Democrat Lamb declares victory in Pa. special election determined too close to call

Democrat Conor Lamb declared victory early Wednesday in Pennsylvania’s special House election that was officially too close to call but seen by some political observers as a clear message to Republicans prior to November’s midterm elections.
The most recent results — with 99 percent of the precincts reporting — show Lamb up by fewer than 900 votes over Republican Rick Saccone. State officials said there were about 3,900 absentee ballots that still needed to be counted.
The final result may be determined by a recount.
Still, the unofficial results showed Lamb riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm in a district that President Donald Trump won 16 months ago by 20 points. The result was expected to raise Democratic hopes of taking back the House in November.
“It took a little longer than we thought,” Lamb, a former Marine, told supporters. “We followed what I learned in the Marines – leave no one behind. We went everywhere; we talked to everyone; we invited everyone in.”
Saccone appeared more cautious after polls closed. He told an audience that he doesn’t give up. He thanked the crowd that he called “the salt of the earth” and vowed that he is going to keep fighting.
To be sure, Democrats wasted little time to celebrate the outcome.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee both issued statements late Tuesday declaring victory.

This is a local race ... I don't think it has anything to do with the president.

“These results should terrify Republicans. Despite their home field advantage and the millions of dollars outside groups poured into this race, Republicans found that their attacks against Conor, including their unpopular tax scam, were not believable,” Ben Ray, the DCCC chairman, said in a statement.
Tom Perez, the DNC chair, praised the “victory,” saying the upset was for “hardworking families of Western Pennsylvania and a victory for Democrats across the country.”
Lamb, a 33-year-old former federal prosecutor, ran up big margins against Saccone, 60, in wealthy Allegheny County and was holding his own in GOP-leaning Westmoreland, Washington and Greene counties.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Wanda Murren told Fox News the race would not have a mandatory recount. Under state law, three voters in each precinct must petition for a recount and petitions must be filed five days after each county completes its tally.
Lamb insisted that Trump was not the main issue in the race. But the close margin was another setback for the president following Democratic Sen. Doug Jones' victory in Alabama's special election in December.
“We were executing a plan that we came up with a long time ago that had nothing to do with the president,” Lamb told reporters after voting Tuesday morning. “This is a local race. … I don’t think it has anything to do with the president.”
By contrast, Saccone had vowed that he would be Trump's "wingman," telling Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" that the president "needs some help down there [in Washington]."
The president visited the district twice to campaign for Saccone, once in January and again on Saturday night in a rollicking rally that recalled Trump’s own 2016 campaign.
In a bid to lock up that key voting bloc, Democrats called in former Vice President Joe Biden to stump for Lamb.
“You said you want your piece of the sidewalk,” Biden, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, told a group of union workers last week. ”Hell, you own the sidewalk.” Biden has also said that Lamb reminds him of his late son, Beau, an Iraq War veteran and former Delaware attorney general who died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.
Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, which stretches from the affluent Pittsburgh suburbs into deep Pennsylvania steel and coal country, had been held by Republican Tim Murphy since 2003. But Murphy was forced to resign in October amid revelations of an extramarital affair in which he urged his lover to get an abortion when they thought she was pregnant.
Lamb and Saccone could face off again in November – though they may not meet in the same district. In January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state’s congressional district boundaries were unfairly gerrymandered to aid Republicans.
The Democrat-controlled court has drawn a new map that puts Saccone and Lamb’s homes in separate districts. However, the matter is now in the hands of a three-judge federal panel, which is considering an appeal by Republican lawmakers.

Stephen Hawking, famed physicist, dead at 76

Stephen Hawking, the famed theoretical physicist who defied a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to live virtually his entire adult life with the disease – in a wheelchair and paralyzed but making constant contributions to a world few could understand – has died at age 76, a family spokesman said.
Although Hawking may have been incapacitated physically, he managed to write books, including the best seller "A Brief History of Time," teach physics and mathematics, deliver speeches and even float in zero gravity, all while working in the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity.
He was not modest about what he wanted to do. "My goal is simple," he once said. "It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

"My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is, and why it exists at all."
- Stephen Hawking

Hawking reached his eighth decade, but was forced to miss a scientific debate to mark his 70th birthday in January 2012 because he was discharged from a hospital only two days earlier. His personal assistant told the Daily Telegraph at the time his speech was getting noticeably slower, sometimes only a word a minute.
As part of the events surrounding his birthday, Hawking gave a rare interview to New Scientist magazine and declared there was still one puzzle left for him. Asked what he thought about most during the day, Hawking replied, "Women. They are a complete mystery."
In earlier interviews, Hawking was frank about his physical restrictions. "I'm sure my disability has a bearing on why I'm well known," he said in an interview with the BBC. "People are fascinated by the contrast between my very limited physical powers, and the vast nature of the universe I deal with.
"I'm the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct. At least I'm obviously physically challenged. Whether I'm a genius is more open to doubt."
Hawking was married and divorced twice. His first wife, Jane Wilde, was a fellow student at Cambridge to whom he was married for 28 years. He then married his nurse, Elaine Mason, whom he was with for 11 years before they separated.
He is survived by three children from his first marriage, Robert, Timothy and Lucy.

Stephen Hawking with Nelson Mandela in an undated photo.

