Grassley promises evaluation of new claims against Kavanaugh, hits Dems for withholding info

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, late Sunday slammed Senate Democrats for withholding information from the committee regarding new sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The Iowa Republican said the committee will attempt to evaluate the new claims, but said in a statement “it appears that they [Democrats] are more interested in a political takedown" than “pursing allegations through a bipartisan and professional investigative process.”
His office released the statement after two new allegations emerged against Kavanaugh.
Deborah Ramirez, 53, a former Yale classmate, said he exposed himself and thrusted his penis in her face during a drunken dormitory party, according to an article in The New Yorker.
Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while she was intoxicated during a drinking game in the 1983-84 academic year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman. She also claimed she inadvertently touched Kavanaugh's penis when she pushed him away and says the incident left her "embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated."
The report stated that the magazine had not corroborated that Kavanaugh was at the party in question. An anonymous male classmate said he was told that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to Ramirez within the following days.
Ramirez admitted to the magazine that she does not fully remember the alleged incident because she had been drinking at the time. The magazine also reported that Ramirez spent six days "carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney" before telling the full version of her story.
Kavanaugh says the event “did not happen” and that the allegation is “a smear, plain and simple.”
A White House spokeswoman adds in a second statement that the allegation is “designed to tear down a good man.”
Grassley’s office said the committee’s majority staff learned about the allegations in the magazine’s article. His statement read that Democratic staff were aware of the allegations, but did not inform Republican staffers.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the timing of the new allegations “very suspicious.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Ct., called on a full FBI investigation and said the committee cannot "in good conscience" vote on the nomination at this point.
Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, on Sunday alleged that he had knowledge that Kavanaugh and high school friend Mark Judge targeted women with drugs and alcohol in order to "allow a 'train' of men to subsequently gang rape them."
He did not state the source of his evidence and did not name any alleged victims.
Grassley’s office said it reached out to Avenatti to find out more information about his allegations and requested that he provide any new information.
Avenatti posted a letter he wrote to Mike Davis, the chief counsel on nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He wrote that he had “significant evidence of multiple house parties” in the 1980s where Kavanaugh, high school friend Mark Judge and others would target women with alcohol and drugs in order to take advantage of them sexually, including gang rapes. He said to expect additional evidence in the coming days.
Avenatti included a list of questions for Senate investigators to ask Kavanaugh, including: "Did you ever attend any house party during which a woman was gang raped or used for sex by multiple men?"
Neither Kavanaugh nor Judge immediately responded to Avenatti's accusations.
Kavanaugh is slated to testify Thursday about the first allegation of sexual assault, dating back from a high school party more than 35 years ago. His accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is also set to testify.
Kavanaugh, 53, an appellate court judge, has denied Ford's allegation and said he wanted to testify as soon as possible to clear his name.
"This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so," Kavanaugh responded. "This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name--and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building--against these last-minute allegations."
In response to the New Yorker report, Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called on the committee's Republicans to postpone all proceedings related to Kavanaugh's nomination and refer Ramirez's allegation to the FBI.
Edmund DeMarche is a news editor for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @EDeMarche.

Joy Behar The View Cartoons

Dan Gainor: Ford's accusations against Kavanaugh reveal big problem in media

Kavanaugh is not the enemy of America

Journalists have set aside their already pretend neutrality to openly support Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. 

These are the people we should be worrying about and they're just the tip of the iceberg.

ABC Chief Political Analyst Matthew Dowd

 

