the past two months, including a speech Monday in Pittsburgh.The president returned to Pennsylvania on Thursday evening, holding a campaign event in Latrobe. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that he is changing Justice Department policy so that "low-level, nonviolent" drug offenders will no longer face mandatory minimum prison sentences.Holder announced the overhaul during a speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco."Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason," Holder said.The attorney general said he's "mandated" that certain low-level offenders "who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels" will not be charged with offenses that impose stiff mandatory minimum sentences. Rather, he said, they will be charged with offenses that carry sentences "better suited to their individual conduct."The announcement drew praise from some in Congress, including one vocal administration critic. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was "encouraged" by the announcement and that minimum sentences for non-violent offenders "do not serve public safety."More On This... Mandatory minimum prison sentences, a product of the government's war on drugs that began in the 1980s, limit the discretion of judges to impose shorter prison sentences.The unanswered question is how each of the 94 U.S. Attorneys offices around the country will implement changes, given the authority of prosecutors to exercise discretion in how they handle their criminal cases.African-Americans and Hispanics likely would benefit the most from a change. African-Americans account for about 30 percent of federal drug convictions each year and Hispanics account for 40 percent, according to Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a non-profit group involved in research and policy reform of the criminal justice system.If state policymakers were to adopt similar policies, the impact of changes at the state level could be even broader, said Mauer. Currently, about 225,000 state prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.Federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity and hold more than 219,000 inmates -- with almost half of them serving time for drug-related crimes and many of them with substance use disorders. In addition, 9 million to 10 million prisoners go through local jails each year.Holder praised state and local law enforcement officials for already instituting some of the types of changes Holder says must be made at the federal level.Aggressive enforcement of federal criminal laws is necessary, but "we cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation," Holder said.Holder said mandatory minimum sentences "breed disrespect for the system."Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Paul, R-Ky., have introduced legislation aimed at giving federal judges more discretion in applying mandatory minimums to certain drug offenders.Holder said new approaches -- which he is calling the "Smart On Crime" initiative -- are the result of a Justice Department review he launched early this year.The attorney general said some issues are best handled at the state or local level and said he has directed federal prosecutors across the country to develop locally tailored guidelines for determining when federal charges should be filed, and when they should not.The attorney general said 17 states have directed money away from prison construction and toward programs and services such as treatment and supervision that are designed to reduce the problem of repeat offenders.In Kentucky, legislation has reserved prison beds for the most serious offenders and refocused resources on community supervision. The state, Holder said, is projected to reduce its prison population by more than 3,000 over the next 10 years, saving more than $400 million.He also cited investments in drug treatment in Texas for non-violent offenders and changes to parole policies which he said brought about a reduction in the prison population of more than 5,000 inmates last year. He said similar efforts helped Arkansas reduce its prison population by more than 1,400. He also pointed to Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Hawaii as states that have improved public safety while preserving limited resources.Holder also said the department is expanding a policy for considering compassionate release for inmates facing extraordinary or compelling circumstances, and who pose no threat to the public. He said the expansion will include elderly inmates who did not commit violent crimes and who have served significant portions of their sentences.The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
President Trump held a press conference with UK Prime Minister Theresa May Friday morning from Chequers Court and didn't leave the lectern before a confrontation with CNN's Jim Acosta. During the questioning period with reporters, Acosta shouted at President Trump after he took a dig at the network and asked if he could get a question. "Mr. President since you attacked CNN can I ask you a question? Since you attacked CNN?" Acosta asked."No. No. John Roberts go ahead. CNN is fake news. I don't take questions from CNN," Trump said. "CNN is fake news, I don't take questions from CNN. John Roberts from Fox, lets go to a real network." Acosta responded by saying CNN is a real network too.President @realDonaldTrump: "@CNN is fake news. I don't take questions from CNN." pic.twitter.com/HMT09CmLXz— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 13, 2018During his opening remarks, President Trump stressed that the relationship with the UK is better than ever and backed Prime Minister May's handling of Brexit."The relationship between our two nations is indispensable to our cause of liberty, justice, and peace," Trump said."The relationship between our two nations is indispensable to our cause of liberty, justice, and peace."WATCH: @POTUS's full opening remarks in joint news conference with British PM Theresa May. pic.twitter.com/EfUaIHnSMC— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 13, 2018After the press conference, President Trump traveled to Windsor Castle and met with Queen Elizabeth II.
The President's trip to the UK comes after the annual NATO meeting in Brussels, where he demanded allies pay their fair share of the defense burden. | 2 |
U.S. Government
Surprisingly, in the year of Obamacare, NSA snooping, and skyrocketing federal debt, Americans express little confidence in government and consider it largely incapable of addressing the problems and issues facing the country. OK, that's not surprising at all—actually, it's a predictable result of polling in a year when goverment officials seem to have set out to demonstrate just how untrustworthy and incompetent they can be when given half a chance. Other recent polls have found that Americans consider government to be both burdensome and dangerous, so these latest AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research numbers continue a trend in disillusioned, yet realistic, assessments of the coercive institutions of the state.
According to The People's Agenda: America's Priorities and Outlook for 2014, 70 percent of respondents have little or no confidence "in the ability of the FEDERAL government to make progress on the important problems and issues facing the country." Fifty-three percent express similarly low esteem in the abilities of state governments, though local government inspires moderate confidence.
What those important issues are ranges far and wide, though Obamacare, unemployment, the economy, and government spending all raise concern. So do immigration and education, though at lesser levels. But, when asked, issue by issue, about government's competence to get things right, Americans give an almost unbroken string of thumbs-down.
Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of those polled say the democratic system in this country needs changes.
What kind of changes? With all of that skepticism toward government ability to "fix" things, it's no surprise that people express a taste—although slight—for less government in their lives. Interestingly, poll respondents also have a preference for "strong government" over the free market. Quite possibly, given the skepticism toward government expressed throughout the poll, this split decision represents the difference between what many Americans wish they could have (if government wasn't an incompetent mess run by creeps and dipshits) and the reality of what they're getting.
AP-NORC
Last month, a record 72 percent of respondents (and rising) to a Gallup poll said big government would be the biggest threat to the country in the future. A majority (54 percent) of Americans polled by Reason-Rupe say government is generally burdensome and impedes them more than it helps them.
Whatever Americans might want of the state in an ideal world, they're not impressed by what it can actually deliver. Actually, they're horrified. | 2 |
President Trump exudes complete confidence that his threat to charge tariffs of 20 percent or more on automotive imports will pay off handsomely for the American economy generally, and carmakers in particular. But the industry and its suppliers have nothing but doubt and communities where their plants are located, many of which supported the president's 2016 campaign, share those fears. The industry has sent dozens of submissions to the Commerce Department to air concerns, which is part of the investigation required by law before the duties can be imposed. The proposed automotive tariffs, threatened on national security grounds through Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, "will harm a thriving sector of both Alabama's economy and the nation's as a whole," said William J. Canary, president of the Alabama Business Council, which represents employers in a state where Trump captured 62 percent of the vote. Carmakers from General Motors, the American icon behind the Chevrolet Camaro and the Cadillac Escalade, to foreign manufacturers like BMW, Honda and Volvo that build autos in the U.S. warn that the duties will push up their supply costs, curb American exports and, ultimately, cost well-paying jobs that the president has promised to increase. "Import tariffs could lead to a smaller GM, a reduced presence at home and abroad," and risk less — not more — manufacturing positions, said the Detroit-based carmaker, which has a U.S. payroll of 110,000. The potential risk from the duties grows , the company said, when combined with Trump's widening trade disputes with China as well as with traditional U.S. partners like Europe, Canada and Mexico. The White House has demurred, with Trump saying "people who happen to be smart" have no uncertainty about the positive effects of his stance. "We're very close to making some very good trade deals, fair trade deals," the president said last week in a meeting with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, arguing that Europe was eager to negotiate. "We're just thinking about those cars that pour in here." Should the threats and counter-threats instead spur an all-out trade war; however, economists say the benefits of last year's GOP-led tax cuts may be lost and the world might topple into recession. Across the U.S. auto industry, a 25 percent tariff would trim output by 1.5 percent and cost 195,000 U.S. workers their jobs over a period of one to three years, according to figures cited by the Auto Alliance, a trade group for companies behind 70 percent of U.S. auto sales. Buyers of imported cars would pay an average of $5,800 more, costing American consumers about $45 billion, based on 2017 sales data. "If imports of automobiles and auto parts are subjected to tariff increases or other restrictions or adjustments, U.S. consumers and the American economy as a whole will pay a heavy price," noted Katherine Yehl, vice president of government affairs in the Americas for Volvo, which recently opened its first U.S. manufacturing plant. The $1.1 billion project by the Gothenburg, Sweden-based company was the first brand new automobile factory in the U.S. in almost a decade, Volvo said. Spanning 2.3 million square feet and capable of building up to 150,000 cars a year, the plant will begin commercial production in August and employ about 1,500 workers by the end of 2018, the company said. Volvo, which expects to expand that workforce to 4,000 over the long term, pointed out that its ability to do so depends on using a global production system that enables shipment of parts and finished vehicles without “burdensome” tariffs. “The U.S. benefits from open markets, and half of what we build in South Carolina will be exported,” Yehl wrote. “Thus, half of the 4,000 direct jobs at the factory that we aim to create are related to exports and if we cannot trade freely, those U.S. jobs may not be created at all." BMW, like many of the automakers and trade groups weighing in on the proposed tariffs, noted that car production has no “apparent correlation” with U.S. national security. “It appears that the purpose of threatening to impose these duties is to achieve certain economic objectives, under the theory that enhancing U.S. economic competitiveness will enhance U.S. national security,” Lisa Errion Saums, BMW Group’s vice president for government and external affairs for the Americas, wrote to Ross. “The problem with this line of reasoning is that imposing duties is not conducive to increasing U.S. growth and enhancing competitiveness.” Further, she said, BMW isn't a national-security risk. The company has worked with the U.S. on a variety of security-related matters, including supplying electric vehicles to the Los Angeles Police Department and developing a workshop and training program for military technicians at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base in southern California. As for the Trump administration’s goal of reducing European Union tariffs, she said, BMW has long supported removing it. The company pays duties on more than 100,000 cars produced at its South Carolina plant and shipped to Europe each year. “Removing both U.S. and EU automotive duties entirely is in the best interest of German auto manufacturers, as it would save them an estimated 1 billion euros a year,” she wrote. “We expect that if the U.S. sets its sights on removing that barrier to trade, it might very well be able to negotiate for such an outcome in a free trade agreement for industrial goods without having to threaten such significant harm to the global automotive industry,” Saums added. The effects of the tariffs would stretch far beyond the auto industry itself, however. The sector represents a large market for U.S. chemical companies, which would also be hurt, according to the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. One-fifth of an automobile's weight comes from chemicals, including plastics, coatings and fluids, worth a combined $3,013. "We don't think imports of automobiles and auto parts are a threat to national security," said Ed Brzytwa, the group's director of international trade and a former policy adviser to the U.S. Trade Representative on Asia Pacific issues. If the administration is simply using that as a tactic to level the economic playing field, it's not likely to work, he added. "Creating barriers to trade is not going to address barriers to trade; as a former negotiator, I can tell you that that is just shooting yourself in the foot," Brzytwa said. "The best way to resolve these issues is through negotiation, not through blackmail or extortion or trying to change the global supply-chain world in which we live." The potential damage from Trump's tariffs isn't limited to global corporations; carmakers and business leaders warn that it will be evident at very local levels, too. The proposed duties could “greatly harm Alabama’s auto-manufacturing sector and threaten the tremendously positive impact that automotive manufacturers and suppliers have had," according to the Business Council of Alabama, a state that's home to a Mercedes plant. The council, whose members employ nearly 1 million Alabama residents, cited the 40,000 auto workers there as well as the $9.5 billion in cars and parts shipped from the state in 2017. The numbers will only grow with a Toyota-Mazda project slated to employ 4,000 people, said Canary, the council's president, but “that all could be put at risk” through what he called “unnecessary interference” by the federal government. Adding trade duties to automobiles and their components would also increase prices for consumers, leading to a slowdown in vehicle sales in the U.S. as car owners keep their current vehicles longer, warned the Chamber of Commerce in Chattanooga, Tenn. The city is home to a Volkswagen plant while Tennessee, where Trump carried 61 percent of the 2016 vote, also boasts two Nissan factories. “It makes sense to keep American-made automobiles affordable," the Chattanooga chamber said, "by leaving the tariff rates that currently apply to imported automobile parts at current levels." | 2 |
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has been fired from the National Security Council and escorted out of the White House. “Today, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman was escorted out of the White House where he has dutifully served his country and his President. He does so having spoken publicly once, and only pursuant to a subpoena from the United States Congress," Vindman's attorney released in a statement.Vindman's ousting comes as part of a restructuring of the NSC, which has been in the works for months. Last year Vindman testified on behalf of Democrats during the impeachment inquiry in the House. He complained that President Trump did not use his prepared talking points for his now famous July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.Further, under questioning from Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, Vindman appeared to admit he leaked information and violated the chain of command. He refused to answer questions about contact with the intelligence community and the whistleblower who prompted an impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Rumbling of Vindman's firing started Thursday night and into Friday morning when President Trump retweeted the following:I’d fire him. I listened to his testimony in the SCIF. He’s a leaker, not a whistleblower. Vindman was upset that @realDonaldTrump didn’t follow the script Vindman prepared for the phone call. Current Commander in Chief doesn’t take orders from a Lt. Col.!https://t.co/a9KYrfiVFN— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 7, 2020Others believe more is deserved:
Vindman doesn't just deserve to be fired. He deserves to be court-martialed for insubordination and leaking for the sole purpose of overthrowing the Commander-in-Chief. https://t.co/lv3T0fx5UF— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 7, 2020 | 2 |
The White House and congressional Democrats are trying to limit the fallout from the politically damaging conclusion in a Congressional Budget Office report that the Obamacare entitlement creates a major incentive for some people not to work. While some critics focused on a finding by the CBO that Obamacare will result in 2.5 million fewer workers over a decade, conservatives said the bigger fundamental issue highlighted in the report is one familiar to the welfare state — that taxpayer-funded government subsidies provide disincentives for full-time work. “People used to be stuck in jobs because they needed the health insurance,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a practicing physician and a specialist on health care policy at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. “Now they’re going to be prevented from taking jobs because they need the subsidies.” The CBO forecast continued to reverberate across Capitol Hill on multiple issues. The nonpartisan budget agency’s prediction that the U.S. jobless rate likely will stay above 6 percent through 2016 was revealed as Senate Democrats were preparing a push for another extension of benefits to the long-term unemployed, raising the prospect that the government will face much higher benefit costs over the coming years. The Senate is expected to stage a test vote Thursday on extending the long-term jobless benefits. Reviving the argument over the perils of an entitlement program in Obamacare is the last thing Democrats want in this election year, when they were already contending with the public’s anger over Obamacare’s botched rollout and reports of canceled insurance policies. President Obama, who has been huddling with congressional Democrats about election strategy this week, encountered fresh concern during a meeting at the White House with lawmakers Tuesday when Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire Democrat, told the president that he should fire someone over the mistakes. Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska and some other Democrats don’t want Mr. Obama to appear with them on the campaign trail. Mr. Begich said after the president’s State of the Union address, “I don’t need him campaigning for me — I need him to change some of his policies.” Asked whether many Democratic incumbents are avoiding the president, White House press secretary Jay Carney replied Wednesday, “The president is assisting Democrats in ways that they ask him to and, obviously, ways that he can as president.” Senate Democrats met with Mr. Obama on Wednesday at Nationals Park as part of their annual issues retreat and also got a pep talk from former President Bill Clinton. The president has often relied on Mr. Clinton, who remains popular in states where Mr. Obama is a political liability, to explain the benefits of Obamacare to audiences in easy-to-understand terms. As Democrats gear up for the November elections, the public’s unhappiness with the health care law remains high. A Gallup survey released this week found that 51 percent of Americans disapprove of the law and 41 percent approve of it. Most Americans in the Gallup poll said they believe the law has had no effect (64 percent) or a harmful effect (19 percent) on their families. Only 24 percent of those polled said they believe that in the long run, the law will improve their families’ health care situations. The CBO report noted that the health care law’s insurance subsidies are gradually taken away as income rises, “creating an implicit tax on additional earnings.” Dr. Gottlieb said that means some middle-class and lower-income people will decide that the government subsidies are more attractive than working more and paying higher taxes. “They’re going to lose more in subsidies than it’s worth what they’re making in income,” he said. “So it remakes the whole wage-labor relationship, and that’s what I think CBO is starting to recognize. We’ve never subsidized the middle class like this. This is going to have a much different effect on the labor force than anything we’ve ever done.” Mr. Carney argued Wednesday that the law is providing consumers with more choices, not a disincentive to work. “The [Affordable Care Act] is benefiting our economy; it’s providing access to health insurance to millions of people who didn’t have it, and is giving families across the country and individuals across the country the freedom and choice and opportunity that they lacked before it passed,” Mr. Carney said. But partisans on both sides increasingly are looking at the potential for a battle in the midterm elections over the growth of entitlements. “The headline is awful [for Democrats],” Dr. Gottlieb said. “And I think the spin from the White House that they’re giving people more discretion back is a very hard argument to make.” | 2 |
Fireworks go off in the background as NYPD officers investigate a crime scene. Seth Gottfried The nation’s 4th of July weekend was marred by the wrong kind of fireworks.
