Trump wants to meet whistleblower, says Schiff may have committed ‘fraud and treason’

President Trump on Sunday said he wants to meet the whistleblower who filed a complaint about his July phone call with the Ukrainian president and to have House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., questioned for “fraud and treason.”
“Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called ‘Whistleblower,’ represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way,” Trump tweeted. “Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress.”
He continued: “His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.”
Trump last week released a transcript of the call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, which along with the complaint, detailed how he urged his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The incident has set off a formal impeachment inquiry.
But Schiff opened Thursday’s hearing on Capitol Hill with Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire with an exaggerated reading of the phone call, which he later walked back as a “parody.”
Trump on Friday blasted Schiff for the fictional summary and demanded his immediate resignation.
In the series of tweets on Sunday, Trump not only doubled down on meeting his accusers, both the whistleblower and the person who supplied the information, but also questioned whether he was being spied on.
“In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the ‘Whistleblower,’” Trump tweeted. “Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!”

Adam Goodman: Pelosi’s impeach Trump push insults our Constitution. Why not let voters decide about Trump?

We are watching a public execution.
Fueled with prejudice and injustice it should disgust all who still hold onto the faint belief that truth and the rule of law still count for something.
Pushed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her political vigilantes, the move to impeach a sitting president this week for things that never happened – a “quid” without a “pro quo” – insults our Constitution and subjects America to well-deserved ridicule from the rest of the planet.
The assault by a Democratic speaker on a president she abhors was so transparent she indicted him before seeing any evidence, smeared him before hearing any proof, then executed him in the press without any concern for due process.
It all reminds one of Alice in Wonderland, where the Queen corrected the King’s sense of jurisprudence when she insisted “no, no…sentence first – verdict afterword.”

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Then, with a straight face, Nancy Pelosi had the gall to look us square in the eye and say this has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with her disdain for President Donald Trump, nothing to do with her inability to control Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her liberal arsonists who are out to torch the system (and the speaker's leadership).
Seriously?
And just when we thought we had seen the final episode of “House of Cards.”
Here’s what we know.
Our president called Ukraine’s president to congratulate him on his party’s parliamentary victory. That’s what leaders do when other leaders have a good day.

There was no quid pro quo, no trading of promised military aid for political help, no pressure or demand that Ukraine act – or else!

During that call, confirmed by release of the transcript of that conversation, the president briefly referenced the dropped investigation of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, over allegations the vice president may have unfairly influenced an investigation there, and further asked for help in learning more about how corruption from abroad threatened America’s electoral system.
There was no quid pro quo, no trading of promised military aid for political help, no pressure or demand that Ukraine act – or else!
The Democrats, even before knowing any of this, said Donald Trump is clearly guilty of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard for impeachment contained in Article 1, Section 2, of the United States Constitution.
The president’s crime?
He won the 2016 election.
His offense? He’s doing what he promised, by taking on a system that threatens the middle class, domestic tranquility and national security.
His sin?
Donald Trump has led America to its best economic report card in decades.
At the same time, the president took on China for abusing trade, Venezuela for abusing its people, and “terrorist-central” Iran for bombing Saudi Arabia.
Pelosi and her henchmen didn’t want to hear any of that.
Instead, they promoted a political lynching they were denied when the 674-day Mueller investigation proved no wrongdoing and the Kavanaugh nomination was approved. Choreographed for effect, they went ballistic over an allegation without waiting to see it, read it or vet it, as if facts and evidence were some inconvenience, some technical points to be addressed later.
Here’s the worst part.
If the Democrats’ assault on the president goes unchallenged, there will be more investigations, more political witch hunts, and more impeachments. If you don’t like something, investigate. If you don’t agree with someone, accuse. If all that fails, call for impeachment.
This is rich, coming from a Congress whose approval ratings are at historic lows, from partisans whose electoral futures are in doubt, and from a House speaker so uncertain about her standing among Democrats she’s willing to gamble, risk it all, to take out a president before the people of America weigh in next year wielding their most powerful weapon: the right to vote.
Nancy Pelosi wants to impeach our president.
More than ever, the American people want to impeach everyone responsible for putting their survival over ours.

