Presumptuous Politics

Monday, May 9, 2016

Palin says she'll work to unseat Ryan over Trump snub

In a dustup between former GOP vice presidential candidates, Sarah Palin said Sunday she will work to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan after Ryan refused last week to endorse Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Palin, who was on the 2008 Republican ticket, said on “State of the Union” she “will do whatever I can” to support Ryan’s primary challenger in Wisconsin’s first district. Ryan’s snub of Trump was “not a wise decision of his,” Palin said.
“His political career is over, but for a miracle, because he has so disrespected the will of the people,” said Palin, who was governor of Alaska from 2006 to 2009.
She suggested that Ryan would be “Cantor-ed,” referencing ex-Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s June 2014 Virginia primary loss to an upstart challenger and his ousting from GOP leadership.
Ryan is facing businessman Paul Nehlen in the Aug. 9 Republican congressional primary. Palin said she has not yet spoken to Nehlen, but Nehlen had obviously heard the news Sunday morning, retweeting two links to the Palin interview from his personal account.
Ryan's spokesperson declined to comment on the Palin remarks when contact by FoxNews.com.
Ryan, who was a vice presidential candidate in 2012, was first elected to Congress in 1998 and was chosen as speaker of the house in 2015. Though he has been somewhat critical of several Trump statements in the past, Ryan still stunned many in the political world on Thursday when he declined to throw his weight behind his party’s likely November standard bearer.
“I’m just not ready to do that at this point,” Ryan said on CNN. “I’m not there right now.”
Palin told host Jake Tapper she believes Ryan’s own presidential ambitions are keeping him from supporting Trump.
“You know, I think why Paul Ryan is doing this, Jake, it kind of screws his chances for the 2020 presidential bid that he’s gunning for,” she said. “If the GOP were to win now, that wouldn’t bode well for his chances in 2020 and that’s what he’s shooting for. So a lot of people with their ‘Never Trump’ or ‘Now Right Now Trump’ mantra going on, they have different reasons. I think that one is Paul Ryan’s reason.”

West Point investigating black female cadets' raised-fists photo

NEW YORK – The U.S. Military Academy has launched an inquiry into a photo showing 16 black, female cadets in uniform with their fists raised, an image that has spurred questions about whether the gesture violates military restrictions on political activity.
West Point is looking into whether the photo broke any rules, Spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Kasker said Saturday. It's unclear how long the inquiry will take and too soon to say what consequences it could have for the cadets, who are poised to graduate May 21.
By campus tradition, groups of cadets often take pictures in traditional dress uniforms to echo historical portraits of their cadets. Indeed, a different picture of the same women, without the raised fists, was tweeted out by the chairwoman of the academy's Board of Visitors, 1980 graduate Brenda Sue Fulton.
But the fists-up image, which circulated online, led some observers to question whether the women were expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which grew out of protests over police killings of unarmed black men.
The Army Times, which first wrote about the photo Thursday, said several readers had written in to say they believed the cadets were breaching a Defense Department policy that says "members on active duty should not engage in partisan political activity," with exceptions for voting and certain other things.
But Mary Tobin, a West Point graduate and mentor who knows the students, said they were simply celebrating their forthcoming graduation as a shared accomplishment, like a sports team raising helmets after a win.
"It was a sign of unity," Tobin, a 2003 graduate, said by phone. "They weren't trying to imply any allegiance to any movement."
The raised fist has served as a symbol of power and resistance for various political movements and causes. The gesture has caused controversy before, including when black American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos lifted gloved fists in black power salutes during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Yet the cadets, immersed in the insulated and demanding environment of West Point, didn't anticipate how their gesture would be interpreted and the attention it would draw, said Tobin, who has spoken with them about it.
"Their frame of reference is: 'Right now, we're getting ready to graduate in three weeks, I'm standing here with my sisters .... We outlasted a lot of people, black or white, male or female,' " she said.
Black women cadets are rarities at West Point, where about 70 percent of students are white and about 80 percent are men, although the percentage of women has been growing in recent starting classes.

