US Politics

[RabzonKhan]

Now, this is an actual case of election fraud, not a false Trumpian claim.

Five fraudsters were indicted for ballot tampering, and so far, two have been arrested.

The states election board has announced new election dates. The primary election will take place on May 14 and after that September 10 will either be the date of run-off primary election, or the general election.

5 were indicted in alleged ballot fraud scheme. A week later, only 2 have been arrested

By Carli Brosseau, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) 12 hrs ago


RALEIGH, N.C. - In the week since a Wake County grand jury indicted five people on charges related to an alleged ballot-harvesting scheme in Bladen County, just two of the accused have been arrested.

The State Bureau of Investigation arrested the alleged ringleader, Leslie McCrae Dowless, a 63-year-old political operative and elected official, last week. He made his initial appearance in court Tuesday, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said.

Dowless had been scheduled to appear in court March 25, but he received incorrect information from a magistrate and showed up weeks early, Freeman said. Since Dowless and his attorney, Cynthia Singletary, had driven hours from Bladen County, Freeman decided to go ahead with the hearing, she said.

Dowless faces three counts of felony obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and two counts of possession of an absentee ballot. Under North Carolina law, a voter's mail-in absentee ballot may be handled by others only in very limited circumstances.

The charges relate to the 2016 general election and 2018 primary. Charges stemming from the 2018 general election are expected to follow.

In 2018, Dowless' most high-profile client was the Republican congressional candidate in the state's 9th district, Mark Harris. The North Carolina State Board of Elections recently held a hearing about absentee ballot irregularities in that race and ordered a new election after about four days of testimony. The board's unanimous vote came shortly after Harris conceded that a new election was warranted. Read more

 

[RabzonKhan]

The Making of the Fox News White House
Fox News has always been partisan. But has it
become propaganda?

By Jane Mayer

In January, during the longest government shutdown in America’s history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The White House wanted to dramatize what Trump was portraying as a national emergency: the need to build a wall along the Mexican border. The presence of armored vehicles, bales of confiscated marijuana, and federal agents in flak jackets underscored the message.

But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn’t been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen “huddling” with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity’s seventh interview with the President, and Fox’s forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as “fake news.”

Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”

Hemmer argues that Fox—which, as the most watched cable news network, generates about $2.7 billion a year for its parent company, 21st Century Fox—acts as a force multiplier for Trump, solidifying his hold over the Republican Party and intensifying his support. “Fox is not just taking the temperature of the base—it’s raising the temperature,” she says. “It’s a radicalization model.” For both Trump and Fox, “fear is a business strategy—it keeps people watching.” As the President has been beset by scandals, congressional hearings, and even talk of impeachment, Fox has been both his shield and his sword. The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead. All day long, Trump retweets claims made on the network; his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has largely stopped holding press conferences, but she has made some thirty appearances on such shows as “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity.” Trump, Hemmer says, has “almost become a programmer.”

Fox’s defenders view such criticism as unfounded and politically biased. Ken LaCorte, who was in senior management at Fox News for nearly twenty years, until 2016, and recently started his own news service, told me, “The people at Fox said the same thing about the press and Obama.” Fox’s public-relations department offers numerous examples of its reporters and talk-show hosts challenging the Administration. Chris Wallace, a tough-minded and ecumenical interviewer, recently grilled Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser, on the need for a border wall, given that virtually all drugs seized at the border are discovered at checkpoints. Trump is not the first President to have a favorite media organization; James Madison and Andrew Jackson were each boosted by partisan newspapers. But many people who have watched and worked with Fox over the years, including some leading conservatives, regard Fox’s deepening Trump orthodoxy with alarm. Bill Kristol, who was a paid contributor to Fox News until 2012 and is a prominent Never Trumper, said of the network, “It’s changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just
propaganda.” Joe Peyronnin, a professor of journalism at N.Y.U., was an early president of Fox News, in the mid-nineties. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he says of Fox. “It’s as if the President had his own press organization. It’s not healthy.”

