The Senate blocked President Trump from being able to make recess appointments on Thursday as lawmakers leave Washington for their summer break.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), doing wrap up for the entire Senate, locked in nine "pro-forma" sessions — brief meetings that normally last roughly a minute.
The move, which requires the agreement of every senator, means the Senate will be in session every three business days throughout the August recess.
The Senate left D.C. on Thursday evening with most lawmakers not expected to return to Washington until after Labor Day.
Senators were scheduled to be in town through next week, but staffers and senators predicted they would wrap up a few remaining agenda items and leave Washington early.
Trump isn't the first president to face the procedural roadblock from Congress.
The Senate has used the brief sessions to block recess appointments for decades, including last year to keep President Obama from being able to fill a vacant Supreme Court seat.
But the current deal comes after Trump repeatedly lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, sparking speculation that he would fire the former senator and try to name his successor while Congress was out of town.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned last month that Democrats had "tools in our toolbox" to block a recess appointment.
"We're ready to use every single one of them, any time, day or night. It's so vital to the future of the republic," he said.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said late last month that he didn't have any announcements on pro-forma sessions, but noted that "if the Senate doesn't adjourn, typically pro forma sessions happen every three days."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) added earlier Thursday that he expected the Senate would set up the pro-forma sessions, which require a GOP senator to briefly preside over the upper chamber.
"My understanding is that we will only recess for three days at a time. ...When we were in the majority I had to come down from Delaware and preside," he said.
Trump also needs to name a new Department of Homeland Security secretary after John Kelly was named as his new chief of staff.
The GOP-controlled Senate also held pro-forma sessions over the week-long July 4th recess.
And Democrats held pro-forma sessions every three days in 2012 when Obama tried to appoint National Labor Relations Board members. The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that he overstepped his constitutional authority.
Asked if he was now glad the NLRB case had been litigated, Coons added on Thursday to laughter: "I think it's important that there be restraints on the recess appointments."
Last edited by vector7; March 28th, 2019 at 20:33.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
The incoming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has the power to open a slew of investigations into the White House and President Trump when the new Congress is seated in January, and early indications are that Democrats plan to aggressively take advantage of their new authority.
But the president fired a warning shot early Wednesday morning, declaring he would turn the tables and leverage his party's Senate majority to investigate Democrats if they go that route.
"If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" Trump tweeted.
Bogging down the Trump administration with burdensome document requests and subpoenas could indeed backfire, political analysts tell Fox News, but there is little doubt that the strategy -- made more viable by heightened partisanship and loosened congressional norms -- would impair Republicans' messaging and even policy goals for the next two years.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who aims to reclaim the position of House speaker when her colleagues vote on leadership roles in the coming weeks, recently seemed to threaten to use congressional subpoenas as a cudgel against the White House.
“Subpoena power is interesting, to use it or not to use it,” Pelosi said at a conference in October, referring to the authority of House committees to summon individuals and organizations to testify or provide documents under penalty of perjury. “It is a great arrow to have in your quiver in terms of negotiating on other subjects." She added that she would use the power "strategically." (Trump has flatly called Pelosi's plan "illegal.")
On Tuesday night, as it became clear Democrats would retake the House, Pelosi appeared to double down on that rhetoric, declaring that the midterms were about “restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration."
"In sharp contrast to the GOP Congress, a Democratic Congress will be led with transparency and openness, so the public can see what's happening and how it affects them. ... We will have accountability," Pelosi said.
"A Democratic Congress will be led with transparency and openness."
— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Pelosi has said that unearthing Trump's personal tax returns would be "one of the first things we'd do" in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle, calling it the "easiest thing in the world" to obtain them using statutory authority granted to congressional committees under the Internal Revenue Service code. Democrats made several efforts to obtain Trump's returns while in the minority, only to be rejected by House Republicans.
Trump would likely seek to stall those requests with legal challenges, and it remains unclear whether Democrats could publicly release his tax returns even if they obtained them for investigative purposes.
Before a rally in Indiana on Monday, Trump brushed off the threat. "I don't care," he said. "They can do whatever they want, and I can do whatever I want."
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the Democrat who was projected to win New York's 10th congressional district, warned Trump in a tweet his administration would be "held accountable."
"Tonight, the American people have demanded accountability from their government and sent a clear message of what they want from Congress," he wrote. Trump "may not like it, but he and his administration will be held accountable to our laws and to the American people."
House committees can effectively hold in statutory contempt anyone who refuses to fully comply with a subpoena relevant to the committee's legislative purpose and pertinent to its investigation. While criminal penalties, including fines and even imprisonment, are then possible with a judge's approval, separation-of-powers issues emerge when the House tries to penalize a member of the Executive branch.
In 2014, a federal judge denied House Republicans' efforts to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of court, saying the move was "entirely unnecessary."
But even fruitless investigations can beleaguer and derail administrations, and historical evidence suggests they are becoming a popular partisan tool in the lower chamber for that reason.
Research conducted by Cornell University political science professor Douglas Kriner, who co-wrote the 2016 book "Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power," underscores how important control of the House, as opposed to the generally less partisan and slower-moving Senate, is to these congressional probes.
"We examined every congressional investigation from 1898 to 2014 – more than 11,900 days of investigative hearings," Kriner told Fox News. "What we found is that divided government is a major driver of investigations in the House. This is particularly true in periods of intense partisan polarization. For example, from 1981-2014, the House averaged holding 67 days of investigative hearings per year in divided government, versus only 18 per year in unified government."
Kriner added that modern congressional probes seem geared towards "maximiz[ing] the political damage on the White House," rather than producing more substantive results. "Investigations are less likely to trigger new legislation than in previous, less polarized eras," Kriner told Fox News.
President Trump has repeatedly derided the ongoing investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible illegal Russian collusion and obstruction of justice as a "partisan witch hunt," saying it's fueled by Democrats upset that he won the 2016 election. But it's not clear how effective those attacks have been: An August poll showed that 59 percent of registered voters approve of Mueller's investigation.
The House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff, already has warned his party would relaunch the Russia probe in the House with Democrats in charge.
“We will be able to get answers the Republicans were unwilling to pursue,” he recently told CNN.
Democrats have an array of potential avenues of investigation to pursue aside from Russia. In September, a federal judge ruled that Democrats have standing to sue Trump over potential violations of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which ostensibly precludes the president from accepting certain foreign favors. While the legal argument that Trump is violating this clause by maintaining lucrative and profitable overseas investments is far from settled, Democrats' pursuit of this line of argument offers some clues into what their investigations might focus on.
University of North Carolina Law Professor Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional expert who testified during impeachment proceedings of former President Bill Clinton, told Fox News in an interview that Democrats might focus on Trump's financial ties to Saudi Arabia.
"It is possible — would not be a surprise — if there were some interest in exploring the president’s Saudi connections or finances," Gerhardt said, before adding: "It would also not surprise me if the Democrats did not pursue these things."
The killing of dissident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey last month led to heightened scrutiny of the past connections between Trump's business empire and the Islamic country. The president initially condemned what he characterized as a rush to judgment against the Saudi government, before saying that its agents had apparently engaged in the "worst cover-up ever."
