Democratic National Committee fundraising hits wall as GOP sits flush ahead of midterm elections

The Democratic National Committee entered the midterm elections year "dead broke," with a paltry $400,000 in party coffers, according to federal records.

The committee finished 2017 with roughly $6.5 million in available cash and about $6.1 million in debt, according to recently released Federal Election Commission filings. That leaves a balance of just $422,582 to start a year that will culminate in midterm elections, in which Democrats are hoping to recapture a majority in the House.

The DNC’s fundraising challenges have been well known since shortly after the 2016 elections, when President Trump defeated front-running Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The committee has been rocked by turmoil, including the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz amid leaked emails some say showed DNC brass "rigged" the primaries so Clinton would defeat Sen. Bernie Sanders.
In addition, the selection in February 2017 of former Obama administration official Tom Perez to replace Wasserman Schultz, over Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, sparked discord about the party continuing to hew to its establishment power base. More recently, the DNC has emerged as a key figure in the Russia collusion investigation, amid revelations it helped fund the so-called “anti-Trump” dossier that apparently led, at least in part, to the start of the probe.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez speaks at Ralph Northam's election night rally on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, November 7, 2017.  (REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein)

Party officials say the funding figures are not as dire as they may appear, as donors are more likely to give to individual candidates than to monolithic groups like the DNC or its counterpart, the Republican National Committee.
GOP LAWMAKER BLASTS DOSSIER WHICH MEMO SAYS LED TO TRUMP SPYING OPERATION
“Democratic candidates across the country are out-hustling and out-organizing Republican incumbents, many of whom have not faced a competitive challenge in a very long time and are struggling to find those old campaign muscles,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Friday, pointing to Republican incumbents trailing their Democratic challengers in fundraising in dozens of House races.
Still, the DNC’s money woes come at critical time, as it tries to retake the House and mount a longshot bid to retake the Senate.
The RNC raised $132 million through last year, double the DNC’s $66 million, which along with group’s minimal cash led The Intercept reporter Ryan Grim, among the first to report the story, to tweet that the DNC is “dead  broke.
Democratic Party aides said in response to the new numbers that the DNC's 2017 haul was more than what the party raised in previous off-election years, including the year ahead of the 2006 midterms, when Democrats regained control of Congress and years when former President Barack Obama helped raise money.

North Korean propaganda fliers found in mountains near Seoul: report

North Korean propaganda fliers were reportedly found Saturday in the mountains near South Korea's capital as the start of the 2018 Winter Olympics approaches.

The leaflets found near Seoul show the logo of the Winter Games in Pyeongchang and their two mascots standing beneath the Olympic rings, Reuters reported Monday, citing NK News.

“Welcome, guests from Pyongyang!” the fliers read. The report said the fliers were likely dropped from balloons flown across the border from North Korea. The leaflets also welcome North Korean athletes, cheerleaders and performance artists, the report said.
On the opposite side of the fliers, the Winter Olympics mascots appear to be running together, saying “Let’s Go to Kaesong! Let’s go to Mount Kumgang!”
The message refers to the closed inter-Korean industrial zone and the failed inter-Korean tourist area located in North Korea, Reuters reported.
The discovery of the fliers comes as North Korea announced plans to send a high-ranking delegation to South Korea this week as part of its rapprochement with South Korea during the Olympics.
The Koreas' reconciliatory mood follows a year of heightened tensions over North Korea's advancing nuclear and missile programs. Some experts say the North may want to use its Olympic-related overture as a way to weaken U.S.-led international pressure and sanctions.

Kimmel says libs excel as late-night hosts because job requires 'intelligence'

What a Idiot.

Why are so many late-night talk-show hosts liberal? Just ask Jimmy Kimmel.

“Because it requires a level of intelligence,” Kimmel, host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” told an audience Saturday night.