Nothing has formalized the partnership between Fox and Trump more than the appointment, in July, 2018, of Bill Shine, the former co-president of Fox News, as director of communications and deputy chief of staff at the White House. Kristol says of Shine, “When I first met him, he was producing Hannity’s show at Fox, and the two were incredibly close.” Both come from white working-class families on Long Island, and they are so close to each other’s children that they are referred to as “Uncle Bill” and “Uncle Sean.” Another former colleague says, “They spend their vacations together.” A third recalls, “I was rarely in Shine’s office when Sean didn’t call. And I was in Shine’s office a lot. They talked all the time—many times a day.”

Shine led Fox News’ programming division for a dozen years, overseeing the morning and evening opinion shows, which collectively get the biggest ratings and define the network’s conservative brand. Straight news was not within his purview. In July, 2016, Roger Ailes, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Fox, was fired in the face of numerous allegations of chronic sexual harassment, and Shine became co-president. But within a year he, too, had been forced out, amid a second wave of sexual-harassment allegations, some of them against Fox’s biggest star at the time, Bill O’Reilly. Shine wasn’t personally accused of sexual harassment, but several lawsuits named him as complicit in a workplace culture of coverups, payoffs, and victim intimidation.

Shine, who has denied any wrongdoing, has kept a low profile at the White House, and rejects interview requests, including one from this magazine. But Kristol contends that Shine’s White House appointment is a scandal. “It’s been wildly under-covered,” he said. “It’s astounding that Shine—the guy who covered up Ailes’s horrible behavior—is the deputy chief of staff!”

The Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, another conservative Never Trumper, used to appear on the network, but wouldn’t do so now. “Fox was begun as a good-faith effort to counter bias, but it’s morphed into something that is not even news,” she says. “It’s simply a mouthpiece for the President, repeating what the President says, no matter how false or contradictory.” The feedback loop is so strong, she notes, that Trump “will even pick up an error made by Fox,” as when he promoted on Twitter a bogus Fox story claiming that South Africa was “seizing land from white farmers.” Rubin told me, “It’s funny that Bill Shine went over to the White House. He could have stayed in his old job. The only difference is payroll.”

With Shine, the Fox and White House payrolls actually do overlap. The Hollywood Reporter obtained financial-disclosure forms revealing that Fox has been paying Shine millions of dollars since he joined the Administration. Last year, he collected the first half of a seven-million-dollar bonus that he was owed after resigning from Fox; this year, he will collect the remainder. That sum is in addition to an $8.4-million severance payment that he received upon leaving the network. In December, four Democratic senators sent a letter to the White House counsel’s office, demanding proof that Fox’s payments to Shine don’t violate federal ethics and conflict-of-interest statutes.

Shine is only the most recent Fox News alumnus to join the Trump Administration. Among others, Trump appointed the former Fox contributor Ben Carson to be his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the former Fox commentator John Bolton to be his national-security adviser, and the former Fox commentator K. T. McFarland to be his deputy national-security adviser. (McFarland resigned after four months.) Trump recently picked the former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert to be the Ambassador to the United Nations, but she soon withdrew herself from consideration, reportedly because her nanny, an immigrant, lacked a work permit. The White House door swings both ways: Hope Hicks, Shine’s predecessor in the communications job, is now slated to be the top public-relations officer at Fox Corporation. Several others who have left the Trump White House, including Sebastian Gorka, a former adviser on national security, regularly appear on Fox. Gorka recently insisted, on Fox Business, that one of Trump’s biggest setbacks—retreating from the shutdown without securing border-wall funds—was actually a “masterstroke.”

Other former Fox News celebrities have practically become part of the Trump family. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former co-host of “The Five,” left Fox in July; she is now working on Trump’s reëlection campaign and dating Donald Trump, Jr. (Guilfoyle left the network mid-contract, after a former Fox employee threatened to sue the network for harassment and accused Guilfoyle of sharing lewd images, among other misconduct; Fox and the former employee reached a multimillion-dollar settlement. A lawyer who represents Guilfoyle said that “any suggestion” that she “engaged in misconduct at Fox is patently false.”) Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host, and Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business host, have each been patched into Oval Office meetings, by speakerphone, to offer policy advice. Sean Hannity has told colleagues that he speaks to the President virtually every night, after his show ends, at 10 p.m. According to the Washington Post, White House advisers have taken to calling Hannity the Shadow Chief of Staff. A Republican political expert who has a paid contract with Fox News told me that Hannity has essentially become a “West Wing adviser,” attributing this development, in part, to the “utter breakdown of any normal decision-making in the White House.” The expert added, “The place has gone off the rails. There is no ordinary policy-development system.” As a result, he said, Fox’s on-air personalities “are filling the vacuum.”