Trump has tweeted that he has "no financial interests in Saudi Arabia," and there is no evidence that he currently does. However, he has repeatedly touted his real estate deals with the country, saying at a 2015 rally that "they buy apartments from me" and "spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."
In August, Axios published a spreadsheet circulating among Republican circles on Capitol Hill documenting possible areas of focus for Democratic investigations. They include the White House's revocation of top former officials' security clearances, Trump's unreleased tax returns, and the administration's proposed travel ban and a prohibition on transgender individuals in the military. Other topics on the list, which Axios said originated in the office of a senior Republican lawmaker, are Trump's personal iPhone use and his personal payment to porn star Stormy Daniels -- a move that implicated, but did not appear to definitively violate campaign finance law.
Frequent Trump critic Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said in an interview last week that Democrats intend to "exercise oversight over the executive branch the way the Framers intended."
He went on to mirror Pelosi's threat: "We would be able to get Donald Trump's tax returns to see if he's being influenced
by foreign entities. ... We can call in the secretary of Homeland Security [to] ask her why she still has hundreds of children she has not reunited that she ripped away from parents at the border. There are a lot of things that we can do with our oversight responsibility."
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who is poised to become the committee's chairman, offered another possible angle in an interview with The Hill. "I want to look at what President Trump has done, aided and abetted by the Republicans in Congress, to tear down the foundations of our democracy," he said.
Republicans who control the Oversight committee have rejected more than 50 Democratic requests for subpoenas of Trump administration documents, covering everything from the White House's decision not to defend key provisions of ObamaCare in court, to perks used by Cabinet members.
A particularly prominent possible investigation would revolve around Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, which critics have cited as potential obstruction of justice in part because Trump acknowledged that Russia-related matters were on his mind at the time.
“The cover-up is always worse than the crime, and this one is very shady,” Andrew Hall, who represented a top adviser to then-President Richard Nixon during Watergate, said in an interview. Hall has maintained that Trump will "undoubtedly be impeached."
However, legal experts, including emeritus Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, have said that penalizing the president for firing an FBI director who serves at his pleasure would be unconstitutional, and others have pointed out that Comey's firing would have done little to halt the Russia probe generally.
Mueller's findings, which are expected to be submitted to Congress in a matter of months, might provide a launching point not only for further investigations but for even impeachment proceedings.
"Impeachments tend to be driven by particular events that are instances of grave misconduct — not liking someone or being an opponent is not likely to be enough to get the whole process started," Gerhardt told Fox News.
Such an escalation, analysts warn, would potentially pose a risk to Democrats. "I don’t think there is something as well developed as a tradition not to seek an impeachment when it appears conviction is unlikely or unthinkable," Gerhardt added. "Nonetheless, I think there is always awareness of the possible risks of seeking an impeachment when conviction is impossible."
Handling many of these congressional inquiries will be the new White House Counsel, veteran high-powered Washington lawyer Pat Cipollone, who will oversee an office that dwindled from a staff of approximately 50 to fewer than 30 in recent weeks. That headcount is expected to expand significantly in the wake of Democrats' House takeover.
"He’s very talented and he’s a very good man," Trump said last month, referring to Cipollone. In a campaign email in the days leading up to Tuesday's vote, the president made an impassioned effort to cut down on Cipollone's workload, saying Democrats are interested only in "vicious obstruction and mindless resistance."
"We can only imagine what they’d do with legitimate power in our government," Trump said. "We can’t hand Democrats the keys to Congress. We can’t go back.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
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Jim Acosta and Donald Trump during a press conference on Nov. 7 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused Acosta of "absolutely unacceptable" conduct.
The White House is suspending CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta's "hard pass" for what press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders deemed "absolutely unacceptable" conduct in a statement Wednesday night.
"I’ve just been denied entrance to the WH," Acosta wrote on Twitter. "Secret Service just informed me I cannot enter the WH grounds for my 8pm hit." (He posted a video of a Secret Service agent asking for his pass.)
Sanders announced the punishment in a lengthy statement Wednesday night, several hours after Acosta clashed with President Donald Trump during a feisty press conference.
The White House said it is punishing Acosta for his interaction with a White House press aide who forcibly attempted to remove the microphone from the reporter's hands as he tried to ask the president a second question.
"President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him and his administration," Sanders said in the statement. "We will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern."
Continued Sanders: "This conduct is absolutely unacceptable. It is also completely disrespectful to the reporter’s colleagues not to allow them an opportunity to ask a question. President Trump has given the press more access than any president in history. Contrary to CNN’s assertions, there is no greater demonstration of the president’s support for a free press than the event he held today. Only they would attack the president for not supporting a free press in the midst of him taking 68 questions from 35 different reporters over the course of 1.5 hours including several from the reporter in question. The fact that CNN is proud of the way their employee behaved is not only disgusting, it‘s an example of their outrageous disregard for everyone, including young women, who work in this administration. As a result of today’s incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice."
This is not the first time the White House has attempted to punish a CNN reporter for what the Trump administration calls bad behavior. In July, White House reporter Kaitlin Collins was banned from an open press event after she loudly asked questions of the president during a pool spray.
Acosta shared Sanders' statement on Twitter and wrote, "This is a lie."
"The White House announced tonight that it has revoked the press pass of CNN's chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. It was done in retaliation for his challenging questions at today's press conference, In an explanation, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders lied," CNN said in its own statement on its PR Twitter account. "She provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never happened. This unprecedented decision is a threat to our democracy the country deserves better. Jim Acosta has our support."
One of Acosta's colleagues, a CNN White House producer, defended his conduct. "This is a complete lie," Allie Malloy wrote on Twitter. "The woman grabbed Jim's arm repeatedly. He never once touched her. In fact at one point @Acosta tells her politely 'pardon me, mam' as she's yanking on his arm."
The US Secret Service just asked for my credential to enter the WH. As I told the officer, I don’t blame him. I know he’s just doing his job. (Sorry this video is not rightside up) pic.twitter.com/juQeuj3B9R
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 8, 2018
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee this week said that when the new Congress is seated in January, Democrats plan to scrutinize whether President Trump abused his authority by taking adverse action against retail giant Amazon and two of his bitter left-leaning media rivals: CNN and The Washington Post.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview with "Axios on HBO" that he and his colleagues will employ committee subpoena powers -- which are backed by the legal threat of contempt of Congress -- to conduct the triple-threaded inquiry into Trump's possible use of the "instruments of state power to punish the press."
Specifically, Schiff charged that Trump "was secretly meeting with the postmaster [general] in an effort to browbeat" him into "raising postal rates on Amazon," whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, separately owns The Washington Post.
"This appears to be an effort by the president to use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post," Schiff said in the interview.
The president signed an executive order earlier this year mandating a review of what he called the "unsustainable financial path" of the United States Postal Service (USPS). And he has reportedly met with Postmaster General Megan Brennan several times to push for hikes to the shipping rates paid by companies like Amazon, although there are no indications he did so to seek political payback.
Trump has long derided the political coverage at the Post, which is fiercely and relentlessly criticial of the White House, as a lobbying tool for Bezos. But he has also feuded specifically with Amazon throughout the year, saying it is taking advantage of taxpayer-subsidized shipping rates.