A spate of shootings throughout the US left more than 150 people wounded and nearly two-dozen dead so far this weekend, including 67 gunshot victims in Chicago over a blood-splattered weekend, according to reports.
Police said 13 people were killed in separate shootings in the Second City, including a 7-year-old girl who was at a Fourth of July party in the city’s Austin neighborhood and a 14-year-old boy, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday.
“Tonight, a 7-year-old girl in Austin joined a list of teenagers and children whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Twitter.
“As families gather to commemorate the founding of our nation, we must ask ourselves: Is this who we are as a city or a county? We cannot grow numb like this,” Lightfoot wrote. “We are making progress in slowing shootings, but we have to do better, every single one of us.”
Chicago’s gun tally topped the Big Apple, where police said nearly 30 people were shot and two were killed over the holiday.
But other cities throughout the nation, both big and small, saw a spike in gun violence over the weekend, including Atlanta, where authorities said 14 people were wounded — two critically — on Saturday and early Sunday, WSB-TV reported.
Seven people were shot and one stabbed in Cleveland, WOIO-TV reported, while two people were killed and six wounded in three separate shootings in Baton Rouge, according to a report in The Advocate.
Not even smaller cities were spared. Police in Omaha, Nebraska, reported eight people wounded in six separate shootings, KPTM-TV said, and Memphis, Tennessee, saw at least seven shootings over a 24-hour period, WREG-TV reported.
In one of the weekend’s bloodiest single incidents, eight people were wounded and two killed at a Greenville, South Carolina, nightclub during a rap concert early Sunday morning.
“I don’t know if we have multiple shooters at this time, or one that initiated it and one that may have shot back, we’re not sure,” Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said. “There are a lot of shell casings inside.”
With Post Wires | 2 |
The Supreme Court has definitively declined to involve federal courts in the Game of Thrones that is redistricting, ruling that conflicts over partisan gerrymandering are best left to politicians and the electoral process.The two cases resolved Thursday surely presented the strongest imaginable temptation to impose the judicial will on the wheel of politics: North Carolina Democrats and Maryland Republicans alleged that redistricting plans not only discriminated against them based on their political views, they also handicapped their First Amendment associational freedoms.But not for nothing had the high court declined for decades to validate this theory. Various justices long ago identified the fundamental flaw in every partisan gerrymandering claim. Namely: Under whatever formulation, it always reduces to the “group right” of some political party or faction to control a proportional number of seats.That group right has never been recognized by the court because it is foreign to our Constitution. How is one to define each political association that deserves a proportion of seats, and how are we to assign each voter to one of those groups?So here, the court was curious to learn whether these problems had finally been solved. Had the latest set of plaintiffs solved the doctrinal problems? And would better math help give form to a justiciable cause of action?OUR VIEW:Supreme Court blows it on gerrymandering. What an incumbent racket.Alas, the majority found, there is nothing new under the sun. The individual right the plaintiffs claimed — to be “free” of partisan gerrymandering — turned out to be the same thing as the long-discredited group right to proportional representation.Now we know: Federal courts will not adjudicate claims for partisan gerrymandering. Thursday’s decision keeps redistricting judgments with the political branches, and for that reason, it’s a victory for the Constitution.Eddie Greim and Lucinda Luetkemeyer, partners at Graves Garrett LLC, represented the National Republican Redistricting Trust in one of the redistricting cases.If you can't see this reader poll, please refresh your page. | 2 |
Iranian media is laughing in our face over their successful capture of 10 American sailors this week and subsequent propaganda video. These are just a few snippets of Iranian news outlets celebrating the affair: Iranian media celebrates Iran humiliating US on sailor abduction via @followFDD pic.twitter.com/RIuvvomBVN— Omri Ceren (@cerenomri) January 15, 2016
Yet, White House Press Secretary John Earnest indicated on Friday that the incident will not be taken into account as the administration decides when to lift Iranian sanctions under the terms of the nuclear agreement. GOP presidential candidates like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) would argue this embarrassing spectacle should be taken into account. If he was president, he insisted that no American would be forced to drop to their knees in front of an enemy. The fact that President Obama didn’t even address the controversy at the State of the Union was bad enough, but to not even consider it in deciding when we are going to lift sanctions against Iran is downright foolish and dangerous.The best we can do, apparently, to show Iran we mean business, is send a thank you note. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A defiant President Trump rallied with his base for more than an hour Tuesday in Arizona, trashing the media over its coverage of his response to the recent violence in Charlottesville, Va., while criticizing the state’s Republican senators for not getting behind him.The president also signaled during the Phoenix rally that he could soon pardon Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff in Maricopa County famous for his tough stance against illegal immigration.But Trump was most animated when defending himself against accusations he wasn’t forceful enough in condemning the white supremacists and racists who were protesting in Charlottesville earlier this month. He blamed the media for distorting his comments.At one point, the president pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket and re-read his initial statements condemning the racists involved the protests.“Did they report that I said that racism is evil?” Trump asked of the media. The crowd yelled, “No!”“You know why?” Trump asked. “Because they are very dishonest people.”A 32-year-old counter-protester was killed in Charlottesville after police said a Nazi sympathizer rammed his car into a crowd. After the violence, the president faced criticism for blaming “both sides” for the unrest instead of just white nationalists.As Trump continued to rail against the media’s coverage of him, the crowd began chanting: “CNN sucks!”“These are sick people," Trump said of the media. "You know the thing I don’t understand? You would think … they’d want to make our country great again. And I honestly believe they don’t.”The events in Charlottesville cast a shadow over the rally, with Phoenix’s Democratic mayor, Greg Stanton, asking Trump last week to delay his rally in wake of the violence.The Charlottesville violence led cities across the country to consider removing Confederate statues, something Trump railed against Tuesday.“They’re trying to take away our culture, they’re trying to take away our history,” he said.A crowd of protesters formed outside the convention center Tuesday, but the president bragged that there were far more Trump supporters in attendance.“All week, they’re talking about the massive crowds that are going to be outside,” Trump said. “Where are they?”He then mocked liberal protesters who had been demonstrating.“You know, they show up in the helmets and the black masks and they’ve got clubs and they’ve got everything,” Trump said.Referring to the far-left militant protest group, Trump exclaimed: “Antifa!”Leading up to the rally, it was believed Trump could announce a pardon at the rally for Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff convicted of a misdemeanor charge for not obeying a 2011 order from a judge to stop his anti-immigrant traffic patrols. Earlier Tuesday, the White House said the president would not be announcing a pardon at the rally.But Trump suggested a pardon – which would be his first as president – could be forthcoming.“I’ll make a prediction. I think he’s going to be just fine,” Trump said. “But I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy. Is that OK?”Without specifically naming them, Trump dinged the state’s two Republican senators, Jeff Flake and John McCain, with whom he has sparred recently.McCain, a frequent Trump critic who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, irked the president by voting against the Senate’s recent plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.“One vote away – I will not mention any names,” Trump said of McCain.Flake, who has battled with Trump on immigration, has been promoting a book that argues the GOP is in “denial” about the president.Speaking of Flake, Trump said: “And nobody wants me to talk about your other senator, who's weak on borders, weak on crime. So I won’t talk about him.”During his speech, Trump vowed to follow through on his promise to crack down on illegal immigration. He also said he isn’t giving up on repealing ObamaCare and expressed optimism about reforming the country’s tax codes.Speaking of the failed attempt to pass health care reform legislation, Trump said: “It would’ve been great health care for Arizona. It would have been great.”Tuesday's rally came a day after Trump announced plans to send more troops to Afghanistan – an announcement he highlighted during his speech. “Did anybody watch last night?"“Last night, as you know, I laid out my vision for an honorable and enduring outcome in a very tough place, a place where our country has failed, Afghanistan,” Trump said.The president also addressed the recent escalation of rhetoric with North Korea. Trump referenced the country’s leader and said he believes Kim Jong Un is “starting to respect us.” Trump expressed hope that “maybe something positive can come about.”High-ranking administration officials and other recognizable conservatives warmed up the crowd before the president spoke, including Vice President Mike Pence and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.Several of them painted a picture of a divided country."Our lives are too short to let our differences divide us," Carson said. "Our differences are nothing compared to our shared humanity and the values that unite us."Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., and evangelist Franklin Graham both delivered prayers before Trump’s speech."We come tonight as a troubled nation,” Graham said. “We're broken spiritually, we're divided politically, we're divided racially." | 2 |
Donald TrumpDonald TrumpBlack voters are fleeing Biden in droves. Here's why Biden's Super Bowl prediction: 'Loves' Bengals' quarterback, but Rams 'hard to beat' GOP Senate candidate to run 'Let's go Brandon' ad during Super Bowl MORE has been insisting for years that our country has been too economically dependent on China, so it is sad that it took a global public health crisis to prove he was right all this time. When he began imposing strategic tariffs on China in response to its long history of abusive trade practices, the liberals all of a sudden became free trade fundamentalists, predicting that this new “trade war” would harm the American economy because we have relied so heavily on cheap Chinese imports for so many years. Instead, it was the Chinese economy that took a hard hit, while our economy at home surged to its strongest performance in half a century.What happened? The answer is simple. Just as manufacturers had once moved their factories to China to take advantage of cheap labor, weak regulations, and lower tariffs on exports to developed economies, these companies are now fleeing China for other countries that offer similar business advantages without all of the political baggage from Beijing.The coronavirus outbreak around the world could dramatically accelerate the manufacturing exodus from China, as companies begin to recognize the perils of giving the authoritarian country so much power over their supply chains. After Beijing placed hundreds of millions of its citizens under an oppressive quarantine, effectively shutting down most of its economy for weeks, the need to diversify production locations should have become abundantly clear to business leaders around the world.Businesses that followed the lead of the president, however, were already ahead of the curve. The executives understood those artificial advantages that China always utilized to prop up its economy were going to disappear under the pressure of his tariffs, and the steps they took in anticipation of that, such as relocating production to other countries, ultimately reduced their exposure to the coronavirus crisis and its damaging consequences.The reason for disengaging from China in the first place was to protect American workers and businesses. While the coronavirus could not have been predicted, there is always a significant risk from overdependence on any single country, especially an authoritarian one that will routinely break the rules in its quest to get ahead. The coronavirus merely happened to be the crisis that demonstrated once and for all why the “free trade” status quo that was rooted in past decades was so dangerous to our country.Incidentally, the coronavirus also validates the border security agenda of the president. Closing the country off to travelers from areas affected by the outbreak is one of the most effective steps that we can take to limit its spread within our country, and Trump wasted no time in implementing that safeguard. He was roundly criticized by the left, which was primarily concerned about the possibility that restricting travel from China could promote bias against Asians, but at this point pretty much everyone can agree on the importance of knowing whether people entering the United States from overseas might pose a security threat to American citizens.That sounds an awful lot like the argument that Trump makes about the need to secure our borders against rampant illegal immigration. We need to know who is coming into our country so we can keep dangerous people out of our communities. The president of course had no idea or advance knowledge of the coronavirus. Trump just has a well crafted policy agenda that is equally well suited to protecting our country from the coronavirus as it is to creating a strong and growing economy that generates lasting and broad prosperity that reaches all American individuals and families.Madison Gesiotto is an attorney who serves with the advisory board of the Donald Trump campaign. You can follow her on Twitter @MadisonGesiotto. | 2 |
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act Tuesday, clearing Congress with bipartisan support.The bill, which was introduced by New York Democratic Rep. Grace Meng and Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, passed 364 to 62, above the two-thirds majority required. It passed the Senate 92-6 in April, and now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. The bill directs the Department of Justice to accelerate its reviews of reported COVID-related hate crimes, and improves the ways to report them to local governments online. It also includes state and local grants to help improve hate crime reporting, a bipartisan provision that was added by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran. “The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is a necessary step to confront the second pandemic of racism and discrimination,” Meng said on the House floor Tuesday before the vote. “We cannot mend what we do not measure.” (RELATED: ‘We Are Literally Fearing For Our Lives’: Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans Increase) Rep. Andy Kim, Sen. Mazie Hirono, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Grace Meng hold a press conference on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act on April 13. (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images) The bill’s passage through Congress follows a rise in violence against Asian Americans nationwide. Multiple violent attacks have been reported in recent weeks alone, and in March a shooter killed eight people in an Atlanta massage parlor, six of whom were Asian women. One May study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found that hate crimes against Asian Americans increased 150% in 2020 in America’s 16 largest cities. Despite the wide support, some GOP members criticized the bill for its lack of input from House Republicans. “Despite my history of work on this and my personal experience, no one in the majority sought out my partnership or input on the anti-Asian hate bills before us today,” said California Republican Rep. Michelle Steel on the floor. Though the bill originally lacked widespread Republican support, it was ultimately endorsed by multiple GOP figures, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “As the husband of a proud Asian American woman, I think this discrimination against Asian Americans is a real problem,” he said ahead of the Senate vote last month. “And it preceded the murders that are on full display.” Biden has repeatedly expressed his support for the legislation, and plans to sign it into law. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing crisis of gender-based and anti-Asian violence that has long plagued our nation,” Biden said in a March statement. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | 2 |
President Donald Trump declared on July 4 that the America he’s working for “wants unity” and that “no matter our race, color, religion, or creed, we are one America, and we put America first.”