Joy Behar

 New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

MSNBC Host Chris Hayes‏

 MSNBC host Rachel Maddow

 Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ruth Marcus

 Bloomberg Opinion Editor Francis Wilkinson

 Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik

 NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack

 State Department Correspondent Gardiner Harris

 Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers

 Hillary Clinton

In a nation where every major issue ends up in the Supreme Court, it only makes sense a nomination to that court has turned into political combat. And the media love it.
Journalists have set aside their already pretend neutrality to openly support Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. They have either skewered Kavanaugh or pushed to delay the hearings in a desperate hope that Democrats take the Senate and stop all future Trump nominees.
This is a national #MeToo moment. Ford has to be believed because, in the words of ABC Chief Political Analyst Matthew Dowd, “For 250 years we have believed the he in these scenarios.  Enough is enough.”
The battle spiraled out of control from there. “View” Co-host Joy Behar called Kavanaugh a “coward” and “probably guilty.” Smarmy New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called out the judge as “smarmy, smirking, entitled and mercenary.” The Times editorial board described the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh as “credible,” a common term journalists used to tip the scales of justice.
The Atlantic turned the whole history of American jurisprudence on its head and dumped responsibility on the accused. “Kavanaugh Bears the Burden of Proof,” though innocent until proven guilty is the American legal standard. ABC merely ignored the death threats Kavanaugh and his family have received
Then there’s Kavanaugh’s accuser Ford, who Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers lauded: “It takes guts to do something like this.” MSNBC Host Chris Hayes‏ defended Ford and bizarrely compared holding early hearings to rape, asking if the GOP is going to “ignore her telling them to stop and just take what they think is rightfully theirs?”
The left can’t even be consistent about being opposed to sexual assault. CNN tried to downplay a self-confessed sexual assault by Democrat media darling Sen. Cory Booker as somehow “different” than allegations against Kavanaugh.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow had Hillary Clinton on her show and asked her about the case. Yet Maddow didn’t have the guts to ask Clinton about the rape allegations against her own husband. Clinton accuser Juanita Broaddrick complained on Twitter and called for an investigation into “My RAPE Allegations.”
When journalists aren’t trying to destroy Kavanaugh, they are trying to delay. Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ruth Marcus is a good liberal bellwether. She covered the nomination of Judge Robert Bork as a “journalist” and claims now “it was a fight worth waging with all necessary ferocity.” Nice and neutral.
Back in June she called for similar treatment of Kavanaugh, saying “This must be another Bork moment.” In a recent column, she argued, “The urgency is to investigate, not to rush to confirm a lifetime appointment.” That’s the liberal party line. Marcus liked it so much, she relied on the words of the late Democrat Sen. Robert C. Byrd when he rejected African-American nominee and now Justice Clarence Thomas. Of course, Byrd was also a former Klansman. (She didn’t mention that.)
If all else fails, the news media are already laying the groundwork for the next effort. The Times has already run an oped constructing, you guessed it, “The Case for Impeaching Kavanaugh.” Bloomberg Opinion Editor Francis Wilkinson was worse, sounding like a representative from a banana republic. He threatened that, after Trump is gone, “Kavanaugh’s case would be reopened and relitigated by a Democratic majority.”
2. Rosenstein Destroys the Narrative: The Times has built its reputation by setting the narrative for the left and the media. This week it certainly complicated things by proving the claims that forces within the deep state are working against Trump.
The paper took down media darling Rod Rosenstein on Friday with this headline: “Rod Rosenstein Suggested Secretly Recording Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment.” That’s a huge reversal of about a year and a half of media coverage that dismissed the “Deep State” as the ravings of right-wing loons.
The Times itself used the term back in February, 2017, quoting radio icon Rush Limbaugh about “the shadows of the deep state.” The paper mocked it as an idea coming from radio hosts and “talk radio listeners.”
That’s been the media theme ever since. Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik mocked the idea back in February with talk of boogeymen. “Right-wing's 'deep state' narrative sounding like 1950s McCarthy talk to me,” he wrote. NPR ran an oped in August saying the same thing. “Opinion: Why The Term 'Deep State' Speaks To Conspiracy Theorists,” it pretended.
Oops.
The Times already gutted this idea with the infamous oped from within the Trump administration. But the Rosenstein reveal was not what the left or media wanted to hear. They either believe what they have told themselves like a mantra or they believe their favorite lefty newspaper.
Even CNN had to admit the story was a “bombshell.” The problem for them is that, so far, Rosenstein was the only one in the room when the bomb went off. Lefty Vox was quickly warning that Rosenstein might soon be fired. By Friday night, ABC News had confirmed The Times report of Rosenstein’s planned overthrow of the president.
Now, which outlets will admit Trump was right all along?
3. More NBC #MeToo Problems: NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack is caught up in an ever-evolving #MeToo scandal and the story keeps getting worse. It involves porn and his time as chairman and CEO of Sony BMG Music Entertainment and lands under the headline: “Accused Sexual Harassers Thrived Under NBC News Chief Andy Lack.”
According to the Daily Beast, the company couldn’t get Lack to act even when it “discovered that a music executive named Charlie Walk had sent ‘sexual’ messages via company email to female employees, including ‘graphic’ pornography.”
Things reportedly got worse after that. “After Lack was confronted with evidence of Walk’s misconduct, Walk allegedly harassed several Sony female employees, which he categorically denies,” the report continued.
The story is incredible or incredibly depressing and just gets worse with one of the people reviewing the Ronan Farrow sex harassment investigation also alleged to be “an accused sexual harasser.”
4. The Times’ Self Own about Disinformation Tips: Every news outlet wants story tips, but how you go about it matters. The Times, in classic holier-than-thou fashion, declared: “If You See Disinformation Ahead of the Midterms, We Want to Hear From You.”
Only that request landed just days after the paper’s State Department Correspondent Gardiner Harris smeared UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and falsely claimed she had spent $52,701 on curtains that had actually been ordered by Team Obama. The article even told readers that fact in paragraph six, beneath a headline, five paragraphs and a photo all blasting Haley. The Times followed with a lengthy editor’s note.
There was more. The Times was forced to run an embarrassing correction admitting it had confused Hollywood star Angela Bassett for former Trump appointee Omarosa Manigault Newman. Bassett, who has nearly 100 acting credits including “Black Panther” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” handled it with class. The Times blamed a “photo wire service” while readers mocked the paper mercilessly.