In March, he argued in a series of tweets that the online retailer’s “scam” shipping deal with the U.S. Postal Service is costing the agency “billions of dollars.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, speaks at The Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, speaks at The Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington. (Associated Press)
While the U.S. Postal Service has lost money for 11 years, package delivery -- which has been a bright spot for the service -- is not the reason. Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has experienced double-digit increases in revenue from delivering packages, but that hasn't been enough to offset pension and health care costs as well as declines in first-class letters and marketing mail.
Schiff also raised the possibility that the Trump administration's opposition to AT&T's $85 billion takeover of Time Warner on antitrust grounds may have been motivated by the president's animus toward CNN, whose parent company is Time Warner. Trump frequently claims that CNN speads "fake news" and that when it does so, it is acting as the "enemy of the people."
"We don't know, for example, whether the effort to hold up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust, or whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN," Schiff said, without offering evidence.
DEMS TO FLEX MUSCLE WITH NEW HOUSE MAJORITY -- IS IMPEACHMENT ON THE TABLE?
"It is very squarely within our responsibility to find out," Schiff said. Along with incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and other top Democrats, Schiff will have a mandate to serve a slew of subpoenas on the Trump administration.
But former GOP Judiciary Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who is now a Fox News contributor, told Politico in October that Cummings and Schiff shouldn't get their hopes up.
“If [North Carolina Rep.] Mark Meadows and [Ohio Rep.] Jim Jordan can’t get documents out of the White House, I don’t know why Elijah Cummings and the Democrats think they’ll do any better,” Chaffetz said.
Still, Democrats had signaled even before last week's midterm elections that they would aggressively investigate the Trump administration if they took power in Congress. Bogging down the White House with burdensome document requests and subpoenas could indeed backfire, political analysts tell Fox News, but there is little doubt that the strategy -- made more viable by heightened partisanship and loosened congressional norms -- would impair Republicans' messaging and even policy goals for the next two years.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks to a crowd of volunteers and supporters of the Democratic party at an election night returns event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks to a crowd of volunteers and supporters of the Democratic party at an election night returns event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
"Well, we are responsible," House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who is campaigning to reclaim her role as House speaker, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We are not scattershot. We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek the truth. So I think a word that you could describe about how Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic."
But Pelosi has previously suggested that she would, indeed, use the threat of subpoenea for political gain.
MAXINE WATERS, SCHIFF TO TAKE HIGH-PROFILE COMMITTEE POSTS IN NEW HOUSE
“Subpoena power is interesting, to use it or not to use it,” Pelosi said at a conference in October, referring to the authority of House committees to summon individuals and organizations to testify or provide documents under penalty of perjury. “It is a great arrow to have in your quiver in terms of negotiating on other subjects." She added that she would use the power "strategically." (Trump has flatly called Pelosi's plan "illegal.")
Pelosi's approach would mark the continuation of a trend. Research conducted by Cornell University political science professor Douglas Kriner, who co-wrote the 2016 book "Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power," underscores the increasingly political nature of House investigations.
"We examined every congressional investigation from 1898 to 2014 – more than 11,900 days of investigative hearings," Kriner told Fox News. "What we found is that divided government is a major driver of investigations in the House. This is particularly true in periods of intense partisan polarization. For example, from 1981-2014, the House averaged holding 67 days of investigative hearings per year in divided government, versus only 18 per year in unified government."
Kriner added that modern congressional probes seem geared toward "maximiz[ing] the political damage on the White House," rather than producing more substantive results. "Investigations are less likely to trigger new legislation than in previous, less polarized eras," Kriner told Fox News.
On Election Day, Pelosi vowed to “restor[e] the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration" by enhancing transparency and accountability. But Trump last week signaled he had no patience for that approach, which he characterized as an expensive folly.
"If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" Trump tweeted.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Potential targets including everything from President Trump's tax returns to Russia to the Trump family business; reaction from Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
CNN filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump Administration on Tuesday demanding that the White House restore the press credential of star reporter Jim Acosta after it was suspended last week -- but the Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called the move “more grandstanding from CNN.”
The White House yanked Acosta's pass after he got into a contentious debate with President Trump and refused to give up a microphone as the entire press pool looked on. It was just the latest case of Trump clashing with Acosta, the White House correspondent for the network Trump regularly derides as a purveyor of "fake news."
“The wrongful revocation of these credentials violates CNN and Acosta’s First Amendment rights of freedom of the press, and their Fifth Amendment rights to due process,” CNN said in a statement. “We have asked the court for an immediate restraining order requiring the pass to be returned to Jim, and will seek permanent relief as part of this process.”
CNN added that “the suit is specific to CNN and Acosta,” but said it could happen to anyone.
“If left unchallenged, the actions of the White house would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials,” CNN said.
Press Secretary Sanders issued a scathing statement, calling the move “more grandstanding from CNN” and pointing out that the network has other reporters who are still allowed to enter the White House.
“We have been advised that CNN has filed a complaint challenging the suspension of Jim Acosta’s hard pass. This is just more grandstanding from CNN, and we will vigorously defend against this lawsuit,” Sanders said. “CNN, who has nearly 50 additional hard pass holders, and Mr. Acosta is no more or less special than any other media outlet or reporter with respect to the First Amendment. After Mr. Acosta asked the President two questions—each of which the President answered—he physically refused to surrender a White House microphone to an intern, so that other reporters might ask their questions. This was not the first time this reporter has inappropriately refused to yield to other reporters.”
Sanders continued: “The White House cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter acts this way, which is neither appropriate nor professional. The First Amendment is not served when a single reporter, of more than 150 present, attempts to monopolize the floor. If there is no check on this type of behavior it impedes the ability of the President, the White House staff, and members of the media to conduct business.”
Last week, Acosta's press pass to access the White House was suspended "until further notice" after he engaged in the contentious back-and-forth over the migrant caravan working its way up through Mexico. Trump characterizes the caravan as "an invasion," a term to which Acosta objected.
“Honestly, I think you should let me run the country and you run CNN,” the president said.
The reporter tried to ask him another question before a female White House aide walked over to him.
Trump then told him, “That’s enough!”
Acosta continued to try to talk as the intern was seen trying to take the microphone from his hand. She grabbed the microphone but Acosta wouldn't give it up and there was brief contact between the two. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the suspension of his press credentials stemmed from his "placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern." She called the behavior "absolutely unacceptable."
Several news outlets accused Sanders of using a "doctored" video as evidence, but the press secretary didn’t back down from her decision.
“We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video,” Sanders tweeted to accompany the allegedly doctored video.
White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway has since said the video was simply “sped up.”
An attorney for CNN and Acosta followed up with a separate statement, saying the law is “clear” that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment and Due process Clause.
“The arbitrary revocation of Mr. Acosta’s press credential is causing irreparable injury each and every day because it is stopping him from reporting on news from the White House,” attorney Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. said.
“We continue to urge the Administration to reverse course and fully reinstate CNN’s correspondent,” WHCA President Olivier Knox said. “The President of the United States should not be in the business of arbitrarily picking the men and women who cover him.”