The president was speaking from the White House South Lawn following a performance from a military band, flyovers by B-52 bombers and F-35 fighter jets, and parachute jumps.
Trump started by thanking the scientists and researchers “around the country and even around the world” for their courageous efforts in battling the virus, and welcomed those who were attending the event.
“These are great and brilliant people. And brave people,” he said. U.S. Army parachuters carrying a U.S. National flag descend on the Ellipse during the 2020 “Salute to America” event in honor of Independence Day on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
As “the land of the free” continued with celebrating its 244th birthday, the president again emphasized his vision for unity, echoing his earlier speech at Mount Rushmore on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend celebrations during which he talked to the great spirit of the Declaration of Independence, which he said enshrines that “all men are created equal.” He also said his administration was bringing Americans together in the face of a “left-wing cultural revolution” designed to “overthrow the American revolution.”
On July 4, Trump revisited similar themes in his “Salute to America” speech.
“Our movement is based on lifting all citizens to reach their fullest God-given potential,” he said.
“Never forget, we are one family and one nation. This rich heritage belongs to every citizen, young and old, first generation American. We want to go from first generation to 10th generation. It matters not. We are American. We are from the USA. This great heritage belongs to citizens of every background and of every walk of life.”
Trump again referenced the counter-culture narrative from people he says “foment hate, discord, and distrust” and want to demolish America.
“In every age, there have always been those who seek to lie about the past in order to gain power in the present,” he said, after referring to the radical left, Marxists, anarchists, agitators, looters, and people who “have absolutely no clue what they are doing” earlier in his speech.
“Those that are lying about our history, those who want us to be ashamed of who we are are not interested in justice or in healing. Their goal is demolition.”
Trump said that under his administration, “Our goal is not to destroy the greatest structure on earth, what we have built, the United States of America.” He added that his administration wants to work together with the people to defend America and “build a future where every family is safe, where every child is surrounded by love, where every community has equal opportunity, and every citizen enjoys great and everlasting dignity.” U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump host the 2020 “Salute to America” event in honor of Independence Day on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Addressing the riots and wave of statue destruction sweeping the nation, the president said, “Our past is not a burden to be cast away.”
He went on to say: “Let me also say a word to those in the media who falsely and consistently label their opponents as racists, who condemn patriotic citizens who offer a clear and truthful defense of American unity.
“We want a clear and faithful defense of American history, and we want unity. When you level these false charges, you not only slander me, you not only slander the American people, but you slander generations of heroes who gave their lives for America. You slander people much braver and more principled than you.
“You’re slandering the young men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima and those who perished fighting for freedom in the Civil War. You slander them. You are dishonoring their great legacy and their memory by insisting that they fought for racism and they fought for oppression.
“They didn’t fight for those things. They fought for the exact opposite. We will not let the legacy of these heroes be tarnished by you. The more you lie, the more you slander, the more you try to demean and divide, the more we will work hard to tell the truth, and we will win.
“We want to bring the country together, and a free and open media will make this task a very easy one. Our country will be united after all.
“Two hundred and forty-four years ago in Philadelphia, the 56 signers of our Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to boldly proclaim this eternal truth that we are all made equal by God.
“Thanks to the courage of those patriots on July 4, 1776, the American Republic stands today as the greatest, most exceptional, and most virtuous nation in the history of the world. Our workers, our factories have revolutionized industries and lifted millions into prosperity. Our artists, architects, and engineers have inspired the globe with transcendent works of beauty.
“American heroes defeated the Nazis, dethroned the fascists, toppled the communists, saved American values, upheld American principles, and chased down the terrorists to the very ends of the earth.
“The Patriots who built our country were not villains, they were heroes whose courageous deeds improved the earth beyond measure. The beauty and the glory of our constitutional system is that it gives us the tools to fight injustice, to heal division, and to continue the work of our founding fathers by expanding and growing the blessings of America.
“If you believe in justice, if you believe in freedom, if you believe in peace, then you must cherish the principles of our founding and the text of our constitution. It’s our founding and our constitution. It is a firm foundation upon which all progress is achieved. That’s why our country is so strong, even despite terrible things that happen over the generations.”
Following Trump’s comments about his vision for a united America, numerous legacy media reports focused on what they called “divisive messaging” and the president’s “attacks” on far-left political ideology, without mentioning Trump’s focus on the story of American progress.
A massive fireworks display was held at night, lighting up the National Mall in honor of the nation’s birthday. Follow Melanie is an Australian-based reporter and editor covering world news. She has a background in environmental research. | 2 |
On the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, we will hear a good deal about how life in this country for black Americans has not changed as much as Martin Luther King Jr. might have wished. We will hear little to nothing about the role that certain strains of black progressive ideology have played in delaying the realization of King's dream. "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro, " King announced from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963. He was right, and America knew it. The following year, segregation was outlawed with the Civil Rights Act. The year after, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. It is easy to forget what an awesome moral landmark it was for an oppressed group to force the larger society to outlaw barriers to its success. But the victory of the 1964 and 1965 laws had an even greater impact than prohibiting segregation and racial discrimination in voter registration: It changed the culture. Personal racist sentiment rapidly became socially proscribed. The Norman Lear sitcoms of the early 1970s, in which bigoted whites were regularly held up to ridicule, would have been unthinkable just 10 years before. But "the struggle," as civil-rights veterans term the fight against racial discrimination, was hardly over. Practices and attitudes change slowly. As a black man, I can attest that as late as 1986 I was transparently denied a summer job at a restaurant in New Jersey simply because of my skin color. Heading for the Lincoln Memorial, Aug. 28, 1963. © Flip Schulke/CORBIS However, in the decades since the March on Washington, black America has been taken on a detour by too many self-described progressive black thinkers and leaders, whose quixotic psycho-social experiment they disguise as a continuation of the civil-rights movement. With segregation illegal and public racism considered a moral outrage, we black Americans are now told that we will not truly overcome until Americans don't even harbor private racist sentiment, until race plays not even a subtle role in America's social fabric. In other words, our current battle is no longer against segregation or bigotry but "racism" of the kind that can be revealed only by psychological experiments and statistical studies. This battle is as futile as seeking a world without germs. "We have come to the nation's capital to cash a check," King said. But the preacher was talking about being freed from "the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination"—not asking whether Americans are aware of skin color or are more likely to associate black faces with negative words in an experiment. Along these lines, the term "institutional racism," which the Black Power movement injected into the lexicon in the late 1960s, is more damaging to the black psyche than the n-word or any crude jokes about plantations or food stamps. The term encourages blacks to think of society—in which inequality, while real, is complex and faceless—as actively and reprehensibly racist in the same way that Archie Bunker was. The result is visceral bitterness toward something that can't feel or think. Equally distracting is the notion that America needs a "conversation" about race, one in which whites submit to a lesson from blacks about so-called institutional racism. "Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening," King told us in his speech. What we awaken to now is the rudeness of idle talk, of those who blow off steam by demanding a "conversation" that will not bear fruit—look no further than President Clinton's national effort on that front in the late 1990s—and in any case wouldn't provide greater opportunity to any poor person. The "conversation" idea is fundamentally passive because it assumes that what black people need most is for white people to think better of them and more about them. So why does it command such allegiance among blacks? Because it channels the idea that our most urgent task is to speak truth to power, rather than to help black people who need it. Too many suppose that the two tasks are still the same as they were in 1963, when the reality is now quite different. The "conversation" illusion is also why black America is more disturbed by whites killing blacks than by blacks killing blacks. Commentators who claim that black leaders ignore black-on-black crime miss the fact that black communities have long organized Stop the Violence forums to get citizens involved in stopping crime in their neighborhoods. Yet many black people are indeed angrier at one George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin than at the thousands of black boys who murder one another year after year. This is because we have been taught that our main task is uncovering racism rather than concretely addressing the things that make life hardest for the most blacks. Today's struggle should focus on three priorities. First, the war on drugs, a policy that unnecessarily tears apart black families and neighborhoods. Second, community colleges and vocational education, which are invaluable in helping black Americans get ahead. And third, the AIDS and obesity epidemics, which are ravaging black communities. The only reason why ideas like "institutional racism" and "a conversation about race" seem more compelling is because they are more morally dramatic. Drama is not what will make a difference in black lives. "We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream," King said. But if justice is an America without racism of any kind, then we will never be satisfied. Too many blacks seem to have internalized just that: The essence of contemporary blackness in America is eternal indignation. Notice, for example, the fire-breathing hostility that against-the-grain black writers attract from other blacks. As I know from personal experience, these writers are accused of tempting whites into some kind of antiblack backlash. Instead, in recent years, the black middle class has flourished. Housing segregation for blacks is the lowest it has been since the 1920s. And a black president has been elected twice. Yet the fury persists, since what actually rankles these critics is the threat to what they feel is their very identity: underdogs with a bone to pick. This is not where the March on Washington was pointing us. There is work left, but we are free at last. No, we aren't living in a "post-racial" America, but that fantasy will never be realized. What we black Americans are free to do, in a permanently imperfect world, is shape our own destiny together. In 2013, how white people feel about us has nothing to do with that task. Only by facing that reality will we truly honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. McWhorter teaches linguistics and American Studies at Columbia University. He is a contributing editor at the New Republic and columnist for Time magazine. Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 2 |
Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a video conference call in Moscow, June 30, 2020. (Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters) Amid a surge in domestic discontent with his regime, the Russian president is moving to tighten his grip on the country's Web access. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE V ladimir Putin is stepping up his war on the World Wide Web. In late May, claiming that it was key to Russia’s counterterrorism efforts, Putin signed a decree dramatically expanding his government’s power to regulate — and limit — access to the Internet for the country’s nearly 150 million inhabitants.
The edict, an update to the Kremlin’s 2014 counterterrorism strategy, gives Russian authorities greater control than ever before over the dissemination of information on the Internet. The ostensible goal of the measure is to curb language that could incite hatred and violence along racial, ethnic, or religious lines. But the real … Recommended RNC Should Take a Lesson from Mike Pence The RNC censure resolution was morally repellent, while the former vice president took a stand for the truth. NBC's 'Cataclysmic' Olympics-Coverage Flop How can anyone feel good about these Olympics? Nikole Hannah-Jones Responds to Our 1619 and Slavery Issue She reacted with a lot of sneering and ad hominem argumentation and nothing of substance. Joe Biden Doesn’t Know What You’re Talking About To watch Biden at the lectern was to experience shock and dismay interspersed with moments of alarm and dark humor. No wonder he hides from the media. Why Were Authorities So Evasive About the Synagogue Gunman's Motive? Why were President Biden and the FBI so reluctant to say that the synagogue gunman was motivated by antisemitism and jihadism? The Afghanistan Debacle Looks Worse and Worse The more we learn about the administration’s withdrawal, the more it becomes clear that its decisions were driven by political considerations and panic. The Latest Maskless Super Bowl Marks Our Return to Normalcy This collective moment was a warning to the Covid regime that its strictures won’t stand much longer. Russian Figure-Skating Prodigy Will Compete at Olympics Despite Failed Drug Test The IOC has decided it will not hold a medal ceremony for any event in which Valieva places in the top three while the matter remains under investigation. The IRS Wants Your Picture The agency’s plans for facial recognition might be abandoned for now, but its lust for data is never satiated. Why America’s Government-Debt Problem Endures Any meaningful change requires enough Americans deciding that they really do want less government in their lives, and then acting accordingly. ‘Blame America first,’ &c. On Jeane Kirkpatrick, today’s Russia debate, Edward Snowden, Ukraine’s right to exist, and more. | 2 |
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defended his campaign rallies Sunday, arguing that there have been “zero” injuries and that he in no way incites his supporters to violence. “I think in many cases I do lower the temperature,” Mr. Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He said that he does not spur his supporters to violence against protesters, arguing that despite “rallies of 25,000, 30,000 people, we haven’t even said anything about danger in our rallies.” “Other than for the other day with Chicago and the one man who rushed the stage, with thousands of people … in Alabama, how many people have been injured at my rallies?” Mr. Trump said. “Zero. Zero.” Mr. Trump bashed CNN host Jake Tapper and fellow anchor John King for “unfair” media coverage of his rallies. The flamboyant businessman’s rallies have of late been scrutinized for incidents of violence, including two in the last week. On Tuesday, campaign spokesman Corey Lewandowski allegedly assaulted Breitbart news reporter Michelle Fields. On Friday, Mr. Trump cancelled a rally in Chicago when supporters and demonstrators got into fights and protests in the streets. In early February, Mr. Trump told an audience that there were protesters with tomatoes in the audience and encouraged them to “knock the hell” out of them. “So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ‘em, would you?” He said. “Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.” Later that month, he said of a protester being escorted out of a rally, “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya.” But Mr. Trump on Sunday said that violence has been blown out of proportion, a lot of it at the hands of his nominee rivals who are trying to halt his meteoric rise. “They are losing big league,” he said. “If Florida, we have a man, Marco Rubio, who doesn’t even show up to vote in the U.S. Senate. I don’t think he could be elected dog catcher in Florida.” He also pointed to Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders’ supporters in the Democratic nomination contest as a cause of the violence and threatened to return the favor, tweeting Sunday morning: “Bernie Sanders is lying when he says his disruptors aren’t told to go to my events. Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours!” | 2 |
New York City was among three cities labeled “anarchist jurisdictions” by the Justice Department on Sunday and targeted to lose federal money for failing to control protesters and defunding cops, The Post has learned.
Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash., were the other two cities on the list, which was approved by US Attorney General William Barr.
“When state and local leaders impede their own law enforcement officers and agencies from doing their jobs, it endangers innocent citizens who deserve to be protected, including those who are trying to peacefully assemble and protest,” Barr said in a statement set to be released Monday.
“We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance,’’ the AG added.
“It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens.”
Attorney General William BarrEPA/TANNEN MAURY
White House budget director Russ Vought is set to issue guidance to federal agencies on withdrawing funds from the cities in less than two weeks.
The list of cities eligible for defunding will be updated periodically, the feds have said.