Number of illegal immigrants crossing border surges after US ends family separations

As the Trump administration regroups from multiple political and legal setbacks in its efforts to curb illegal immigration, the message south of the border could not be more clear, with families and unaccompanied minors flooding into Texas, Arizona and California.
An alarming new report from the Department of Homeland Security shows the number of families crossing into the U.S. illegally surged last month. The agency said illegal immigrants have been taking advantage of a legal loophole that requires “family units” to be released once they are caught.
New figures showed a 10 percent increase in August of unaccompanied minors, a 38 percent increase among families entering illegally or asking for asylum. Overall, people arrested or stopped at the border totaled nearly 47,000 in August, up 17 percent from July and up 52 percent from August 2017.
"These numbers are a result of our failure do what is necessary to control the border," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies.
The administration tried separating parents and children to deter immigrants from making the dangerous trek through Mexico, however a political outcry forced it to reverse the policy. It also tried holding in families in detention until their court date, but the courts rejected the policy. As a result, Customs and Border Protection sources say, immigrants see an opportunity to exploit gridlock in Washington and get in while the administration tries to figure out its next step.
"My question is how many illegal immigrants have to be let go into the U.S. for there to be a political demand that something be done about it," said Krikorian, who favors stricter border enforcement.
The numbers say something entirely different to Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
"The situation in Central America is so bad, parents are deciding that the risk of losing their child to the U.S. government is better than the risk of losing their child to violence," said Noorani. "This leaves lawmakers two choices. They can continue a failed strategy of trying to enforce our way out of a problem... Or, they can develop bipartisan solutions that address root causes in Central America and ensure migrants fleeing violence and persecution can seek protection and a fair hearing in the U.S.”
In the last nine months, 98.6 percent of families who entered the U.S. illegally or without papers from countries other than Mexico, remain here, and officials say it's likely most will never leave.
"We know that the vast majority of family units who have been released, despite having no right to remain in any legal status, fail to ever depart or be removed," DHS Press Secretary Tyler Q. Houlton said Wednesday in a statement. "Through the third quarter of FY 2018, only 1.4 percent of family units have been repatriated to their home country from noncontiguous countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras."
The highest number of minors and families entering arrived from Guatemala (64,000) following by Honduras (43,000), El Salvador (16,000) and Mexico (11,000).
The biggest change agents see is the size of groups they encounter. Instead of a handful of immigrants or groups under 10, they are now apprehending groups of 20 or more. In Lukeville, Arizona, last week, agents stopped a group of 50 spanning a half-mile wide. Instead of running from agents, the immigrants sought them out to request asylum.
"Right now, the word is out. Bring a child," a Border Patrol agent in Arizona told Fox News. "That's their ticket. If they come as an adult, they can be held. If they come as family, or as minor, they can't. They know it. The smugglers tell them."
The Trump administration said Tuesday it's tried to handle the influx by tripling the amount of bed space for unaccompanied minors at its detention camp in Tornillo, Texas, so it can handle up to 3,800 children.
It also added 44 new immigration judges and has considered a policy change allowing it to hold families in detention together until their immigration cases are heard. That is likely to face a legal challenge, especially since federal Judge Dolly Gee already declined to change her ruling, that families in detention must be released after 20 days.