The occasion was an episode of “Pod Save America,” an openly progressive podcast created by former Obama administration officials Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Daniel Pfeiffer.
It describes itself as “a no-bulls--- conversation about politics that breaks down the week’s news and helps people figure out what matters and how to help.”
Social media users quickly jumped to criticize Kimmel for equating conservative politics with a lack of intelligence.
“Really? Because Kimmel's a host and is stupid enough to think political party is a proxy for intelligence. Tribalism makes people dumb,” Shoshana Weissmann wrote.
National Review magazine columnist Dan McLaughlin tweeted: “This is what Kimmel, a college dropout, really thinks of anyone who isn't liberal & watches his show.”
“That moment when Jimmy Kimmel called half the country (and his potential audience) unintelligent,” Josh Jordan wrote.
‏Kimmel has long attacked Republican-minded people, saying last year that he would not be too upset if Republican-leaning viewers stopped watching his show over his views on health care and guns.
“As a talk show host, [losing viewers is] not ideal, but I would do it again in a heartbeat," Kimmel told CBS.
"I don't say I don't mind. ... I want everyone with a television to watch the show. But if they're so turned off by my opinion on health care and gun violence, then I don't know, I probably wouldn't want to have a conversation with them anyway," he added. "Not good riddance, but riddance."
Kimmel also received assistance from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in helping to criticize the GOP's Obamacare replacement plan, which was introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C, and Bill Cassidy, R-La., according to the Daily Beast.
Schumer reportedly “provided technical guidance and info about the bill, as well as stats from various think tanks and experts on the effects of [the bill].”

After defeat of ISIS, US redeploying forces from Iraq to Afghanistan

The U.S. military is pulling its forces from an American-led coalition base in Iraq and shifting them to Afghanistan following the defeat of Islamic State group militants in the country.

Western contractors at the base say U.S. troops began the drawdown over the past week, with groups of soldiers leaving the base on daily flights. The exact scale of the redeployment was unclear.

According to various estimates, as of 2016, there were more 5,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq, with nearly 4,000 deployed to support and assist local groups fighting ISIS militants. The remaining personnel included special operations forces, logistics workers and troops on temporary rotations, the BBC reported.
Iraqi officials reportedly said their government reached an agreement with the U.S.-led coalition to reduce the number of troops in Iraq.
The reported military buildup in Afghanistan is the latest sign of a growing U.S. focus on Afghanistan as the primary conflict.
The White House reportedly signed off in August on deploying an additional 4,000 troops in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Army is also floating plans to increase the total U.S. force in the country by 1,000 in a bid to boost Afghan forces' fight against the Taliban, the Washington Post reported.
President Donald Trump introduced a new Afghanistan strategy in August, hinting at relaxing the rules of engagement, acceleration of strikes and other military actions aimed at producing “an honorable and enduring outcome” in Afghanistan.
He warned against premature drawback of troops, referencing to the Obama administration’s decision to withdraw forces from Iraq in 2011.
“A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th.”
Since Trump took office, the number of troops has nearly doubled in Afghanistan – from 8,500 in early 2017 to 14,000 today.

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WH Deputy Secy On Possible Deputy AG Firing: ‘We Expect No Changes’

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein listen the national anthem during the opening of the summit on Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking at Department of Justice in Washington, Friday, Feb. 2, 2018. President Donald Trump, dogged by an unrelenting investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, lashes out at the FBI and Justice Department as politically biased ahead of the expected release of a classified Republican memo criticizing FBI surveillance tactics. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

During an interview on Friday Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah reaffirmed the white house confidence in Rosenstein, after the President declined to give reporters a definitive answer on the matter.
Rosenstein’s primary role for the investigation is to oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his Russia probe, which is in turmoil after the release of the House Intelligence Committee memo showed a violation of FBI surveillance of the Trump Administration.

Shocking memo reveals how Comey disgraced an honorable FBI

The information contained in the memo released by House Republicans on Friday that accused FBI and Justice Department officials of improperly obtaining permission to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser shows a tragic failure of leadership on the part of former FBI Director James Comey.

But importantly, the memo does not in any way reflect on the outstanding work of the more than 35,000 dedicated men and women of the FBI.

