Comey calls Trump 'morally unfit to be president,' says he wouldn't have changed handling of Clinton probe

In his first interview since being fired, former FBI Director James Comey described President Trump as an ego-driven liar who treats women like “meat” and is “morally unfit to be president.”
“I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president,” Comey said in a wide-ranging sit-down Sunday night with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.  “A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they’re pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe him - that person is not fit to be president of the United States on moral grounds.”
Ahead of the interview, Trump fired off a series of tweets calling the country’s former top cop a “slimeball,” a liar and directly refuted claims he asked Comey for his loyalty.
During Sunday’s televised interview, Comey also weighed in on the salacious – and unverified - Russian dossier, as well as his reason for going public about the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server in the final days of the 2016 election.
Clinton- as well as a large number of Democrats – have blamed her November defeat on Comey’s actions.
“I hope not – but the honest answer is, it wouldn’t have changed the way I think about it,” Comey said. He added he hoped people would read his book “A Higher Loyalty” and put themselves in his shoes.
Comey claimed he wasn’t trying to favor one candidate over the other but instead tried to do “the right thing,” though he admitted his decision was influenced by the assumption Clinton would beat Trump in the election.
“I don’t remember spelling it out, but it had to have been, that she’s going to be elected president and if I hide this from the American people, she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out,” he told Stephanopoulos.
Comey, though, seemed to be aware of the weight of his action.
“I walked around vaguely sick to my stomach, feeling beaten down,” he said. “I felt like I was totally alone, that everybody hated me. And that there wasn’t a way out because it really was the right thing to do.”
Comey also recounted his initial interactions with Trump over the unverified 35-page Russian dossier that was compiled by former British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele and funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign. The dossier detailed a graphic account of Trump with Russian prostitutes during a 2013 trip to Moscow.
“I’m about to meet with a person who doesn’t know me, who’s just been elected president of the United States… from my watching him during the … campaign could be volatile,” Comey said. “And I’m about to talk to him about allegations that he was involved with prostitutes in Moscow and that the Russians taped it and have leverage over him.”
Comey claimed during a Jan. 27, 2017 private dinner meeting, Trump asked him to disprove the allegations in the dossier.
 “He said, you know, ‘If there’s even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that’s true, that’s terrible.”
Comey added, “‘I remember thinking, ‘How could your wife think there's a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?’ I'm a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So, what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think [that] there's only a 99 percent chance you didn't do that?”
Comey said Trump told him, “I may order you to investigate that.”
He allegedly advised the president to “be careful about that because it might create a narrative that we’re investigating you personally, and second, it’s very difficult to prove something didn’t happen.”
Comey’s interview with Stephanopoulos is part of a big media blitz designed to promote his book.
In released excerpts, Comey compares Trump to a mafia boss and questions why the president initially refused to acknowledge Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. He also takes aim at Trump’s physical appearance, describing him as “slightly orange, with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles.”
The White House has worked hard in recent weeks to discredit Comey.
Trump tweeted Sunday that Comey was the “WORST FBI Director in history, by far!,” suggested he should be behind bars and referred to him as “a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!).”
In 1996, Comey served as assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia during President Bill Clinton’s administration. In 2002, he was named U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York under President George W. Bush. In that role, he secured high-profile convictions including one against Martha Stewart for securities fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
A decade later, Comey was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed 93-1 by the Senate as FBI director.
He was fired on May 9, 2017 by Trump.
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called Comey’s credibility into question.
“This is nothing more than a poorly executed PR stunt by Comey to desperately rehabilitate his tattered reputation and enrich his own bank account by peddling a book that belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section,” she said.
 “A Higher Loyalty” hits store shelves on Tuesday.

Democrats Sit On Their Hands Cartoons

Still Sitting and Still Crying.

The US attack on Syria is completely legal and utterly moral. Here’s what Trump’s critics need to know

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this.