DHS plan would push immigrants to 'show they can support themselves,' Nielsen says

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen address the National Cybersecurity Summit in New York City, July 31, 2018.  (Associated Press)

Immigrants to the United States who are overly reliant on public assistance may soon find it more difficult to remain in the country.
In a 447-page proposal posted online Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security calls for immigrants to be denied permanent residency if they’ve received or are likely to receive benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid or housing vouchers.
“Under long-standing federal law, those seeking to immigrate to the United States must show they can support themselves financially,” DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement to the Washington Post.

“Under long-standing federal law, those seeking to immigrate to the United States must show they can support themselves financially.”

The proposed changes would “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” Nielsen added.
President Trump has said he wants to replace the current immigration system with a merit-based one, based on job skills.
Green card applicants are already required by federal law to prove they will not be a burden – or “public charge” – but the proposal would expand the number programs that could disqualify them.
Under the rule, denials for green cards can be issued if an immigrant received government benefits for up to 15 percent of the poverty level - $1,821 for an individual and $3,765 for a family of four, Politico reported.
DHS will allow a 60-day period for public comment on the proposal before it is published in the Federal Register. Afterward, the agency will make changes based on public feedback before issuing a final rule. The agency anticipates court challenges to any change, the Post reported.
If adopted, the changes would affect those applying for immigration visas or those with temporary residency who want to stay in the country, and could affect the more than 600,000 participants in DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) -- the Obama-era "Dreamers" program -- if they file for permanent residency, according to the Post.
The proposal would have little effect on undocumented immigrants or foreigners who apply for “temporary protected status” to remain in the U.S. after a natural disaster or armed conflict in their home countries.
Critics see the measure as just another attempt to restrict legal immigration and force low-income families to choose between receiving public assistance or staying in the United States.
“This would force families -- including citizen children -- to choose between getting the help they need and remaining in their communities,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “The last thing the federal government should do is punish families that have fallen on hard times for feeding their children or keeping a roof over their heads and avoiding homelessness.”
Some immigrants have already decided to forgo benefits in fear for being deported.
The Post reported that 3.7 percent of the 41.5 million immigrants living in the U.S. received cash benefits in 2013 and 22.7 percent received other forms of assistance like Medicaid, housing subsidies or home heating assistance.
The percentage of native-born Americans who get the same forms of assistance in 2015 was nearly identical.
The changes could expand disparities in health insurance rates between children with native-born parents and those with immigrant parents.
The timing of the proposal, along with an announcement earlier this week that the administration will admit no more than 30,000 refugees in the next fiscal year, could stir up the Republican Party’s base.
“We can be choosy about who we allow into the country,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation. “One of the primary factors ought to be ensuring that the legal immigrants who come in are people who can financially support themselves.”

Maryland's GOP governor loses support of NRA after signing gun laws

Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., on Saturday lost the NRA's support in his re-election bid after having signed gun control legislation.  (Associated Press)

Maryland’s Republican governor lost the support of the National Rifle Association and had his ranking downgraded Saturday after signing gun control legislation.
The Baltimore Sun first reported that the organization wouldn’t endorse Gov. Larry Hogan during his re-election campaign as it had during his successful 2014 run for office.
The organization reduced Hogan’s “A-“ rating earned four years ago to a “C,” NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker told the Sun. The grading reflects how well the candidate protects the rights of gun owners.
Hogan had signed a series of gun control bills in April, including a ban on “bump stocks” -- devices that let a weapon fire repeatedly, like a machine gun -- and a “red flag law” that makes it easier to remove guns from individuals deemed dangerous, the Hill reported.
He also said in July, while speaking at a local middle school where a 16-year-old girl died in a shooting, that he would reject the NRA’s endorsement, according to the outlet. Hogan’s spokeswoman also told the outlet that he didn’t think the organization were “big fans” of his at the time.
While the NRA has pulled its support ahead of next month’s midterm elections, Hogan campaign spokesman Doug Mayer told the Sun that the governor continues to support Second Amendment rights.
“The governor’s position on guns will never change; he wants to make it harder for criminals and the mentally ill to get access to them,” Mayer said. “He will continue to pursue policies that work to achieve those goals.”
Hogan is set to face Democratic challenger Ben Jealous in the November midterm elections. Poll results released earlier this month showed Hogan with a 22-point lead, the Sun reported.