Acosta has emerged as a hero of the #Resistance after making a habit of shouting and interrupting when Trump and members of his administration are available to the media. He has been praised by people such as comedian Jimmy Kimmel, but is often criticized by Trump supporters.
Earlier this year, Trump kicked the CNN star out of the Oval Office after Acosta badgered the president with racially charged questions. Acosta has also gotten into combative arguments with other members of the administration including former Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller.
Fox News’ Nicole Darrah contributed to this report.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Journalist and author sounds off on the coverage of the surprise visit.
CNN was slammed for what many -- including White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders -- called overwhelmingly negative coverage of President Trump’s visit to the troops overseas.
Both the president and first lady Melania Trump surprised troops stationed in Iraq the day after Christmas, which was followed by another visit with troops in Germany.
However, there was barely a kind word toward the president regarding his trip overseas — at least on CNN. On Wednesday evening, the network's reporting drew attention to some troops bringing MAGA hats for the president to sign and how this may be against the guidelines, which forbids active members of the military from participating in “political activities.”
The story by CNN politics reporter Eli Watkins, headlined “Troops bringing Trump hats to sign may violate military rule,” was criticized by Sanders, who fired back at CNN on Thursday, tweeting that the network “will attack anyone who supports President Trump, including the brave men and women of our military who fight everyday to protect our freedom.”
Sanders was hardly the only person to mock CNN's story on social media.
CNN Politics’ verified Twitter account was ratioed when Watkins’ story was sent out, which is typically a sign that the majority of readers don’t agree. As of Thursday morning, the tweet received over 3,300 comments and only 826 likes.
Meanwhile, several watchdogs pointed out that President Obama also signed autographs when visiting troops.
CNN’s criticism of Trump visiting the troops wasn’t limited to Watkins' report — the network took a negative tone throughout their evening coverage.
CNN anchor Jim Sciutto blasted Trump for his “routine lying,” while CNN military analyst Mark Hertling criticized Trump for getting “political” during his visit. Former Obama State Department spokesman John Kirby even dinged the president for not visiting with Iraqi security forces, who are also part of the fight against ISIS.
Ex-Obama senior adviser David Axelrod told Sciutto that it’s “good” that Trump went to see the troops and that “we should give him credit where credit is due,” but slammed the president’s political rhetoric.
“It does give you the sense that this was sort of a box-checking exercise in many ways for the president. It was a serendipitous timing because it clearly was planned before everything that’s happened. And you know, yesterday was kind of an orgy of self-pity and rage on Twitter from the White House,” the CNN political commentator said. “So it changed the subject, it put him in a much better position coming with all the turmoil in the Defense Department. It’s a valuable thing but peculiar in many other ways.”
CNN anchor Don Lemon took shots at Trump for visiting the troops while the U.S. Coast Guard continues to work without pay during the partial government shutdown and later referred to Trump as “The Grinch” for making Christmas about him as well as his visit with the troops. Former NSA adviser Samantha Vinograd agreed, saying the president “should’ve stayed home.”
Later on, CNN’s April Ryan said Trump’s visit with the troops “should have happened a long time ago” and questioned whether everyone “should be commending him” for something presidents have done in the past.
Trump and the first lady appeared in Iraq on Wednesday for a surprise visit with troops and senior military leadership at Al Asad Air Base – forcing NBC News to add an editor’s note to a story headlined, “Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime.”
But it wasn’t enough for Scarborough, who pointed out that troops were clearly happy to see the president before pivoting to negativity and calling Trump’s behavior “unbecoming,” “bush league” and saying past leaders would have treated the troops with more respect.
“But we should also be concerned that Mr. Trump, once again, used a captive audience of American heroes to push his unpopular domestic agenda,” Scarborough said. “Even in doing something right, he figures out a way to sow chaos.”
Scarborough then said Trump’s policies will put the troops – and all Americans -- in “greater danger.”
“We used to fight ISIS and terrorists in Syria and other places across the globe so we wouldn’t have to fight them here at home, or in those soldiers' hometown. But Donald Trump, he thinks that’s how suckers fight. He wants to fight here, I guess,” Scarborough said. “Things are changing under Donald Trump. U.S. leaders once stood up to bullying threats from tyrannical thugs.”
The MSNBC host said Trump “caved like a quivering coward” from threats by Russia and Turkey.
“We have a weak president who fears Russia and fears Turkey,” Scarborough said. “We aren’t the suckers after all, Mr. President. You are.”
Scarborough then declared that Trump’s policies will not make America great again.
“It’s actually going to make us much weaker than we’ve been at any time since World War II,” he said.
Fox News’ Travis Fedschun contributed to this report.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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A California congressman is introducing articles of impeachment against President Trump on Thursday -- the first day of the new Democratic majority in the House.
Rep. Brad Sherman is reintroducing the impeachment articles that he first filed in 2017 with Democratic co-sponsor Rep. Al Green of Texas, a spokesman said.
“He will be introducing the same articles he introduced last year once the House is in session this afternoon,” Sherman spokesman Shane Seaver told Fox News.
The move is one of several indications that despite the go-slow approach of Democratic leadership, some in the rank-and-file will be eager to launch impeachment proceedings now that they're in the majority. A Detroit Free Press op-ed co-authored by incoming Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, said the House does not need to wait for the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe "before moving forward now with an inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives on whether the president has committed impeachable 'high crimes and misdemeanors' against the state:
abuse of power and abuse of the public trust."
The op-ed said there's evidence showing everything from obstruction of justice to abuse of pardon power to "ordering the cruel and unconstitutional imprisonment of children and their families at the southern border."
“Every day, Donald Trump shows that leaving the White House would be good for our country,” the Democrat said.
In 2017, the impeachment measure authored by Sherman and Green accused Trump of obstruction of justice over his firing of former FBI Director James Comey. The resolution says Trump “prevented, obstructed and impeded” the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn by “threatening and then terminating” Comey.
That effort died, with Republicans holding the majority in the House. Still, even though Democrats retake control of the House on Thursday, party leaders have not committed to pursuing impeachment.
“We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report,” Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with NBC News’ “Today” on Thursday, referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. “We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason. We have to see.”
The resolution itself calls for Trump to be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It says Trump’s conduct “warrants impeachment and trial and removal from office.”
At the time of Sherman’s filing in 2017, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders dismissed the effort as “utterly and completely ridiculous and a political game at its worst.”
“In all of this, Donald John Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States,” it states.
It takes a majority of House members to pass an article of impeachment. Even if the Democratic-led House were to pass impeachment articles, the GOP-controlled Senate would then vote to acquit or convict.
Last edited by vector7; March 21st, 2019 at 23:55.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the extraordinary step Wednesday of urging President Trump to delay his State of the Union address until the partial government shutdown ends, or submit the address in writing.
by Cassandra Fairbanks January 17, 2019 238 Comments
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has posted a letter that President Donald Trump sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi informing her that her upcoming “public relations” trip to Afghanistan, Egypt, and Brussels has been postponed so that she can stay in DC and negotiate with him.
The letter adds that she is welcome to still take the trip — but she would have to fly commercial on her own dime.
“Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over,” the letter begins. “In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.”
President Trump added that “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown.”
“Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative,” Trump wrote.