President Trump’s calibrated and courageous decision to join France and Britain in striking chemical weapons targets in Syria before dawn Saturday drew support and opposition from members of Congress. Opponents have argued he should have sought congressional authorization for the military action in Syria. They are wrong.
President Trump’s action to attack Syria was exceptionally well-grounded legally. Self-evident moral authority supports using any reasonable means to protect innocents from the moral outrage of chemical weapons.
Ahead of the attack, Vice President Mike Pence personally notified House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He could not reach Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. He confirmed the limited nature, objectives and duration of the Syrian strike.
As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other U.S. officials made clear, America and our allies mounted a “one-off” attack to deter any future use of chemical weapons by Syria, a prerogative fully supported by international law.

President Trump’s thoughtful, well-planned, narrowly drawn and superbly executed strike on Syrian chemical weapons facilities wasted no time, ordnance or lives. Its purpose was clear, well-stated and well-served. It should be non-controversial. Still, he is attacked.

Neither President Trump nor anyone in his administration has suggested the onset of a long American military combat commitment in Syria.
But U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reaffirmed America’s resolve to prevent any further use of chemical weapons. She said Saturday at the U.N.: “I spoke to the president this morning, and he said, ‘If the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded.’”
Nevertheless, leading Democrats have been vocal in demanding congressional approval for any U.S. military involvement in Syria.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016, was quick to tweet: “Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes against Syria without Congress’ approval is illegal. We need to stop giving presidents a blank check to wage war. Today it’s Syria, but what’s going to stop him from bombing Iran or North Korea next?”
Kaine’s tweet is legally inept, and all but laughable, given that President Bill Clinton – husband of Kaine’s 2016 running mate, Hillary Clinton – undertook a long series of air strikes in Kosovo and elsewhere, without any congressional authorization or pretense to getting it.
Let’s cut to the nub: The 1973 War Powers Resolution was intended to dissuade presidents from long-duration combat engagements and insertion of large numbers of U.S. troops. The law grew out of a decade of U.S. combat in Vietnam. It presumes to require that presidents get congressional approval for military combat operations if they last more than 60 days.
Most legal scholars consider parts of the law unconstitutional. Presidents of both parties have generally demurred. No president has acceded to the law’s constitutionality.
That said, the interplay of executive and legislative branches on military matters – reflecting the constitutional balance between the Article II “commander-in-chief” powers and Congress’s Article I “declaration of war” powers – has always been respectful since Vietnam.
It was this time, also.
Yet some members of Congress still contend the War Powers Resolution has been triggered, or that President Trump must report to them before another strike.
This is nonsense. No president has been held to that standard, effectively transmuting the commander-in-chief’s authority to conduct limited duration, surgical strikes – consistent under international law and with allies – into a congressional prerogative.
Even the Authorization of Use of Military Force Act of 2001 – enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – is not relevant here. That law was intended to address, and thus authorized, counterterrorism operations on a major scale, within set limits.
The law, which has been roundly criticized in recent years, opened the door to attacks on state and non-state actors tied back to the Sept. 11 attacks – but without a time limit. Whatever one thinks of the law, our attack in Syria is not that kind of operation, nor is any such mass deployment in Syria under discussion.
Still, critics in Congress demand President Trump defend his Syria action and come to them for permission. They want, it seems, to further limit the president’s already limited ability to use the U.S. military to defend our nation, forcing him to get their authorization for what he did and any strikes that may lie ahead.
Frankly, this is unnecessary, wildly premature at best, and somewhat embarrassing.
Congressional Democrats seem unable to stop themselves. They must attack this president. It is now an article of faith with the party, even if not backed up by the Constitution.
President Trump’s thoughtful, well-planned, narrowly drawn and superbly executed strike on Syrian chemical weapons facilities wasted no time, ordnance or lives. Its purpose was clear, well-stated and well-served. It should be non-controversial. Still, he is attacked.
Famously, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, R-Mich., said in 1947 that “we must stop partisan politics at the water’s edge,” explaining his support for Democratic President Harry Truman’s foreign policy.
Where has that traditional consensus gone? Democrats senselessly pile on, joined by a small band of anti-Trump Republicans. The specter of such internal division is odd. It must be to our allies.
Be sure of this: These frivolous claims of illegality are watched, maybe even fanned, by our worst adversaries. Anything that divides us helps them.
Some days, the head spins listening to official Washington go to war with itself. In this instance, leading Democratic critics of President Trump cannot just say “thank you and well done.”
They must, it seems, twist this legally justified, masterfully concluded operation – one that serves the best-long term interests of America and the world – into an act worthy of partisan resistance.
When will this stop? When will we think again, as Vandenberg did, about the importance of unity for national security, national security for preserving moral values, and both as a way for making the world a better, safer place? If not a consensus around this event, then when?
For his extraordinary, thoughtful and entirely legal strike on Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure – establishing a new and higher level of credible deterrence to make the world a safer place – President Trump deserves our thanks, not our condemnation or attempts to limit his lawful authority as the commander-in-chief.  