Conservative Townhall Cartoons 2019

Justice Department sides with Catholic archdiocese that fired gay teacher

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement of interest Friday in support of the  Archdiocese of Indianapolis over a decision that led to the firing of a Catholic teacher in a same-sex marriage, according to a report.
The Justice Department's statement says the First Amendment gives the diocese the right to apply Catholic doctrine in employment decisions, The Indianapolis Star reported.
“The United States has no reason on this record to doubt that Plaintiff was an excellent teacher,” the Justice Department’s statement says, adding the government can “cast no judgment on whether the Archdiocese’s decision is right and proper as a matter of Catholic doctrine or religious faith.”

Cathedral High School (Google Maps)

Joshua Payne-Elliott is suing the archdiocese for wrongful termination, alleging they illegally interfered in his employment contract at Cathedral High School, which is part of the archdiocese.  Of course he's Suing :-)
Payne-Elliott worked as a social studies teacher at the school from 2006 until last June. The school had offered to renew his contract but then said they were letting him go at the direction of the archdiocese.
Payne-Elliott’s husband, Layton Payne-Elliott, works at another school that was temporarily kicked out of the archdiocese for refusing to fire him. The Vatican this week interceded to temporarily halt the school’s removal, pending an appeal.
Payne-Elliott’s lawyer, Kathleen DeLaney, says the issued is about an employment dispute, not religious liberty.
"Josh Payne-Elliot was employed by Cathedral High School," she said, according to The Star. "Cathedral High School fired my client because the archdiocese told them to and threatened to take various actions against Cathedral if they refused to fire my client."
"That is textbook intentional interference in an employment relationship," she added. "He was not employed by the archdiocese but the archdiocese had him fired."
Payne-Elliott said he hoped the case would "put a stop to the targeting of LGBTQ employees and their families."
The school said it sees its teachers as "ministers" who are required to uphold Catholic teachings, which prohibit same-sex marriage.
Two guidance counselors were also fired from another high school in the archdiocese this year for being in sex-sex marriages. One of the counselors has filed a lawsuit and the other is expected to soon.
The archdiocese began requiring Catholic high school teachers to sign a morality clause, but Payne-Elliott says he never did.
The Justice Department's statement of interest has no official bearing on the case, The Star reported.

The DNC Has Spent More Money Than It’s Raised This Year

The Democratic National Committee has a money problem. And that could hurt its nominee’s chances of beating President Donald Trump in 2020.
In the first four months of 2019, the party spent more than it raised and added $3 million in new debt. In the same period, its Republican counterpart was stockpiling cash.
Democratic donors overall have been generous, pouring three times as much into their party’s presidential and congressional campaigns in the first quarter of the year than Republicans gave to their national office-seekers. But the DNC isn’t benefiting from the same donor enthusiasm, putting at risk its ability to help the nominee take on Trump, donors said.
Whoever wins the party’s nomination will rely heavily on the DNC in the general election for organizing, identifying voters and getting them to the polls. That will ultimately cost hundreds of millions of dollars by election day, but the party needs to spend early to prepare, which is why it’s been borrowing money. It’s also sending out fundraising appeals under the presidential candidates’ names, something it’s never done before.
"It’s trouble, it’s going to affect us," said Allan Berliant, a Cincinnati-based Democratic bundler, who says the party needs to open offices and get boots on the ground around the country. "All of that starts with fundraising," he said.
Party officials and fundraisers blamed the deficiency on several factors, and chief among them is competition from the 23 Democrats who are running for president and vacuuming up contributors’ cash. Giving to the party isn’t as compelling as supporting the presidential hopefuls, said John Morgan, an Orlando-based trial attorney and Democratic fundraiser.
“Do you want to fix up the barn or do you want to bet on the horses?” he said.
But major donors also pointed to the perception of some contributors that the national party is disorganized -- a hangover from the 2016 election. The growing schism between the old-guard establishment and the younger, activist wing could be discouraging donors, too, they said.