Axios recently reported that sixty per cent of Trump’s day is spent in unstructured “executive time,” much of it filled by television. Charlie Black, a longtime Republican lobbyist in Washington, whose former firm, Black, Manafort & Stone, advised Trump in the eighties and nineties, told me, “Trump gets up and watches ‘Fox & Friends’ and thinks these are his friends. He thinks anything on Fox is friendly. But the problem is he gets unvetted ideas.” Trump has told confidants that he has ranked the loyalty of many reporters, on a scale of 1 to 10. Bret Baier, Fox News’ chief political anchor, is a 6; Hannity a solid 10. Steve Doocy, the co-host of “Fox & Friends,” is so adoring that Trump gives him a 12.

It is hardly unprecedented for American media barons to go beyond theirpages to try to influence the course of politics. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Philip Graham, the co-owner of the Washington Post, helped broker a deal in which John F. Kennedy selected Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. But now a direct pipeline has been established between the Oval Office and the office of Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born billionaire who founded News Corp and 21st Century Fox. Multiple sources told me that Murdoch and Trump often talk on the phone. A former aide to Trump, who has been in the Oval Office when Murdoch has called, says, “It’s two men who’ve known each other for a very long time having frank conversations. The President certainly doesn’t kowtow to Murdoch, but Murdoch also doesn’t to him. He speaks to him the same way he would have five years ago.” According to Michael Wolff’s 2018 book, “Fire and Fury,” Murdoch derided Trump as “a fucking idiot” after a conversation about immigration. The aide says Trump knows that Murdoch has denigrated him behind his back, but “it doesn’t seem to matter” that much. Several sources confirmed to me that Murdoch regales friends with Trump’s latest inanities. But Murdoch, arguably the most powerful media mogul in the world, is an invaluable ally to any politician. Having Murdoch’s—and Fox’s—support is essential for Trump, the aide says: “It’s very important for the base.” Read more

Sean Hannity recently joined Trump at a rally. Greta Van Susteren, a former Fox host, calls the move an “egregious mistake.”

 

[RabzonKhan]

2020 rankings: It's now or never for Democrats who want to be president

Analysis by Chris Cillizza and Harry Enten, CNN

(This is the ninth edition of our monthly power rankings of Democrats most likely to get their party's presidential nomination in 2020.)
(CNN)Since Monday, four candidates have made their final go/no-go decisions about the 2020 Democratic presidential race.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is in. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley are out.
And the 2020 election is only 607 days away!

The rapid-fire decisions made by that quartet of candidates speaks to how quickly the 2020 race has gone from a standstill to a dead sprint. The battle for key early-state operatives is on. The fight for online dollars is joined. And any candidate not in the race by now runs the risk of getting lapped.

There are two exceptions to that rule: Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke.
Biden remains the poll frontrunner due to his residual name ID from eight years as vice president and four decades in the Senate. He keeps inching ever closer to the race -- he said last month in Delaware that the "most important people in my life want me to run" -- but hasn't officially jumped in yet. At this point, Biden's official announcement feels like a formality. He's running, the only question is how he will run.
While O'Rourke is on the other end of the political experience spectrum from Biden, he, like the former VP, can afford to wait a little while longer before making his plans plain because of his national celebrity. O'Rourke became the Democratic golden child during the 2018 campaign and even though he didn't beat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas, the shine apparently has not worn off. O'Rourke, like Biden, seems to be an all-but-announced candidate. The question is whether the energy he built behind his Senate candidacy in Texas can be replicated -- or even approximated -- at the presidential level.
Below, our rankings of the 10 candidates most likely to wind up as the Democratic presidential nominee against Donald Trump in November 2020.