It pains me – as a former FBI executive who loves and respects the organization – to say that Comey’s short tenure at the FBI has proven to be the worst thing to happen to the agency since Director L. Patrick Gray was fired during the Watergate scandal.
If the facts stated in the memo are true – despite the highly political nature of congressional committees – then there was either incompetent or deliberate manipulation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court to get approval of the surveillance.
Even new agent trainees at the FBI Academy know better than to use paid opposition research and newspaper articles to support use of one of the most sensitive and intrusive surveillance techniques in the investigative toolbox. If they do use such information, the FISA judge should have been apprised of the origins of the research.
FBI agents are also taught to never mislead any court of law. It’s unlikely the surveillance warrant would have been issued if the FISA judge was aware that political opponents (the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee) had financed the information used to obtain approval of the surveillance.
FISA applications go through extensive reviews at multiple levels of executive management at the FBI and Justice Department. They are signed by the most senior FBI and Justice Department executives before they are presented to the FISA court for approval.
The 2016 FISA approvals in question were signed by none other than FBI Director Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The buck stops there. They were the top two officials in the FBI at the time.
McCabe, enabled by Comey, created an attitude among his inner circle that flaunted well- established laws and regulations. Comey usurped the role of the Justice Department in publicly exonerating Hillary Clinton from wrongdoing in her handling of government emails when she was secretary of state.
At the same time, Comey took highly conflicted Attorney General Loretta Lynch off the hook to formally recuse herself from the Hillary Clinton probe as a result of Lynch’s own inexcusable and inept conduct in meeting former President Bill Clinton while his wife was under Justice Department and FBI investigation.
With his conduct, Comey set in motion a cascading set of events that resulted in the FBI becoming a pawn in a political firestorm. He justified making up his own rules because he felt righteous.
Comey permitted leaks and allowed bias to infect two of the most important investigations ever conducted by the FBI. He clearly permitted his lead investigative agent to predetermine the outcome of the Clinton investigation, while allowing the agent’s biased actions and anti-Trump texts to complicate the role of Special Counsel Robert Mueller in actually getting to the truth of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page – who were carrying on a romantic affair when they traded numerous text criticizing then-candidate Trump – are now star witnesses for the defense in any indictments that come out of Mueller’s office.

Mueller is an honest, fair and non-political professional who took a bullet for his country as a Marine in Vietnam. He is our best chance to learn the truth. And the truth should be good enough for everyone. He served for 12 years as FBI director with many accomplishments, no terrorist attacks on his watch and not a hint of controversy.
Current FBI Director Chris Wray has now taken the helm and is trying his best to right the ship. This is no time for him to resign. He has a lot to overcome in a very difficult task. He must maintain his independence from the president while navigating political controversy coming at him from every direction.
Wray is very deliberately cleaning out the remnants of the Comey cabal on the FBI’s 7th Floor. He has apparently been given a preview of the Department of Justice inspector general’s investigation of the conduct of several FBI officials during the Clinton investigation. This inspector general is the same person who outed the Strzok and Page texts.
Now information is circulating that the Republican memo made public is just the tip of the iceberg. Ex-FBI Agents are picking up information that the inspector general’s report will be far more graphic in detailing the misconduct of McCabe, Strzok and others more serious that what is in the memo released Friday.
The Republican congressional memo outlines potentially serious misconduct on the part of the Comey leadership team. Going forward, the FBI should err on the side of transparency. Director Wray should make every effort to declassify the documents and affidavit supporting surveillance approved by the FISA Court.
Such information has been released before. It is better for the FBI to release the information than to have it come from a political body like Congress. Let the public decide for themselves without political spin.
The American people, Congress and the president should sit back and allow Special Counsel Mueller to do his work. This nation has an interest in making sure that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence thugs and mobbed-up oligarchs do not influence our political processes.
It’s time to find out what really happened.
Chris E. Swecker served 24 years in FBI as Special Agent. He retired from the Bureau as Assistant Director with responsibility over all FBI Criminal Investigations. He currently practices law in Charlotte, N.C.

Trump, GOP upbeat about turn in midterm numbers, vow to use Pelosi 'crumbs' comment on stump

Congressional Republicans once bracing for the possibility of a Democratic “tsunami” in this year’s elections now appear on the offensive -- bolstered by new polls suggesting Americans like their recent tax cuts and the opportunity to pounce on Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi's remark about the resulting bonuses and paycheck increases amounting to “crumbs.”

“Nancy Pelosi has stayed in the spotlight. Her 'crumbs' comment is something I think we can use pretty effectively,” Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said at this week’s GOP policy retreat at the Greenbrier resort, in West Virginia.