The letter concludes by saying that he looks forward to seeing her soon and “even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders posted a letter that President Donald Trump sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi informing her that her upcoming “public relations” trip to Afghanistan, Egypt, and Brussels has been postponed so that she can stay in DC and negotiate with him.
Pelosi was told to fly commercial on her own dime.
It looks like Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi has no intention of allowing the House chamber to be used for a State of the Union address.
Speaker Pelosi has informed the House Sergeant at Arms that no executive branch official will be permitted entry into the Capitol building.
Earlier Fox News reported Pelosi cancelled a walkthrough last week, and a second request for reconsideration from the White House is expected to meet the same fate. The House Speaker controls who is, and who is not, permitted entry to the House floor. Until Speaker Pelosi calls for a vote to support a joint session of congress, the President cannot enter the chamber.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley discusses the status of the current shutdown negotiations and the likelihood a SOU address will have to take place outside Washington DC.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Today’s Campaign Update
(Because The Campaign Never Ends)
“I have lied, but I am not a liar. Now, let me introduce my wife, er, ah, ummmm…Morgan Fairchild. Yeah, that’s the ticket!” – As their first witness in the 106th congress, Chairman Elijah Cummings and the Democrats who now run the House Oversight Committee called as their very first witness Michael Cohen, a man who will soon be going away to federal prison for the crime of …wait for it…LYING TO CONGRESS. You seriously cannot make this stuff up.
Presumably, their next witness will be this guy:
Yeah, I know – it’s an old reference, but it’s a perfect one. All you Millennials out there can ask your parents about him. Hint: He’s a character from the years when Saturday Night Live used to be an actual comedy show. Bet you kids didn’t know that was ever even a thing, right? Right.
Other than that, what else does one say about this shameful circus? That the Democrats on the committee pretty much all disgraced themselves? Who didn’t expect that to happen? That Cohen got caught in several more examples of outright perjury by Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and other Republicans on the committee? Again, I could have told you that was going to be the case on Wednesday. That Cohen outright admitted to coordinating his opening remarks with Cummings, Adam Schiff and other congressional Democrats? Knock me over with a feather. That Cohen’s own lawyer, Lanny Davis, sat there throughout the hearing looking like the consigliere for a mob outfit? Well, hey, he has worked for the Clintons for 25 years now.
Perhaps the most remarkable, unexpected takeaway from the hearing is the fact that no one is talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s performance in it this morning. From the news coverage, you wouldn’t even know she was on this committee, but she was there, and she actually was one of the more restrained Democrats at the hearing, doing a fine job of reading her script that was prepared by her uniformly-paid staff and avoiding going off on tangents irrelevant to the hearing’s purpose. Good for her.
At the end of the day, what had this DC Swamp circus hearing accomplished? Not a damn thing. Even some of the Trump-hating talking heads at CNN were tsk-tsking about what a bald-faced liar Cohen is, and the New York Times was accusing the Democrats of “overreaching”. In this anti-Trump fake news world, when the Democrats and their star witness have lost CNN and the New York Times, it’s an epic fail. Deal? Or No Deal? – The answer is no deal, at least for now. If you, unlike anyone in our fake news media, invested the time to read Donald Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal”, you would know that one of his key negotiating principles is that you have to be willing to walk away. As soon as your opponent knows you aren’t willing to do that, you have lost the negotiation.
In the wee hours of this morning, American time, it initially appeared as if a major deal was about to be announced, as the members of the leering press were informed that both President Trump and the Crazy Little Fat Guy would be coming into the press room shortly to take questions. But a little bit later, the press was informed that President Trump would be the only leader coming out.
According to Fox’s Ed Henry, the President and Sec. State Mike Pompeo had been led to believe that Kim was committing to decommissioning all of his country’s nuclear facilities in exchange for the release of U.S. (but not UN) sanctions on North Korea. But then, as the signing documents were being prepared, Kim clarified that he was only willing to decommission a single nuke facility, so President Trump did what any good negotiator would do – he walked away.
But he’ll be back, and another meeting between the two will probably be held before this year is over. Because negotiations are a process, a process that involves the establishment of relationships, of trust, of terms, and of pesky little details. The first two meetings between Trump and Kim have obviously done much to move the ball forward on the establishment of relationships and trust. That itself is rather amazing given the abject refusal of America’s previous four presidents to even have a conversation with any North Korean leader, not to mention the fact that the Democrats pulled the stunt of holding the Cohen hearing in an obvious, despicable effort to derail the negotiations.
The next meeting, or two, or three between the two men will have to work on the ironing out of terms and details. In the meantime, 459 days have now passed since the last North Korean missile test launch, an event that took place on average once every 24 days during the Barack Obama Administration.
We’ll just have to wait and see who Rep. Cummings will call as his committee’s star witness while the next summit meeting is taking place.
Jussie Smollett will probably be looking for a gig.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
President Trump retweeted an article today by Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller.
Ross revealed the dark money group that gave $2 million to the Democracy Integrity Project, the far left group that hired Fusion GPS and Chris Steele to work on the fraudulent Trump-Russia dossier.
According to Ross, The Fund for a Better Future (FBF) donated $2,065,000 to the Democracy Integrity Project (TDIF) who in turn hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to continue their bogus ‘investigations’ of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
In March 2018 Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska penned an oped at The Daily Caller on the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
According to Derispaska — Daniel Jones –- a former FBI investigator, Feinstein staffer and now a Fusion GPS operative – told the Russian Oligarch’s lawyer in March, 2017 that Fusion GPS was funded by “a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros.“
Via Zero Hedge:
Deripaska describes the ongoing “Russia narrative” as nothing more than a scandal manufactured by the deep state. “Wagging the dog costs money,” writes Deripaska. “So, who is the “funding mechanism” of this “shadowy government?”” Why, none other than billionaire financier George Soros, according to Daniel Jones – as relayed to Congressional investigators by Deripaska’s attorney Adam Waldman:
[O]n March 16, 2017, Daniel Jones — himself a team member of Fusion GPS, self-described former FBI agent and, as we now know from the media, an ex-Feinstein staffer — met with my lawyer, Adam Waldman, and described Fusion as a “shadow media organization helping the government,” funded by a “group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros.” My lawyer testified these facts to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Nov. 3.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Today’s Campaign Update
(Because The Campaign Never Ends)
The great media retrenchment begins. – So, what if, as the rampant speculation around Washington and facts of the matter indicate, Gestapo Chief, er, “Special Counsel” Robert Mueller finds there was no collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia? ABC’s Terry Moran had this to say on his network’s “This Week” program yesterday:
“That’s a reckoning for progressives and Democrats who hoped that Mueller would essentially erase the 2016 election. It’s a reckoning for the media. It’s a reckoning around the country if in fact after all this time there was no collusion.”
I reckon he’s right. Which, come to think of it, is probably the first time I’ve reckoned that about the veteran news-faker.
And so, the great media retrenchment on this fantasy play begins in earnest. Moran’s statement – no doubt written well ahead of time and vetted with his ABC superiors before it was recited from memory on the set – is very carefully worded. Note how he separates the “progressives and Democrats who hoped that Mueller would essentially erase the 2016 election” from “the media,” as if they are two separate entities. Laughable, that.