Trump campaign defends move to fundraise, says 'plenty of time' to unite GOP

Donald Trump strategist Paul Manafort argued Sunday that Trump hasn’t misled supporters by saying during the Republican primaries that he was a self-funded candidate who “couldn’t be bought” and now trying to raise money for the general election.
Manafort told “Fox News Sunday” that Trump made the announcement to fundraise last week after becoming the Republican’s presumptive presidential nominee, because he now leads the party and needs to match the millions of dollars that Democrats will raise to elect their candidates in November.
“He is the head of the party and will be electing not just the president, but will be electing senators, congressmen, governors and local council people,” Manafort said.
“The Democrats have said they're going to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try and spread lies about Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Trump has said to compete against them he will support the party and the party's efforts.”
The change was marked last week when Trump, a billionaire businessman, named a finance chairman.
Manafort said the chairman would be for Trump’s presidential campaign, with Trump at the top of the GOP’s November ballot, but acknowledged that some of the money raised will go toward Trump’s White House bid.
Manafort, a long-time political strategist hired several weeks ago as Trump’s convention manager, also downplayed the lack of Trump support so far from the Republican establishment.
He suggested the country is still trying to process Trump becoming the presumptive nominee with an unexpected win Tuesday in the Indiana primary that knocked out the last two GOP rivals -- Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
“It’s a healing process,” Manafort said Sunday. “The media's expectations that the day after the Indiana primary … everything was going to come together in one moment was unrealistic.”
He also argued that Trump ran as an outsider and wasn't a candidate of the leaders.
“We have plenty of time to put the party together,” Manafort said. “And I think you're going to see a successful, united party.”
He also defended Trump for his attacks on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, including bringing up the infidelity of husband President Bill Clinton and how she handled the aftermath.
He argued that Hillary Clinton has accused Trump of being unfair to women.
“Donald Trump has made it very clear he is not going to allow hypocrisy on the women's issue,” Manafort said. “He is not going to let Hillary make the case that he is against women and she is this defender of women's rights.”

Army has fewest active duty soldiers since 1940, report says

KT McFarland blasts Obama's 'cynical' use of the US military

The number of U.S. Army soldiers on active duty has been reduced to its lowest since 1940, according to a published report.
The Army Times reported this weekend that the Army's endstrength for March was 479,172. That's 154 fewer soldiers than the service's previous post-World War II low, which was reached during the Army's post-Cold War drawdown in 1999.
The current number is still well above the 269,023 soldiers on duty in 1940, the year before America entered World War II. However, the report says the active force has been reduced by more than 16,500 troops over the past year — the equivalent of about three brigades.
According to the Army Times, the Army is on track to reach its goal of reducing the number of active duty troops to 475,000 by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2016. Under a drawdown plan unveiled last July, the number of active-duty soldiers would be reduced to 460,000 soldiers by the end of fiscal year 2017 and 450,000 by the end of fiscal year 2018, barring action by Congress or the Pentagon.
If those targets are met, the number of soldiers on active duty would be down 20 percent from 2010, when there were nearly 570,000 soldiers on active duty.
When the Army presented its plan last July, military officials said their hands were tied by reduced funding levels.
"These are not cuts the Army wants to make, these are cuts required by budget environment in which we operate," Gen. Daniel Allyn, vice chief of staff of the Army, said at the time. "This 40,000 soldier cut ... will only get us to the program force, it does not deal with the continued threat of sequestration."
The Army Times report said that 2,600 soldiers departed active service in March without being replaced.
In addition to those on active duty, the Army has 548,024 soldiers in reserve, for a total force of 1,027,196 soldiers. Under the drawdown plan, the total force number would be reduced to 980,000 by the end of fiscal year 2018.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Mother's Day Cartoons

Gregg Jarrett: The real reason the FBI interviewed Hillary's closest aide

Fox News has confirmed that the FBI has interviewed Huma Abedin, top aide to Hillary Clinton, as part of its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email and whether classified information was willfully transmitted on her unsecured network. The FBI may also have interviewed other current and former Clinton staffers. This suggests the case may be approaching a conclusion. Clinton, herself, could be interviewed very soon.
Abedin Is a Key Witness
Abedin is a valued source of information because she apparently used an email on Clinton’s private system. She may have voiced concerns about whether the server was violating the law or, equally important, discussed how the law could be circumvented.