Stephen William Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. He had two younger sisters and an adopted brother.
Hawking developed an early interest in science and mathematics, and when he was old enough his father, a medical researcher, encouraged him to apply to Oxford.
While there, Hawking began his studies in physics, and developed an interest in thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics.
After graduating from Oxford, Hawking studied at Cambridge, where he was diagnosed with ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, ALS is a fatal, motor neuron disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and atrophy.

Stephen Hawking with Pope Benedict XVI.

He later said the diagnosis prompted recurring dreams in which he would sacrifice his own life to save others.
"After all, if I were going to die anyway, it might as well do some good," he said. "But I didn't die. In fact, although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before."
Shortly after earning his PhD, Hawking became a professor at Cambridge, working as a research fellow then a professorial fellow before becoming the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. That same position, which he held from 1979 to 2009, was held by Isaac Newton in 1669.
Hawking was awarded 12 honorary degrees and was elected one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974. He was later made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and a Companion of  Honor in 1989. He is also a member of the US National Academy of Science and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
Hawking's research focused on cosmology and the basic laws of the universe. Along with Roger Pemrose, he applied a new model to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The model showed that space and time are infinite, and they would begin with the Big Bang and end with black holes.
He also concluded that black holes should emit radiation, and that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time.
Hawking was never afraid to voice his opinion, even if it could be considered controversial.
Using a mathematical basis, he said he was almost certain that alien life existed in other parts of the universe. "The numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said. "The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

Stephen Hawking with Bill Gates.

He also took a jab at religion, saying, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
In 2007, Hawking became the first quadriplegic to float in zero-gravity when he took a flight in a NASA aircraft used to train astronauts. When asked why he was taking the flight, he said, "First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

"I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."
- Stephen Hawking

Hawking – or his animated lookalike -- appeared on numerous television shows, including "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," and "Dilbert." In some instances he appeared as himself, while in others animated characters were created to resemble him.
A 2014 biopic, “The Theory of Everything,” examined the courtship, marriage and eventual separation of Hawking and his first wife,  Jane. The movie, which was directed by James Marsh, starred British actor Eddie Redmayne as the famous physicist.
In order to communicate, Hawking used a computer system attached to his wheelchair. He used a switch to select words printed on a screen, and as he formed sentences they were sent to a speech synthesizer.
His accent was described as Scandinavian, American, or Scottish. Hawking began using the voice synthesizer in 1985, when he contracted pneumonia and had an emergency tracheotomy.

Russian Collusion Cartoons

Trump is reorganizing the public land Leviathan - and DC bureaucrats are not happy

This July 15, 2016, file photo, shows the "Moonhouse" in McLoyd Canyon which is part of Bears Ears National Monument, near Blanding, Utah. President Donald Trump decided to reduce Bears Ears -- created December 2016 by President Barack Obama -- by about 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante -- designated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton -- by nearly half. 

Not since the Reagan administration has the Secretary of Interior received so much attention. Then Reagan’s interior secretary, James Watt, without the aid of a Twitter account, polarized the electorate saying there are “liberals and Americans.” That and other provocative statements led Time Magazine to include him in its list of the “Top 10 Worst Cabinet Members.”

President Trump’s Interior secretary Ryan Zinke’s language may not be inflammatory enough to get him on the list, but his policies certainly have kept the agency that manages 700,000 square miles in the headlines. After locking horns with environmentalists and outdoor equipment suppliers over his recommendation to reduce two huge Utah national monuments from 3.2 million acres to 1.1 million acres, Zinke proposed reorganizing his department giving more authority to regional offices. His reasoning was that managers with their feet on the ground have the most knowledge of their resources in order to foster multiple use management, the mission of the Department of Interior. This decentralizaiton explains a lot of the pushback in Washington and from environmental groups who have had and want to maintain their power.

Secretary Zinke is in good company with his proposed reorganization. In 1889, John Wesley Powell, the famous explorer of the Colorado River and the first European to float through the Grand Canyon, was asked to address the Montana Constitutional Convention. He suggested that the counties should be organized around drainage basins because people of the drainage basin “are more interested than any other people” in how the resources will be managed. When he added that “the government of the United States should cede all of the lands of that drainage basin to the people who live in that basin,” Powell was greeted with thunderous applause.
Zinke has not gone quite as far as Powell suggested, but his reorganization is definitely aimed at putting more decision making power at the local level. Believing that the Department of Interior is “mismanaging and squandering our assets through a layered bureaucracy,” Zinke wants to move assets and decision making authority “to the front lines,” something western state and local officials have wanted since the Sage Brush Rebellion in the late 1970s. He hopes the reorganization will improve recreational access, simplify environmental reviews, and speed up the permitting process for everything from energy development to proactive steps for managing timber to reduce the threat of wildfires.

Rather than expanding the bureaucracies that manage the one-third of the nation’s land owned by the federal government and forcing environmental regulations on those who bear the costs, the Trump administration seems to have an ear outside the Beltway.