OUT: Sherrod Brown: The Ohio senator was originally ranked at No. 8 on this list before he announced Thursday that he will not run for president in 2020. The updated rankings are below.

10. Jay Inslee: With Brown out, the Washington governor is in. Inslee recently announced for president and made clear that he is running as, basically, a one-issue candidate -- seeking to draw attention to what he believes is the urgent crisis of climate change. Inslee has an intriguing resume -- he spent time in Congress before being elected governor -- but it's not yet clear if his climate change focus will be enough to distinguish him in the already crowded field. (Previous ranking: Unranked)

9. Kirsten Gillibrand: The case for the junior senator from New York remains the same as it's always been. She's got the most anti-Trump record of any senator and is running in a primary in which voters strongly dislike President Donald Trump. We're also of the belief that Democrats want to nominate a woman (e.g. 91% of Democrats said they would be comfortable or enthusiastic about nominating a woman in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll). Gillibrand, though, just hasn't caught on yet. Her poll numbers for the Democratic nomination remain in the low single digits. Charges of flip-flopping dog Gillibrand's campaign. It's not clear that Democrats have any interest in her given they have a wide variety of choices. (Previous ranking: 9)

8. Julian Castro: Of the major announced candidates, Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, is the only major Latino candidate in the race. That's not insignificant, given the rising political power of the Hispanic community -- particularly in Democratic politics -- and the centrality of the immigration issue in Trump's presidency. (Castro is already seeking to organize Hispanic voters in Iowa in advance of the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses.) Castro's argument that he is the strongest candidate against Trump revolves around the notion that he can win Florida, Arizona and Texas due to his appeal to Hispanics. His is an intriguing candidacy though, realistically, he's likely running to be VP rather than for the top spot. (Previous ranking: 8)

7. Elizabeth Warren: When the Massachusetts senator, finally, officially entered the race last month, there just wasn't all that much buzz around her candidacy. She raised around $300,000 in her first day as a candidate -- a total that paled in comparison to the stunning nearly $6 million Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) collected in his first 24 hours in the race. And since Warren has been running, she's struggled to draw much attention. That may -- emphasis on may -- be part of Warren's plan, given how badly she botched her attempt to put questions about her Native American heritage behind her last fall: Lay low and wait for things to settle. (Previous ranking: 4)

6. Cory Booker: New Jersey's junior senator polled as well in February as O'Rourke. He may have more potential support in the endorsement primary than all but Harris. Booker's play as a healer sets him apart from the rest of the Democratic field and may actually be what Democratic voters want. His launch generated more Google searches than all but Harris and Sanders. Democratic voters are more enthusiastic or comfortable nominating an African-American than someone matching any other attribute. Yet, Booker hasn't caught fire. He remains well in back in polls of folks like Biden, Harris and Sanders, even though he's been running for over a month. We continue to ponder whether charges of being a neoliberal will hurt him, and whether his passion sometimes comes across as overdramatic. (Previous ranking: 5)

5. Amy Klobuchar: Klobuchar's announcement in a near-blizzard was epic -- and very, very memorable. Unfortunately for her, the early days of her candidacy have been defined by a series of stories about her bad treatment of staff. (Also, she ate a salad with a comb once.) Assuming that story line has run its course -- and there haven't been any flare-ups in the last few weeks -- then the Minnesota senator should be fine going forward. Her focus on grit as her strongest attribute and her Midwestern roots should play well in Iowa where she must perform well to have a serious chance at the nomination. (Previous ranking: 7)

4. Beto O'Rourke: We know an announcement of some type regarding a presidential run is coming soon from the man simply known as "Beto." We wonder whether O'Rourke will be able to recapture the excitement on display during his Senate bid. His appeal was not ideologically based, which could help him unite the different parts of the Democratic Party. O'Rourke demonstrated a unique ability to raise a lot of money in 2018. Since then though, things have cooled off. He's dropped from an average of 13% in national polling in December to only 5% in February. Other candidates have entered the race and have commanded a lot of media attention. Until he runs, we're in a holding pattern. We recognize that O'Rourke has shown ability to connect with Democrats, but we want to see if he can do it again. (Previous ranking: 3)