The “media” – and ABC News is among the very worst offenders of the lot – has been deeply intertwined with the Democrats in this Russia Collusion fairy tale since day one. It is now a matter of public record that many fake journalists were involved in helping to set up the entire charade, carefully coordinating the timing of articles with Democrat strategists, as well as the messages that would be repeated on-air continuously and echoed throughout social media.
The truth today is as it always was from day 1: The contacts that the Trump Campaign and Transition Team had with various Russians were the sort that are typical for any viable presidential campaign. Even more to the point of proving the DOJ/FBI conspiracy to prevent Trump from winning in 2016, the only contacts with anyone outside of the norm were those that were with people like longtime FBI/CIA operative Stefan Halper, which were literally set up by that Deep State Cabal via what they called “Operation Crossfire Hurricane.”
Meanwhile, the Pantsuit Princess and her campaign were having all sorts of contacts that are not the standard kind at all. Like, for example, spending $10 million or so to have a British agent develop a fake “Trump Dossier” and working with well-known Russian spies in the process.
Remember all that? Yeah, Terry Moran and his fellow news-fakers in the national media have done their dead-level best to ignore the actual facts involved in this fantasy play, choosing instead to constantly repeat the daily talking points approved by the DNC on the matter. But some of us have long memories.
You can expect Moran’s colleagues in the fake news media to embark on their own retrenchment campaigns this week, as they see the handwriting on the wall, and the Mueller Witch Hunt winds down to its inevitable close. But the reckoning will come, because most Americans aren’t nearly as stupid as people like Terry Moran assume they are.
Hey, at least most 16 year-olds are legal citizens, so we got that going for us. – In case you missed it, Democrats in the House of Representatives attempted last Wednesday to lower the legal voting age to … wait for it … 16!
Yes, friends, Democrats are so focused on obtain political power that a majority of them in the U.S. House are willing to give voting rights to children whose main daily concern is where they misplaced their pimple medicine. The amendment failed by a margin of 126-305, but among Democrats alone, the vote was 125-108. So you can see where this is all headed.
That vote came two days before House Democrats voted as a solid bloc to confer voting rights to illegal aliens in communities, like San Francisco, where local officials have approved such dilution of the votes of actual citizens.
Again, as I’ve written 100 times before, Democrats’ preference for open borders and lax voting laws has literally nothing at all to do with things like compassion or human rights. It simply has to do with what always drives every policy position the Democrat Party takes, which is the acquisition and maintenance of political power.
The reason you see videos from 8-10 years ago of today’s Democrat supporters of open borders – Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and on and on and on – haranguing against illegal immigration is because those were the talking points dictated to them at the time by the leaders of organized labor. But about the time Obama got elected to the presidency, the Democrat Party made the calculation that organized labor, as a voting bloc, was dying off, and that it could ultimately mine far more votes from all these illegal immigrants, either via voter fraud or, ultimately, conferring voting rights on them.
So the Democrat Party, as a whole, suddenly threw organized labor off the boat and started pushing open borders policies. It took organized labor until the 2016 elections to figure out it was the date that had been stood up for the prom, but its shifting votes towards the GOP side played a large role in Trump’s ability to carry states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.
Today, we now see the Democrat Party making the very same political calculation on the Jewish vote, which it has always dominated. It is now quite obvious that Democrat leaders have made the calculation that its open borders policies will inevitably mean that Muslims will soon outnumber Jews in America, and thus, there will be more Muslim votes to be mined.
Which is why you saw the Dems completely unable to pass a simple resolution to condemn Ilhan Omar’s constant anti-Semitic hate speech last week.
None of this is hidden, folks. They’re doing this all out in the open, if you just pay attention.
That is all.
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No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at her weekly press conference Thursday she personally would support lowering the national voting age to 16.
“I myself, personally, I’m not speaking for my caucus, I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16,” Pelosi said when asked by The Daily Caller about her thoughts on the issue. “I think it’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school when they’re interested in all of this when they’re learning about government to be able to vote.”
“Some of the priorities in this bill are about transparency and openness and accessibility, and the rest,” she added. “That’s a subject of debate but my view is that I would welcome it, but I’ve been in that position for a long time.”
The issue of lowering the voting age came up for debate in the House as an amendment last week on the “For The People Act,” a Democratic pushed bill (H.R. 1) that would overhaul U.S. election and campaign finance laws. Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley introduced the amendment, but it failed 126-305.
.@SpeakerPelosi: It’s “really important” to lower the voting age to 16. pic.twitter.com/cnUxSds1T3<-- Click for little video
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 14, 2019
Since 2013, thirteen states have proposed bills to lower the voting age. Some of the proposals are strictly for school board elections while others are for state elections.
H.R. 1, however, did pass the House through its Democratic majority, despite opposition from the ACLU.
The ACLU, pointing to the DISCLOSE section of the bill, said it would “unconstitutionally infringe the freedoms of speech and association.” That section requires the disclosure of “names and addresses of donors who gave $10,000 or more to organizations that engage in ‘campaign-related disbursements,’ which includes electioneering communications and independent expenditures.”
“I disagree with the ACLU on this. In terms of legislation, we couldn’t be prouder of H.R. 1.” Pelosi said when asked by the Caller about the ACLU’s concerns. “This is about reducing the role of big dark special interest money in politics and empowering small donors. It’s about ending voter suppression. It’s about making re-districting fairer. It’s really a source of joy and hope to so many people in the country.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo are apparently busy plotting the way forward for a huge Democratic victory in 2020.
“Last night with @MMFlint and @WSUCampaign planning strategy for the 2020 blue deluge!” Mark Ruffalo said in a social media post Wednesday.
Ruffalo tagged the activist group “We Stand United,” a left-wing organization founded in part by Ruffalo along with other Hollywood figures.
Prior to the 2018 midterm elections, the group produced a video starring actresses Julianne Moore and Rosario Dawson which accused President Trump of “violating international law.”
Ruffalo has expressed far-left views on immigration. Last year, the Avengers End Game actor declared that the United States was a “country of illegal immigrants.”
Michael Moore, meanwhile, believes that the path forward for the Democratic Party is to abandon moderation and embrace the socialism of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In February, he said that Ocasio-Cortez was the “leader” of the Democratic Party and told Democrats that there is “no middle ground any more.”
“If you’re moderate, stop being moderate,” the Bowling for Columbine director said.
“There’s no halfway point to, should someone be paid a living wage? ‘Well, I’m a moderate, so I think they could be paid half of a living wage.'”
“You know–on the issue of choice. There’s no halfway there. You’re either for it or you’re against it. You know, do you believe in equal rights for women? Do you believe we should have an equal rights amendment? Yes or no? There’s no middle ground. This is no time for moderation.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Various news outlets are telling us that the Mueller report is finally on its way. We have no inside information about that, but we should say, apparently, the White House believes it, too.
When Mueller's report does arrive, it will go first to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, and there's not much debate about what should happen after that. Democrats have demanded the release of the entire document. President Trump agrees with them. He said he'd like to see that report go public so that voters can assess it for themselves.