This reorganization proposal fits a pattern for natural resource and environmental management that is evolving under the Trump administration. Call it environmental federalism. In downsizing Utah’s national monuments, Trump has called for local management to include Indian tribes, arguably the people with the biggest interest in preserving the region’s antiquities. When President Obama created Bears Ears National Monument, he pledged management consultation with Native Americans. Trump, however, wants the Monument Management Plan to include one member each from the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, and Zuni Tribe.
By “moving assets to the front lines” Zinke means to shift a significant number of 70,000 bureaucrats in the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service from Washington, D.C., to locations where the agencies’ lands are located. Not surprisingly, agency employees are skeptical of the reorganization. As Sally Jewell, former Secretary of Interior under Obama, sees it, the reorganization is “not as an attempt to streamline, but an attempt to downsize.”
Similarly, environmental groups headquartered in D.C., where they have had a stranglehold on western resource issues, don’t want to see their power base move west. Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s public lands program, called the reorganization “a solution in search of a problem.” The fear is that any movement of management to areas where people actually live on the land will favor multiple use as opposed to preservation. Sharon Buccino, senior director for lands at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “Virtually everything Secretary Zinke has done to date has been to advance fossil fuel interests — above the stewardship of our public lands, preservation of wildlife and protection of clean air and water.”
Environmental federalism may be the conservation legacy of this administration. Rather than expanding the bureaucracies that manage the one-third of the nation’s land owned by the federal government and forcing environmental regulations on those who bear the costs, the Trump administration seems to have an ear outside the Beltway. In addition to downsizing national monuments and reorganizing land management agencies, President Trump has rolled back more than 60 executive order environmental regulations ranging from Obama’s clean power plan to his delay of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Environmental federalism will not only inject more on-the-ground knowledge into land and environmental management, it could also reduce polarization by bringing opposing parties face-to-face in the coffee shops that are the heart of rural America.
Terry L. Anderson is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and at the Property and Environment Research Center, Bozeman, Montana. His most recent book is Free Market Environmentalism for the Next Generation (2015).

Trump touts House Intel findings of 'no evidence of collusion' between campaign, Russia

President Donald Trump trumpeted the House Intelligence Committee's report that it found "no evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians" in an all-caps Twitter post Monday night.

"THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," wrote Trump, reiterating the main finding from the panel's 150-page draft report. 

“We didn't find any evidence of collusion and I don't think [special counsel Robert Mueller] will either,” Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway, who led the bipartisan investigation, said on “Special Report.”

"We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians."

The top Democrat on the committee, California Rep. Adam Schiff, responded to Trump with tweet saying that the panel's Republicans "lack the courage to stand up to a President of their own party when the national interest necessitates it."
The committee's investigation was based on four topics: Russian active measures against the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. government's response to the attack, links between Russians and the Trump and Clinton campaigns, and purported leaks of classified information.
“We believe we've got the information necessary to answer those for the American people,” Conaway said.
The report also noted that based on its investigation which lasted more than a year, the committee disagreed with the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “supposed preference” for then-candidate Donald Trump.

Rep. Mike Conaway, right, with Rep. Adam Schiff.  (AP, File)

“We disagree with the Intelligence Community’s position that Putin favored Trump,” Conaway told Fox News. He said he had “no contact” with the White House during the probe.
The majority staff on the committee is expected to send the draft report to the minority staff on Tuesday. Once the draft report is adopted by committee Democrats, the report will be submitted to the intelligence community for a declassification review, and following that process, it will be released to the public, officials said, though the timeline at this point is unknown.
“The report’s completion will signify the closure of one chapter in the Committee’s robust oversight of the threat posed by Moscow—which began well before the investigation and will continue thereafter,” Conaway said.
Schiff, however, fought back. “While the Majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch. By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its actions harshly,” the Democratic lawmaker said.
The draft report included 40 other findings, including how Russians used social media to “sow discord” in 2015 and 2016, a “lackluster” pre-election response to Russian measures, how “anti-Trump research” made its way from Russian sources to the Clinton campaign, and “problematic contacts between senior Intelligence Community officials and the media.”
The report also included more than 25 recommendations for Congress and the executive branch to improve election security, U.S. government response to cyberattacks, campaign finance transparency, and counterintelligence practices related to political campaigns and unauthorized disclosures.
“Campaign finance disclosures ought to be a little more wholesome,” Conaway said on “Special Report” referring to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee's filing of payments for “opposition research” leading to the anti-Trump dossier as legal matters.
The report's recommendations on handling leaks are serious, according to Conaway.
“Leaks of classified information are criminal," he said. “Leaks can get people killed."
A committee source told Fox News that the “investigation” portion of the probe was complete, meaning the committee would not interview any additional witnesses as part of its effort.
“I’m sure [committee Democrats] will disagree with bringing the interview phase to a close,” Conaway told Fox News. “I’m sure they will have specific folks they wanted to interview.”
Conaway said that the Republicans on the committee wanted to interview former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but said Schiff “wanted to delay us.” Once Manafort was indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the committee decided not to call him for an interview.
Conaway also said that he did not “anticipate” pursuing contempt proceedings against former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon or any other witnesses who did not respond favorably to the committee's questioning.
Conaway took over the probe when House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., stepped down in April 2017 after he was accused of making “unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law regulations, or other standards of conduct,” according to the House Ethics Committee which investigated the allegations. Nunes supporters at the time said that it was a “clever political trick” by the Democrats.
“After more than a year, the Committee has finished its Russia investigation and will now work on completing our report,” Nunes said in a statement Monday. “I’d like to thank Congressmen Trey Gowdy, Tom Rooney, and especially Mike Conaway for the excellent job they’ve done leading this investigation. I’d also like to recognize the hard work undertaken by our other Committee members as well as our staff. Once the Committee’s final report is issued, we hope our findings and recommendations will be useful for improving security and integrity for the 2018 midterm elections.”
“When we began our investigation into what occurred leading up to the 2016 elections, our ultimate goal was to make timely recommendations for Congress, the executive branch and for states to improve election security in advance of the 2018 election. The clock is ticking,” committee member Tom Rooney, R-Fla., said. “We’re now nine months out, and the threat of Russian interference has not diminished. Make no mistake: this is a close to just one chapter in the threat posed by Moscow – which began well before the investigation – but our work does not stop here, and this Committee’s oversight over Russian threats to the U.S. will continue.”
Republicans on the committee, though, have expanded their investigation of the Trump dossier, seeking answers from Obama administration officials, including a former staffer for Vice President Joe Biden. Nunes sent a questionnaire to the former Biden staffer, whose husband worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier, seeking answers to when the administration was made aware of the dossier.