Fundraising Compared

By the end of April, the DNC had collected contributions of more than $24.4 million, but had spent $28.4 million, according to the latest disclosures. It had $7.6 million cash on hand, $1 million less than in January. It posted $6.2 million in debt, including bank loans and unpaid invoices to vendors, Federal Election Commission records show.
That compared with the Republican National Committee, which thanks in part to Trump’s non-stop fundraising since winning the White House had $34.7 million in the bank and no debt. It raised nearly $62 million so far this year, two-and-a-half times the DNC’s haul.

‘Fundraising Machine’

Democratic rainmakers said contributions should pick up as the crowded field of presidential hopefuls thins. "We will have the largest and most enthusiastic fundraising machine that the Democrats have ever seen," said Chris Korge, a longtime Democratic bundler who took over the party’s fundraising operation in May. The Miami-based attorney and investor said he’s educating donors on how the party is investing its funds, and said money won’t be a problem, even if Republicans outraise it.
Democratic donors elsewhere have been generous. From January through March, 16 presidential candidates collectively raised $77 million, or $3 million more than Trump’s committees and the Republican National Committee combined. That follows the 2018 midterms in which Democratic committees of every type spent $525 million more than Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The national party has been overshadowed by other Democratic organizations on a number of fronts. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports House candidates, says it has to protect the House majority that Democrats won in 2018. Its Senate counterpart, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is aiming to end Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s tenure.

Messages Resonate

Both messages resonate with donors, bundlers say. The DCCC has raised more than $40 million this year, besting the DNC’s totals each month. The DSCC has raised $18 million.
The DNC is also competing with super PACs, which can accept unlimited amounts from companies, unions and individuals but can’t coordinate with candidates. Priorities USA, the main super PAC for supporting the party’s presidential nominees, counts among its donors some of the biggest Democratic givers, including billionaire investor George Soros and hedge-fund operators S. Donald Sussman and James H. Simons.
"There’s a lot of competition for dollars right now," said Jamie Ansorge, a member of the DNC’s finance committee who focuses on young professionals in the New York City area.

Splitting Contributions

For the first time, the party is sending fundraising pitches from its presidential candidates to its vast donor list -- and splitting the contributions evenly. Campaigns get another set of donors to pitch to, and the party gets to cash in on the crowded field. For example, the party has emailed solicitations for former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and California Senator Kamala Harris.
“The Democratic nominee for president will need a strong Democratic Party,” O’Rourke’s email said. Booker cited the financial advantage Trump and the GOP have in the early going, and the need to keep up.
The DNC isn’t sharing in the money bonanza in part because of the perception that it hasn’t recovered from 2016’s self-inflicted blows, fundraisers said. Emails hacked by the Russians and published by WikiLeaks showed that it was working to help Hillary Clinton defeat Bernie Sanders for the nomination even though it was publicly pledging neutrality. That led to the resignation of DNC chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on the eve of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.
“Debbie Wasserman Schultz really destroyed a lot of confidence in the DNC for a lot of people and for a lot of different reasons,” said Morgan, the Orlando-based fundraiser. Her favoring of Clinton and mismanagement of the party continues to give donors pause, he said.
When she stepped down, Wasserman Schultz cited the successes of her tenure, including aiding Obama’s reelection in 2012, strengthening partnerships with state parties and conducting the 2016 primary in a statement. Wasserman Schultz didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Some potential contributors would rather not support a party they perceive as dominated by establishment figures and their more moderate approach to issues, said one bundler who who has held fundraisers for the party, but asked not to be named because he’s not authorized to speak publicly on its behalf.
To compete in 2020, the DNC has acquired 100 million cellphone numbers during the midterms, allowing the party to make contact with voters via text message. This summer, it will train about 1,000 college juniors who will be ready to hit the ground running next year and is stressing those tactics with donors.
Tom Perez, who took over as chairman in 2017, in a recent email solicitation highlighted the effort to train college students and warned it might be scaled back if its fundraising goal wasn’t met.

Republicans rake in $15 million of donations over Trump impeachment threat

In the few days since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened an impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Republicans have capitalized on conservative outrage, pulling in millions of dollars in donations.

As of Friday, Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign received $15 million in small donations, including 50,000 from new donors, according to a tweet from Eric Trump.