It is not yet clear what funds are likely to be cut, but the amount of money siphoned from New York City could be massive, given the Big Apple gets about $7 billion in annual federal aid.
The “anarchist’’ designations come after President Trump earlier this month issued a memo ordering financial retribution against cities that have been slashing their police budgets during crime waves, or tolerating violent protests sparked by the May killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.
At the time, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo infamously reacted by warning Trump he should watch his step in the state.
“He better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York,” the Democratic governor said. “He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City, people don’t want to have anything to do with him.”
New York City made the Justice Department’s list in part because its city council approved a budget in July that cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s $6 billion annual budget — even as murders and shootings in Gotham soared.
In July, the number of shootings in New York City skyrocketed 177 percent over the same period last year, and there was a 59 percent rise in murders. In August, city shootings soared 165 percent, while murders jumped about 50 percent.
The Justice Department said it also considered the fact that at least some of the city’s district attorneys have declined to prosecute people arrested for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly during recent protests.
REUTERS/Tom Brenner
Trump, in his Sept. 2 memo, instructed Vought to issue guidance within 30 days “to the heads of agencies on restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants.”
Trump administration officials told The Post that reductions to law enforcement efforts are unlikely.
Trump’s memo twice referenced Big Apple Mayor Bill de Blasio by name as it said, “In New York City, city officials have allowed violence to spike.
“In light of this unconscionable rise in violence, I have offered to provide Federal law enforcement assistance, but both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have rejected my offer,” Trump wrote.
“While violence has surged, arrests have plummeted. In a 28-day period during the months of June and July, [New York City] arrests were down 62 percent from the same period in 2019,’’ the presidential memo said.
“Amidst the rising violence, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council agreed to cut one billion dollars from the New York Police Department (NYPD) budget, including by cancelling the hiring of 1,163 officers.”
Portland made the “anarchist’’ list over its more than 100 consecutive nights of protests and because Mayor Ted Wheeler expressly rejected federal help in a letter to Trump, the feds said.
The city has been roiled in violence between Black Lives Matter protesters and cops — as well as skirmishes with pro-Trump factions. Aaron Danielson, a supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer, was fatally shot by Antifa activist Michael Reinoehl during one protest there at the end of August, before Reinoehl was killed by authorities days later.
The Portland City Council voted to cut its police department budget by at least $15 million in June.
Seattle was included on the Justice Department’s list because of a long-running protester “autonomous zone” and associated crime, the administration said. Protesters took over a section of the city for nearly a month during the summer — with police told to abandon a precinct in the middle of the area. The city’s police chief called the zone’s occupation “lawless and brutal’’ — amid a slew of shootings there, including some fatal — before the sprawling illegal encampment was finally dismantled.
Meanwhile, Seattle voted in August to cut its police budget by about $3 million.
Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser, whose city was on the initial list of targets, skirted at least the first round of federal funding cuts after moving to make peace with Trump in a recent phone call.
“She’s willing to do whatever is necessary. We had a very good talk with her,” Trump told reporters Sept. 4.
A federal appeals court earlier this year upheld Trump’s attempt to take funding from some “sanctuary cities’’ including New York City that try to protect undocumented workers from federal immigration officials. But three other appeals courts came to the opposite conclusion involving other cities.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a recent press briefing that the federal defunding of cities is legal, pointing to a 1987 US Supreme Court decision, South Dakota v. Dole, involving the establishment of a national drinking age of 21.
Trump has said he is making “law and order” a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.
“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” Trump wrote in his memo. | 2 |
Well. Shocking… but not shocking at all.
Project Veritas and founder James O’Keefe have scored a scoop from an identified Google whistleblower, replete with video and inside documents. Here’s the Project Veritas headline and story:
Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam
The story begins this way:
(New York City) — Project Veritas has released a new report on Google which includes undercover video of a Senior Google Executive, leaked documents, and testimony from a Google insider. The report appears to show Google’s plans to affect the outcome of the 2020 elections and “prevent” the next “Trump situation.”
The report includes undercover footage of longtime Google employee and Head of Responsible Innovation, Jen Gennai, saying:
“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”
Said Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe:
“This is the third tech insider who has bravely stepped forward to expose the secrets of Silicon Valley. These new documents, supported by undercover video, raise questions of Google’s neutrality and the role they see themselves fulfilling in the 2020 elections.”
Jen Gennai is the head of “Responsible Innovation” for Google, a sector that monitors and evaluates the responsible implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. In the video, Gennai says Google has been working diligently to “prevent” the results of the 2016 election from repeating in 2020:
“We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.
“We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?”
So with all those investigations into interference by Russians in the 2016 election — will there be a congressional investigation into Google? In fact, Google executive Gennai already has an answer on what happens when Congress requests Google execs to show up for a hearing:
“We got called in front of Congress multiple times, so we’ve not shown up because we know that they’re just going to attack us. We’re not going to change our, we’re not going to change our mind. There’s no use sitting there being attacked over something we know we’re not going to change. They can pressure us but we’re not changing. But we also have to be aware of what they’re doing and what they’re accusing us of.”
The anonymous Google insider, whose identity and voice were shadowed and changed to protect him, also said in his detailed interview with O’Keefe that the Google-owned YouTube has deliberately targeted Dennis Prager’s “Prager U” and conservative talker Dave Rubin for content suppression because they are “right-wing.” Not to put too fine a point on this, but in some real time searching the contents of YouTube and just what the heck is on there one of the answers is — pornography. Lots of it. Suffice to say Prager U and Dave Rubin would seem to be the least of the site’s content problems.
As noted in this space a while back, Google was revealed by the Daily Caller to have blacklisted The American Spectator and several other conservative sites.
Not only is Google about blacklisting, an internal document, found here, makes it plain that basic facts will be manipulated to fit the far left wing’s social justice agenda. The document says this: “If a representation is factually accurate, can it still be algorithmic unfairness?” The document defines “algorithmic unfairness” this way:
“algorithmic unfairness” means unjust or prejudicial treatment of people that is related to sensitive characteristics such as race, income, sexual orientation, or gender, through algorithmic systems or algorithmically aided decision-making.”
By way of example the document says:
… imagine that a Google image query for “CEOs” shows predominantly men. Even if it were factually accurate representation of the world, it would be algorithmic unfairness because it would reinforce a stereotype about the role of women in leadership positions.
Got that? Facts — reality — are “algorithmic unfairness” if they do not promote the far left wing’s social justice agenda. Identity politics is all.
What we have here with this newest undercover work from Project Veritas is exactly what the Google whistleblower says it is: fascism. Fascism straight up. The Googler compares what’s going on inside Google to the famous George Orwell 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Recall that Orwell’s book originated the concept of “doublethink,” defined this way, bold print for emphasis supplied:
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Clearly, at Google “doublethink” is called “algorithmic unfairness.”
All of this kind of fascistic-type behavior is drawing the attention of Congress. Considering the free speech implications, it will have to tread very carefully. But without doubt, this report from Project Veritas will make an impact on a discussion about the clear intent of Google to use its size and massive technology to manipulate the 2020 election.
Whomever this Google whistleblower is, he has done his country a tremendous service. The question now is — what to do about it.
Update | 2 |
Just before tonight's Democratic debate began in Las Vegas, I made a prediction:Hillary's going to pivot to attacking GOP at every opportunity. Play to base. Little benefit hitting Bernie or Joe (in absentia). #DemDebate— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 14, 2015 And so it came to pass. Mrs. Clinton presented herself as the experienced, hyper-informed, trailblazing adult in the room throughout the evening, directing almost all of her verbal punches at Republicans. Only once did she directly attack one of her rivals: Bernie Sanders, (predictably) on gun control, perhaps the only issue on which she can credibly outflank him to the left. In spite of her hedging on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and marijuana legalization, extremely weak answers on Libya and trade, and unresponsive dismissiveness on her burgeoning email scandal (her denunciation of Edward Snowden for his handling of sensitive information was quite rich), Clinton won the debate. She established herself as the only plausible nominee on the stage -- benefitting greatly, I suspect, from Bernie Sanders' performance in the long run. He'll delight his base (see update) and raise a lot of small donor money, but many Democratic voters will ultimately recognize that he's unelectable in a general election. She was prepared and polished; he was passionate, but a bit frazzled, appearing to lose is train of thought on several occasions. Remember, it took an extremely skilled communicator and a dynamic debater to upend Hillary Clinton in 2008, effectively and authentically taking her apart from the left without alienating the general electorate. Nobody on that stage tonight is capable of beating her in the same way this cycle. On the issue that exemplifies her weaknesses as a candidate -- her ongoing, national security-compromising email scandal -- Clinton's closest competitor gamely let her off the hook, casting the issue as a distraction from real issues. The email saga underlines her arrogant posture toward laws and rules, her reckless disregard for national security protocols designed to keep our most sensitive secrets away from prying eyes, and her propensity to lie -- often and shamelessly. Bernie Sanders chose to circle the wagons. He's unwilling to do what it takes to defeat her, while she again and again telegraphed her election strategy of playing the gender card without even a nod at subtlety:How'd you be different than Obama?
Hillary: WOMAN!
#DemDebate— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 14, 2015 With respect, the other men on stage are afterthoughts. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley may have helped himself a bit, hammering away at Republicans and the NRA throughout the evening. His numbers might bounce a little, but they're prohibitively low, and this wasn't a breakout performance. Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb challenged the presiding hard-left winds on guns, on the Iran deal, on energy, and on executive power. He's far too centrist to have a prayer in today's Democratic Party. Rhode Island's resident Republican-cum-Independent-cum-Democrat Lincoln Chafee was awful. Interestingly, one name that wasn't uttered once: Joe Biden. If the sitting Vice President is planning to jump into the race, he'd better get on with it. He's the only person who seems like a long-run threat to Hillary Clinton, who used tonight's first (of just six) Democratic debates to reassure jittery members of her party that she'll be fine. And to remind them that she's a woman, many times. If Biden was waiting for a disastrous Hillary showing tonight to usher him into the race, he didn't get it. Tick tock, Mr. Vice President.
CNN's Anderson Cooper delivered a strong barrage of opening questions, pressing each candidate on major weaknesses. This debate wasn't especially tightly produced, and the video questions element was clunky and unnecessary, but Cooper's questioning and follow-ups were mainly solid. As is all too often the case, debate questioners failed to even attempt to paint Democrats into uncomfortable ideological corners on controversial social issues like abortion, LGBT rights, or even guns. There was plenty of sparring on the latter issue (abortion was entirely unmentioned, despite Democrats' breathtaking extremism on the issue), but the inquiries weren't engineered to produce general election attack ads. Overall, I think Ari Fleischer nailed it:I don't think anything changed. Hill did well. Sanders keeps his base. O'Malley impressed & might blip up. But D race, unlike R, is stable— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) October 14, 2015 UPDATE - Bernie may have come off as a shouty one-trick pony to many average viewers, but two real-time focus groups comprised of core Democratic voters apparently loved him. Let's see if and how the polling moves, but this is interesting early data:Wow - @randikayeCNN focus group thought THE BERN won debate tonight. He def had moment of strength on emails. May be enough in boring debate— Bruce Haynes (@BrucePurple) October 14, 2015
Democrat Focus Group Says Bernie Sanders Was Big Winner of #DemDebate https://t.co/bmZvHPSD8T— James Hewitt (@JamesOHewitt) October 14, 2015 Parting thought: Who want to take bets on how this forum rated compared to the previous GOP debates? Recommended Townhall Video | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Former President Donald Trump warned critical race theory is "flagrant racism" being forced into "every facet of our society" during a speech to conservatives Saturday night in Phoenix.Trump spoke at Arizona Federal Theatre for the "Protect Our Elections Rally" hosted by Turning Point Action, TPUSA's political action committee, where he slammed Democrats for adhering to an "America last" ideology."We shouldn’t be apologizing to the world," he said. "We’re apologizing for America, just like Obama apologized. Remember, he apologized. They should be apologizing to America for what they’ve done to it. That’s who I think should be apologizing to."The Biden administration's ‘America last’ philosophy … is also making a mockery of our country right here at home," he continued. "Earlier this year, Biden signed an executive order pushing toxic, critical race theory into our children’s schools and into our military. How about our military? This poisonous left-wing doctrine is flagrant racism, plain and simple, and it has no place in our schools, no place in our military and no place in our country."PSAKI INSISTS BIDEN NOT PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, SAYS CURRICULUM LEFT TO LOCAL SCHOOLSTrump was referring to President Biden's first day in office when he signed an executive order rescinding Trump's order that restricted the federal government and its contractors from teaching critical race theory."If you remember, I ended it very rapidly with a very powerful executive order, but that executive order was immediately repealed and terminated by the radical left," Trump said. "A Republican Congress will defund it and ban it once and for all. They’re going to ban it. They will get it done."Trump also blasted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, who last month defended the military's examination of critical race theory, which Trump referred to as "a Marxist ideology.""Can you believe it?" Trump asked the crowd. "He said he wanted to quote, 'understand White rage.' He wants to understand White rage. What the hell is he talking about that for? Our generals should not be focused on learning left-wing ideology. They should be focused on defeating America’s enemies and winning our future wars. Hopefully, we don’t have them, but if we do, we have to win them."CRITICAL RACE THEORY TO FACE FIRST MAJOR POLITICAL TEST IN VIRGINIATrump said he remains a target of the left because of his and his movement's patriotism and belief in the American worker."They’re still coming after me because I will never stop fighting and winning for you," he continued. "Going through it for five years, five years. From the very beginning of our movement, we have been fighting against some of the most corrupt, powerful and entrenched forces imaginable. The professional political class, the deep state, the fake news media, the Russia hoaxers, the globalists, the socialists, the communists, the lobbyists, the corporate special interests who are absolutely terrible, and now the critical race theorists – all of them oppose our movement for a simple reason: We believe in putting America first. "It’s very simple," he added. "We believe in strong families, strong borders and strong sovereign nations. We believe in fair trade for the American worker."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP | 2 |
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its guidance once again to recommend that fully vaccinated persons continue to wear masks in certain situations. Apparently, this reversal was made out of concern for the delta variant, which appears to be more transmissible, though not at all more deadly. That last part is key: Vaccinated persons are not falling seriously ill or dying from the delta variant because the vaccines work. Out of the tens of millions of people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, less than 0.037% have been hospitalized with the virus. So, vaccinated persons are at no more risk of dying from the coronavirus or one of its many variants than they were 18 days ago when the CDC agreed that vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to wear masks. The science has not changed, but the CDC’s risk assessment has. Unfortunately, we went from trying to contain the virus’s damage and to protect people from falling seriously ill to trying to get rid of the virus and its spread completely. The former goal has already been achieved, thanks to the vaccination. Coronavirus death rates are now the lowest they've been since the start of the pandemic: The latter goal — to stop the spread of the coronavirus altogether — is completely unrealistic. The coronavirus is now endemic. It will always be with us, just like the flu or the common cold. But as long as the vaccine is doing what it is supposed to do and protecting recipients from the virus and its variants, we should not care. The only people who are at risk of being hospitalized and dying from the delta variant are the unvaccinated. But even among the unvaccinated persons who have contracted the delta variant, a familiar trend has appeared: the vast majority of those who have fallen seriously ill are older and have underlying health problems. In England, for example, there were 117 deaths from the delta variant between February and mid-June. The vast majority of those deaths were in the over-50 age group, and most suffered from other comorbidities. This is good news for the United States, where the most at-risk group — older people with underlying health conditions — enjoys extremely high vaccination rates. What this means is that the same people who were most at risk before are the same people who are most at risk now. Will there be exceptions? Yes. But we have largely accomplished what we set out to do: We have protected the most vulnerable. So, what exactly is the point of this guidance change? According to the CDC, it’s to protect the unvaccinated population, the majority of which is made up of young adults, who are statistically much, much less likely to die from the virus, and children, who rarely even contract it. Again, it is time to change the way we think about this virus. The vaccines have been widely available to most age groups for months now. We as individuals are responsible for the choices we make. Anyone who wants the shot can get it. The vaccinated are not responsible for the unvaccinated, and vice versa. Some might contest this point and argue that vaccine hesitancy could someday result in a variant the vaccine cannot protect against. But early studies prove this concern is overstated. The vaccines have thus far proven effective against every single variant that has appeared, and there is no reason to believe this will change any time soon. The CDC’s guidance change is unnecessary and counterproductive. People need to stop listening to an agency that lost all its credibility long ago. Our public health officials’ constant flip-flops make them seem more interested in political hysteria than in evidence-backed reasoning. This guidance change is no different. | 2 |
A former aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has accused the 63-year-old Democrat of several years of sexual harassment, detailing allegations she first made in December in an essay posted to an online publishing website.
