Dems fight to wrest veterans mantle from GOP ahead of 2018 midterms

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks during fellow House Democrats' news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 24, 2017.  (Reuters)

Democrats are on a wide-ranging mission to wrest the veterans vote from Republicans – courting them with the promise of better jobs and running dozens of returning military service members in the 2018 midterms. 

The effort reflects the party's determination to retake control of at least one chamber of Congress next year. While Republicans' ideals of a powerful military and a boot-strap work ethic have long appealed to active and retired military – Donald Trump won 60 percent of their vote last fall, exit polls showed – Democrats think they can make inroads.

“We have seen an incredible amount of inspiring Democratic veterans step up to run for Congress this cycle. And that has absolutely helped us expand the midterm map and put Republicans further on their heels,” Tyler Law, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman, said.
While the DCCC’s recruiting efforts have yielded roughly 30 military veteran candidates, House Democrats have also begun a separate effort to pursue better employment opportunities for veterans, part of their larger “Jobs for America” initiative.
“Our agenda cannot just be against Donald Trump, alluring as that may be,” New York Rep. Joe Crowley, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Sept. 13 in announcing the Reinvesting in Our Heroes Task Force.
Trump, a Republican, in large part won the presidency by appealing to soldiers and veterans with promises to spend more on defense to confront foreign enemies while improving their healthcare in the Department of Veterans Affairs, whose previous conduct he called a “national disgrace.”
"I'm going to build a military that's going to be much stronger than it is right now,” Trump said weeks before winning the White House race. “It's going to be so strong, nobody's going to mess with us.”
And within weeks of taking office, he created a White House veteran-complaint hotline, signed a VA whistleblower protection law approved by the GOP-controlled Congress and proposed roughly $700 billion in additional Defense Department spending.
So Democrats have their work cut out in appealing to the same, powerful bloc.
Among the veteran candidates looking to knock off a sitting House Republican in 2018 is former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who has flown 89 combat missions and has an admitted chip on her shoulder.
“When I was 13, my congressman told me I couldn't fly in combat. He said Congress thought women ought to be protected and not allowed to serve in combat,” McGrath, a Naval Academy graduate, says in a video announcing her bid to unseat two-term Kentucky GOP Rep. Andy Barr.
2018 MIDTERMS: DEMS TARGET 80 HOUSE SEATS
David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, acknowledged Wednesday that Republicans have had the edge with veterans.
“But the dynamics have changed with a lot of liberal-leaning veterans. And a number of them could have a really good chance next year of winning,” he said.
Wasserman also warned that winning candidates need more than a muscular military resume, including a command of policy -- but cited Brendan Kelly, in Illinois’ 12th Congressional District, and Pat Ryan, in New York’s 19 Congressional District, as candidates to watch.

'We have seen an incredible amount of inspiring Democratic veterans step up to run for Congress this cycle.'

Among the other candidates getting attention are Josh Butner, a 23-year Navy veteran and former SEAL whose family's military history dates back to the Mexican-American War.
He’s challenging three-term GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, who won reelection last year in his San Diego-area 50th Congressional District with nearly 64 percent of the vote.
Democrats have to gain 24 seats to take control of the House, with veteran candidates part of the party’s ambitious effort to compete next year in as many as 79 of the chamber’s 435 races.
Their odds of winning the Senate appear more of a longshot, considering Democrats have to defend 25 seats, despite needing only a net win of three to take the majority.
Republicans have fewer veteran candidates in 2018, but point out they already have a large number in Congress, with fortifying incumbents a priority.
“A large portion of our Republican congressional conference is veterans, and we have others this cycle looking to join their fellow servicemembers in Congress,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jesse Hunt said.
Among those running in 2018 are Steve Ferrara in Arizona’s 9th district; Dan DeBono in New York’s 3rd district; Andrew Grant in California’s 7th district; and Eddie Edwards in New Hampshire’s 1st district.
Ferrara is a retired Navy captain and doctor who pioneered life- and limb-saving surgical techniques on the battlefield.
Moving forward, jobs for veterans will be a focus for both parties.
The veteran unemployment rate continues to decline, at 3.7 percent in August compared to 4.3 percent at the same time last year.
But California Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley, co-chair of the House jobs task force, told Fox News more work is needed for veterans.
“Finding a high-quality job that meets their qualifications and potential is what most concerns those in the military. Servicemembers want to support their families and provide some stability, often after having to move so much,” she said.
Brownley, whose district includes Naval Base Ventura County, also argued that veterans, as a result of their military training, possess “intangibles” like leadership skills and team readiness that they occasionally undersell.
“Sometime a sailor might say, ‘My job was to swab the deck.’ But his job was really to be part of the team that makes sure planes land safely," she said. "That’s a really important skill.”