“Unbelievable numbers!!” he tweeted. “Keep it going — you and the dems are handing @realDonaldTrump the win in 2020!”

Pelosi announced on Tuesday the House would launch a formal impeachment inquiry against the president, accusing him of betraying the oath of office by pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son.

Trump has maintained that he acted appropriately.

Twenty-four hours later, Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee raked in a combined $5 million, according to Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, meanwhile, said its online fundraising was up 608 percent Friday.

State-level Republican groups are also fundraising off of Democrats’ efforts to impeach Trump, with the Nevada Republican Party selling a shirt that says “Impeach This,” over an image of the 2016 election map.

Of course, Democrats are also turning impeachment into a chance to raise money: ActBlue, the company that processes a majority of Democratic online donations, said it brought in $4.6 million in donations on Tuesday -- one of its largest fundraising days not tied to a Democratic debate or monthly deadline.

Susan Rice blasts Trump over secure server, asked if Obama ever used similar system

Another Prevaricator!

Susan Rice, who was one of President Obama's closest advisers during his time in office, blasted President Trump on Friday night for storing details about his July 25 call with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in a separate, highly secured computer system.

Rice, who was a guest at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, addressed whistleblower allegations that the Trump administration worked to "lock down" these records to presumably hide his interaction with Zelensky where he dangled about $400 million in military aid to get Kiev to investigate the Bidens relationship to the country.
Both Trump and Zelensky denied the allegations. Trump insisted that the conversation was "perfect" and he was just making sure the country was making good on its promise to weed out corruption.
Obama’s former national security adviser said the "normal system" that holds information on similar calls is protected and classified. She said there was "no classified substance" in the Trump phone call and yet the administration "hid it on a very highly sensitive, highly compartmentalized server that very few people in the U.S. government have access to in order to bury it."
She was asked by the moderator if the Obama administration ever kept calls on a separate server. She responded by saying only if "they were legitimately in their contents classified."
"It’s rare that a presidential conversation would be classified to that highest level," she said. "It's not impossible. It’s very rare. Even when they are two leaders discussing classified information. Here’s a case where there was nothing classified and it was moved to the most secure, sensitive server.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that the Trump administration—after sensing problematic leaks early in his presidency—worked to protect presidential phone calls. Politicians on both sides of the aisle understand the importance of a sitting president’s ability to engage with a foreign leader in a conversation that would not face public scrutiny.
The Trump administration reportedly said the phone call with Ukraine’s leader was only added to the server after guidance from  National Security Counsel lawyer.

Shifty Schiff Cartoons

NYT defends revealing key details of whistleblower’s identity

The New York Times said they want to allow their readers to make their own judgments about whether the whistleblower is credible. The paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, said readers should know the whistleblower is a CIA officer with extensive knowledge about Ukrainian politics, who at one point worked in the White House.
Baquet regarded the information as vital to set the record straight after he said President Trump and some of his supporters have attacked the credibility of the whistleblower. The president and several officials have stated the subject’s complaint about the Ukraine phone call consisted of political bias and secondhand information.

“Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call…heard something and decided that he or she or whoever the hell it is…they’re almost a spy. I want to know who’s the person that gave the whistleblower the information?” — President Trump

Despite the New York Times trying to disprove President Trump’s argument, disclosing the identity backfired into a larger debate. Baquet’s statement alludes to the whistleblower’s gender as the editor refers to the complainant as “him” and “he.”

Dean Baquet, our executive editor, explains why we chose to publish the information about the whistle-blower https://t.co/5BtDXYpoiz pic.twitter.com/s0mZaivG3t

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 26, 2019

National Intelligence officials noted the publication has now endangered the whistleblower’s life and reputation, and has set an alarming precedent that would prevent potential whistleblowers to come forward in the future.
The general public also objected across the board as the hashtag — #CancelNYT — appeared trending on Twitter, kick-starting a movement for everyone to cancel their subscriptions. Others called for Baquet to step down and noted his New York Times continuously fails to meet basic journalistic standards.

