White House issues prospective veto of national emergency block

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:08 PM PT — Tuesday, February 26, 2019

A Democrat attempt to block President Trump’s national emergency is virtually dead in the water after the White House issued a preemptive veto threat.
In a statement from the White House, the administration laid out why the declaration is a matter of national security, and said efforts to block it undermine the president’s ability to respond effectively to security threats.
This comes as a resolution makes its way through Congress, and is expected to pass the House and Senate Tuesday. This would be the first veto President Trump has issued since taking office.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are blasting Democrats over their efforts to block the national emergency declaration.
On Tuesday, Utah Congressman Chris Stewart vowed to vote against the bill, because it denies there is an emergency at the border. Stewart said while he doesn’t support President Trump curtailing Congress, he does believe the border crisis does constitute a national emergency. He added, the declaration could have been avoided entirely if Democrats had come to the table beforehand.
“It’s really too bad because there’s a wasted opportunity here., there is a lot of conservatives that have been uncomfortable with this emergency power precedence,” he stated. “If the Democrats had been willing to work with us on something more broad and something that would have applied in future situations, I think they would have had a much more bipartisan response to that.”
However, the congressman did voice the concern future presidents could weaponize national emergencies if Congress doesn’t approve certain legislation.

Donald Trump Jr. lashes out at media, 'Big Tech' for silencing conservative speech

Donald Trump Jr. lashed out at the left, the media and social media platforms for positioning themselves against conservatives and censoring free speech, in a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” interview Tuesday.
“Why is the press standing by as the First Amendment erodes?” Tucker Carlson asked Trump Jr.
“The majority of the press are now left-wing activists,” Trump Jr. told Carlson. “They are not on the side that is being stymied, they’re not on the side that is being oppressed.”
Trump Jr. began the interview by talking about his troubles with Instagram and how many of his followers informed him that social media platforms were censoring their content because of their conservative nature.
“I can do this because I have a big platform. I have a big soapbox, I can get it out there, but some of the little guys, they can’t,” Trump Jr. said. “They don’t have the ability. They end up just taking it.”
Trump Jr. went after “Big Tech” in an op-ed last Friday claiming some companies have been acting in a partisan manner to try preventing President Trump’s reelection.
“Unfortunately, Silicon Valley is showing us that tech companies, too, can manipulate information for partisan ends. Their censorship is increasing at an alarming rate, just in time for them to try to spoil my father’s re-election bid, but we won’t let them get away with it.,” Trump Jr. wrote.
He called the alleged social-media manipulation a “one-way systematic attack on free speech” while talking to Carlson.
“To me, it reads like it’s a trial run for 2020,” Trump Jr. said. “I’m not saying every account is suppressed, but you do it enough. You take off ‘x’ percent of the top. You cut the message in half.”
“I think we have to start pushing back and I think we have to start pushing back hard,” Trump Jr. said. “If we don’t, we’ll never get the chance again.”