Justice Dept. wants 'sanctuary' areas to prove they comply with laws

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.  (Associated Press photos)

The U.S. Justice Department last week sent another round of letters to the so-called sanctuary cities of Seattle and Oakland, as well as the state of Vermont, demanding further proof that they are cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The letters warn that the Justice Department could use subpoena power to force Seattle and Vermont to provide documents showing whether they are restricting information sharing between law enforcement agencies.
The department is further seeking a legal opinion on whether policies in Oakland's police manual violate the federal statute requiring information-sharing with federal immigration authorities.
"When cities and states enact policies that thwart the federal government's ability to enforce federal immigration law, they choose to place the protection of criminal aliens over the safety of their communities," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. "The Justice Department will not tolerate this intentional effort to undermine public safety and the rule of law, and I continue to remind all jurisdictions to reconsider policies that put their residents in harm's way."

"When cities and states enact policies that thwart the federal government's ability to enforce federal immigration law, they choose to place the protection of criminal aliens over the safety of their communities."

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan denounced the department's subpoena threat.
"Our city complies with federal immigration law and asks that the Department of Justice and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do the same," Durkan said in a statement Friday. "The federal government does not get to run our cities or convert our local law enforcement officials into immigration cops. I implore this administration to focus on real public safety threats, like the opioid crisis, instead of unnecessarily threatening our residents and mayors across the country."

"The federal government does not get to run our cities or convert our local law enforcement officials into immigration cops."
- Jenny Durkan, mayor of Seattle

In February, Durkan issued a directive requiring that all requests for city information or access by immigration authorities be routed through her office, the Seattle Times reported.
She further weighed in on the new pressure from the DOJ over Seattle’s immigration policies, the Times report said.
“Unlike some in the Trump administration, Seattle respects the rule of law,” the mayor, a former U.S. attorney, said. “Our city is tasked with protecting public safety for all people who call Seattle home. We will also protect our residents from unjust law-enforcement actions.”
Thursday’s DOJ letter requesting documents gives the city a May 14 deadline, the Seattle Times reported.
Justin Berton, a spokesman for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, said the city attorney, Barbara J. Parker, is reviewing the letter.
Parker issued a statement saying “Oakland is proud to be a sanctuary city and is in compliance with federal immigration law, KRON 4 Bay Area reported. She said the city will respond to the letter “at the appropriate time.”

Libby Schaaf, mayor of Oakland, Calif.  (Law Breaker!)

“Our sanctuary city policy encourages the community to work with police and helps law enforcement to solve and prevent crimes in our city,” Parker said in the statement. “We will continue to focus our resources on fighting crime, rather than tearing apart Oakland families and making our city less safe.”
The Justice Department has threatened to deny grant money from communities that refuse to share such information.
However, a federal judge Wednesday sided with the city of Los Angeles and issued a nationwide injunction prohibiting the Justice Department from tying federal grants to local police departments’ cooperation with ICE, Axios reported.
The Justice Department also notified the District of Columbia and the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government in Kentucky that there is no evidence either jurisdiction is currently out of compliance with the federal statute.