Deep State Cartoons

Ben Carson defends Kavanaugh, says opponents 'desperate' to control courts

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson speaks to the 2018 Values Voter Summit in Washington, Sept. 21, 2018.  (Associated Press)

The controversy surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination was created by opponents who have become “desperate” to regain control of the courts, a member of President Trump's Cabinet said Friday.
Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told a conservative audience at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington that opponents of Kavanaugh want to “fundamentally change this country.” But as their likelihood of controlling the courts looks bleak, Carson said, they’re resorting to “chaos and destruction.”
"And now they don't see themselves as being able to control the courts for another generation," Carson said. "So what is left? Chaos and destruction."
Kavanaugh has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the 1980s, when both were in high school. The judge has “categorically” denied the allegations and has said he would testify to clear his name.
Carson, who called sexual predators “abominable,” went on to liken the allegations against Kavanaugh to those Carson said he himself has faced during his career.
He described an incident in which he was accused of fathering a child out of wedlock. He said he wasn't intimidated because "I knew that the only woman I had ever slept with in my entire life was my wife."
"Having said that, we must also recognize that there are two sides to every story," Carson said.
Late Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley granted another extension to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, to decide on whether she will testify before the panel.

Overconfident? Dem optimism surges as midterms approach

The fight for the House majority is over.
At least that's the sense from a growing number of Democrats who are increasingly confident in their quest to seize control of at least one chamber of Congress six weeks before Election Day.
The surging optimism among Democrats, usually shared in private, has begun to spill into the open as President Donald Trump's approval ratings sink and the Republican Party struggles under the weight of the president's self-imposed political crises and erratic behavior.
"I do believe Democrats will win back the House of Representatives," said New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Our candidates are in a strong position."
Democratic confidence is particularly strong among campaign operatives who work closely with women, a critical voting bloc that has turned away from Trump's GOP in the suburban and exurban districts where the House majority will be won or lost this fall. Polls suggest women are turbocharged and eager to punish Trump's party as the voting season begins.
"I have all intentions of this institution delivering the U.S. House back for the Democrats," said Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY'S List, an organization that supports female Democrats. "We have the candidates in place to do that and then some."
But with the shock of Trump's 2016 victory still fresh, some Democrats are painfully aware that significant factors could emerge in the 45 days before the election that could derail their presumptive success. They're contending with massive spending by GOP super PACs, competing in gerrymandered congressional districts and are increasingly worried about some key candidates.
That's leaving some top Democrats warning their party of the dangers of overconfidence.
"This is no time for confidence. This is no time for braggadociousness or bluster," New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
Booker, a potential 2020 Democratic presidential contender, reminded his party of Hillary Clinton's stunning loss in the last presidential contest: "If there's any complacency, if there's any resting on their laurels, we need to go back to how people felt in the early days of November 2016."
That's a tough message to push at a time when even Republican campaign professionals publicly and privately acknowledge that conventional metrics for predicting election outcomes favor Democrats.
At this point in President Barack Obama's first term, Gallup reported the Democrat's approval rating at least five points higher than Trump's current 38 percent approval. Obama's party would go on to lose 63 House seats in 2010.
On top of Trump's low approval, Republicans this year have also been saddled by more than 40 House retirements, ceding the power of incumbency in several competitive races. And there are continued signs that the Democratic base is far more energized in the early years of the Trump era than the GOP.
"I would never tell a politician to be confident because of how the world changes," said Republican strategist Rick Tyler. "But by applying those metrics, Democrats should pick up 80 seats."
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile turned heads in a recent interview with ABC when she predicted a Democratic takeover in the Senate. Democrats need to pick up just two seats to claim the Senate majority, but most of the competitive Senate contests this year takes place in a Republican-leaning state.
"We're confident," Brazile said. "Not overconfident, but confident that we can run the tables in the Senate."
Money could complicate Democrats' plans.
While Democratic House candidates are outraising their GOP competitors in many cases, Republicans are expected to win the larger spending battle largely because of their reliance on Super PACs that can raise unlimited sums of money.
Schriock said EMILY'S List expects to spend $37 million to influence the election, outpacing its investment in the last presidential contest. On the other side, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC allied with House Speaker Paul Ryan, expects to spend roughly $100 million.
Already, the Republican powerhouse has committed more than $70 million to shape the House landscape, primarily by running attack ads to put Democratic candidates on defense as the midterm season moves into its final weeks.
In Minnesota, which began early voting on Friday , Ryan's super PAC is dumping $8 million into an advertising campaign targeting two congressional districts. They include the 8th district, where 32-year-old former Democratic state Rep. Joe Radinovich faced charges that "he's spent his life running from the law" in a recent ad that cites multiple traffic violations.
Radinovich's campaign called the claims "egregious" and "disgraceful," saying it falsely portrayed unpaid parking tickets as crimes and misrepresents a marijuana-related citation that the Democrat received as a teen.
Fair or not, the Republican attacks are jeopardizing an open seat in a Democratic-leaning state.
It's not the only one.
Democrats are struggling for traction in a series of contests that should be prime pickup opportunities — on paper, at least. Polling suggests several vulnerable Republicans in swing districts are performing better than expected, a list that includes Reps. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, Will Hurd of Texas, and John Katko of New York.
And in Florida's 27th district, a heavily Hispanic open seat in Miami, former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala is locked in a surprisingly close contest with Republican Maria Elvira Salazar, a well-known Hispanic television reporter.
But don't relay those concerns to the people who lined up for hours outside Philadelphia's Dell Music Center on Friday to see Obama rally Democratic voters in a pivotal swing state.
Della Jamison, a 65-year-old Democrat from North Philadelphia, was exuberant about her party's chances when asked. In Pennsylvania alone, Democrats envision flipping a half dozen House seats.
"We are on the battlefield, baby," Jamison said. "It's already done."