Pelosi slams California ICE raid as 'unjust and cruel,' amid outcry over mayor's tipoff to immigrants

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday slammed as "unjust and cruel" a raid of illegal immigrants in California last week that netted hundreds of criminals, many with convictions for violent crimes -- but which was partially thwarted by a Democratic mayor who tipped off the public to the crackdown.

The four-day raid in the San Francisco Bay Area led to the arrest of 232 illegal immigrants, 180 of whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement said “were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States, or had been previously removed” from the country and had come back illegally.

The arrests included 115 who "had prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges and assault, or had past convictions for significant or multiple misdemeanors."
But officials fumed after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tweeted out a warning of the impending raid, a move which ICE Acting Director Tom Homan said led to as many as 800 illegal immigrants -- many with criminal convictions -- fleeing before they could be arrested.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH SEX, ROBBERY CONVICTIONS AMONG THOSE WHO EVADED CAPTURE AFTER DEM MAYOR'S WARNING
The Department of Justice is currently reviewing Schaaf’s actions. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment on the status of that review to Fox News.
But Pelosi, in a statement Wednesday, appeared to take the side of the mayor, accusing the White House of terrorizing “innocent immigrant families.”
“Just last week, President Trump decided to terrorize innocent immigrant families in the Bay Area with his unjust and cruel raids,” she said.
Her remarks came after Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department filed a lawsuit Tuesday night against California, arguing that three recently passed laws interfere with federal immigration policies.
TRUMP DOJ SUES CALIFORNIA OVER 'INTERFERENCE' WITH IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT 
"The Department of Justice and the Trump administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies," Sessions is expected to tell California law enforcement officers in an address Wednesday.
Those laws the DOJ is fighting include a measure offering worker protections against enforcement actions and which DOJ officials claim prevent companies from cooperating with immigration officials. Another law, dubbed by critics as the "sanctuary state" bill, restricts state and municipal cooperation with federal authorities, including what information can be shared about illegal-immigrant inmates.
Pelosi said it marked “a new low” from the Trump administration and said the president was abusing the legal system “to push his mass deportation agenda.”
"The people of California will not be bowed by the Trump administration's brazen aggression and intimidation tactics,” Pelosi said. “Californians will continue to proudly keep our doors open to the immigrants who make America more American. We will fight this sham lawsuit and will fight all cowardly attacks on our immigrant communities."
An estimated 2.5 million immigrants are believed to be in California illegally. In the most recent figures, ICE has reported about 16 percent of its enforcement apprehensions take place in that state.

ICE 'testing our defenses,' San Francisco sheriff says, after federal agents manage to interview inmate in sanctuary city

California jail officials reportedly allowed ICE agents to interview inmates, the sheriff's office said -- in violation of department policy and state law.  (AP)

ICE agents managed to interview an inmate in a San Francisco jail earlier this month, in what the sanctuary city's sheriff is calling a deliberate effort by the feds to find "weak points" in her department's pro-illegal immigrant policies and state laws.
In a separate snafu, police said, ICE agents were granted an interview room with an inmate in another jail, but that inmate declined to speak with the agents.
Jail officials apparently violated both departmental policy and California law by accomodating the agents, authorities said Monday.

San Francisco Sheriff Sheriff Hennessy apologized, saying she is responsible for her officers allowing ICE agents to interview an inmate.  (Reuters)

“My staff made a mistake and I have to hold myself accountable,” San Francisco Sheriff Vicki Hennessy told The San Francisco Chronicle. “I apologize on behalf of the department. I feel embarrassed by it. I’ve taken steps to make sure it never happens again.”
But Hennessy said federal immigration authorities, who arrested 232 in a sweeping Bay Area immigration crackdown just weeks ago, knew what they were doing.
SESSIONS BLASTS 'RADICAL' MOVE BY CALIFORNIA TO BLOCK ICE RAIDS
ICE was "testing our defenses and they found some weak points," Hennessy told the Chronicle.

A pro-illegal immigrant protester in San Francisco, where authorities reportedly let ICE agents interview an inmate earlier this month.  (Reuters)

California state law mandates that inmates receive a consent form prior to interviewing with ICE agents, and San Francisco police policy goes a step further by banning ICE agents from having any access to inmates, the paper reported.

"I feel embarrassed by it. I've taken steps to make sure it never happens again."