Michael Cohen spectacle overshadows Korea summit

It was a classic split-screen moment for the media.
Actually, it called for triple screens.
President Trump had landed in Vietnam for his summit with Kim Jong Un. This second meeting will put to the test whether North Korea actually plans to take any concrete steps toward giving up nuclear weapons, or whether its dictator is merely pursuing a strategy of deflection and delay. At stake: the potential elimination of one of the world's premier nuclear threats, and a possible peace treaty more than six decades after the Korean War armistice.
But that was no match for Michael Cohen.
The president's onetime lawyer had arrived in the Senate yesterday to testify behind closed doors, a prelude to his televised House hearing today.
MSNBC literally had a split-screen shot of Trump getting off the plane in Hanoi and Cohen walking down a Capitol Hill hallway.
CNN had a countdown clock up, 23 hours before his public testimony.
Cohen was already making news as the gist of his planned testimony was provided in advance to major news organizations. And that gave his story, well, a nuclear boost.
Cohen, The New York Times said, "is planning on portraying his onetime client in starkly negative terms when he testifies Wednesday before a House committee, and on describing what he says was Mr. Trump's use of racist language, lies about his wealth and possible criminal conduct."
Cohen, The Washington Post said, "is expected to describe to lawmakers what he views as Trump's 'lies, racism and cheating,' both as president and in private business, and will describe 'personal, behind-the-scenes' interactions he witnessed, a person familiar with the matter said."
And even while the president was halfway around the world, his White House was playing defense on the other story with a statement from Sarah Sanders:
"Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. It's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies."
What's fascinating about that statement is that it's the Republican chairman of the Senate Intel committee, Richard Burr, who summoned Cohen. And Robert Mueller is relying on Cohen's accounts as well.
Of course, Cohen's credibility will come under withering assault, since he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. That's part of the reason that Cohen will begin a three-year prison term in May, though he may hope his testimony prompts prosecutors to ask for a sentence reduction.
Cohen's effort at rehabilitating his image is simple: I lied before to protect my client, but I deeply regret it and am so upset by Trump's conduct as president that I'm going to tell all now.
Among his topics, according to the advance leaks: the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, and the president's involvement in hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
His lawyer, Lanny Davis, told the Times that he will "back it up with documents."
But Cohen does not plan to answer questions about other aspects of the Russia investigation to avoid interfering with the Mueller probe.
What the Post described as the hope of Cohen's allies — that "he could become this generation's John Dean" — very much remains to be seen. Dean, unlike Cohen, worked in the White House and was an integral part of Richard Nixon's Watergate coverup.
The third story unfolding on our screens yesterday was Nancy Pelosi's plan for the House to vote on blocking Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border. So while he's performing on the world stage, he could get whacked here at home for supposedly flouting the Constitution.
By the time the House voted to block Trump 245-182, with 13 Republicans joining the Dems, the party-line tally was a foregone conclusion. There is a chance that the Senate will go along with four Republicans defecting (Thom Tillis said in a Post op-ed yesterday that he'd oppose the national emergency because "conservatives rightfully cried foul when President Barack Obama used executive action to completely bypass Congress"). Still, there undoubtedly wouldn't be enough votes to overturn a veto.
Of course, the summit meeting with Kim hadn't actually begun when these other stories were grabbing ink and airtime. But I can't help thinking that most of the media are more interested in Trump's former fixer and a potential Democratic slapdown than in this president's diplomacy.

9th Circuit gets another Trump-picked judge, after White House bypasses consultation with Dems

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Trump's nominee to be a judge on the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a party-line vote -- and, in a historic snub, the White House ignored the input of the judge's two Democratic home-state senators in the process.
The aggressive and unprecedented move to bypass the traditional "blue slip" consultation process and plow ahead with the confirmation comes as the Trump administration seeks to systematically erode left-wing dominance on the key appellate court, which Trump has called "disgraceful" and politically biased.
With a sprawling purview representing nine Western states, the appellate court has long been a thorn in the side of the Trump White House, with rulings against his travel ban policy and limits on funding to "sanctuary cities." A lawsuit is currently pending before the 9th Circuit concerning Trump's emergency declaration over border security -- and Trump had sarcastically predicted that Democrats would purposefully file suit in the San Francisco-based appellate court to improve their odds.
The new 9th Circuit judge, Seattle attorney Eric Miller, was confirmed 53-46. Miller was one the 51 federal judicial nominees left over from the previous Congress whom the White House re-nominated last month.
Miller, currently the appellate chairman of the high-powered law firm Perkins Coie, will replace Judge Richard Tallman, a Bill Clinton appointee who assumed senior status March 2018. Miller is the fifth former clerk to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas to be nominated by Trump to a federal appellate court, including embattled D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Neomi Rao.
Miller represented the government before the Supreme Court when he served from 2007 to 2012 as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. He was also Deputy General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with, from left, Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., McConnell, John Thune, R-S.D., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, speakING to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Among those objecting to Miller's nomination were Washington State's two Democratic senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Aides say Miller's confirmation marks the first time the Senate has strayed from tradition and confirmed a judicial nominee over the dissent of both home-state senators.
“This is wrong. It is a dangerous road for the Senate to go down,” Murray said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Confirming this 9th Circuit court nominee without the consent or true input of both home-state senators, and after a sham hearing, would be a dangerous first for this Senate.”
Miller was nominated last year but faced opposition from Democrats, in part over his views on issues of tribal sovereignty.
The White House has previously signaled it will also plow ahead with other 9th Circuit nominations in other states without using the "blue slip" consultation process. The Sacramento Bee reported last year that White House officials had been negotiating with California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris about 9th Circuit appointments, but the dialogue collapsed, and the White House proceeded to announce three nominees over their objections.
Those nominees -- Patrick Bumatay, Daniel Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee (all from the Golden State, and reportedly all members of the conservative Federalist Society) -- have yet to be confirmed.
GOP critics have branded the court the “Nutty 9th,” in part because many of its rulings have been overturned by the Supreme Court.
Last November, Chief Justice John Roberts openly disputed Trump's comments that the nation has "Obama judges" and partisan hacks on the courts. The move marked a highly unusual challenge to the White House from a sitting Supreme Court justice, and prompted some observers to accuse Roberts of naivete.
“What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them,” Roberts said in the head-turning statement.
But Trump, invoking the 9th Circuit, fired back immediately.
“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” Trump tweeted.
“It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an ‘independent judiciary,’ but if it is why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned,” Trump continued. “Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”