She and other staffers were surely questioned about the 2,200 classified communications contained on the server, including the 22 documents that were “top secret”. How did they end up on the unauthorized system? Did the aides have clearance to read them? Didn’t they know they were classified? Were classified markings erased? Who decided to delete thousands of emails which were government property? Who ordered the server to be “wiped clean”? Depending on the answers to these crucial questions, the aides could find themselves in legal jeopardy. So could Hillary Clinton.
Clinton’s Intent Is Irrelevant
Unnamed sources close to the investigation are reported to have said that the FBI has found no evidence to prove Clinton intended to violate the law. That sounds important, but it is not. The operative legal issue is not whether she intended to break the law, but whether she knowingly and intentionally stored classified information on her unauthorized server. Here is the specific law:

“Whoever… knowingly removes (classified) documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.” (18 U.S.C., section 1924)

The statute says nothing about an intent to violate the law. It is an important distinction. Clearly, Clinton intended to create a private server for use as her exclusive means of conducting official business as Secretary of State. She also knew it was not authorized because she never sought authorization from the relevant agencies. At the same time, she knew her unauthorized server would collect, retain and transmit classified documents during her four year term and intended it to do so.
This would appear to violate the language of the statute. She can hardly claim she did not recognize classified material… because that would be arguing her own incompetence.
Ignorance of the Law
Is it possible for Clinton to argue that she did not know she was breaking the law? She can try, but in a court of law it is no defense. Ignorance of the law is never an excuse. Otherwise, everyone accused of a crime would play dumb. “Gee, I didn’t know my actions were a crime!”

Moreover, Clinton knew the law because she was specifically instructed on the law when she took office. She received a “national security indoctrination” –a tutorial on the law of classified materials. Thereafter, she signed a sworn “non-disclosure agreement” promising never to convey classified material to an unauthorized person or place.

In that same agreement, Clinton was also warned that classified material can be either marked or unmarked. The content dictates its classification, not the markings. So, her previous claims that nothing was marked classified is not a defense. This is especially true since Clinton reportedly authored 104 of the classified emails herself. Surely, she knew what she was writing.
Gross Negligence
President Obama recently called Clinton’s handling of the classified emails “careless”, but not intentional, as if that makes it okay. However, carelessness is sufficient to be convicted of a crime. The following statute specifically addresses this issue:

“Whoever… through gross negligence permits (classified information) to be removed from its proper place of custody… shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” (18 U.S.C., section 793-f)

In plain language, gross negligence is the standard, not intent. Carelessness or recklessness are synonymous with gross negligence. Thus, by implying that Clinton did nothing illegal because she was merely “careless”, President Obama is either legally mistaken or deliberately communicating a falsehood.
If the president, a trained lawyer, thought he was exculpating Clinton… he was, in truth, implicating her in a violation of the law.

Cruz, Kasich camps trade postmortem shots in wake of Trump victory

Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have quit the GOP presidential primary race but continue to snipe about who’s to blame for letting front-runner Donald Trump crush them Tuesday in the Indiana primary and end both of their campaigns.
"Post mortem's on POTUS race must include a healthy dose of Kasich,” Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe tweeted Friday. “Defeating Trump required a head to head. Kasich kept that from happening.”
The campaigns formed a loose alliance in mid-March as Trump trounced in his home state of New York, then a week later swept in five Northeast primaries.
Cruz, in second place at the time, realized his brand of conservatism wouldn’t play well in that region and entered into a deal that would allow him to compete alone against Trump in Indiana, while allowing Kasich to compete head-to-head with Trump in Oregon and New Mexico.
However, the deal began to fray within hours of its conception, in part because of apparent voter trepidation.
Their deal was purportedly forged because Kasich refused to drop out and allow Cruz to go one-on-one with Trump.
Kasich chief strategist John Weaver apparently tweeted Friday in response to Roe’s comments: "Other losing campaigns, especially with candidates nearing record-level negative ratings & zero ability to grow, should look inward. #exuses"
Weaver also tweeted: "Nothing worse than entitled losers. … #Excuses I mean ... .”
Cruz, a Texas senator, was essentially eliminated from the race before Indiana, trailing Trump in the delegate county by an insurmountable number of them.
And Kasich, who won only his home state, had just 153 delegates in the race to win 1,237 of them to secure the party’s presidential nomination.