Officials reportedly did not provide a consent form to the inmate they managed to interview.
“How sheriff’s deputies are not aware of our sanctuary policies is quite frankly beyond me,” city public defender Jeff Adachi told the Chronicle.
Jail officials reportedly turned the ICE agents away when they attempted to return, according to local reports.
News of the jailhouse episode comes amid a bitter legal and political feud between California and the federal government over immigration policy.
On more than 200 occassions already this year, ICE has requested that California hold or surrender illegal immigrant inmates, the Chronicle reported. The state has not acted on any of these requests.
Last week, the Justice Department announced it is suing California for impermissibly interfering with federal immigration authority, in violation of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
“California is using every power it has, and some it does not, to frustrate federal law enforcement,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “So you can be sure I’m going to use every power I have to stop them.”

Putin Cartoons

In Pennsylvania special election, the silence of Democrat Conor Lamb speaks volumes to Trump voters

Having grown up in Western Pennsylvania, specifically the 18th congressional district, and driving back over the years through mountains and valleys along the Monongahela River, I’ve witnessed the economic decline of the once booming steel towns that dot the region. People have been forced to leave the area in pursuit of better jobs and opportunities.

Administrations, both Democrat and Republican, have promised to deliver change. Every election they campaign on it, then they get elected and middle America gets forgotten.

That tide shifted with the election of President Trump. So far, he’s doing everything he said he would do.
On Tuesday, voters in the18th District have a choice in a special election between Republican State Representative Rick Saccone, a former Air Force Counter Intelligence Officer, and Democrat Conor Lamb, a former Marine and Assistant U.S. Attorney.
A vote for Conor Lamb would be a vote for the Democrat party whose failed policies are more of the same.  They’re policies that have forgotten about middle America, which is the heart and soul of the 18th district.
They’ve driven out industrial and manufacturing jobs and mired small businesses with taxes and regulations.  Put quite frankly:  why would anyone want to go back to the failed policies of the past that left this entire region devastated?

Lamb is young, good looking, and charismatic. However, good looks don’t create jobs, revitalize the economy, and let you keep more of your money.

Rick Saccone will be a needed ally to President Trump at a time when even some Republicans want to oppose him and govern from the swamp.  Saccone will support the president’s policies to continue to “Make America Great Again” - policies that are delivering on the hope and change we were promised under President Obama but never saw.
When Hillary Clinton, the presidential candidate from Conor Lamb’s party, said she was going to put coal miners and coal companies out of business during the presidential election, where was Conor Lamb? He was eerily silent when his party’s candidate said she’d take jobs away from people in his state, and now he’s asking those people for their vote.
Coal miners, steel workers and the working class people who supply these industries with their family businesses overwhelmingly voted for President Trump. For the first time in decades, they’re getting the attention they deserve.
In June, a new coal mine opened in nearby Somerset county, marking the first time a mine has opened in the country in years.  Corsa Coal Company’s CEO said, “The tone of government has completely changed. Coal is no longer a four letter word.”
He also credited President Trump with rolling back regulations and supporting the development of more energy resources at home such as coal, shale oil, and natural gas. That means more jobs for working families in Western Pennsylvania.
The Somerset County Commissioner said of the coal mine, “It will put guys back to work and put money in their pockets.  It’s going to be a boom for everyone.”
Where was Conor Lamb when the coal mine opened?  Did he have any good words for his fellow Pennsylvanians, who had waited so long for good news?  Once again he was eerily silent. Had his party’s candidate won the presidency the coal industry would be losing jobs not creating them.
People in Western Pennsylvania, like the rest of the country, have seen increases in their paychecks thanks to the Trump tax cuts, which Lamb opposed. Small businesses are no longer saddled with regulations and have found relief because of the tax cuts, as well. A CNBC survey out last month found that optimism among small businesses for the president’s tax cuts hit a new high.
Likewise, there is a great deal of support in Western Pennsylvania for the President’s plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, except from Canada and Mexico. The tariffs would help protect those steel and aluminum jobs that are still the heart of the region. Jim McCaffrey, a senior vice president for coal sales at Consol Energy said the tariffs could "revive the American steel industry."
Lamb is young, good looking, and charismatic. Outwardly, he’s got all the makings of a politician.
However, good looks don’t create jobs, revitalize the economy, and let you keep more of your money. On substance, he’s part of the party of politics as usual that has done nothing to help Western Pennsylvania.
He is the past, Saccone and Trump are the future.
It appears that Lamb is pulling the wool over people’s eyes in what is a conservative, Democrat district. While publicly trying to play himself off as a moderate, he is anything but that. In fact, his recent extreme, anti-Israel comments that surfaced from his time at the University of Pennsylvania would suggest that he’ll fit right in with the far-left Washington establishment liberals.
While a student at the university, he was upset about an ad in the school newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, that was supportive of Israel. Commenting in the paper Lamb said, "It was disheartening to see the add (sic) in the DP the other day which read, ‘Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel.’" He went on to say that Israel was guilty of terrorism and their government targeted civilians.
Saccone, like Trump, understands that Israel is one of America’s closest allies. Lamb does not.
When voters go to the polls on Tuesday they can choose to vote for Rick Saccone and continue the pro-economic, pro-growth policies of President Trump that are bringing jobs back to the region.  Their other choice is to vote for Conor Lamb and the policies of the party of Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, who want to ship industrial jobs overseas, and refer to the pay raises and bonuses that millions of people have received as “crumbs.”
This is Conor Lamb’s party. If he wins, where will Conor Lamb be, on the side of the people or the party? His eerie silence has been deafening.
Bueller, Bueller…..anyone???
Lauren DeBellis Appell was deputy press secretary for then-Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., in his successful 2000 re-election campaign, as well as assistant communications director for the Senate Republican Policy Committee (2001-2003).