Pakistan PM warns of ‘bloodbath’ in Kashmir; India PM silent

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Insisting he wasn’t making a threat, Pakistan’s leader denounced his Indian counterpart on Friday and warned that any war between the nuclear rivals could “have consequences for the world.” India’s prime minister took the opposite approach, skipping any mention at the United Nations of his government’s crackdown in the disputed region of Kashmir.

“When a nuclear-armed country fights to the end, it will have consequences far beyond the borders. It will have consequences for the world,” Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said in a wide-ranging, at times apparently extemporaneous U.N. General Assembly speech in which he called Modi’s actions in Kashmir “stupid” and “cruel.”

“That’s not a threat,” he said of his war comments. “It’s a fair worry. Where are we headed?”

An hour earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the U.N. meeting with a speech that focused primarily on his country’s development, though he warned of the spreading specter of terrorism. He never mentioned Kashmir directly.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region. They’ve been locked in a worsening standoff since Aug. 5, when Modi stripped limited autonomy from the portion of Kashmir that India controls.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist government imposed a sweeping military curfew and cut off residents in the Muslim-majority region from virtually all communications. Khan said there were 900,000 Indian forces in the region policing 8 million Kashmiris.

“What’s he going to do when he lifts the curfew? Does he think the people of Kashmir are quietly going to accept the status quo?” Khan said. “What is going to happen when the curfew is lifted will be a bloodbath.”

He added: “They will be out in the streets. And what will the soldiers do? They will shoot them. ... Kashmiris will be further radicalized.”

While not mentioning Kashmir by name, Modi touched on terrorism: “We belong to a country that has given the world not war, but Buddha’s message of peace. And that is the reason why our voice against terrorism, to alert the world about this evil, rings with seriousness and outrage.”

Modi has defended the Kashmir changes as freeing the territory from separatism. His supporters have welcomed the move.

Late Friday evening, India took advantage of its right of response and sent a diplomat — whose name was not immediately available — to briefly condemn Khan’s words. She called them “hate speech” and “brinksmanship, not statesmanship.”

“Rarely has the General Assembly witnessed such misuse — abuse — of the opportunity to reflect,” she said. She accused Khan of hypocrisy and said his words “reflect a medieval mindset and not a 21st-century vision.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during his U.N. speech Friday afternoon that “as a neighbor of both nations, China hopes to see the dispute effectively managed and stability restored to the relationship between the two sides.”

The difference in speech styles between the Indian and Pakistani leaders was striking, with Modi sticking closely to a prepared text and Khan appearing to speak off the cuff and riff. While the U.N. distributed a transcript of Modi’s speech moments after he finished talking, Khan’s had not been released hours later.

Ahead of Modi’s and Khan’s appearances at the U.N., residents of Indian-controlled Kashmir expressed hope that their speeches would turn world attention to an unprecedented lockdown in the region.

“We really hope these leaders will do something to rid us of conflict and suppression,” said Nazir Ahmed, a schoolteacher on the outskirts of Srinagar, the main city in Indian-held Kashmir. “Conflict is like a cancer hitting every aspect of life. And Kashmiris have been living inside this cancer for decades now.”

As the two leaders spoke Friday, large dueling protests supporting and opposing India’s action in Kashmir were taking place across the street from U.N. headquarters.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who met with both Modi and Khan this week, has urged the sides to resolve their differences.

India and Pakistan’s conflict over Kashmir dates to the late 1940s, when they won independence from Britain. The region is one of the most heavily militarized in the world, patrolled by soldiers and paramilitary police. Most Kashmiris resent the Indian troop presence.

Modi, a pro-business Hindu nationalist, and his party won a decisive re-election in May. The election was seen as a referendum on Modi, the son of a poor tea seller whose economic reforms have had mixed results. But he has enjoyed enduring popularity as a social underdog in India’s highly stratified society.

Critics, however, say his Hindu-first platform risks exacerbating social tensions in the country of 1.3 billion people. Longtime Associated Press international correspondent Foster Klug is on assignment at the U.N. General Assembly. Follow him on Twitter at @APKlug. AP writers Shah Abbas and Edith M. Lederer contributed to this story.