North Korea could test hydrogen bomb in Pacific, top diplomat says

North Korea's foreign minister has said the Communist nation may test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean after dictator Kim Jong Un vowed he would take the "highest-level" action against the United States, South Korean media reported Thursday. 

The Yonhap news agency reported on comments made to reporters by Ri Yong Ho on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

"We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un," Ri was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
Such a test would be considered a major provocation by the U.S., South Korea and Japan. Ri was scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday, a day later than previously scheduled.
Ri's comments followed Kim's extraordinary statement lashing out at President Trump, calling the American leader "deranged" and vowing that Trump would "pay dearly" for his threat to destroy North Korea.
Kim's first-person statement was published by North Korea's state propaganda arm in response to Trump's fiery speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. South Korean media called it the first such direct address to the world by Kim.
Kim said Trump was "unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country." He also described the U.S. president as "a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire."
Some analysts saw Kim's statement as a clear announcement that North Korea would ramp up its already brisk pace of weapons testing, which has included missiles meant to target U.S. forces throughout Asia and the U.S. mainland.
On Tuesday, Trump mocked Kim as a "rocket man" on a "suicide mission," and said that if "forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."
Kim characterized Trump's speech to the world body as "mentally deranged behavior."

He said Trump's remarks "have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last."

Kim said he was "thinking hard" about his response and that Trump "will face results beyond his expectation."

Kim Dong-yub, a former South Korean military official who is now an analyst at Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said Kim's statement indicated that North Korea would respond to Trump with its most aggressive missile test yet. That might include firing a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile over Japan to a range of around 4,349 miles to display a capability to reach Hawaii or Alaska.

In recent months, the North has launched a pair of still-developmental ICBMs it said were capable of striking the continental United States and a pair of intermediate-range missiles that soared over Japanese territory. Earlier this month, North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, drawing stiffer U.N. sanctions.

Robert Mueller Witch Hunter Cartoons

Mueller makes extensive request to White House for Trump documents

Witch Hunter

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has asked the White House to provide a wide variety of documents related to his investigation into Russia’s attempted meddling in the 2016 election, Fox News has confirmed.

Mueller’s office has provided a list of documents requested from the White House counsel’s office, a legal source says. The broad request covers multiple White House staffers and includes actions Trump has taken as president.

The request was expected, a source said.
The president’s legal team declined to comment.
"Out of respect for the special counsel and his process, the White House does not comment on any specific requests being made or our conversations with the special counsel,” White House attorney Ty Cobb said in a statement. “I can only reaffirm that the White House is committed to cooperating fully with Special Counsel Mueller."
MUELLER RATCHETS UP PRESSURE ON PAUL MANAFORT, BUT WHO IS LEAKING THESE DAMAGING DETAILS?
Mueller wants documents from 13 different areas including Trump’s firing of former national security adviser Mike Flynn and former FBI director James Comey, a source said.
He also wants documents related to Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian officials and Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney.
A source also told Fox News that the scope of the request shows that Mueller is operating well within the parameters of his mandate to look into Russian interference in the election – and has not strayed outside the lines.
The New York Times, which first reported the request for documents, said Trump’s attorney has told Mueller’s office he will turn over many of the documents this week.

Samantha Power sought to unmask Americans on almost daily basis, sources say

Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was 'unmasking' at such a rapid pace in the final months of the Obama administration that she averaged more than one request for every working day in 2016 – and even sought information in the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, multiple sources close to the matter told Fox News. 

Two sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said the requests to identify Americans whose names surfaced in foreign intelligence reporting, known as unmasking, exceeded 260 last year. One source indicated this occurred in the final days of the Obama White House.