Lindsey Boylan, who worked for New York state’s economic development agency and is now running for New York City’s Manhattan borough president, described on Medium.com incidents of an unsolicited kiss, an invitation to play “strip poker,” and “going out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms, and legs.”
“Governor Andrew Cuomo has created a culture within his administration where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned but expected,” Boylan wrote. “His inappropriate behavior toward women was an affirmation that he liked you, that you must be doing something right.
“He used intimidation to silence his critics. And if you dared to speak up, you would face consequences.”
Cuomo denied the accusations made in December, and a spokesman reiterated the denials to several outlets again on Wednesday.
“Ms. Boylan’s claims of inappropriate behavior are quite simply false,” Cuomo’s spokeswoman Caitlin Girouard told The New York Times.
Boylan’s essay included a screenshot of an email from the director of the governor’s offices to her which said that Cuomo referenced Boylan as someone who could be a sister of his former girlfriend, only “the better looking sister.” He called her “Lisa” – a reference to Cuomo’s former companion Lisa Shields – in front of colleagues.
“It was degrading,” Boylan wrote.
She said she became fearful of Cuomo in December 2016 when she was specifically called to his office by Cuomo’s bodyguard.
She entered and was alone with Cuomo, who gave her a tour and “smirked as he showed off a cigar box. He told me that President Clinton had given it to him while he served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The two-decade old reference to President (Bill) Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was not lost on me.”
She said Cuomo must have sensed her fear and let her out of the office.
“The Governor’s pervasive harassment extended beyond just me,” she wrote. “He made unflattering comments about the weight of female colleagues. He ridiculed them about their romantic relationships and significant others. He said the reasons that men get women were ‘money and power.’” © 2022 Newsmax. All rights reserved. | 2 |
October 04, 2019
3:41 PM ET
Iranian hackers have been trying to get into the email accounts of at least one presidential campaign, multiple American journalists and current and former U.S. government officials according to Microsoft.The hackers have support from Iran’s government and made over 2,700 attempts to identify email accounts of various individuals, a Friday Microsoft report says. Microsoft did not name the targeted campaign, but researchers said hackers tried to attack 241 accounts. Hackers infiltrated four of them, The New York Times reported. (RELATED: Report: Trump Told Russian Officials He Wasn’t Concerned About Election Interference) A building on the Microsoft Headquarters campus is pictured July 17, 2014 in Redmond, Washington. (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images) This news comes after Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Iranian hackers used online information to get ahold of passwords, The NYT reported. Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, said in July during the Aspen Security Conference that the company had evidence indicating Russian, Iranian and North Korean hackers have been active in trying to commit cyberattacks. The hackers were targeting nongovernmental organizations and think tanks, according to The NYT. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | 2 |
Conservative radio commentator Glenn Beck and liberal Hollywood movie-maker Michael Moore have found common ground on the National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden: He’s a hero. Both took to Twitter to opine on their favorable impressions of the information leaker, Politico reported. Mr. Beck’s tweet: “I think I have just read about the man for which I have waited. Earmarks of a real hero.” Mr. Beck also tweeted: “The NSA patriot leader is just another chance for America to regain her moral compass and set things right. No red or blue. Just truth.” And Mr. Moore’s: “Hero of the Year #EdwardSnowden NSA tech assistant reveals he is the source of stories on U.S. Gov’t domestic spying.” | 2 |
The USNS Bowditch was about to retrieve the drone when it was seized by a Chinese warship. Getty Images China will return a U.S. drone that its navy seized from international waters, military officials from both nations confirmed.
The Pentagon reached a deal Saturday with the Chinese to turn over a Navy research drone a Chinese crew removed Thursday from the South China Sea.
“Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the [underwater unmanned vehicle] to the United States,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.
Chinese military leaders “expressed regret” over the incident but slammed American leaders for overreacting to the drone’s capture.
“China and the United States have been communicating about this process. It is inappropriate and unhelpful for a resolution that the U.S. has unilaterally hyped up the issue,” said Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Sr. Col. Yang Yujun early Saturday.
U.S. military officials did not disclose when or how the drone would be returned but said they objected to China’s “unlawful seizure” of their equipment.
Negotiations over the transfer of the drone came as President-elect Trump accused China of stealing the research device.
“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act,” he tweeted Saturday morning, only hours before the deal was announced.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted that Trump’s “escalation of a diplomatic crisis with China” was “madness.”
But Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain called the incident a “flagrant violation of the freedom of the seas” and said Friday the country “must not stand for such outrageous conduct.”
A U.S. Navy oceanographic research vessel had deployed the drone about 100 miles from the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay in the Philippines.
Pentagon officials said the drone was merely measuring ocean conditions in the region. But Chinese officials accused the U.S. of conducting “surveillance and military surveys” with the equipment.
Tensions between the global powers were already rising when the president-elect received a post-election congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president last month. Some criticized Trump for breaking diplomatic protocol surrounding the longstanding U.S. “one China” policy. Others applauded Trump’s boldness.
Some experts speculated China targeted the drone in response to Trump’s increasingly confrontational rhetoric.
“Knowing Chinese military officials for many years and how orders are communicated from the highest power centers in Beijing down to commanders on the ground or water, this was very likely a highly planned and escalatory move to show China will not take [these] matters lightly,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interests, told The Hill. | 2 |
On Monday Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and White House National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster announced new sanctions for Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro after the dictator moved to illegally rewrite the country's constitution. "Today, the United States is broadening its effort to address the ongoing assault on Venezuela’s democratic institutions by the Maduro regime," Mnuchin announcced. "Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC, has sanctioned the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros. As a result of today’s sanctions, all assets of Maduro subject to U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. persons are prohibited from dealing with him." "As President Trump said earlier this month, the strong and courageous actions by the Venezuelan people to stand for democracy, freedom, and the rule of law have been continually ignored by Nicolás Maduro, who dreams of becoming a dictator. Yesterday’s illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people," he continued. During the announcement, McMaster took things a step further by placing Maduro among the world's most vicious leaders and compared him to North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Syria's Bashir al Assad. "By designating Maduro himself, he joins a very exclusive club -- including Mr. Mugabe, Bashar al-Assad, and Kim Jong-un in terms of the brutal repression of his people and, in this case, the abrogation of the constitution with the constitution -- with the constituent assembly," McMaster said. Clashes in Venezuela continue and opposition leaders were taken from their homes last night by Maduro allies. Venezuelan security agents arrested two key opposition leaders in a midnight raid on their homes, making good on President Nicolas Maduro's promise to crack down on dissent following a vote that gave him broad authoritarian powers.In the middle of the night, armed men took Leopoldo Lopez and Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma from their respective homes in the capital. The leaders had been highly critical of Maduro and had only recently been released from jail on politically motivated charges. The two, however, remained under house arrest.The wife of Leopoldo posted a video on Twitter showing flak-jacketed agents bundling her husband into a vehicle marked "Sebin" — the name of Venezuela's intelligence agency — and then speeding off."They've just taken Leopoldo from the house," Lilian Tintori wrote in one tweet. "We don't know where he is or where they're taking him."The situation has been rapidly deteriorating over the past year as civilians struggle to find basic necessities. Hundreds of people have been killed in the streets after protesting Maduro's regime. | 2 |
Deborah Birx to release book on pandemic Ryan King | February 14, 2022 11:05 AM Buzz: Hill staffers want union, MAGA CPAC hat, DeSantis spokesperson to the rescue Paul Bedard | February 14, 2022 11:00 AM Of course they spied on Trump Byron York | February 14, 2022 09:08 AM Biden chooses to serve illegal immigrants instead of citizens Washington Examiner | February 14, 2022 12:00 AM Trump reacts to Durham filing: 'Far bigger crime than Watergate' Heather Hamilton | February 13, 2022 10:47 PM Yes, Hillary Clinton spied on Donald Trump — while he was president Kaylee McGhee White | February 13, 2022 02:37 PM 'Gender equity': Hillary Clinton to receive Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award Julia Johnson | February 13, 2022 06:00 AM Durham says Democrat-allied tech executive spied on Trump’s White House office Jerry Dunleavy | February 12, 2022 05:43 PM The Debrief: Mitch McConnell’s response to Donald Trump’s criticism Washington Examiner Staff | February 12, 2022 06:45 AM Comeback kid? Flurry of Hillary Clinton activity fuels 2024 speculation Haisten Willis | February 12, 2022 05:15 AM | 2 |
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said in a statement Friday that impeaching President Donald Trump 12 days before he leaves office would only further divide America.
House Democrats have called for articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to remove the 45th president from office after riots at the Capitol building erupted this week. McCarthy condemned the violence that erupted on January 6. However, he said that movements to remove Trump from office before January 20 would only further harm the country.
The California Republican said:
Let me be very clear: the violence, destruction, and chaos that unfolded at the Capitol on Wednesday was unacceptable, undemocratic, and un-American. When I spoke to President Trump on Wednesday, I told him he had a great responsibility to intervene to quell the mob and start the healing process for our country. Over the coming weeks we will work with law enforcement to bring anyone responsible for the violence to justice. Lawlessness and extremism have no place in our way of life.
…
Our country is not just divided. We are deeply hurt. The task ahead for the next Congress and incoming Biden Administration couldn’t be more momentous. But to deliver a better America for all, partisans of all stripes first must unite as Americans and show our country that a peaceful transition of power has occurred. Impeaching the President with just 12 days left in his term will only divide our country more.
McCarthy said public officials should work together to face the nation’s growing challenges.
“Each passing day will offer us an opportunity to heal and grow stronger — a responsibility from which we cannot shrink,” McCarthy concluded in his statement. “The United States remains exceptional and extraordinary, and in the coming weeks and months, we must work to recharge the light of our shining city on a hill.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3. | 2 |
In the middle of a deadly pandemic, some leftists are still laser-focused on dividing Americans along racial lines. The entire country has been affected by the novel coronavirus, but some leftists are pushing the narrative that the coronavirus is hurting minority groups to a larger extent than the white population. But while giving an update on Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the current data does not support that narrative. In California, at least 16,957 people have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus. The governor says California has examined nearly 40 percent of those cases and the data does not support the theory that minorities are suffering to a greater extent from COVID-19 than the white population. Of the 6,306 positive cases the state investigated, around 30 percent have been identified as Hispanic, 14 percent as Asian, and 6 percent as Black. Of the deaths within those 6,306 cases, around 29 percent have been Hispanic, 16 percent have been Asian, and 3 percent have been Black. While the governor acknowledged the data accounts for less than 40 percent of the total number of cases in the state, the governor said the findings nevertheless show that coronavirus numbers are roughly tracking the demographics of the state. What is the purpose of prioritizing this data at this current moment anyway? To demand reparations or other benefits? What if white people end up suffering higher infection rates and deaths? Surely California has more pressing concerns to which the state can devote its resources. Editor's Note: Want to support Townhall so we can keep telling the truth about China and the virus they unleashed on the world? Join Townhall VIP and use the promo code WUHAN to get 25% off VIP membership! | 2 |
“Things are seldom what they seem.” So sings the aging “Buttercup” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. Similarly, the opinions and preferences that respondents reveal to pollsters are sometimes falsely reported.
Brooding over some recently received injury to your ego or worrying over some just noted “symptom,” you encounter an acquaintance who cheerily asks “how’s it going?” Your likely answer will be “just great!” Such disingenuousness which sometimes colors our daily discourse is, as well, a serious source of error in opinion polling; and nowhere is it more troublesome than in surveys of political preference.
A month or so ago, in a brief article printed in this journal, I argued that the election polls, most of which reported — over the long, long campaign — that Trump was down and Clinton remained up, were contaminated by some modicum of such false self-report. Drawing from contemporary social psychology, I suggested that the process underlying that false self-report was “evaluation apprehension.”
A moment of “full disclosure”: That term was coined by me some years ago but it has since attained rather wide use in contemporary social psychology. It points to a state of arousal experienced as “an anxiety-toned concern that one be positively judged or, at least, that one not be negatively judged.” This operates for some of the people all of the time and, far more commonly, for some of the people some of the time. One sort of occasion that does often stir evaluation apprehension (EA) appears to be the opinion survey interview in which the questioned person wants, whether he “knows it” or not, to please or at least not displease the interviewer. And this will be far more likely if the subject is political than if it concerns, say, toothpaste preferences.
Zeroing in on the Clinton-Trump race, the near unanimity of the print and broadcasting media in their rejection and derogation of Donald Trump could have roused EA and resulting disingenuousness. Particularly, this would be the case for one who favored or leaned toward Trump but was now being asked to voice his or her presidential preference. This would not happen in all or most cases, but could happen in enough of them to tilt the data in an inaccurate direction. Trump himself did facilitate this process by his unattractive lapses into insult and mockery.
Yet another apparent lapse did further compound the problem. Interestingly, it became publicly and “scandalously” visible later on the same day (October 7) in which my first article on these matters appeared. It was the ten-year-old Access Hollywood video which caught Trump seeming to brag about his sexual prowess and irresistibility. That the Trump totals then dipped in most of the polls was no surprise. That they rebounded after a few more days bespoke a link between him and a vast and aggrieved sector of the voting public which the pollsters (and most of the commentators) are only now discovering or acknowledging.