North Korea to seek peace treaty with US at Trump meeting: report

Kim Jong Un, the bellicose North Korean leader, hopes to sign a peace deal after the upcoming meeting with President Donald Trump, which is tentatively set for May, Bloomberg reported, citing a South Korea report.

Dong-A Ilbo, South Korea's national newspaper, spoke to an unidentified senior official from President Moon Jae-in's office, who said Kim will likely raise the possiblity of the peace treaty.

The report said Kim is also likely to voice his desire to establish diplomatic relations with the U.S. and consider nuclear disarmament, the report said.
The regime wants a peace treaty to end the more than 60-year-old ceasefire between the two sides and to safeguard its sovereignty, Koh Yu-hwan, who teaches North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, told the outlet.
“There were agreements between the U.S. and North Korea to open up discussion on a peace treaty, but they never materialized,” Koh said. “The U.S. wants a peace treaty at the end of the denuclearization process, while for the North, it’s the precondition for its denuclearization.”
The peace treaty would need to address issues such as the U.S. military’s presence in South Korea and the continued military drills aimed at countering the North’s threat in the region.
Trump last week accepted a meeting with Kim – expected sometime in May – but the key details of the meeting are yet to be decided.
Despite speculation of possible denuclearization, it is still widely believed that Kim will insist on keeping some nuclear weapons as a deterrent – a proposal that might be too hard to swallow for the Trump administration that came out against nuclear North Korea in any shape or form.
Kim might also propose giving a full report on the North’s current nuclear weapons arsenal and allowing international verification once the denuclearization process takes hold, said Choi Kang, vice president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
In addition, North Korea could offer Trump to release several American citizens currently being imprisoned in the country.

Pressure grows for 'The View' star Joy Behar to apologize over anti-Christian comments, but ABC is silent

ABC News has maintained a stony silence amid increased pressure for its star Joy Behar to apologize on-air to the "millions of Christians" who watch "The View," leaving Disney boss Bob Iger to fend for himself when an angry shareholder asked him about the brouhaha at a recent shareholder meeting.

On Feb. 13, Behar criticized Vice President Pence's faith by saying that hearing from Jesus is actually called “mental illness.” The resulting public outrage led scores of angry viewers to call or write ABC News demanding an apology. It wasn’t until late last week that Iger, CEO of ABC parent Disney, finally revealed when questioned by a concerned shareholder that Behar had privately called the vice president to apologize.

“ABC is doing absolutely nothing about this,” an ABC source told Fox News.
Multiple ABC sources told Fox News that ABC -- despite tens of thousands of formal viewer complaints -- has not subjected Behar’s comments to review by the news division’s Editorial Standards and Practices department.  The unit normally would rule on whether a public apology was required, and whether Behar and much-feared “The View” boss Hilary Estey McLoughlin should be subjected to discipline for Behar’s offensive remarks.

"ABC is doing absolutely nothing about this.”

“Joy Behar apologized to Vice President Pence directly. She made a call to him and apologized, which I thought was absolutely appropriate,” Iger said at the shareholder meeting. Audio reveals that Iger appeared irritated and dismissive of the shareholder, sharply cutting off the exchange.
A White House source described to Fox News the conversation between Pence and the ABC News star.
“She apologized to the vice president, he accepted and said he wasn’t offended by her comment for his own sake but on behalf of the millions of Christians who watch ABC and her show," the source told Fox News. "He encouraged her to make the same apology publicly on the show that she did privately to him.”
But Behar has yet to publicly apologize and it appears that she has no plans to do so.
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell issued a statement declaring that Behar’s private apology is “not nearly enough” and promised to continue his campaign against “anti-Christian bigotry” at the network.
Bozell’s watchdog group is presently running a campaign on behalf of aggrieved Christians, urging that viewers contact “View” advertisers about Behar’s “hateful, anti-Christian remarks.” As a result, more than 30,000 calls have been placed to ABC News and the show’s advertisers have received more than 10,000 calls of angry viewers complaining about the “anti-Christian” remarks.
“Behar and ABC need to publicly apologize for the bigoted slurs on ‘The View.’ The bigoted statements made about the vice president's Christian faith offended hundreds of millions of Christians across the country, the largest faith group in the United States. Their apology should therefore be as public as their insult,” Bozell said.
The MRC, which bills itself as “America’s media watchdog,” has published the contact information of 14 advertisers of “The View,” including Clorox, Dove, Pampers, Downy, Oreo and Gerber.
Disney has not responded to multiple requests for comment, while ABC News pointed Fox News to an on-air comment that Behar made last month as her public statement on the matter.
“I don’t mean to offend people but apparently I keep doing it,” she said during the non-apology. “It was a joke.”
A representative of ABC News declined to comment when asked directly if Behar would apologize based on the latest MRC attack on its advertisers.
An ABC source said that the news division does not expect “The View” to abide by the editorial standards and practices of the rest of its “news” programming.
Standard procedure at ABC News is that when a piece of content becomes the object of heated viewer complaints, executives in its Standards and Practices Department, which has several staffers despite ABC News’ small size, review it and determine a course of action. These actions can include mandating an apology or imposing some manner of discipline on personnel involved.
Recently, ABC News suspended for a month without pay its chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, after he broadcast an incorrect report about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s guilty plea. Ross was later demoted to a sinecure at ABC’s beleaguered Lincoln Square Productions.
In 2015, ABC News compelled George Stephanopoulos to recuse himself from moderating presidential debates after it was revealed the “Good Morning America” star had been secretly giving tens of thousands of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. ABC continues to pay Stephanopoulos in the range of $15 million dollars a year despite his diminished clout and social cache now that the Clintons are out of power.
Fox News contacted spokespeople for ABC News, ABC Television Network and Disney -- none of whom would comment on Behar.
Among those not commenting is ABC News Senior Vice President for Talent and Business Barbara Fedida, who is believed to have executive oversight of “The View. “
According to a number of reports in the Daily Mail, ABC News’ and particularly Fedida’s stewardship of “The View” has rankled producers at the longtime chat show. ABC News assumed control of “The View” from ABC Daytime in 2014.
Increasing incursions by “the View” into news territory have made the program more controversial. Only on Friday, Behar and “View” guest Valerie Jarrett, who is Barack and Michelle Obama’s best friend, both made excuses for a co-founder of the Women’s March who has ties to the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.
“Everybody has baggage,” Behar said. “Unless you're in utero, you have baggage.”