Bernie Sanders Cartoons

Owns Three Houses

Owns Three Houses

Owns Three Houses

Owns Three Houses

Owns Three Houses

Bernie Sanders refuses to call Venezuela's Maduro 'dictator,' says 'democratic operations taking place'

Crash and Burn Bernie.

2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Monday night refused to call Venezuela's disputed President Nicolás Maduro a “dictator,” saying “there are still democratic operations taking place” in the war-torn country.
Sanders' comments in a CNN town hall came as Univision reported that anchor Jorge Ramos and his television crew were detained in Caracas following an interview with Maduro.
Univision said Ramos and his team were “arbitrarily detained” in the Miraflores Palace because the anchor asked Maduro questions “he didn’t like.” The network’s president of news, Daniel Coronell, later confirmed that Ramos and his crew were released, but that the Maduro regime still confiscated their equipment and the interview footage.
Sanders was asked about his opposition to U.S. intervention in Venezuela. He responded by saying he believed there should be an “international humanitarian effort” to improve the lives of Venezuelans and expressed that their last election was “not free and fair.” He also invoked the Vietnam War and his opposition to the Iraq War.
However, Sanders was pressed by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer about his previous rhetoric toward Maduro. The senator quickly pivoted to focus on President Trump.
“Why have you stopped short of calling Maduro of Venezuela a dictator?” Blitzer asked.
“I think it’s fair to say that the last election was undemocratic, but there are still democratic operations taking place in that country. The point is, what I’m calling for right now is internationally supervised fair elections,” Sanders responded.
“And, I do find it interesting that Trump is very concerned about what goes on in Venezuela, but what about the last election that took place in Saudi Arabia? Oh, there wasn’t any election in Saudi Arabia. Oh, women are treated as third-class citizens. So, I find it interesting that Trump is kind of selective as to where he is concerned about democracy. My record is to be concerned about democracy all over the world, so we’ve got to do everything we can but at the end of the day, it’s gonna be the people of Venezuela who determine the future of their country, not the United States of America.”
Sanders later referred to Trump as “authoritarian” for declaring a national emergency in order to get funding for the wall. The president and White House have said border security is an urgent issue requiring immediate solutions.

Rep. Omar deletes tweets that sparked political firestorm

Minnesota ( Canada ) Democrats voted her in.

Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, has deleted her controversial tweets that triggered bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill.
Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy first noted that representative erased three posts that were considered by some as anti-Semitic. Fox News has confirmed that those tweets have been deleted.
Omar’s Twitter troubles date back to 2012 when she claimed that Israel has “hypnotized the world” regarding the Jewish state’s ongoing conflict with Palestinians.
The Minnesota Democrat then reignited accusations of anti-Semitism when she suggested that the GOP’s support of Israel is bought, saying that its stance is “all about the Benjamins.” She later named AIPAC as a group that pays pro-Israel politicians despite the fact they don’t make financial contributions to campaigns.
Amid uproar, Omar issued an apology.
"Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole," Omar stated. "We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."
Many in the GOP called Democratic leadership to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. President Donald Trump slammed her “lame” apology and called on her to resign from Congress.

Democratic debate: Can an increasingly left-wing party win elections?

If you pulled a Rip Van Winkle last fall and woke up today, you'd be stunned by the new Democratic Party and its sudden embrace of uber-liberal ideas.
Suddenly, it seems, much of the party is championing radical-sounding proposals with cool slogans, gargantuan price tags and little chance of becoming law.
I happen to think this is a major miscalculation, not because I'm taking a stand on this or that policy but because it tees things up for Donald Trump and the GOP to paint them as the party of socialism.
And this progressive branding, which is what it's becoming, makes life difficult for the more moderate Democrats who led the charge in the 40-seat pickup in the House.
Both parties face this dilemma at the start of the primary process. What excites the base (left or right) can become an albatross during the general, when candidates usually pivot to the center.
But the complicating factor for the Democrats is that their social-media stars, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are also grabbing all sorts of attention, even though they wield little power in Washington.
And make no mistake, we're talking about policies that were too far left for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Here's the lead of a Washington Post piece on the "head-snapping list" embraced by the 2020 Democrats: "Tear down the border wall. Pay slavery reparations. Upgrade every building in America. Tax the assets of rich people, and pack the Supreme Court with four new liberal judges."
Kamala Harris, seeking to solidify her African-American base, has come out for slavery reparations, and Elizabeth Warren matched that and said Native Americans should also be included. Most of them are signing onto the Green New Deal. And with a few exceptions like Amy Klobuchar, they love Medicare for All, with Harris saying it should replace all private health insurance plans.
KAMALA HARRIS DISMISSES CONCERNS ABOUT GREEN NEW DEAL PRICE TAG: 'IT'S NOT ABOUT A COST'
It doesn't take much to imagine the 30-second ads.
The New York Times finds Democratic lawmakers in conservative districts fending off questions from voters about whether they stand with the "socialism" and "anti-Semitism" they see coming out of the House.
And in a geographical piece on whether the Dems should focus on the Midwest or the Sun Belt, the Times says "there is a growing school of thought that Democrats should not spend so much time, money and psychic energy tailoring their message to a heavily white, rural and blue-collar part of the country when their coalition is increasingly made up of racial minorities and suburbanites." In short, focus on more liberal areas.
They may be taking a leaf from the Trump playbook, using bombastic rhetoric and sweeping promises as an alternative to Clintonian incrementalism. But there's a price to be paid for that.
I suppose there's an argument that galvanizing a surge of liberal voters in such states as Arizona and Georgia would be the party's best bet. But the Democrats lost to Donald Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and given the vagaries of the Electoral College, I doubt they can win the White House without getting at least two of those states back. Why surrender their claim as the blue-collar party?
While AOC is only 29, she generates so much media attention, positive and negative, that she's become a definite factor in this national debate.
As Jim Geraghty writes in National Review, "There is ample evidence that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is over-covered by both the mainstream media and conservative media ... But she embodies what a loud section of the online Left wants to see and what a loud section of the online Right loves to denounce and probably fears."
Conservatives don’t need to pick a fight with her on every little issue. AOC recently announced that to pay her staff a good wage, no employee will make less than $52,000 and none more than $80,000 — meaning she'll probably hire fewer workers and forego the highly paid chief of staff types.
On "Fox & Friends," Pete Hegseth called this "socialism and communism on display." That enabled AOC to fire back that "the GOP is so disconnected from the basic idea that people should be paid enough to live that Fox actually thinks me paying a living wage in my office is 'communism.'"
Such spats will be quickly forgotten, but unless there's a course correction, the debate over the Democrats' image as an increasingly left-wing party will echo for a long time to come.