It would advance political journalism if some of its practitioners were able to acquire a more detailed understanding of the art (science it never was and can never be) of public opinion polling. If they had actually achieved some working sophistication, adepts like Chris Matthews would not so readily turn from awarding pleasure credits (“I felt this thrill going up my leg” while contemplating Obama) to exhorting vigilante justice as he urged, late on election night, that “we should tar and feather all of the pollsters.”
Another and more kindly broadcast journalist suggested that the polls did no wrong since, after all, they usually reported error-limit ranges of 3 percent. As I said to him through the TV screen: “Yes, my boy, but then roughly half the errors should have shown Trump ahead!” The serious point is that error limits, as statistically calculated, are understood to reflect errors in sampling, respondent discards, quota excesses, or poor interviewer performance. Such errors across a range of surveys would be “random” in their distribution rather than one-sided. There are ways to possibly find and reduce the one-sided tilting of data due to the activation of EA, but they are not easily worked into quick conversations with a respondent on a cell phone.
I have written these quick words as a social psychologist who might be able to illuminate an important methodological issue. But beyond methodology lies understanding. We have been spared a return to managerial statism at the end of its tether. Future historians, and present journalists who have managed to read a book or two, will have to ask why half of the electorate (the half somewhat more male, less coastal, less college-educated and less wealthy) enabled a Quixote of our time to get so far beyond the windmills. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The Obama and Romney camps cautiously prepared Tuesday for the final stretch of campaigning, announcing events in the battleground states of Colorado and Ohio as both candidates kept their focus on relief efforts in the aftermath of superstorm SandyPresident Obama spoke Tuesday afternoon at a Red Cross shelter in Washington, D.C., and planned to tour the devastation in New Jersey on Wednesday."We certainly feel profoundly for all the families whose lives have been upended. ... The most important message I have for them is that America's with you," Obama said. "We are standing behind you. And we are going to do everything we can to help you get back on your feet."Mitt Romney on Tuesday attended a relief effort in Ohio for the victims of Sandy, with just seven days left before Election Day.“We have heavy hearts, as you know, with all of the suffering going on,” Romney said, standing on an equipment box inside a Kettering, Ohio, gymnasium. “I appreciate what you have done.”More On This... Before he began helping to collect food and other staples, Romney spoke for about five minutes, talking about Massachusetts’ efforts while he was governor to help Hurricane Katrina victims.The Obama campaign said former President Bill Clinton will make two stops Tuesday in Colorado -- in Commerce City and Denver. Clinton’s trip is part of a swing through battleground states and states with strong Democratic bases, which include Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.Obama campaign officials also said the president is tentatively scheduled to return to the campaign trail with a stop Thursday at the University of Colorado, Boulder.Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan will make two stops in Wisconsin – first in the city of La Crosse, then Hudson -- to thank volunteers who are delivering or collecting items for storm relief efforts, the campaign said.Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, also will attend events in Wisconsin, then travel to Iowa.Aides at Romney's campaign headquarters say the campaign plans to scale back criticism of Obama to avoid the perception they are putting politics ahead of public safety. The aides said Romney might visit with storm victims later in the week, much as he did when Hurricane Isaac raked the Gulf Coast during the week of the Republican National Convention.Both candidates and their running mates have tempered their campaigns, eager not to appear out of sync with more immediate worries over flooding, power outages, economic calamity and personal safety.But they also will be jockeying for attention against news coverage of the storm's aftermath during the crucial handful of days left before the Nov. 6 election."When the nation's largest city and even its capital are endangered, when so many people are in peril and face deprivation, it's hard to get back to arguing over taxes," historian and presidential biographer Douglas Brinkley said.Millions were left without power as the deadly storm whipped its way through presidential battlegrounds like North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire and sprawled as far as the Great Lakes, where gales threatened Ohio's and Wisconsin's lakeside regions.Obama abandoned a Florida event Monday with Clinton to return to Washington. He addressed reporters at the White House, warning that recovery from the giant storm would not be swift. Obama also expressed concern over the storm's effect on the economy: Storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.Romney, for his part, spoke by phone to Deputy FEMA Administrator Richard Serino and officials from the Homeland Security Department and the National Weather Service. Addressing supporters in Iowa, he cautioned, like Obama, that the damage would likely be significant.With the race in its final full week, most national polls showed Obama and Romney separated by a statistically insignificant point or two, although some said Romney had a narrow lead for the overall popular vote.The election is expected to be won or lost in the nine most competitive states that are not reliably Republican or Democratic. Republicans claimed momentum in these states, but the president's campaign projected confidence. Romney's increasingly narrow focus on Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio suggested he still searched for a breakthrough in the Midwest to deny Obama the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.The U.S. president is not chosen by the nationwide popular vote, but in state-by-state contests that allocate electoral votes. Each state gets one electoral vote for each of its seats in the House of Representatives, as determined by population, and two electoral votes for each of its two senators. That means there are 538 electoral votes, including three for Washington, D.C. The winning candidate must have 50 percent, plus one, or 270 votes.The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Justice Robin Jean Davis resigned in disgrace from the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals early Tuesday. Her departure came after the state legislature impeached every member of the state’s highest court. Spending scandal is the latest in a long history of ethics questions attending Davis’s judicial service. West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Robin Jean Davis announced her resignation early Tuesday, just hours after the state House of Delegates adopted articles of impeachment against every justice serving on the court.Her resignation marks the conclusion of two decades on the bench, sometimes marred by scandal. “We judges weigh evidence as part of our jobs,” Davis said at a Tuesday press conference in Charleston, West Virginia. “Unfortunately, the evidence clearly shows that the preconceived, result-driven mania among the majority party members in the legislature cannot result in a just and fair outcome.” Her departure from the court took effect on Monday. Davis and three of her colleagues were impeached in the state legislature late Monday. Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Allen Loughry and Elizabeth Walker will now stand trial in the state senate. The fifth member of the court, Menis Ketchum, resigned on July 27. He is expected to plead guilty to two corruption charges in federal court on Aug. 29. The impeachment articles allege the justices failed to effectively administer the state courts, approved compensation for senior judges in excess of statutory limits, and abused state resources through lavish renovations to their chambers and unauthorized use of state vehicles for personal travel. (RELATED: West Virginia’s Highest Court Shattered By Corruption Indictment) GOP Gov. Jim Justice will appoint successors to any justice removed from office following the Senate trial. Local media and state auditors discovered the justices cumulatively spent over $1 million on furniture and aesthetic upgrades for their state offices — Davis spent some $500,000, according to the impeachment articles, including $23,000 for design services and $20,000 for a sectional carpet. Davis’s profligate spending is just the latest iteration of her long history of ethical quandaries. Beginning in 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported Davis participated in a case from which her husband, a successful plaintiffs lawyer, stood to benefit financially. A legal ethics expert who taught Davis and her husband at the West Virginia University College of Law said the justice should have recused herself from the matter. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in August 2016 that Davis sold her family’s private jet to an attorney named Michael Fuller. Two years after the sale, Fuller defended a $95-million judgment before the West Virginia Supreme Court. Despite the possible conflict, Davis wrote an opinion for the court preserving a significant portion of that award. TheDCNF uncovered evidence in March 2017 that a Florida-based corporate entity funneled thousands of dollars to her 2012 reelection campaign through an illegal straw donation scheme at the behest of the same attorney to whom Davis sold her plane. (RELATED: New Evidence Of Illegal Donations To West Virginia Judge Emerges) The West Virginia secretary of state opened an investigation, though charges were never brought because the statute of limitations expired. Still, a defiant Davis cast her service as honorable Tuesday, and accused state Republicans of concocting a plot to pack the court with conservatives. “The people of West Virginia have honored me in three separate elections by placing their confidence in me as a justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals,” she said. “I have returned their faith by serving honorably for almost 22 years.” “I encourage each of you to watch this legislative process very carefully and to vote in November,” she added. Follow Kevin on Twitter Send tips to [email protected]. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | 2 |
It's tax day in America, and if Democrats had gotten their way in 2017, the vast majority of Americans would be paying higher taxes this year. Every single Congressional Democrat voted against the GOP-passed tax reform law that slashed tax burdens for approximately 80 percent of all households --- including an even higher percentage of middle-income families. The Left has deliberately and repeatedly lied about this reality, with minimal and perfunctory fact-checking from the media. As a result, only a fraction of the country realizes that their overall federal tax bill went down, based on recent polling. It's important to set the record straight, and today is a good opportunity to do so. According to the Treasury Department, fully 90 percent of US workers experienced higher take-home pay in 2018 thanks to the new law. And here are the overall numbers, courtesy of the left-leaning Tax Policy Center:??Tax Day Facts:Via the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, 80.4% of Americans (& 91.3% of middle income earners) got a *tax CUT* in 2018, thanks to the GOP tax reform law.????Every Democrat in Congress voted no. If they’d gotten their way, most Americans would be paying more ?? pic.twitter.com/frGD2u266Q— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 14, 2019Looking exclusively at the individual federal income tax changes in the law, TPC found that almost exactly two-thirds of Americans received a tax cut, averaging nearly $2,200 -- including 82 percent of middle-income earners, who averaged a tax cut of $1,050. When all provisions of the law are examined, 80.4 percent of earners received a tax cut, including 91.3 percent of the middle class. Just 4.8 percent of the population saw their taxes go up, a disproportionate number of whom are higher-income earners who itemize deductions and live in high-tax states and jurisdictions. Broadly speaking, 80 percent saw a cut, 15 percent saw no change, and less than five percent saw an increase. This is the data.The tax cuts will remain in effect for years to come, but if Congress fails to act down the road, the old rates will snap back into place toward the end of the ten-year budget window. Democrats complained about the lower rates being temporary for families, but permanent for businesses, using a hypothetical future expiration date to launch misleading attacks about the law being a middle class tax increase, with nearly all of the benefits going to the top one percent. As the table above illustrates, that talking point is utterly bogus -- and it's even further exposed by House Democrats' near-unanimous vote against making the individual rates permanent last year. One of the other ways Democrats have attempted to spin and mislead on the tax law is to conflate tax refunds with tax cuts. We addressed this ignorant sleight of hand in a previous post, but even that nonsense talking point has sustained another blow:H&R Block data through March 31, 2019 shows the size of its clients’ tax refunds is up 1.4 percent under the first year of tax reform and new withholding tables, while overall tax liability is down 24.9 percent on average...Taxes down 25 percent, but refunds roughly flat, so where did the money go? Given the 24.9 percent decrease in tax liability for H&R Block clients, taxpayers want to know where that money went. Survey analysis from H&R Block uncovers an issue: Nearly 80 percent of Americans did not update their W-4 last year, resulting in a bump in their paychecks throughout the year, sometimes more than their taxes decreased. Now, H&R Block data reveals just how much the TCJA impacted taxpayers’ paychecks. With tax liability down nearly $1,200 on average, but refunds up just $43, an average of $1,156 went into paychecks during the year, or about $50 a biweekly paycheck starting in March of 2018. The impact of the withholding changes will be amplified in 2019 because they will be in effect all 12 months of the year.People's taxes went down significantly, boosting their paychecks throughout the year. Refunds increased, too, but only by a little bit, because most of the tax relief was distributed in smaller increments every two weeks. This mismatch is what some politicians have sought to exploit to deceive people into thinking that the tax reductions didn't help them. It's also essential not to lose sight of the bigger picture: Following passage of the tax reform law, unemployment has scraped multi-decade lows (nearly 2.7 million American jobs were created in the year following its implementation, a double-digit increase over the previous year), wages have increased at the best pace in a decade, and jobless claims have plummeted:The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits dropped to a 49-1/2-year low last week, pointing to sustained labor market strength that could temper expectations of a sharp slowdown in economic growth. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 196,000 for the week ended April 6, the lowest level since early October 1969. Claims have now declined for four straight weeks...Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims would rise to 211,000 in the latest week.There is a reason why President Trump's job approval on the economy is so much stronger than his overall rating. And part of the reason the US economy has been thriving is directly due to the important pro-growth and pro-competitiveness changes made to the tax code in late 2017. Democrats fought this progress tooth and nail, literally predicting "armageddon." They were wrong. If they'd somehow prevailed, the overwhelming majority of Americans would be paying more in taxes. Those are the facts. I'll leave you with a few more:
FACT CHECK- Millionaires’ share of tax burden RISES from 19.3% to 19.8% under tax reform- Tax cuts for individuals aren’t permanent- 3 of 4 dollars of tax cuts go to individuals, not corps- Since 1800’s feds special account for “patriots’ who want to send more $$’s to DC. https://t.co/3AxktRj5K7— Rep. Kevin Brady (@RepKevinBrady) April 13, 2019UPDATE - To their credit, the New York Times has published a major fact check, correcting the "delusion" shared by many Democratic voters that they did not receive a tax cut, even though they did. The gap between public perception and empirical reality, the reporters say, is attributable to a sustained misinformation campaign by liberal partisans:A huge number of Democrats have deluded themselves into thinking they didn’t get a tax cut from the 2017 tax law. Most of them are wrong. My latest w ?@bencasselman? (RIP our mentions). https://t.co/JJWKaFha8L— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) April 14, 2019NYT: “If you’re an American taxpayer, you probably got a tax cut last year.”“...the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents.”https://t.co/bVm56fqqoq— AshLee Strong (@AshLeeStrong) April 14, 2019
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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! President Obama acknowledged Sunday that U.S. intelligence officials "underestimated" the threat posed by the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi army’s capacity to defeat the militant group.The president said in a wide-ranging interview on CBS' “60 Minutes” that the Islamic State militants went "underground" after being squashed in Iraq and regrouped under the cover of the Syrian civil war."During the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos," Obama said.The president said his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has acknowledged that the U.S. "underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.” He also said it was "absolutely true" that the U.S. overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi army.However, Obama also acknowledged that the U.S. is dealing with a conundrum in Syria, as the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom the U.N. has accused of war crimes.More On This... "I recognize the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance," Obama said. "We are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad," whose government has committed "terrible atrocities."However, Obama called the threat from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and other terror groups a more "immediate concern that has to be dealt with.""On the other hand, in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group -- those folks could kill Americans," he said.The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has taken control of large sections of Iraq and Syria. The Khorasan Group is a cell of militants that the U.S. says is plotting attacks against the West in cooperation with the Nusra front, Syria's Al Qaeda affiliate.Both groups have been targeted by U.S. airstrikes in recent days; together they constitute the most significant military opposition to Assad. Obama said his first priority is degrading the extremists who are threatening Iraq and the West. To defeat them, he acknowledged, would require a competent local ground force, something no analyst predicts will surface any time soon in Syria, despite U.S. plans to arm and train "moderate" rebels."Right now, we've got a campaign plan that has a strong chance for success in Iraq," the president said. "Syria is a more challenging situation."In discussing Iraq, Obama said the U.S. left the country after the war with “a democracy that was intact, a military that was well-equipped and the ability then (for Iraqis) to chart their own course.”However, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “squandered” that opportunity over roughly five years because he was “much more interested in consolidating his Shia base and very suspicious of the Sunnis and the Kurds, who make up the other two thirds of the country,” the president said.Obama said military force is necessary to shrink the Islamic State’s capacity, cut off financing and eliminate the flow of foreign fighters. He said political solutions are also needed that accommodate both Sunnis and Shiites, adding that conflicts between the two sects are the biggest cause of conflict throughout the world.Earlier Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner questioned Obama's strategy to destroy the Islamic State group. Boehner said on ABC's "This Week" that the U.S. may have "no choice" but to send in American troops if the mix of U.S.-led airstrikes and a ground campaign reliant on Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and moderate Syrian rebels fails to achieve that goal."These are barbarians. They intend to kill us," Boehner said. "And if we don't destroy them first, we're going to pay the price."However, Obama again made clear he has no interest in a major U.S. ground presence beyond the 1,600 American advisers and special operations troops he already has ordered to Iraq. When asked if the current conflict was not really a war, Obama said there are clear distinctions between this campaign and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."We are assisting Iraq in a very real battle that's taking place on their soil, with their troops," the president said. "This is not America against ISIL. This is America leading the international community to assist a country with whom we have a security partnership.""That's always the case," Obama added. "We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us."The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is looking to mount a $1 billion bid for the White House as an independent candidate, with sources saying he's alarmed by Donald Trump at the top of the GOP field and Democrat Bernie Sanders' surge past Hillary Clinton in the polls.