Beto O'Rourke denies fleeing scene of 1998 DUI crash, contradicting police report

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democrat vying to replace U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, contradicted police reports Friday by denying he tried to flee the scene of a 1998 drunken car crash.
O'Rourke was asked about the incident during a debate against Cruz at Southern Methodist University.
“I did not try to leave the scene of the accident, though driving drunk, which I did, is a terrible mistake for which there is no excuse or justification or defense,” O’Rourke said. “I can only tell you that I was able to have a second chance in my life.”

"I did not try to leave the scene of the accident, though driving drunk, which I did, is a terrible mistake for which there is no excuse or justification or defense."
- U.S. candidate Beto O'Rourke

TED CRUZ, BETO O'ROURKE CLASH IN FIRST DEBATE OVER TRUMP, IMMIGRATION AND THE SUPREME COURT
But O’Rourke’s comments appear to contradict the police reports published by the Houston Chronicle last month that claimed O’Rourke “attempted to leave the scene” after he lost control of his car and hit another vehicle in 1998.
“The driver attempted to leave the accident but was stopped by the [witness],” a police officer wrote, according to the police report.

"The driver attempted to leave the accident but was stopped by the [witness]."
- The police report detailing Beto O'Rourkes DWI accident

The witness, who also called 911, reportedly “turned on his overhead lights to warn oncoming traffic and to try to get [O’Rourke] to stop,” the report continued.
This was the first time O’Rourke has challenged reports of the incident. Last month, he acknowledged that he “drove drunk and was arrested for DWI in 1998.” He didn’t deny he tried to flee the scene.
BETO O'ROURKE REPORTEDLY TRIED TO FLEE SCENE BEFORE 1998 DRUNKEN-DRIVING ARREST, WITNESS SAID
The officer went on to state that O’Rourke was visibly intoxicated and “unable to be understood due to slurred speech.”
O’Rourke recorded 0.136 and 0.134 blood alcohol levels on Breathalyzer tests, the records said. The state legal limit at the time was 0.10. The charges of DWI were later dismissed after he completed a court-approved diversion program, the Chronicle reported.