3. Bernie Sanders: We've been notably skeptical of Sanders in these rankings -- driven by a belief that the success of his 2016 campaign was fueled, in large part, by the fact that Hillary Clinton ignored him and never laid a glove on him. While we still think there is truth to that argument, and that 2020 is a totally different race for Sanders, it's impossible to ignore the grassroots energy that exists for him. One example: Sanders raised almost $6 million in the first 24 hours of his candidacy, an absolutely eye-popping sum. Sanders has what other candidates all want (and need): Organic grassroots energy for his campaign. (Previous ranking: 6)

2. Joe Biden: No one confounds us more than the former vice president. Biden continues to lead national polling and has strength in all the early states. Polling indicates that many of the qualities voters are looking for fit well with Biden's resume. He can probably pick up a number of endorsements when he declares. Importantly, there are more and more signs Biden will actually run. Biden, though, has weaknesses. He has a long record that can easily be attacked. Democratic voters are not enthusiastic about nominating someone over the age of 75. He could also be stale from not having run a campaign for a long time. We wonder how much of his polling advantage will evaporate once he is no longer just President Barack Obama's vice president and he is his own entity. (Previous ranking: 2)

1. Kamala Harris: The California senator has held down the top spot in our rankings for five straight months now. She continues to run a practically flawless campaign, a hard thing to do for someone who is doing this for the first time. The only potential hurdle for Harris is the nominating calendar; if she doesn't win, place or show in Iowa or New Hampshire, does that make her less viable in her must-win state of South Carolina? If she can make it that far, the map gets friendlier, with the massive treasure trove of California's delegates waiting in early March. (Previous ranking: 1)

 

[RabzonKhan]

 

[RabzonKhan]

Trump’s two years trade war is a Yuge failure. Told ya, he’s a big mouth loser.

Remember his tweet, “trade wars are good, and easy to win”.

https://twitter.com/x/status/969525362580484098

According to the commerce Department, the U.S. trade deficit grows to 10-year high under Trump. Trade deficit grew to $621 billion in 2018, its highest level since 2008. Link

 

[RabzonKhan]

Trump promised during the campaign that he would hire the best people for the country.

New York Charges Paul Manafort With 16 Crimes. If He’s Convicted, Trump Can’t Pardon Him.
WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM 2 hrs ago


Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, has been charged in New York with mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said Wednesday, an effort to ensure he will still face prison time if Mr. Trump pardons him for his federal crimes.

News of the indictment came shortly after Mr. Manafort was sentenced to his second federal prison term in two weeks; he now faces a combined sentence of more than seven years for tax and bank fraud and conspiracy in two related cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but has no such authority in state cases.

While Mr. Trump has not said he intends to pardon his former campaign chairman, he has often spoken of his power to pardon and has defended Mr. Manafort on a number of occasions, calling him a “brave man.”

The new state charges against Mr. Manafort are contained in a 16-count indictment that alleges a yearlong scheme in which he falsified business records to obtain millions of dollars in loans, Mr. Vance said in a news release after the federal sentencing.

“No one is beyond the law in New York,” he said, adding that the investigation by the prosecutors in his office had “yielded serious criminal charges for which the defendant has not been held accountable.”

The indictment grew out of an investigation that began in 2017, when the Manhattan prosecutors began examining loans Mr. Manafort received from two banks.

Last week, a grand jury hearing evidence in the case voted to charge Mr. Manafort with residential mortgage fraud, conspiracy, falsifying business records and other charges. A lawyer for Mr. Manafort could not immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier this month, Mr. Manafort, 69, was sentenced in Virginia to nearly four years in prison on one of his two federal cases, far less time than prosecutors had requested; on Wednesday, he was sentenced in Washington, D.C., to serve an additional three and a half years. He could face up to 25 years in New York state prison if convicted of the most serious charges in the new indictment, which is expected to be announced later on Wednesday.