The billionaire former mayor has considered independent presidential runs in the past, reports The New York Times, but decided against them after concluding he could not win.
However, Bloomberg has already taken steps toward a campaign, telling people close to him that he would spend at least $1 billion of his personal fortune on it, the Times said. Spending heavily to win office is not unusual for the billionaire founder of a financial services and news company that bears his name. He shelled out an estimated $250 million on his three mayoral campaigns, the Times reported in 2009.
Bloomberg, 73, has set his deadline for making a decision in early March, when advisers believe he could still qualify be on the ballot in all 50 states as an independent. His team plans to conduct a poll after the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary to assess the state of the race.
No independent has ever won a U.S. presidential election. An unnamed Bloomberg adviser told the Times the former mayor believes voters want "a non-ideological, bipartisan, results-oriented vision" that neither major party is offering.
Bloomberg is likely to abandon his 2016 bid if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination despite Sanders' surge, said former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a past Democratic National Committee chairman.
"Mike Bloomberg for president rests on the not-impossible but somewhat unlikely circumstance of either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz versus Bernie Sanders," said Rendell, who's friends with Clinton and Bloomberg. "If Hillary wins the nomination, Hillary is mainstream enough that Mike would have no chance, and Mike's not going to go on a suicide mission."
Mounting an independent campaign means drawing voters from the Republican and Democratic parties. But its' difficult to see which side would welcome his positions, the Times says. He supports most of the Democrats' social policies but defends the financial services industry, which many liberals find unpopular, and backs aggressive policing policies.
Bloomberg, a registered Democrat who switched to the GOP before winning his first term as mayor in 2001, has spent millions advocating policies and politicians who back gun control, abortion, and immigration reform.
Bloomberg associates say he believes the current slate of presidential candidates, and Clinton's stumbles, are too concerning to stay on the sidelines.
Just last fall, at a dinner party at longtime Clinton supporter Robert Altman's, Bloomberg was critical of Clinton as a flawed politician who is facing questions about both her honesty and the investigation about her use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
One Bloomberg adviser told the Times it isn't all about Clinton, but rather that she trails Sanders in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, according to the Times.
Trump dismissed concerns about a Bloomberg run last week. "I would love to have Michael join the race," Trump told George Stephanopoulos Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "First of all, he's a friend of mine. He's a great guy. I'd love to because he would ... take a lot of votes away from Hillary and it's going to be Hillary."
Clinton donor Alan Patricof, though, said a Bloomberg run would make things difficult for Democrats even though if it came to a choice between Trump and Bloomberg, "I'd certainly rather have President Bloomberg."
Though no third-party candidate has won the presidency, they have had an impact on election outcomes..
In 1992 Texas businessman Ross Perot ran as an independent, a decision that some believe helped Democrat Bill Clinton defeat incumbent Republican George H. W. Bush.
Material from Newsmax wire services was used in this report. Related Stories: Centrists Hard to Find This Election NY Post Columnist: Michael Bloomberg Should Challenge Hillary © 2022 Newsmax. All rights reserved. | 2 |
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the debt ceiling during an event in the State Dining Room of the White House on Oct. 4. Photo: Erin Scott/White House/Zuma Press Democrats keep telling Americans they have the votes and a mandate to pass the biggest tax increase since 1968 and the biggest domestic spending bill ever. Yet they also claim they’re helpless to raise the federal debt ceiling without Republican votes. It’s a preposterous position, albeit of the sort this Administration often tries to sell. Such as: The soaring number of illegal border crossings in Texas is merely “seasonal,” the Afghanistan withdrawal was a success, and the cost of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill is “zero.” Yet the White House is sticking to the line that the minority party is at fault for the majority party’s failure to raise the limit. The press-office wizards rolled out President Biden on Monday to portray the GOP’s reluctance not to cooperate as “so reckless and dangerous,” along with the usual parade of potential horribles: a credit downgrade, a run on the dollar, and a potential default on U.S. securities. “So let’s be clear: Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job, they’re threatening to use the power—their power to prevent us from doing our job: saving the economy from a catastrophic event,” Mr. Biden declared. “I think, quite frankly, it’s hypocritical, dangerous, and disgraceful.” But no one is preventing Democrats from doing their job. The Democrats can pass anything they want in the House. In the Senate they have 50 votes, plus the Vice President, to pass anything budget related through reconciliation. The GOP can’t filibuster such a budget bill—a fact Democrats are counting on to pass their multi-trillion-dollar tax and spending binge. The parliamentarian has already said that Democrats can use reconciliation to raise the debt limit, so why won’t they do it? As it happens, Mr. Biden gave that game away when he was asked Monday why Democrats aren’t using reconciliation. “There is a process” that “would require literally up to hundreds of votes,” Mr. Biden explained. “It’s unlimited number of votes having nothing directly to do with the debt limit; it could be everything from Ethiopia to anything else that has nothing to do with the debt limit. And it’s fraught with all kinds of potential danger for a miscalculation, and it would have to happen twice.” In other words, Mr. Biden admits that Democrats could raise the limit via reconciliation, but then they’d also have to take difficult votes on many issues on the Senate floor. Some of those votes might be unpopular. Mr. Biden is admitting that the reason is political—that Democrats want Republicans to spare them from having to take those tough votes. Now we know why Kate Bedingfield and her White House media team keep the President under wraps. He might blurt out an inconvenient political truth. Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats are betting that if they blame Republicans loudly enough as the day of debt reckoning arrives, the GOP will cave and give Democrats the political cover they want. But why should the GOP do so when Democrats have blocked Republicans from any role in the monumental spending bill? If Congress fails to raise the debt limit, the Democrats who run both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. will be responsible for the consequences. Wonder Land: "We've got three things to do" says Joe Biden. "The debt ceiling, continuing resolution and the two pieces of legislation. We do that, the country's gonna be in great shape." Images: Disney via Everett Collection/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the October 6, 2021, print edition. | 2 |
President Obama is taking his gun-control message on the road, with a planned first stop in Democrat-leading Minnesota, at the Minneapolis Police Department’s Special Operations Center, according to media reports. There, Mr. Obama is expected to call for a ban on assault weapons and a mandate for national background checks on all gun buyers, Newsmax reports. This is the first stop on a planned national public relations campaign for Congress to enact more gun control laws, Newsmax said. Minnesota officials have been seeking ways to tighten gun laws for years, Newsmax reported. | 2 |
| August 19, 2020 10:26 PM Former President Barack Obama momentarily placed the politics of hope to one side on Wednesday as he strove to unite the Democratic Party behind 2020 standard-bearer Joe Biden and against President Trump. Four years ago, when Obama addressed the 2016 convention in Philadelphia, a Trump presidency was a hypothetical. Now, Obama argued Wednesday, people were dying because of his successor's sloppy record in the White House. "Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t," Obama told Democrats. "And the consequences of that failure are severe: 170,000 Americans dead, millions of jobs gone, our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before." Obama returned to Philadelphia on Wednesday, this time to the Museum of the American Revolution, to make his remarks before the virtual gathering. His aides said they scouted the location to "underscore that democracy itself is on the line." During his speech, given on the convention's third night, Obama recalled sitting in the Oval Office with Trump during the transition, expecting he'd "show some interest in taking the job seriously." "But he never did," he said. "He’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves." Like former first lady Michelle Obama on Monday, the two-term commander in chief served as a character witness for Biden, his vice president and Delaware's 36-year senator. "For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president — and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country," he said. Obama spoke highly of Biden's 2020 running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, as well. Obama's known the first-term senator, who will be the first African American woman and person of South Asian descent to feature on a major party's ticket, since she was her home state's six-year attorney general. "In my friend Kamala Harris, he’s chosen an ideal partner who’s more than prepared for the job; someone who knows what it’s like to overcome barriers, and who’s made a career fighting to help others live out their own American dream," he said. Speaking to undecideds and the unenthused, Obama echoed his eulogy this month of the late civil rights icon John Lewis. During the funeral, held in Martin Luther King Jr.'s old church, Obama pushed the need to make voting easier across the country. "Here’s the thing: No single American can fix this country alone," he said Wednesday. "So, I am also asking you to believe in your own ability, to embrace your own responsibility as citizens, to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure." Obama's endorsement of Biden on Wednesday was more strident than in the past. He purposely steered clear of the 2020 primary, with Biden telling reporters that was at his urging. "I asked President Obama not to endorse, and whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits," Biden said last year. Obama has been more publicly critical of Trump since the first year of the incumbent's administration. He's been more active, too, in 2020 campaign politics since Biden became the presumptive nominee in April. Now, Obama can only hope he's not too late. | 2 |
American parents are in for a payday. The federal government will begin forking over monthly payments to millions of US families July 15 under President Biden’s controversial expanded child tax credit plan. The cash — approved as part of the Democrat’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package in March — aims to prevent child poverty. But critics say the checks, which are part of Biden’s coronavirus relief plan, are an expansion of the welfare state and a disincentive to work. Here’s what you need to know about the child tax credit, including whether you’re eligible. Who qualifies for the expanded child tax credit? The expanded payments will go to couples who earn $150,000 or less per year along with heads of households who earn $112,500 or less. Individuals who earn $75,000 or less also qualify, according to the IRS. Margarita Mora preparing to drop off her daughter at daycare.AP How much will I get for the child tax credit? It depends on your situation.
Eligible families with kids under the age of 6 will receive a total of up to $3,600 per child, while families of older children between the ages of 6 and 17 could get up to $3,000 per kid. That’s an increase from the regular child tax credit of up to $2,000 for each child up to age 17. The credit then plateaus at $2,000 per child before it starts to phase out for single parents earning more than $200,000 and married couples bringing home more than $400,000 annually. Parents who aren’t US citizens can also receive the payments for their children who are citizens — as long as they have a taxpayer identification number and their kids have a valid Social Security number. All families can check their child tax credit eligibility via this IRS website. Students Arelyanna, 3, and Javier, 2, play at school. AP When do child tax credit payments begin? The federal government will begin sending payments on July 15 and parents will then receive their cash on a monthly basis. How much will I receive each month? Parents will receive up to $300 per month for each child under age 6 and $250 for each kid ages 6 to 17. This means that eligible families will receive half of their total credit from now until the end of the year. Parents can claim the other half when they file their 2021 taxes next year. Families who would prefer to receive the money as a lump sum can also opt out of the monthly installment plan via this IRS portal. Teacher Graciela Olague-Barrios reading to two infants at Cuidando Los Ninos in Albuquerque, NM. The expanded child tax credit payments will benefit roughly 39 million households. AP How will the money arrive? The cash will be paid out through direct deposit, paper checks and debit cards, according to the agency. The majority, roughly 80 percent of parents, will receive the payment via direct deposit. What do I have to do to get the child tax credit? Most families will automatically receive the payment because they already filed 2019 or 2020 returns claiming the credit, according to the IRS. A total of 39 million households with 88 percent of American kids will get the payment. The IRS will also send the credit to parents who previously used its portal to register for COVID-19 stimulus checks. Families who haven’t filed tax returns in the past two years can use another IRS portal to register to receive the child tax credit by providing information on their households and bank accounts. Parents can also check whether they’re enrolled to receive advance payments via this IRS portal. | 2 |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Sen. Mary Landrieu is looking for a win-win, as she pushes for a Senate vote to approve the long-delayed Keystone pipeline in a bid to deliver a victory for the energy industry -- and for herself, in a tough runoff election next month.The senator is facing Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy after being forced into the runoff. Within hours of returning to Capitol Hill, Landrieu called for a Senate vote on the Keystone bill, which is now teed up for next Tuesday.Republicans responded swiftly to Landrieu's maneuvering, scheduling a vote in the House, likely for Friday, on an identical bill sponsored by Cassidy.The back-and-forth amounts to a continuation of their bitter Senate campaign, with one of the most controversial energy projects in America caught in the middle. The TransCanada-built pipeline, which would cross over an aquifer in Nebraska, has been held up for six years by environmental and other concerns.White House spokesman Josh Earnest, traveling with President Obama in Burma, told reporters that the president takes a "dim view" of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest stopped short of threatening a veto, but reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review. Obama has repeatedly ordered such reviews under pressure from environmental groups, who say the project would contribute to climate change.Landrieu, who is thought to be trailing Cassidy ahead of their Dec. 6 runoff election, wants to boost the energy industry by pushing Keystone. The measure was one she co-sponsored with Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., back in May.“We can pass the Keystone pipeline and answer the frustrations of the American people,” she said. “So they could rest next and say, oh my gosh the senators of the United States of America have ears and they have brains and they have hearts and they heard what we said and we can do this.”But the timing immediately raised Republican suspicions.Cassidy noted that the House has passed pro-Keystone legislation eight times, and "the Senate did not consider any of the eight." After Landrieu called for a vote, Cassidy and GOP leaders in the House said they would vote on a Cassidy-authored Keystone bill."I hope the Senate and the president do the right thing and pass this legislation creating thousands of jobs," Cassidy said in a statement. "After six years, it’s time to build."The legislative tug-of-war came a day after aides first said that Senate Democrats were considering bringing the pipeline to a vote in order to boost Landrieu ahead of the runoff election. (The two rivals are heading to a runoff because neither got more than 50 percent of the vote last week.) The pipeline is a popular project in oil industry-heavy Louisiana, and Landrieu has touted her support of the pipeline and her tenure as chairwoman of the Senate energy committee in her campaign.On the Senate floor on Wednesday, Landrieu insisted she was not trying to gain political points, and said she didn’t even care if her name stayed on the bill.“I didn’t come here to see my name in lights,” she said. “I came to fight for jobs for my state.”She also seemed to take credit for Cassidy's House bill, calling it "identical" to the legislation she co-sponsored.However, Cassidy told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that his rival's assertion that politics were not involved was obviously untrue."I have to smile when Sen. Landrieu says politics are not involved," he said on "On the Record." "Clearly (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid did not care about the 40,000 jobs that would be created for families which are struggling, but he does care about Sen. Landrieu’s job. So finally he is going to take the bill up. I don’t think the president cares about those 40,000 people."Senate Republicans and several moderate Democrats have pushed for the project to be approved for years, and backers of the project got a major win after Republicans took control of the Senate. Supporters say the construction of the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs.Landrieu said in an evening press conference that she does not have a commitment from Obama that he would sign the bill should it reach his desk, but she is "hopeful.""We believe the bill we drafted could receive support in the House of Representatives and get the president's signature," she said.Landrieu is facing a tough battle to keep her job after nearly 20 years in office. A Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has the senator trailing her rival by nearly 5 points ahead of the election on Dec. 6.Fox News' Kara Rowland, Chad Pergram and Mike Emanuel and the Associated Press contributed to this report. | 2 |
Without evidence, America’s corporate media spent weeks hoaxing the American public with the lie Capitol Hill Police Officer Brian Sicknick died after an anti-vote-fraud protester smashed him in the head with a fire extinguisher during the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
After the fire extinguisher hoax was debunked, the corporate media spread the lie that Sicknick probably died as a result of the riot, maybe from pepper spray or something. On Monday the Washington D.C., medical examiner proved once and for all that the corporate media are a vile gang of liars who need to be ignored by the American people:
The D.C. chief medical examiner has ruled that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after he took part in defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots[.]…
Last month, two men were arrested and charged with assaulting Sicknick. They each face nine counts related to the Capitol attack, including the assault of Sicknick and two other federal agents with a chemical irritant.