But for now, we'd like to take just a second to put this entire sprawling story into some perspective. Our job is to remember things, to create a record of what has happened in this country over the past few years and what has happened to it. Our grandchildren will want to know. If the left has its way, they will never see the details. It will all be whitewashed, like so much else in our history has been. So let's recall, for the record. what the Robert Mueller investigation is all about - why we've got a special counsel in the first place.
The point was not to discover whether the president fudged deductions on his tax returns 30 years ago. It was not to find out whether he wanted to build another hotel in a foreign country. From its first day, the Mueller investigation was justified by a single question: Did Donald Trump collude with the Russian government to steal the 2016 presidential election? Did the president betray his country?
For close to three years, the Democrats have told us that yes, he did do that:
Beto O'Rourke, Democratic presidential candidate: "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that if there was not collusion, there was at least the effort to collude."
Rep. Adam Schiff, D- Calif, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee : "I think there is plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight."
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif: "There is more to be learned about it. I believe there has been collusion."
John Podesta, former White House chief of staff: "It's starting to smell more and more like collusion."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, Speaker of the House: "We saw cold, hard evidence of the Trump campaign, and indeed, the Trump family eagerly intending to collude possibly with Russia."
These are not minor charges. And if you grew up in this country, it is hard to shrug them off. Now, Maxine Waters is irrelevant -- she's a living sideshow. But Nancy Pelosi is not; he is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. She is third in line to the presidency.
Adam Schiff is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is privy to the most highly classified information our government has. John Podesta was the chief of staff in one White House. He was a senior advisor in another White House. Beto O'Rourke has raised more money than anyone running for president in 2020.
These are not peripheral figures making these charges. They are the most serious people in the modern Democratic Party, and we took them seriously. We felt we had a duty to understand why they were calling the president of the United States a traitor. So we asked them. We here on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" interviewed a number of those people on this show.
One of the most persistent accusers was Congressman Eric Swalwell of California. He is also a member of the House Intelligence Committee. If there was indeed evidence of collusion with Russia, Eric Swalwell would have seen it. Yet, he never produced any, and we asked him repeatedly.
Swalwell responded by accusing us of cutting him off on the air, of not letting him make his case. So finally, in frustration, we offered him a full half hour live on this show to tell us what the evidence was. So months later, Swalwell accepted our invitation. He came on the show, but he never produced a single piece of evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with anyone. Instead, he accused us of working for a foreign power. We had asked Swalwell why the public couldn't see a memo related to the Russia investigation. He responded by accusing us of "peddling the narrative that the Trump administration is putting out" and of "being on the same side as WikiLeaks and Putin."
So, for asking to see a government document that he himself had seen, Swalwell suggested that we were treasonous. There's been an awful lot of talk like that the past couple of years. It has completely changed Washington. People in this city are now afraid. They watch what they say. They don't send emails. They worry about being denounced. Demagogues like Swalwell have terrified them.
From the beginning of this investigation, there's been virtually no honest, public debate about what is happening or has happened. Congressman Adam Schiff came on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" in the early days of the Trump administration, and we asked a simple fact-based question about what we know and what we don't know about the Russian collusion allegations. We asked him this: Are we certain the Russian government hacked John Podesta's Gmail account? For that, Schiff accused us of "carrying water for the Kremlin."
So to this day, even the most basic, the most elemental questions about the claims in this Russia story remain unanswered. Meanwhile, we've upended our entire foreign policy. We put Americans in prison all on the basis of charges nobody has been willing to prove. How do we know that, congressman? "Shut up, you're a Russian agent."
The conspiracy hawks seem totally impervious to shame or reason. You couldn't debate them because they wouldn't engage. They just threw slurs. They felt no need to demonstrate that any of it was true.
And it wasn't just Swalwell and Schiff. Some of the most respected, supposedly sober, figures in our society engaged in this behavior for years. They said things that were so reckless and so damaging to this country that it's almost hard to believe it was happening.
John Brennan was the director of the CIA, the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. But then he became a TV pundit and said the following on MSNBC: "Reports that Mr. Cohen was in Prague despite his denials - repeated denials. There is more and more indications that there is something here that is far, far from being anything near a witch hunt."
Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting with his Russian handlers. That's what Brennan just told us on cable television. Now, you'd think if anyone would know that fact, it would be the director of the CIA. The CIA knows all. Except perhaps on this one question, Michael Cohen himself might know more.
Cohen was asked directly about it when he testified before Congress. He had no reason to protect Donald Trump. He had many reasons to hurt him. He testified that he had never been to Prague, had never even been to the Czech Republic. At the same hearing, Cohen also told Congress that in all his years working as Donald Trump's personal attorney, one of the most intimate relationships in Donald Trump's life, he had never seen any evidence of collusion with Russia.
Any fair person would consider that the beginning of the end of this story. Case closed. But it was too late. By that point, the Russia investigation had become such a ratings bonanza for the cable news channels that they couldn't slow down. They had no incentive to admit defeat. They had no incentive to acknowledge reality.
So they continued as they had since the inauguration, as if the story was entirely real. Night after night, they brought us an endless parade of screamers, buffoons and halfwits, all claiming knowledge of the conspiracy.
Once the Mueller report appears, and it becomes incontrovertible that whatever his faults, Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians, the many people who have persistently claimed on the basis of no evidence that he did collude with the Russians, ought to be punished. Not indicted or imprisoned, obviously, but thoroughly shamed and forced to apologize.
One among a thousand examples is self-described intelligence expert, Malcolm Nance delivering his analysis on MSNBC: "When Benedict Arnold gave the plans to West Point to Major Andre and they captured Major Andre, they did not have any real information linking those plans to Benedict Arnold other than the fact he was in his presence at one point during that day. But everyone knew it was treason when they caught the man and they hung him. So at some point, there's going to be a bridge of data here that is going to be unassailable. "
Thanks for the history lesson, Mr. Nance. They hung him. Let's hang this guy.
After a while, after years of this, voters started to agree. Thanks to this propaganda, 53 percent of registered voters now believe the Trump campaign "worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election." Among Democratic voters, 67 percent believe that Russia somehow rigged the vote tally. Nobody's ever explained how exactly the Russians might have done that. But of course, they did it. Russia rigged the elections. CNN says so every night.
There need to be consequences for this. Once the Mueller report appears, and it becomes incontrovertible that whatever his faults, Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians, the many people who have persistently claimed on the basis of no evidence that he did collude with the Russians, ought to be punished. Not indicted or imprisoned, obviously, but thoroughly shamed and forced to apologize.
If Republicans spent three full years falsely claiming that Barack Obama colluded with the government of Iran, would those who claim that ever work in media or politics again? That's a rhetorical question.
Lying and recklessness should never be ignored. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq on the premise that Saddam Hussein possessed massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Many of us believed it. But the claim was false. Thousands of Americans died. Trillions were wasted. Nobody was punished. To this day, Max Boot takes a paycheck from the Washington Post. Bill Kristol appears on MSNBC. John Bolton is this country's National Security Adviser. There were no consequences to their foolishness and their dishonesty -- none.
And so we started a series of eerily similar wars, all with entirely predictable results. Nobody learned anything. Did we learn anything from the Russia collusion hoax? Will the same cast of liars and buffoons simply move on to the next game -- climate change, the Green New Deal? We can't give you details. It's too important. Obey or else!