The loans were also the subject of Mr. Mueller’s investigation and were the basis for some of the counts in the federal indictment that led to Mr. Manafort’s conviction last year in Virginia. But the Manhattan prosecutors deferred their inquiry in order not to interfere with Mr. Mueller’s larger investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Read more

 

[RabzonKhan]

Beto O'Rourke announces campaign for president

========================================

Democrat led House has already rejected Trump’s (fake) emergency, as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote for Trump’s border wall emergency later today, it’s test time for the Republican Senators, will they stand for America’s constitutional checks and balances or will they support the wannabe thug.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Bravo, 12 Republican Senators joined Democrats to block Trump’s declaration of fake national emergency. What a rebuke, Trump lost again. I am loving it!




Senate votes to reject Trump’s emergency declaration, setting up president’s first veto


Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim, John Wagner

The Senate passed a resolution Thursday to overturn President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, with 12 Republicans joining all Democrats to deliver a bipartisan rebuke to the president.

The disapproval resolution passed the House last month, so the 59-41 Senate vote will send the measure to the Trump’s desk. Trump has promised to use the first veto of his presidency to strike it down, and Congress does not have the votes to override the veto.

“VETO!” Trump tweeted moments after the vote.

Still, the Senate vote stood as a rare instance of Republicans breaking with Trump in significant numbers on an issue central to his presidency — the construction of a wall along the southern border.

For weeks Trump had sought to frame the debate in terms of immigration, arguing that Republican senators who supported border security should back him up on the emergency declaration. But for many GOP lawmakers, it was about a bigger issue: The Constitution itself, which grants Congress — not the president -- control over government spending.

By declaring a national emergency in order to bypass Congress to get money for his wall, Trump was violating the separation of powers and setting a potentially dangerous precedent, these senators argued.

“It’s imperative for the president to honor Congress’ constitutional role,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Thursday on the Senate floor as he announced his vote in favor of the disapproval resolution. “A national emergency declaration is a tool to be used cautiously and sparingly.”

Republicans who voted with Trump and against the disapproval resolution said the president was acting within his authority under the National Emergencies Act, and taking necessary steps to address a humanitarian and drug crisis at the border that Democrats had ignored.

“There is a crisis at the border and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have prevented a solution,” said Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), naming the House speaker and Senate minority leader. “It should never have come to this, but in the absence of congressional action, the President did what Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer refused to do.”

Many GOP senators agonized at length before deciding how to vote, with significant numbers of them — including Portman and Gardner, who is up for re-election next year — waiting until Thursday to announce their positions.

In the end only one Republican who is up for re-election next year — Susan Collins (R-Maine) — voted for the disapproval resolution.

In addition to Collins and Portman, the other 10 GOP senators voting for the disapproval resolution were: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.), Mitt Romney (Utah), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.), and Roger F. Wicker (Miss.).

Read more

 

[RabzonKhan]

Since, Pelosi said on impeaching Trump: he is just not worth it.

Trump is all kisses for Pelosi, looks like the old man is really scared of impeachment.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1106250869648093187

Fox News reporter Chad Pergram reported that Trump similarly greeted Pelosi when he arrived for the event.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1106244600426049537

 

[RabzonKhan]

OPINION
New Zealand shooting proves how soft Donald Trump is on right-wing terrorists

EJ Montini, Arizona Republic Published 12:54 p.m. MT March 15, 2019

Opinion: If the New Zealand attack had been inspired and/or carried out by a jihadi militant, would Trump’s remarks would have been so nondescript?

The gunman behind mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 49 people dead on Friday was a white nationalist terrorist.

You wouldn’t know that from the sympathy tweet offered by President Donald Trump, which read:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1106520743855251456

Do you think if this attack had been inspired and/or carried out by a jihadi militant that Trump’s remarks would have been so nondescript?

Not a chance.

Trump has gone easy since Charlottesville

But ever since the president spoke of “both sides” being to blame in Charlottesville, knowing that white supremacist demonstrators were chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans, Trump seems to have gone out of the way to be soft on right wing terror.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies reports that in 2017 there were 31 attacks by right-wing extremists. According to the Anti-Defamation League, right-wing extremists were responsible for 71 percent of extremist-related murders from 2008 to 2017. Islamic extremists were said to be responsible for 26 percent.

America may recently have avoided a massacre like the one in New Zealand when federal authorities arrested Christopher Hasson, a white nationalist with apparent plans to murder Democratic politicians and what he believed to be anti-Trump journalists.