Putin ordered to shoot down passenger plane over terror threat

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said in a new film he ordered – but later pulled back – the shooting down of a passenger plane in 2014 after officials believed a man with a bomb was targeting the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

In the two-hour film called “Putin,” the Russian president said he was advised on February 7, 2014, that a plane carrying passengers from Ukraine to Turkey had been hijacked – just as the 2014 Winter Olympics Games were to be opened.

“I was told: A plane en route from Ukraine to Istanbul was seized, captors demand landing in Sochi,” Putin said in the film, Reuters reported.
There were 110 passengers aboard. There were reportedly 40,000 in attendance at the Opening Ceremonies.
Security officials believed the plane was taken over by a man with a bomb and changed its course to Sochi.
Putin ordered that the plane be downed as part of the emergency plan.
“I told them: Act according to the plan,” Putin told reporter Andrey Kondrashov, a top state TV presenter and Putin's current press secretary.
But the terrorist scare turned out to be a false alarm and the Russian leader called off the order. The passenger who caused the panic was drunk and the plane was still on its way to Turkey.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, reportedly confirmed Mr Putin's account.
Putin was also asked during the interview whether there were any conditions under which the Russian government would give back Crimea to Ukraine.
“What are you talking about? Such circumstances do not exist and never will,” Putin said, according to Russia's Tass news agency.
Crimea, a territory that formally belonged to Ukraine was annexed by Russia in 2014 following Russian meddling and a disputed referendum.
The film was released just a week before the presidential elections on March 18 that Putin is expected to win.
Putin faces multiple challengers, but none of them are expected to seriously challenge the incumbent. Alexei Navalny, a prominent leader of opposition, has been barred from standing in the election.

Chicago Cartoons

Medicare drug benefit is weakened by congressional budget deal

Congress has undermined the Medicare drug benefit that millions of older Americans depend on – one of the few federal health-care programs that's working well. 

The two-year federal budget deal passed recently shifts more of the program's costs onto drug manufacturers starting in 2020. In the process, the change eliminates one of the key features that has made the program – known as Part D – successful for over a decade.

If the change stays in place, Part D could soon become just another budget-busting entitlement with little hope of long-term sustainability.
Medicare Part D provides private, federally subsidized prescription drug coverage to 42 million senior citizens. And since being implemented in 2006, the program has served beneficiaries extraordinarily well. In one recent survey, 87 percent of enrollees reported being satisfied with their Part D coverage.
Such positive attitudes are largely the result of Part D's market-based structure, which provides patients with a wide array of coverage options. This year, the average enrollee had 23 stand-alone plans to pick from. This setup forces insurers to compete with one another for seniors' business by offering the highest-quality, lowest-cost plans possible.
The program has also proven surprisingly affordable for taxpayers. A recent analysis from the American Action Forum found that the program's 2016 costs were less than half what was projected when the law was first implemented.
That's an unheard of feat for a federal program. One of the main reasons costs have remained so low? Plan providers are encouraged to keep patient drug expenses under control.
Under the standard benefit model, enrollees pay for the full price of their drugs until they reach a deductible of $405. After that, they're responsible for only a quarter of drug costs up to a certain limit – $3,750 this year.
It's at this point that beneficiaries enter a gap in coverage known as the "donut hole" in which they will pay 35 percent of a brand name medicine's cost in 2018. Once drug spending reaches about $5,000, patients are in the catastrophic phase of coverage, and cost-sharing drops off once again.
ObamaCare established a plan to phase out this donut hole by 2020 so that seniors would only have to pay 25 percent of brand-name drug costs after meeting their deductible. The remaining 75 percent of the cost would be split between pharmaceutical companies – which would discount drugs by 50 percent – and insurers that would cover the other 25 percent.
By making plan providers responsible for such a significant share of donut hole spending, the reform gives these companies a powerful incentive to keep as many patients as possible out of the donut hole. After all, once patients reach the donut hole, insurers see their costs soar. It's for this reason that three in four Part D enrollees never enter the coverage gap.
The budget deal effectively obliterates that incentive – and thus threatens the program's long-term sustainability. It does this by shifting the vast majority of donut hole spending onto drug companies and letting insurers almost entirely off the hook. As of 2020, plan providers will only be responsible for 5 percent of a brand-name drug's cost in the coverage gap, while pharmaceutical makers will have to pay for 70 percent.
The consequences for Part D could be catastrophic. Insurers will actually have an incentive to drive patient drug spending over the donut-hole threshold as quickly as possible by, for instance, encouraging patients to rely on costly brand-name drugs instead of more affordable generics. Once patients enter the coverage gap, insurer costs would plummet.
What's remarkable about this change is that it's a far better deal for insurance companies than for patients or taxpayers. A recent analysis by the consulting firm Avalere estimates that the government will save $7 billion over the next decade thanks to these changes. The average Part D beneficiary will save $20 a year. Insurers, meanwhile, will save a whopping $40 billion.
Insurance companies don't deserve another government handout. And Americans don't deserve another unsustainable entitlement program. Lawmakers need to roll back these misguided changes and rescue Part D from its impending fiscal ruin.