The details emerged ahead of an expected appearance by Power next month on Capitol Hill. She is one of several Obama administration officials facing congressional scrutiny for their role in seeking the identities of Trump associates in intelligence reports – but the interest in her actions is particularly high.
OBAMA OFFICIAL MADE 'HUNDREDS OF UNMASKING REQUESTS,' GOP CHAIRMAN SAYS
In a July 27 letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the committee had learned "that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration."
The "official" is widely reported to be Power.
During a public congressional hearing earlier this year, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina pressed former CIA director John Brennan on unmasking, without mentioning Power by name.
Gowdy: Do you recall any U.S. ambassadors asking that names be unmasked?
Brennan: I don't know. Maybe it's ringing a vague bell but I'm not -- I could not answer with any confidence.
Gowdy continued, asking: On either January 19 or up till noon on January 20, did you make any unmasking requests?
Brennan: I do not believe I did.
Gowdy: So you did not make any requests on the last day that you were employed?
Brennan: No, I was not in the agency on the last day I was employed.
Brennan later corrected the record, confirming he was at CIA headquarters on January 20. "I went there to collect some final personal materials as well as to pay my last respects to a memorial wall. But I was there for a brief period of time and just to take care of some final -- final things that were important to me," Brennan said.
Three of the nation's intelligence agencies received subpoenas in May explicitly naming three top Obama administration officials: Former national security adviser Susan Rice, Brennan and Power. Records were requested for Ben Rhodes, then-President Barack Obama's adviser, but the documents were not the subject of a subpoena.
A spokesperson for Power had no comment on the number or timing of her requests. But in a previous statement, her lawyer David Pressman emphasized that, "While serving as our Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Power was also a member of the National Security Council responsible for advising the President on the full-range of threats confronting the United States. Any insinuation that Ambassador Power was involved in leaking classified information is absolutely false."
During congressional testimony since the unmasking controversy began, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers has explained that unmasking is handled by the intelligence community in an independent review.
"We [the NSA] apply two criteria in response to their request: number one, you must make the request in writing. Number two, the request must be made on the basis of your official duties, not the fact that you just find this report really interesting and you're just curious,” he said in June. “It has to tie to your job and finally, I said two but there's a third criteria, and is the basis of the request must be that you need this identity to understand the intelligence you're reading."
Previous U.N. ambassadors have made unmasking requests, but Fox News was told they number in the low double digits.
Power has agreed to meet with the Senate and House intelligence committees as part of the Russia probe. She is expected before the House committee in a private, classified session in October.
Bret Baier is the Chief Political Anchor of Fox News Channel, and the Anchor & Executive Editor of "Special Report with Bret Baier.”  His book, "Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower’s Final Mission," (William Morrow) is on sale now.  
Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Lincoln Memorial vandalized by student from Kyrgyz Republic, police say

See what the frigging idiot Democrats have got started?

A student from the Kyrgyz Republic was arrested Monday for allegedly using a penny to engrave the letters “HYPT MAEK” into the fifth pillar on the north side of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Fox 5 DC reported.

Nurtilek Bakirov, 21, was arrested and charged with malicious destruction of property, the report said. If convicted, the maximum penalty he faces is 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

The report — citing U.S. Park Police — said an officer caught Bakirov the act.
Last month, the Lincoln Memorial was tagged with red spray paint with an anti-law message.
A photo released by the National Park Service shows an expletive followed by the word "law" scrawled on the inside of one of the memorial's columns.
Workers are removing the graffiti using a "gel-type architectural pain stripper safe for use on historic stone." They say treatments will be applied until all evidence of the paint is gone.
The park service told Fox 5 DC that it is determining how to fix the structure.
"We'll have some different options over the next days and weeks to see what if any course of action there is to take, but until we know what that course of action is we can't really comment on the level of effort or amount of money that would be involved to do so," a conservator told the TV station's website.
The Kyrgyz Republic, also known as Kyrgyzstan, is a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia that borders western China.

Has asset forfeiture gone too far? Truck seizure case sparks outrage, a call for change

Two years ago, Gerardo Serano – an American citizen, Kentucky farmer and a one-time GOP Kentucky statehouse candidate – was driving his brand new, $60,000 Ford F-250 pick-up truck to visit relatives in Mexico, snapping pictures along the way, when Customs and Border Patrol agents halted him at the border, demanded his cell phone, and asked him why he was taking pictures. 

