Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Nancy Pelosi Cartoons





Gregg Jarrett: Pelosi's crazy claims about Priebus' contact with the FBI don't add up



Nancy Pelosi is nothing, if not insane.
She is, of course, the former Speaker of the House who infamously said of ObamaCare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”
And who can forget the time she claimed that “500 million people will lose their jobs each month until we have an economic package" ?  Which is a pretty neat trick since there are roughly 300 million people living in the U.S.
So, it is understandable that Pelosi’s latest statement was met with the usual eye-rolling. She all but accused the Trump White House of obstructing justice when she described Chief of Staff Reince Priebus’s conversation with a senior FBI official as “a grave abuse of power…which may also be illegal.” 
Some background is helpful. Priebus says he was approached by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who described as inaccurate a New York Times article about repeated contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign. Priebus allegedly asked the FBI to correct the record by disabusing the story with the truth. Since Justice Department guidelines prohibit the FBI from speaking about an ongoing investigation, the agency declined to comment.
(Of course, FBI Director James Comey, seemed to ignore those same guidelines when he chose to disclose details of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, but there is no shortage of hypocrisy in Washington.)    
Pelosi, who is prone to batty remarks, promptly denounced Priebus and convicted the president for his “explosive ties… to Russian intelligence agents.” She demanded a full-blown investigation by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General into felonious conduct which she did not bother to identify. 
The Democratic leader might consider popping a valium before she hyperventilates.
It is not a crime to solicit the truth.  Honesty is not a felony.  Obstruction of justice is clearly defined by 18 USC 1503:
“Whoever corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes…the due administration of justice, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).” 
A companion section, 18 USC 1505, applies the same terminology to “the proper administration of law” before any department or agency of the U.S., which would include the FBI.  
No language in either statute even remotely approaches what Priebus asked McCabe to do. What corrupt act did the chief of staff commit?  Maybe eliciting the truth is corrupt only in Pelosi’s world where facts seem immaterial.    
Obstruction is typically an effort to alter, destroy or conceal the truth and/or physical evidence. There is no suggestion that Priebus ever attempted to do so. To the contrary, reports indicate his sole desire was to refute a false story.  How is that a crime under the law? Decidedly, it is not.
Perhaps Pelosi was inspired by the inflammatory, albeit fallacious, tweets of liberal law professor Laurence Tribe who called for the indictment of Priebus for obstructing justice.  The Harvard Law prof compared it to Richard Nixon and “his staff’s efforts to deflect the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in.”
Seriously?  That’s laughable, professor.  Soliciting the truth was anathema to Nixon and his “dirty tricksters”. Their sole objective was to hide the truth and demonize anyone who sought to reveal it.  It became the legal standard for corrupt political acts.
Reince Priebus may have been naïve to think that the FBI would get involved in rebutting a false narrative.  But Nancy Pelosi is the one who is guilty of making a false accusation.
And peddling the kind of canard for which she is well known.

Key Republican would vote against GOP's ObamaCare replacement


Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., said Monday that he could not get behind the Republican’s current plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
Walker, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, which has 170 members, told Bloomberg that he would recommend that his fellow members reject the plan, too.
“The bill contains what increasingly appears to be a new health-insurance entitlement with a Republican stamp on it,” he said.
With the GOP-controlled Congress starting its third month of work on one of its marquee priorities, unresolved difficulties include how their substitute would handle Medicaid, whether millions of voters might lose coverage, if their proposed tax credits would be adequate and how to pay for the costly exercise.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office made their job even dicier recently, giving House Republicans an informal analysis that their emerging plan would be more expensive than they hoped and cover fewer people than former President Obama’s statute. The analysis was described by lobbyists speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with congressional aides.
For many in the party, those problems — while major — are outweighed by pledges they’ve made for years to repeal Obama’s 2010 law and substitute it with a GOP alternative. Conservatives favoring full repeal are pitted against more cautious moderates and governors looking to curb Medicaid’s costs also worry about constituents losing coverage. But Republicans also see inaction as the worst alternative and leaders may plunge ahead as soon as next week with initial House committee votes on legislation.

“I believe they have left themselves no choice. Politically they must do something,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican economist and health analyst, said Monday.
President Trump spoke about health care’s complexities on a day he held White House talks with dozens of governors worried Republicans could shift a huge financial burden to the states by curbing Medicaid, the federal-state program that helps low-income people and those in nursing homes pay bills.
Trump also met with insurance company executives concerned that uncertainty about possible GOP changes could roil the marketplace. Insurers said they remain committed to working with the administration and the GOP-led Congress.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Monday that Republicans have yet to win any Democratic support for their effort and said “the odds are very high” Obama’s law won’t be repealed.