Schumer rallies behind Rosenstein, warns Trump not to fire him

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday the bombshell report of Rod Rosenstein suggesting wearing a wiretap to record President Trump shouldn’t be used to fire the deputy attorney general.
“This New York Times report must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order to install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsel’s investigation,” Schumer wrote in a tweet.
He added that other Trump administration officials have reportedly said negative things about the president, yet they weren’t fired.
“Generals Kelly, Mattis and numerous other White House and cabinet officials have been reported to say critical things of the president without being fired,” the top Senate Demcorat added in a tweet.
Schumer’s comments came amid a New York Times report that claimed Rosenstein suggested secretly recording Trump’s conversations with Justice Department and FBI officials. The discussion of such measures, though it remains unclear how serious they were, came in the wake of the president’s decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.  (AP)

The explosive report also noted that Rosenstein discussed using the 25th Amendment with Cabinet members to remove Trump on the basis of being unfit for duty.
Rosenstein denied the accuracy of the report, calling it “inaccurate and factually incorrect” and went on to slam the sources of the Times story that, in his view, are biased against his department.
“I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda,” he said in a statement to Fox News. “But let me clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”
“I never pursued or authorized recording the president, and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the president is absolutely false,” he said in another statement.

Made In Japan Cartoons

Trump, Japan's Abe to hold summit in New York City next week

President Trump welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House in Washington, June 7, 2018.  (Associated Press)

A summit between President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will take place next week in New York City, a spokesman for Japan’s government said Friday.

The meeting next Wednesday will be on the sidelines of the 73^rd United Nations General Assembly, Reuters reported.

The two leaders will dine together ahead of the summit, a Japanese government official said. The summit will mark the eight meeting between Trump and Abe.
The two leaders are likely to discuss North Korea’s denuclearization as well as trade issues. Japan has long sought to normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea, which have been strained since the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
On Thursday, Abe was reelected to a third term as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, paving the way for him to serve as prime minister for up to three more years.

America, don't be like California – misery loves company

Once again, California has the highest poverty rate in America. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent report, the Golden State’s Supplemental Poverty Measure averaged 19 percent between 2015 and 2017.

Nationwide, poverty dropped in 2017 from 14.7 percent to 14.1 percent, but California’s rate was proportionately 35 percent higher than the national average.

In spite of (or perhaps to divert attention from) its high poverty rate, California’s left-wing political class continues its unrelenting sermonizing to the rest of us.
Big drivers of California’s poverty are: costly rents (second-highest in the nation after Hawaii); expensive electricity (highest in the lower 48 states outside of New England); heavily taxed and high-priced gasoline (second-highest after Hawaii); and high state taxes, combined with heavy housing and environmental regulations.
Some California politicians justify high taxes by pointing to the state’s generous welfare benefits, including a vigorous expansion of Medicaid.
However, the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, in use since 2009, considers a wider array of government assistance than does the old Official Poverty Measure, which doesn’t even look at cost-of-living differences between the states.
For a path out of poverty, a job beats welfare every time. But in high-cost California, having a job and receiving government assistance isn’t enough to lift millions of residents out of poverty.
California wasn’t always a high-cost state. But over time its dominant Malthusian, anti-people philosophy made housing hard to build, while government officials refused to invest adequately in new roads or water infrastructure.
Meanwhile, California’s wealthy elites, who largely live close to the temperate Pacific coast, are pushing energy policies that threaten even higher costs for electricity and commuting.
The California Legislature passed a bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown that lays the groundwork for the state getting 100 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2045.
In the same legislative session, a Democratic lawmaker proposed a law that would ban the sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2040. It didn’t get a hearing.
In late August, news out of San Diego highlighted a 28.5 percent jump in electricity rates – with one homeowner complaining about a $900 electric bill to cool his 1,379-square-foot house only a mile from the ocean.
Misery loves company and California wants to share its misery nationwide.
Gov. Brown calls the Trump administration’s pro-energy policies “insane” and bordering “on criminality.” Brown has urged other states to follow California’s example.
Meanwhile, Tom Steyer, the billionaire California environmentalist who made his money the old-fashioned way – on coal, oil and natural gas – now reportedly harbors ambitions of replacing President Trump in the White House as he spends millions of dollars to gather meaningless signatures on impeachment petitions.
Steyer’s latest project: resisting Trump’s energy policies in the states through ballot initiatives or by convincing unelected regulators to copy California ruinous renewable energy gambit.
If California is America’s Yin, Texas is its Yang.
Where California has high taxes, including the nation’s highest marginal income tax rate, Texas has low taxes, with no income tax at all.
Where California has heavily-regulated electricity markets with draconian mandates for solar and wind energy, Texas has free markets with electricity selling at a little more than half of California’s prices (while producing five times as much wind power to boot).
And where California’s endless environmental delays halt the building of homes, roads, and new reservoirs, Texas welcomes construction.
The divergent policies in America’s two most populous states have consequences.
In 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau calculated that, of America’s four major demographic groups – non-Hispanic whites, blacks, Asian-Americans and Hispanics – the lowest poverty is among the white and Asian-American categories.
The Census Bureau estimated that 52.4 percent of California’s population last year was non-Hispanic white or Asian-American. In Texas, those two groups comprised 47 percent of the state’s residents. Yet California’s three-year poverty rate of 19 percent was almost a third higher than Texas’ 14.7 percent.
The Lone Star State has its own challenges. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican running for a second term this year, has frequently warned of the danger of Texas “being California-ized” through city level “bag bans, fracking bans, (and) tree cutting bans (that form) a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model.”
Further, property taxes – the domain of ostensibly non-partisan local government – are soaring in Texas, even as the heavily Republican state Legislature has modestly cut statewide taxes.
More ominously, the state’s continued rapid growth is prompting increased pressure from both liberal and conservative homeowners on their city and county elected officials to put the brakes on new housing, slowing construction and contributing to a quickening rise in rents.
For Texas, and America, the lesson should be obvious: for human thriving, freedom beats government control – don’t be like California.