"I just wanted the opening of the bridge. I was gonna take the opening of the bridge, the entrance of the bridge. That’s all I wanted to do," Serano told Fox News.

As a self-proclaimed student of the Constitution, Serano said he knew his rights, and protested to Customs and Border Patrol agents vehemently when they asked him to unlock his phone.
SHOWDOWN LOOMS BETWEEN CONGRESS, POLICE OVER CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE
"You need a warrant for that," he says he told them. They searched his truck and found five bullets in a magazine clip that Serano, a Kentucky concealed carry permit holder, forgot to remove before leaving his home.

Gerardo Serrano showing a photo of his seized truck.  (Institute for Justice)

"We got you," he says border agents told him. He was detained, but never arrested, nor charged, nor tried, nor convicted. However, agents did seize his prized new truck. Two years since its seizure, they have yet to give it back.
Serano is still making monthly payments of $673 on the truck as well as paying for its insurance and Kentucky license fees.
His attorneys at the Institute for Justice say Customs and Border Patrol has told them the truck was subject to the government's Civil Asset Forfeiture program because it was used to "transport munitions of war."
SESSIONS OPENS DOOR FOR POLICE TO SEIZE ASSETS, FACES GOP PUSHBACK
The Civil Asset Forfeiture program has its roots in English law that American colonists rebelled against. Their rebellion was ultimately codified in the Fourth Amendment, which reads, in part: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."

Gerardo Serrano showing the notice of seizure he received when his truck was seized.  (Institute for Justice)

Despite that unambiguous language, civil asset forfeiture was revived in the 1930s Prohibition era against bootleggers and mobsters. It was revived again in the 1980s war on drugs and continues to this day.
"It’s absolutely astonishing that civil forfeiture is a policy that we have in this country,” said Clark Neily of the Cato Institute. “It is totally unjust, unfair, and I think it's unconstitutional."
Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY) agrees.
"There are instances of people, young people, getting some money and saying, ‘I'm moving to California from Boston.’ They're stopping in some small town in Nevada, and they have a thousand bucks their dad gave them to get started,” Paul said. “And the police just take it and say: ‘You prove to us that this isn't drug money.’"

Gerardo Serrano's truck was seized over five bullets, which he says were lawfully his.  (Institute for Justice)

Morgan Wright, a senior fellow at the Center for Digital Government, spent 20 years as a police officer and detective in Kansas. He cites the benefits of civil asset forfeiture.
"We seized everything from cars to houses to money to jewelry to you name it," he said. "One of the cash seizures I had, had plans for a methamphetamine laboratory. They had documented intelligence that they had people working in these operations, people selling cocaine - cartel activity out of Mexico."
Wright acknowledges asset forfeiture may have gone too far.
"One of the worst things you can do in law enforcement is to take a good tool and abuse it," Wright said. "So that restrictive regulations come down on it, and it's taken away from everybody."
Many contend the program's abuses outweigh its benefits. Congressional critics were outraged, when, this summer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ended Obama-era restrictions that blocked forfeiture without a warrant or criminal charges.
In a rare show of bipartisanship, conservative House Republicans joined liberal Democrats this month in rolling back Sessions’ undoing of the Obama-era reforms. During floor debate, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said: "Asset forfeiture is a crime against the American people committed by their own government."

Gerardo Serrano with his new, leased truck. He is still making monthly payments of $673 on the seized truck as well as paying for its insurance and Kentucky license fees.  (Institute for Justice)

Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) echoed his sentiment.
"The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution exists to protect the citizens of this country from being deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. In practice and in principle, adoptive forfeiture is a violation of that Fourth Amendment," she said
The Senate is also poised to act.
"We have a free-standing bill that says the government shouldn't take peoples’ property without a conviction, that the burden is on the government that you actually agreed to commit a crime," Sen. Paul told Fox News.
"We also will look at, as the funding bills come through in the House, if they do bring up the Appropriation Bill for the Department of Justice, I will attach that language to it," he added.
Many say what's needed is a Supreme Court test case. It may get one.
Serano, represented by the Institute for Justice, is suing Customs to get his truck back and to end the policy of civil forfeiture once and for all. Justice Clarence Thomas has publicly said the high court needs a good case that address the problems of civil asset forfeiture.

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