Medical examiner Francisco J. Diaz, in an interview with the Post, said that Sicknick’s autopsy did not find any evidence that the 42-year-old officer suffered an allergic reaction to the chemical substance, which Diaz said would have caused Sicknick’s throat to seize.
It was all lies, because all the corporate media do is lie. Anything to attack former President Trump, anything to attack Trump supporters, and these lies all came from the very same fake media have been almost completely silent about a Capitol Police Officer who was even more recently murdered by an “attack on democracy.”
Gee, was it just a few weeks ago that a Nation of Islam follower used his car to mow down Capitol Officer Billy Evans? Why yes, yet it was. Boy, that story sure disappeared quick.
Another reason the media spread the fire extinguisher lie about Sicknick was to rig that second stupid and useless impeachment trial against Trump, this one conducted days after he left office.
All the corporate media do is lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, and then lie some more.
There is nothing these scumbags won’t lie about, and it is long past time for the rest of us to put them on IGNORE.
Stop reacting to them, stop watching, reading, and listening to them… IGNORE these godforsaken liars, because all they do is rig elections, burn down predominantly black neighborhoods, start riots, and try to make you feel depressed and outnumbered.
IGNORE these lying bastards. Your life will immediately improve. Guaranteed. | 2 |
Even the Good Book couldn’t save him.
Clutching a red Bible on his way into court, President Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone was convicted Friday of lying to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The outspoken Republican operative, 67, was indicted in January as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Russia colluded with the Trump campaign.
He was found guilty in Washington, DC, federal court on all seven counts against him — one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of making false statements and one count of witness tampering.
Stone faces up to 20 years in prison at his sentencing Feb. 6, but his sentence will likely be much lighter.
The Richard Nixon-obsessed, self-described “dirty trickster” was accused of lying to the House Intelligence Committee about his communications with WikiLeaks, as well as encouraging another witness to lie to the FBI.
Jurors began deliberating Thursday after about a week of testimony, including from Trump 2016 campaign chief executive Steve Bannon, who said Stone boasted about his ties to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, and alerted the campaign to pending batches of damaging Democratic emails.
Former Trump campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates also took the witness stand, telling jurors that he had overheard a phone conversation in late July 2016 between Trump and Stone that appeared to be about WikiLeaks — because after the call ended, Trump said that more information would be coming out soon.
Immediately after the verdict was handed down, Trump blasted his longtime friend’s conviction as a “double standard.”
Roger Stone arrives at a DC courthouse on Nov. 15.EPA
“So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie,” Trump tweeted.
“A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country?” he wrote, referring to former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, among others.
Federal prosecutors said Stone lied in his September 2017 testimony to Congress to protect the Trump campaign from embarrassment.
“Roger Stone knew if this information came out, it would look really bad for his longtime associate Donald Trump, so he lied to the committee,” prosecutor Jonathan Kravis told the jury during closing arguments. “Ladies and gentlemen, Roger Stone is a political strategist. He knows how this is going to look.”
Stone’s lawyer, Bruce Rogow, said he did nothing deliberately illegal and attacked the government’s case as weak and built on unreliable witnesses, saying the allegations defied “common sense” because Trump had already been elected president by the time Stone testified to the House Intelligence Committee.
“Why would he make stuff up? Why would he volunteer to testify? Why would Stone produce documents?” Rogow asked during his own summations.
Stone, who did not testify, has been out on bail since his arrest. He is the sixth Trump adviser or aide to be convicted of charges brought as part of Mueller’s investigation, including Gates, the president’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Stone said nothing as he emerged from the courthouse and slipped on his trademark, round-framed sunglasses. He is barred from speaking publicly about his case as per a gag order issued after he posted a photo of Judge Amy Berman Jackson with crosshairs next to her head.
With Post wires
Roger Stone arrives at a DC courthouse on Nov. 15.Reuters | 2 |
I watched nearly all of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Right away, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley stated clearly that the role of a judge is to rule based on the law regardless of his or her personal view of the outcome.
He also stated that since Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing in 1993, every nominee has agreed to decline to discuss his or her personal opinion of the “correctness” of any given court precedent. He stated firmly that requesting a judge to do so would essentially be asking for a promise to rule in a certain way in exchange for a confirmation vote, which is both unfair and unethical. With great persistence despite remarkably determined efforts, Kavanaugh honored this standard.
I was struck by how Kavanaugh answered questions related to the various cases and social issues presented to him. He carefully began each response by citing court precedent relevant to the issue. When asked about his decision-making in court cases, he was equally careful to distinguish his personal views from his dedication to judicial independence, following the law as it is written.
This told me exactly what kind of judge he would be, as he had every opportunity to win favor with one side or the other by selectively answering questions. Despite this neutral stance, many senators abjectly refused to recognize the standard in place, often badgering Kavanaugh repeatedly to give his personal opinion. He never once wavered.
What’s Kavanaugh’s Opinion of Obergefell?
One topic that demonstrates senators’ willful defiance of this ground rule and the biased way the media interpreted his answers revolved around LGBT law, specifically same-sex marriage and workplace discrimination law. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) asked, “Can you comment on your personal opinion on whether Obergefell [the case that required governments to grant gay marriage licenses nationwide] was correctly decided? It’s a yes or no. Please.”
Kavanaugh had repeatedly reminded senators that he chose to honor the precedent of previous nominees refusing to give a “thumbs up or down” about any specific case. Instead, he gave what I viewed as a clear response. Kavanaugh replied, “Justice Kennedy wrote, ‘The days of discriminating against gay and lesbian Americans or treating gay and lesbian Americans as inferior in dignity and worth are over.’”
Unsatisfied, Harris asked if he agreed with Kennedy’s words he had quoted. He attempted to reply by stating, “That is the precedent of the Supreme Court agreed with by…”
She interrupted, “Sir, I’m asking your opinion. You’re the nominee right now so it is probative of your ability to serve on the highest court in our land. So I’m asking you a very specific question. Either you’re willing to answer or not. And if you’re not willing to answer it, we can move on. Do you believe Obergefell was correctly decided?” He chose to, again, remind her that as in the cases of previous judges, his personal opinions were simply irrelevant.
What About Firing Gay People?
Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) also attempted to obtain a glimpse into the judge’s personal views by asking him a series of morality questions about workplace discrimination. Booker asked if he believed it was wrong to fire someone for being gay. Kavanaugh responded, “Senator, in my workplace I hire people because of their talents and abilities. All Americans…”
Booker interrupted, rephrasing the question to ask if a business had a right to fire someone for being gay. Kavanaugh responded, as had become his custom by this point, that it was inappropriate for him to comment on potential cases he may be involved with, as the issue is currently pending in many cases.
Booker said many gay Americans fear that if Kavanaugh were to be confirmed, their marriages might be nullified. He also argued that many states still allow, or more correctly do not explicitly ban, workplace discrimination against LGBT people.
Despite Booker once again asking for the judge’s personal opinion on the matter, Kavanaugh responded by stating that Congress had the power to make these legal concerns more clear, before being cut off. After a few more pressing questions on how he personally and morally viewed same-sex marriage, Kavanaugh stated firmly, despite Booker’s continued interruptions, “I apply the law, the law of the Supreme Court. The law of the land protects that right as dictated by the Supreme Court.”
Reaffirming Pro-Gay Precedent Wasn’t Enough for Them
Harris and Booker were attempting to obtain a very specific answer from the judge and despite his extremely clear responses, they grew frustrated and hostile. Harris tweeted an article by the LGBT media site The Advocate, titled “Kamala Harris Stumps Brett Kavanaugh with Marriage Equality Question,” in which she commented, “Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage across the country and was one of the great moments in the history of the Supreme Court. Despite repeated questioning, Kavanaugh refused to say it was correctly decided.”
Chad Griffin, president of the LGBT-advocacy Human Rights Campaign, tweeted, “In which Kavanaugh: -Refuses to state his opinion on marriage equality -Refuses to say if non-discrimination protections apply to LGBTQ people -Admits role in Bush admin attempt to ban marriage equality (but docs aren’t public) Thank you @SenBooker!” Kavanaugh had not admitted a role in the Bush administration discussion, however, instead simply stating he was aware of the discussion at the time.
Lambda Legal, the oldest LGBT legal advocacy organization, tweeted about Sen. Chris Coons’ (D-DE) questions, “Senator @ChrisCoons is expertly grilling #Kavanaugh on abortion, contraception, same-sex relationships and #MarriageEquality. Kavanaugh invokes all of the #LGBTQ-related decisions written by his precedent, Justice Kennedy. But, he cannot give his own opinion. Naturally.”
Bringing the point to the very center of the discussion, Eugene Scott, writing in the Washington Post, expressed, “The future is not clear for gay citizens’ ability to share the marriage rights that straight Americans do. Kavanaugh’s non-answer likely reaffirmed the fears of gay Americans and encouraged the conservative Christians who backed Trump with the hope that he would deliver the courts to them.”
If You Don’t Voice Support, You’re Against Us
In all this it seems clear the senators and the media intentionally viewed Kavanaugh’s refusal to discuss his personal opinions as validation of their prejudicial assumption of those opinions. Their standard seemed to be that if Kavanaugh did not explicitly praise a decision, he must therefore deeply oppose it, and would work to overturn it once confirmed. But I view the situation differently.
Not only did Kavanaugh repeatedly express a clear and consistent view of equality under the law for all Americans in judicial philosophy, the Constitution, and his own practice, he explicitly cited Supreme Court precedent that validated this view. At one point, when Harris was repeatedly questioning him on Obergefell, Kavanaugh restated the Justice Kennedy quote on LGBT rights, with intentional emphasis.
Viewed objectively, his message was obvious. He looks to precedent for guidance on legal decision-making and he clearly cited precedent that affirmed everything the senators were demanding of him. They were simply too blinded by prejudice to see it.
Change the Laws, Don’t Manipulate the Courts
As brilliantly argued by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) on the Senate giving power to the Supreme Court, “This transfer of power means people yearn for a place where politics can be done, and when we don’t do a lot of big political debate here, people transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that’s why the Supreme Court is increasingly a substitute political battleground for America.”
It is very apparent Kavanaugh feels so strongly on the equality of all Americans that he insisted on stating so multiple times throughout his hearing.
The Left has come to depend on the Supreme Court to provide it validation and legal protection. As such, they understandably become overwhelmed with anxiety at any change they feel they have no control over. Unfortunately, the media amplifies and perpetuates this fear. We can see that reflected in the screaming protesters and emotionally passionate lawmakers seemingly unaware of their power to introduce the solutions they believe are so necessary.
Kavanaugh did not profess loyalty to any group, ideology, or cause. He simply confirmed his commitment to being an independent judge who separates himself from his duties under the law. While identity politics advocates interpret this to be a warning sign of opposition, I view it as a sign of neutrality and fairness. That’s all I want in a judge of any kind, especially a Supreme Court justice.
More to the point, everything LGBT advocates celebrate from the court could be handled by the very lawmakers they look to for saving them by voting “No” on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. It is very apparent Kavanaugh feels so strongly on the equality of all Americans that he insisted on stating so multiple times throughout his hearing. I am saddened and frustrated that LGBT advocates and the Democrats prefer dramatic grandstanding over that simple and uncontroversial truth. Chad Felix Greene is a senior contributor to The Federalist. He is the author of the "Reasonably Gay: Essays and Arguments" series and is a social writer focusing on truth in media, conservative ideas and goals, and true equality under the law. You can follow him on Twitter @chadfelixg. Brett Kavanaughemployment discriminationGay MarriageLawLGBTObergefellObergefell v. HodgesSame-sex marriageSCOTUSSupreme Court | 2 |
COLUMBIA, South Carolina — The mood was excited and merry at the Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters at midday, with state official reporting light turnout in Saturday’s Democratic presidential primary that likely helps her score another win. Mrs. Clinton led rival Sen. Bernard Sanders by more than 20 percent in most polls heading into the first-in-the-South primary election, and Mr. Sanders had all but given up on the state and shifted focus to crucial multi-state contests that begin with Super Tuesday next week. “I’m feeling very good. I’ve never felt so relaxed before a primary before,” said Lana Moresky, a volunteer who traveled from Columbus, Ohio, to work for the Clinton campaign in South Carolina. “I just want it to be 20 percent,” added Eve Stacey, a volunteer from the Columbia area, referring to the margin of victory Mrs. Clinton’s advantage in South Carolina comes from her expected overwhelming support from black voters, who make up about 55 percent of the state’s Democratic primary electorate. Mr. Sander hopes to close the gap with Mrs. Clinton in the Palmetto State to blunt her momentum and demonstrate his viability heading into the March contests, when more than enough delegates to clinch the nomination will be at stake. State election officials said turnout appeared generally low throughout the state, although there likely would be pockets of high turnout in places such as Charleston, S.C. | 2 |
Subsets and Splits