The right-wing threat is growing

Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank, wrote in part after the New Zealand attack, “In the United States, right-wing violence has grown, with Jews and Muslims in particular being targets. The Trump administration has cut programs focusing on right-wing groups even amid a growing threat. Given the recent decline in jihadi violence in the United States, transferring some resources is appropriate.”

Ya think?

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, spoke of the attack in her country the way Trump – as the supposed leader of the free world – should be talking.

She said, “Many of those who will have been directly affected by the shooting may be migrants to New Zealand. They may even be refugees here. They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not.”

If only Trump said what Ardern did

The White House rejected any link between the shooting and President Donald Trump. "It's outrageous to even make that connection," says the White House's director of strategic communication Mercedes Schlapp. (March 15) AP

Instead of mirroring those words, President Trump – after his non-specific condolence tweet concerning the New Zealand attack – went on twitter rants about the Obama administration and the Mueller report.

Meantime, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Arden said, “It is clear that this can only be described as a terrorist attack … These are people who I would describe as having extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand and, in fact, have no place in the world … You may have chosen us – but we utterly reject and condemn you.”

Damn.

We could use someone like that. Link

 

[Nilgiri]

Of course everything bad that happens under the sun is Trump's fault.

I'll be back for the 2020 election to gloat about another win then (given the full fledged commie party the demonrat party seems to enjoy turning into)....keep telling everyone that cow farts are going to destroy the world in 12 years time ...crazy eyes AOC and wild gesticulating irish idiot that thinks its latino BETA lol.....and "dad's angry at her for lieing about smoking pot and stereotyping jamaicans" Kamala and pocahauntus and the list just keeps going on.

...till then this thread is a waste of time....and this is my last reply on it till the commies + gated elite cabal + their brainwashed minions create another flood of delicious salty tears like the last time. @Desert Fox @OsmanAli98

Lot better stuff out there anyway....where actual conversation goes on.

Like they were hoping mueller delivered something....anything and went all in on it.......and now they got a big epic fail instead lol.

I for one am going to enjoy ATT purging CNN....its looking very likely now.

 

[Desert Fox]

Of course everything bad that happens under the sun is Trump's fault.

I'll be back for the 2020 election to gloat about another win then (given the full fledged commie party the demonrat party seems to enjoy turning into)....keep telling everyone that cow farts are going to destroy the world in 12 years time ...crazy eyes AOC and wild gesticulating irish idiot that thinks its latino BETA lol.....and "dad's angry at her for lieing about smoking pot and stereotyping jamaicans" Kamala and pocahauntus and the list just keeps going on.

...till then this thread is a waste of time....and this is my last reply on it till the commies + gated elite cabal + their brainwashed minions create another flood of delicious salty tears like the last time. @Desert Fox @OsmanAli98

Lot better stuff out there anyway....where actual conversation goes on.

Like they were hoping mueller delivered something....anything and went all in on it.......and now they got a big epic fail instead lol.

I for one am going to enjoy ATT purging CNN....its looking very likely now.

Well said buddy. There is absolutely no sense of logic in the other camp. It is virtually nonexistent. Democrats are just a circus show with each clown bigger than the last one. Pretty much why I dont take part in this thread unless its nearing elections.

@OsmanAli98 @Metanoia @LeGenD @Hamartia Antidote

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Well said buddy. There is absolutely no sense of logic in the other camp. It is virtually nonexistent. Democrats are just a circus show with each clown bigger than the last one. Pretty much why I dont take part in this thread unless its nearing elections.

@OsmanAli98 @Metanoia @LeGenD @Hamartia Antidote

Elizabeth Warren...’nuff said!

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Well said buddy. There is absolutely no sense of logic in the other camp. It is virtually nonexistent. Democrats are just a circus show with each clown bigger than the last one. Pretty much why I dont take part in this thread unless its nearing elections.

@OsmanAli98 @Metanoia @LeGenD @Hamartia Antidote

BTW I bet the count of Liberal celebrities who actually moved to Canada is still zero.

 

[Metanoia]

Elizabeth Warren...’nuff said!

Pocahontas.