That could easily happen. In fact, it will happen for certain - unless we remember exactly what we've just seen.
Last edited by vector7; March 22nd, 2019 at 18:10.
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MSNBC host Chris Matthews expressed outrage on Friday upon hearing reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had completed his Russia investigation and submitted it to the attorney general -- with further indictments not expected.
Matthews began his show by summarizing the breaking news, but stressed that Mueller handed his report to the Department of Justice “without ever directly interviewing the president of the United States.”
“That means no charges against the president, his children or his associates after all those meetings with the Russians,” a visibly upset Matthews told his viewers.
The liberal cable news host opened the discussion to the panel, telling them his “biggest question” was “How can the president be pointed to as leading collusion with Russia, aiding a Russian conspiracy to interfere with our elections if none of his henchmen, none of his children, none of his associates have been indicted?”
NBC News national security reporter Ken Dilanian responded by telling Matthews that Trump couldn’t be indicted “in a criminal sense” since Mueller’s office “didn’t have it,” adding that the president “couldn’t conspire with himself.”
“Maybe he missed the boat here,” Matthews responded. “Because we know about the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, we know about the meeting at the cigar bar with Kilimnik. My God, we know about all of those meetings with Kislyak at the Republican convention in Cleveland. All these dots we’re now to believe don’t connect.”
“Well, that’s the conclusion in front of us,” Dilanian told Matthews. “All of that stuff was suggestive, it didn’t prove anything.”
“Why was there never an interrogation of this president?” Matthews shot back. “We were told for weeks by experts, ‘You cannot deal with an obstruction-of-justice charge or investigation without getting the motive… How could they let Trump off the hook?... He will not be charged with obstruction of justice or collusion without having to sit down with the Special Counsel Mueller and answer his damn questions. How could that happen?”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
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“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Attorney General William Barr provides Congress and the public with his summary of the main conclusions from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
America suffers from not one but two opiate crises. The first afflicts some 11 million of our fellow citizens: people who turn to powerful painkillers to cope with suffering and end up addicted. The second involves a narrow but more prominent slice of the population — the liberal media and pundit class.
“Collusion” is the opiate of choice for this elite. Popping the Collusion pill gives them the rush from a vivid dream of undoing the outcome of the 2016 election.
On Friday, the Justice Department dealt a brutal blow to this crowd with word that no further indictments would be coming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. On Sunday Attorney General William Barr sent Congress a summary of the Mueller report, which found no evidence of collusion. Mueller has *effectively cut off the supply of liberals’ favorite drug. Collusion is no more.
Quitting cold turkey is painful, and you could hear the Trump haters crying and groaning on cable news through the weekend.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews went apoplectic. “How can the president be pointed to as leading collusion with Russia, of aiding a Russian conspiracy to interfere with our elections, if none of his henchmen, none of his children, none of his associates have been aided?” he raged in his show’s opening.
He asked all this in lament, mind you: The fact that the president of the United States isn’t a traitorous Manchurian candidate enraged rather than comforted Matthews.
Joy Reid, another MSNBC host, had a worse evening still. “It feels like the seeds of a cover-up” was her assessment of the Mueller probe — an assessment based-on her, well, feelings.
Twitter, meanwhile, offered a more haunting spectacle of addicts in withdrawal. “Mueller was always a side show,” Esquire’s Ryan Lizza tweeted. “The real action is in NY,” a reference to investigations into . . . well, who knows what anymore, supposedly underway in the Southern District of New York.
Mueller a mere side show, eh? Then why did Lizza speculate breathlessly in the pages of The New Yorker in 2017 about Mueller forcing Trump’s children to testify against him and about the probe eventually ensnaring the president himself? And why did he append not one but nine red-siren “emojis” to a tweet about Mueller’s impaneling of a grand jury, also in 2017?
Was Mueller the main show in 2017 but subsequently became a side show? How so?
Special mention should be made of the pushing, those who spent every waking hour of the past two years peddling hyped-up Collusion speculation that then filtered its way into the cultural bloodstream.
Take Benjamin Wittes, the Brookings Institution fellow who became famous for tweeting “Boom!” in response to various Collusion stories, as if to say: This latest revelation will surely devastate Trump!
“Boom!” Wittes tweeted when Buzzfeed reported in January that “President Trump Directed His *Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie to Congress About Moscow Tower Project.” Except Mueller then took the unusual step of calling out the Buzzfeed story as false.
Wittes’ boom fizzled.
“Boom!” an undeterred Wittes tweeted the following month, when text of Cohen’s written testimony before the House *appeared online. Cohen’s anti-Trump tirade was instantly discredited when it was revealed he had lied about asking his ex-boss for a pardon.
Another fizzle. And so and on.
Seth Abramson, a University of New Hampshire law professor catapulted to online fame for his fervid Collusion dreams, has a forthcoming book titled “Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump’s International Collusion is Threatening American Democracy.”
It claims the Russians helped Trump get elected as part of an elaborate conspiracy involving the Arab Gulf *regimes and aimed at “marginalizing Iran, Syria, and Turkey.”
I wonder if his publisher, St. Martin’s, will ask for revisions to the manuscript before the April publication date, now that these *allegations appear even more ludicrous than they did before the weekend’s developments.
“Don’t get high on your supply,” runs the dealer’s rule from “Scarface.” I doubt the Collusion peddlers will heed it. Nor will their clients kick the habit anytime soon.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Greg Norman Published
Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume delivered a blistering rebuke to the mainstream media after Robert Mueller's Russia probe came to an end.
Hume slammed the media’s hyping of the narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election – which has unraveled following the release of findings from Robert Mueller’s investigation – on "America's Newsroom" Monday.
“It is the worst journalistic debacle of my lifetime and I’ve been in this business about 50 years,” Hume said. “I’ve never seen anything quite this bad last this long. It was a terrible thing. There needs to be a lot of soul-searching among many leading members of the media today and going forward.”
Hume said reporters, politicians and the public should “welcome any effort to go back and find out exactly how this debacle was launched.
“When I say debacle,” he continued, “I’m talking about the political accusation of collusion which occupied our media and our politics for now two years… leading to this enormous investigation which has now cleared the president on this whole collusion narrative.
“We in this business, in our business, Sandra, need to look back and say ‘how in the world did several major news organizations, networks, newspapers and so on, devote so much time to what turned out to be utterly baseless speculation’ about the most serious crime you could imagine, mounting in some cases in the accusations we heard to treason.”
And for those who were pushing that collusion narrative, Hume said a little humility – and an apology – would help, although as of Monday afternoon, he isn’t seeing much.
“I’m seeing a handful of honest, liberal journalists who have no use for Trump agreeing that this was bad reporting all the way and some of them have been doing it for some time," Hume said.
“The catalog of baseless speculation and wild accusation is very long indeed and I’m seeing very few signs of any real introspection.
“Everybody is now moving on to ‘oh well, there may be a possibility of obstruction of justice. I think that is likely to turn out to be yet another wild goose chase.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Re: The Left's War Against Trump's Administration
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Originally Posted by vector7
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