Dems already cranking up Trump impeachment talk


Even before Donald Trump had taken the oath of office, some House Democrats, apparently stunned at the election results and bruised by being left entirely out of the Washington power structure, were suggesting impeachment was in order. The movement has only grown stronger more than a month into the Trump presidency.
It is centered around two alleged violations that Trump critics maintain rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.
"I mean on day one he was in violation of the Emoluments Clause," Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN.) said in a recent CNN town hall.
The Emoluments Clause  to which Ellison refers, reads in part, "...no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
Ellison's charge is based on Trump's children now running his businesses.  With no blind trust in effect, some believe there is a risk of bribery. "I think a reasonably strong case can be made and a number of constitutional scholars have  made that case, says  Julian Epstein, former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment.
Bruce Fein, a Deputy Attorney General during the Reagan Administration, agrees. "If you can prove bribery by circumstantial evidence or something that a foreign government is patronizing the Trump Hotel in exchange for some benefit in trade or military sale, that's bribery. That clearly satisfies the impeachment standards, leaving open the possibility of bribery," he says.
The second potential violation is the charge Trump team's had Russian connections. "This President absolutely was in collusion with the Kremlin and Putin and Russia during the campaign," alleges Rep. Maxine Waters,D-Calif.
Fein believes  Waters' argument is weak, noting Trump had not been sworn into office when the alleged violation occurred. "Obviously what  he did wasn't corrupting government, he wasn't even president yet exercising presidential powers. It verges on frivolity, in my judgment," he says.
Indeed, Republicans say the charges of a Trump-Putin collusion thus far are based on anonymous leaks and hearsay. "We don’t have any evidence that they talked to Russians," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said during a press briefing on Monday.
But impeachment is more than a legal process, it's a political one, too, something that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, noted in a panel discussion with radio talk show host Mark Levin at last week's CPAC Convention.
"Do the Democrats understand that they need to control the House of Representatives to impeach somebody?" Levin asked of Cruz.
Cruz replied to uproarious applause, "The Democrats right now are living in an alternative universe."
Epstein believes that may change."The president's support is a mile wide but an inch deep," he says. "If the president's approval numbers, which are in the low 40s right now, dip into the mid- 30s or the low 30s or the high 20s, then you could foresee a situation where  Republicans could begin to think that Mike Pence is a much better alternative," he says.
Epstein cautions against impeachment, citing his own experience. "Impeachment is a little like war," he says.  "People tend to romanticize the idea of impeaching a president when the opposition party is in the White House. I have lived through an impeachment and it's an incredibly divisive fight that leaves wounds that sometimes takes years and years to heal," he says.

Trump's first budget calling for $54B increase in defense spending faces GOP hurdle


The White House said Monday that President Trump's upcoming budget will propose a whopping $54 billion increase in defense spending and impose corresponding cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid.
The result is that Trump's initial budget wouldn't dent budget deficits projected to run about $500 billion.
White House budget officials outlined the information during a telephone call with reporters given on condition of anonymity. The budget officials on the call ignored requests to put the briefing on the record, even though Trump on Friday decried the use of anonymous sources by the media.
“The president will propose and the Congress will dispose,” Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., told Politico. “We’ll look at his budget, but at the end of the day we in Congress write the appropriations bills, and I am not one who thinks you can pay for an increase in (military) spending on the backs of domestic discretionary programs, which constitute 13 or 14 percent of all federal spending.”
Trump's defense budget and spending levels for domestic agency operating budgets will be revealed in a partial submission to Congress next month, with proposals on taxes and other programs coming later.
The big, approximately 10 percent increase for the Pentagon would fulfill a Trump campaign promise to build up the military. The senior budget office official said there will be a large reduction in foreign aid and that most domestic agencies will have to absorb cuts. He did not offer details, but the administration is likely to go after longtime Republican targets like the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tentative proposals for the 2018 budget year that begins Oct. 1 are being sent to agencies, which will have a chance to propose changes to the cuts as part of a longstanding tradition at the budget office.
Trump's budget, once finalized and sent to Congress in mid-March, is sure to set off a huge Washington battle. Democrats and some Republicans are certain to resist the cuts to domestic agencies, and any legislation to implement them would have to overcome a filibuster threat by Senate Democrats. A government shutdown is a real possibility.
Trump's budget also won't make significant changes to Social Security or Medicare, according to an administration official.
Capitol Hill aides confirmed details of the upcoming blueprint on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that's not yet been made public.
Trump's first major fiscal marker will land in the agencies one day before his first address to a joint session of Congress. For Trump, the primetime speech is an opportunity to refocus his young presidency on the core economic issues that were a centerpiece of his White House run.
The upcoming submission covers the budget year starting on Oct. 1. But first there's an April 28 deadline to finish up the unfinished spending bills for the ongoing 2017 budget year, which is almost half over, and any stumble or protracted battle could risk a government shutdown then as well.
The March release is also expected to include an immediate infusion of 2017 cash for the Pentagon that's expected to register about $20 billion or so and contain the first wave of funding for Trump's promised border wall and other initiatives like hiring immigration agents.
The president previewed a boost in military spending during a speech Friday to conservative activists, pledging "one of the greatest build-ups in American history."

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