To be sure, Republicans have in recent years made a familiar target of Pelosi, arguing that the Democratic Party, under the liberal California Democrat, has lost touch with working-class Americans.
Stivers made his comments a day after a Monmouth University poll showed that 47 percent of registered voters now favor or would pick a Democratic candidate in this year’s congressional races, compared  to 45 percent who would support a Republican. That’s compared to Democrats’ 51-to-36-percentage-point advantage in the school’s so-called generic poll in December.
"The generic congressional ballot is prone to bouncing around for a bit until the campaign really gets underway,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “But Democrats who counted on riding public hostility toward the tax bill to retake the House may have to rethink that strategy."

The poll also found public support for President Trump and congressional Republicans’ landmark tax plan had increased by 21 percentage points since Monmouth’s December poll.
Stivers said Thursday that Republicans will continue to tout the benefits of their tax plan to Americans -- including three million workers who have already receiving a bonus -- and that it will be part of the their larger 2018 campaign slogan, “The Great American Comeback.”
He also pointed to the president’s improved approval rating and Republicans last year winning six special House elections.
However, Stivers acknowledged that history is not on Republicans’ side, considering the political party that controls the White House has over roughly the past eight decades lost about 26 House seats in midterm elections, as Democrats need to gain 24 to retake control of the lower chamber. (All 435 House seats are up for reelection this year.)
Another concern is that nearly 38 House Republicans have already announced that they will not seek re-election -- including nine committee chairmen.
“It’s not all rainbows and unicorns,” Stivers said about being in Congress, which continues to have low approval ratings.
However, he said the GOP’s 2018 recruited class has been “pretty good.” Stivers also said that the GOP's winning the special Georgia House election last year proves that Republicans, despite pollsters’ predictions, can win in the kind of suburban districts that helped Trump prevail in 2016.
“I think we are going to hold the House, and I think things are going to be OK,” he said.
While the numbers have buoyed Republicans -- including Trump, who in his speech at the retreat alluded to the new polling numbers -- Democrats remain enthusiastic.
"Democratic candidates across the country are out-hustling and out-organizing Republican incumbents, many of whom have not faced a competitive challenge in a very long time and are struggling to find those old campaign muscles,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Friday, pointing to Republican incumbents trailing their Democratic challengers in fundraising in dozens of House races.
While the Monmouth polls created a huge buzz this week among Republican, particular those in the House, a Morning Consult poll a week earlier had already suggested Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate, despite trailing by just a 51-49 member margin, were dimming.
The poll, taken last year from October through December, shows a decline in net approval ratings for nine of the 10 Democratic incumbents running in states Trump won in 2016. Among them is Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, whose net rating fell by roughly 18 percentage points by the end of the year, the most of any of the Democratic incumbents.
There are 34 Senate seats up for reelection, but Democrats are defending incumbents in 26 of them.

Trump: Declassified memo 'vindicates' him, shows Russia investigation a 'witch hunt'

President Trump said the recently released memo alleging intelligence abuse during the FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign “totally vindicates” him.

Among his first statements following Friday’s release of the now-declassified memo by Republicans in control of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump suggested Saturday the revelations in the document prove the ongoing probe is a “witch hunt.”

“This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe,” Trump tweeted Saturday. “But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their [sic] was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!”
The four-page memo, written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., alleges intelligence abuse by the Department of Justice and the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign. Particularly, it alleges that the two agencies requested a surveillance warrant using a disputed anti-Trump dossier funded by Democrats.
The memo said former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified to the committee that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” from the FISA court “without the Steele dossier information.”
The memo said it was not disclosed that the dossier was authored by an outspoken Trump critic and former British spy, Christopher Steele.
"What's going on in this country, I think it is a disgrace," the president said at the White House after the memo was released. "When you look at that, and you see that, and so many other things what's going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that."
Nunes told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Friday that the release of the memo was out of “an obligation to the American people.”
“I have an obligation to the American people when we see FISA abuse," Nunes said on “Special Report.” "These are secret courts that exist to target for foreigners, for catching terrorists, for catching people who might be bad actors and the American citizens that are represented before this court have to be protected, and the only place that can protect them is the U.S. Congress when abuses do occur.”
Trump has repeatedly argued that the investigation – which was taken by special counsel Robert Mueller in May – that the probe has found no collusion from his campaign and should be concluded.
Prior to the release of the memo Friday, Trump tweeted: “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!”

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