Former Obama officials form anti-Trump national security think tank

FILE -- Then President-elect Donald Trump, left, and former President Barack Obama arrive for Trump's inauguration ceremony at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S. January 20, 2017.  (REUTERS/J. Scott Applewhite/Pool)

A group of about 50 former Obama administration officials recently formed a think tank called National Security Action to attack the Trump administration's national security policies.

The mission statement of the group is anything but subtle: “National Security Action is dedicated to advancing American global leadership and opposing the reckless policies of the Trump administration that endanger our national security and undermine U.S. strength in the world.”

National Security Action plans to pursue typical liberal foreign policy themes such as climate change, challenging President Trump's leadership, immigration and allegations of corruption between the president and foreign powers.
This organization uses the acronym NSA, which is ironic. Three of its founding members – Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice and Samantha Power – likely were involved in abusing intelligence from the federal NSA (National Security Agency) to unmask the names of Trump campaign staff from intelligence reports and to leak NSA intercepts to the media to hurt Donald Trump politically. This included a leak to the media of an NSA transcript in February 2017 of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's discussion with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak. No one has been prosecuted for this leak.
Given the likely involvement of Rhodes, Rice and Power to weaponize intelligence against the Trump presidential campaign, will their anti-Trump NSA issue an apology for these abuses?
It is interesting that the new anti-Trump group says nothing in its mandate about protecting the privacy of Americans from illegal surveillance, preventing the politicization of U.S. intelligence agencies or promoting aggressive intelligence oversight. Maybe this is because the founders plan to abuse U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on Republican lawmakers and candidates if they join a future Democratic administration.
It takes a lot of chutzpah for this group of former Obama officials, who were part of the worst U.S. foreign policy in history, to condemn the current president's successful international leadership and foreign policy.
After all, ISIS was born on President Obama's watch because of his mismanagement of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and his "leading from behind" Middle East policy. The Syrian civil war spun out of control because of the incompetence of President Obama and his national security team.
This was a team that provided false information to the American people about the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the nuclear deal with Iran. I wonder if the anti-Trump NSA will include videos on its website of former National Security Adviser Susan Rice falsely claiming on five Sunday morning news shows in September 2012 that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was "spontaneous" and in response to an anti-Muslim video.
And of course there's the North Korean nuclear and missile programs that surged during the Obama years due to the administration’s "Strategic Patience" policy, an approach designed to kick this problem down the road to the next president. Because of President Obama's incompetence, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un may have an H-bomb that he soon will be able to load onto an intercontinental ballistic missile to attack the United States.
It must appall this group of former Obama national security officials that President Trump is succeeding as he undoes everything they worked on.
ISIS will soon control no territory in Iraq or Syria because of the Trump administration's intensified attacks on it and arming of Kurdish militias.
In sharp contrast to President Obama, President Trump drew a chemical weapons red line in Syria and enforced it.
North Korea is pushing for talks with the U.S. in response to strong United Nations sanctions the U.S. worked to obtain in 2017. And compliance with the new sanctions has been significantly improved, especially by China, as the result of President Trump’s actions.
President Trump repaired the damage done to U.S.-Israel relations by President Obama and has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – something several previous presidents promised but failed to do.
Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf stopped in 2017, likely due to the more assertive Iran policy of President Trump. This includes the president's successful effort to build a stronger U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.
President Trump is right when he says he inherited a mess on national security from the Obama administration. This is because President Obama and his national security team undermined U.S. credibility and left President Trump a much more dangerous world. I doubt the new anti-Trump National Security Action think tank will succeed in convincing Americans otherwise.

Fred Fleitz a former CIA analyst, is senior vice president for policy and programs with the Center for Security Policy, a national security think tank. His new book is “The Coming North Korea Nuclear Nightmare: What Trump Must Do to Reverse Obama’s ‘Strategic Patience.” Follow him on Twitter @FredFleitz.