Is the president really seething over Sessions and other setbacks?

The media are back in the business of reporting on Donald Trump’s mood.
This has become a staple of White House coverage. The president is regularly reported to be livid, fuming, frustrated, upset, unhinged or paranoid, depending on the latest developments and how they're playing in the press.
Now sometimes this is legitimate, given Trump's tendency of lashing out at those around him. But I don't recall regular updates on whether Barack Obama was mad or George W. Bush was ticked off and so on. (Yes, I know, Trump is a very different president.)
He has, by any measure, had a rough few weeks.
Paul Manafort, his onetime campaign chairman, pled guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, did the same.
Omarosa, his erstwhile friend, wrote a book trashing him.
The Bob Woodward book portrayed senior officials as actively working to undermine a president they viewed as uninformed and erratic. That message was driven home by the unnamed official who vented about Trump in the New York Times. (I guess Anonymous got away with it, since the piece has faded and no manhunt is under way.)
And Trump was feeling satisfied as Brett Kavanaugh was on the verge of Senate confirmation — only to have the nomination thrown into turmoil by Christine Blasey Ford's last-minute accusations.
Now the media could argue that the president has been unusually disciplined this week (and a few journalists have noted this). Rather than going off script, rather than attacking Ford, Trump has repeatedly said she should be heard and he hopes that she testifies. He has defended Kavanaugh, said he has a hard time believing the allegations and ripped the Democrats for their handling of the matter, but hasn't posted any incendiary tweets.
But that has been overshadowed by his latest swipes at Jeff Sessions. In an interview with Hill TV, Trump said Sessions had been "mixed up and confused" during his confirmation hearings, adding: "I don't have an attorney general. It's very sad."
Trump later told reporters that he has an AG (of course he does, literally) but is disappointed in Sessions — as he has been since the former senator recused himself from the Russia investigation. What Trump really meant with his earlier comment is that he doesn't have an attorney general who will watch his back, which is not the job of the nation's top law-enforcement official.
The Washington Post describes this as "a raw expression of vulnerability and anger from a president who associates say increasingly believes he is unprotected" — including "the Russia investigation steamrolling ahead, anonymous administration officials seeking to undermine him and the specter of impeachment proceedings, should the Democrats retake the House."
I'm not so sure about the last point, but it's certainly a concern within the White House.
More from the Post: "The president, as well as family members and longtime loyalists, fret about whom in the administration they can trust, people close to them said." On that score, can you really blame them?
I've got to throw in a great quote from Steve Bannon, who says Trump is right to feel vulnerable.
"The Woodward book is the typed-up meeting notes from 'The Committee to Save America.' The anonymous op-ed is the declaration of an administrative coup by the Republican establishment."
Perhaps Trump is seething over these betrayals and setbacks. We can argue over how much responsibility he bears for some of the messes. But it's hardly shocking if he's angry about being secretly taped, leaked upon, and faced with defecting loyalists and a last-minute roadblock for his Supreme Court nominee.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.