Trump accuses Bush, Graham of breaking GOP loyalty pledge

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Saturday accused former primary rivals Jeb Bush and Sen. Lindsey Graham of breaking a candidates’ pledge to the party’s eventual nominee.
“Jeb Bush isn’t an honorable person. Lindsey Graham isn’t an honorable person,” Trump said at a rally in Spokane, Washington, ahead of the state’s May 24 primary.
All 17 major GOP presidential candidates in September 2015 purportedly signed the loyalty pledge, which was issued by the Republican National Committee and also committed the signees to not running as an independent or write-in candidate, or supporting a candidate from another party.
“Bush signed a pledge. While signing it, he fell asleep,” Trump told the crowd Saturday, returning to his knock on the former Florida GOP governor as “super low energy.”
The RNC declared Trump the presumptive nominee after his decisive primary win Tuesday in Indiana that knocked out his last two party rivals -- Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Trump suggested Saturday that he is going after Bush and Graham again because they, in the aftermath of his Indiana win, are not supporting him.
“Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham are light-weights,” continued Trump, who was perhaps hardest on Graham, a South Carolina senator.
“When we went to South Carolina, he thought he had power. My 10-year-old son Barron had more power,” Trump said. “A total dope constantly on TV knocking me.”

Trump remounts Warren attack, calls her 'goofy' in effort to nix her 2016 influence

Goofy?

Donald Trump this weekend put his well-honed attack-counter attack game into full general-election mode -- mocking progressive stalwart and Senate Democrat Elizabeth Warren, in a likely preview of the next six months.
On Saturday, Trump turned to his go-to Twitter account to attack Warren, of Massachusetts, whom some Democrats wanted to run for president and now as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, if the front-running Clinton wins the party’s presidential nomination.
“Goofy Elizabeth Warren is weak and ineffective,” Trump, now the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, tweeted Saturday.
Warren nearly lost her Senate bid in 2012, amid criticism that she claimed to have Native American roots to further her academic career and become an Ivy League professor.
The fury mostly died as she emerged in the Senate as strong voice against Wall Street and economic inequality.
However, Trump appears determined to revisit the controversy -- in an apparent effort to quickly dispose of Warren as either a worthy Democratic presidential surrogate or potential vice presidential candidate, as he did with his primary rivals.
“Does nothing. All talk, no action -- maybe her Native American name?” Trump also tweeted. “Goofy Elizabeth Warren and her phony Native American heritage are on a Twitter rant. She is too easy! I'm driving her nuts.”
In rallies on Friday in Nebraska and Oregon, Trump called Warren a "goofus" and a "basket case," who as a senator has had little impact on Washington, much less the country.
Warren had insulted Trump earlier on Twitter, calling him "a bully who has a single play in his playbook."
She started her attack after Trump’s primary win Tuesday in Indiana that knocked out remaining GOP rivals Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
In a series of late-night tweets, Warren accused Trump of racism, sexism, xenophobia, narcissism and a host of other faults.
The battle lines appeared to have been drawn a couple of weeks earlier.
When Trump was asked about another Warren tweet storm in which she called him a “loser,” the billionaire businessman said in response "Who's that, the Indian? You mean the Indian?”
The response appeared quintessential Trump, considering he thrives off detecting weakness and pouncing and Warren being a target-rich environment.
From 1986 to 1995, she listed herself as a minority in the Association of American Law Schools directory. Harvard Law School cited her alleged Indian heritage in dealing with criticism that it lacked a diverse faculty. Her recipe in the "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook became the subject of derision, after charges it was plagiarized from a New York Times cookbook.
"I think she's a fraud," said longtime nemesis and Boston conservative talk radio host Howie Carr. "I think her entire success in academia and in politics is based on a lie that she's a Native American."
Carr suspects Warren was stuck professionally as an instructor at the University of Texas Law School before “checking the box” as Native American, then becoming a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, then at Harvard University’s law school.
Warren's office did not respond earlier this week to requests for an interview.
One of the ironies of this fight is that the two are vying, at least in part, for the same voters -- blue-collar workers and swing-state independents who may well decide the election.
Trump is trying to pull them right with promises of more coal and less regulation, while Warren, with her strong progressive bona fides, is pulling left with a call for more government safety nets and regulation.