Starbucks issues apology over arrest of two men

Article is about two big snowflakes crying and political correctness. 

Starbucks has issued an apology after a viral video showed two black men being arrested for refusing to leave when a store employee denied them access to the restroom.  (AP)

Starbucks has issued an apology after a viral video showed two black men being arrested for refusing to leave when a store employee denied them access to the restroom.
According to Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, a Starbucks employee called 911 Thursday to report the two for "trespassing.” The employee told officers that the two men came in and asked to use the restroom but were not allowed to do so because they hadn’t purchased anything, which Ross said is company policy.
After police arrived, Ross said they asked the men to leave three times but they refused. They were arrested but ultimately released after the company decided not to pursue charges.
The video shows officers handcuffing the two while another man is overheard saying he was meeting the men, calling the arrest “ridiculous.”
Facing major backlash, Starbucks issued an apology on Twitter Saturday morning.
The incident prompted accusations of racism, but Ross quickly dismissed claims of wrongdoing by the officers.
"As an African-American male, I am very aware of implicit bias; we are committed to fair and unbiased policing," he said. But he added, "If a business calls and they say that 'someone is here that I no longer wish to be in my business,'" the officers have "a legal obligation to carry out their duties and they did just that."
He said the officers "did absolutely nothing wrong" and were professional in their conduct toward the individuals but "got the opposite back."
The mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney, has since ordered the city’s Commission on Human Relations to review Starbucks’ policy.

Gun rights supporters hold rallies at state capitols across US

An estimated 160 pro-gun supporters participated in a gun-rights rally at the Atlanta statehouse on Saturday.  (Associated Press)

Gun rights advocates rallied at state capitols across the country on Saturday to make their voices heard amid recent efforts to impose stricter gun-control laws that they fear undermine their Second Amendment rights.
Peaceful protesters numbering in the hundreds gathered outside statehouses from Maine to Wyoming to hear speakers warn that any restrictions on gun ownership or use could eventually lead to bans for law-abiding gun owners.
“Gun owners have been portrayed in a negative way and it is our hope that this peaceable rally will show that we are safe, law-abiding individuals that happen to take our constitutional rights very seriously,” Dave Gulya, an organizer for the Maine event that attracted about 800 people, told the Bangor Daily News.
The National Constitutional Coalition of Patriotic Americans sponsored the 45 planned rallies across the U.S. in support of the right to bear arms, according to the paper.
"If you have a building and you take a brick out every so often, after a while you're not going to have a building," said Westley Williams, who joined about 100 people outside the state Supreme Court building in Cheyenne, Wyo.
An estimated 160 Second Amendment supporters rallied in Atlanta, with some carrying firearms, flags and signs saying “Don’t Tread on Me” as they listened to speakers talk about gun rights.

Gun rights activists with the National Constitutional Coalition of Patriotic Americans take part in a national rally aimed at pushing back against calls for stronger gun control measures outside the state Capitol Saturday in Albany, N.Y.  (Associated Press)

Protesters in Vermont took to the steps of the Statehouse in Montpelier, where days earlier they felt Gov. Phil Scott “betrayed” them when he signed three major gun control measures.
“Three days ago, on these steps, we were betrayed," Joe Nagle told the Burlington Free Press. "We were promised no new gun laws."
The paper reported that the National Rifle Association criticized Scott, a Republican, and called on gun owners to abandon the governor, who changed his stance in February after an alleged school shooting plot shook the state.

Mead Russell West posing with a copy of the U.S. Constitution at a gun rally Saturday in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court in Cheyenne, Wyo.  (Associated Press)

Saturday's protests came less than three weeks after hundreds of thousands marched in Washington, New York and elsewhere to demand tougher gun laws after the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17. Organizers of those protests demanded a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and called for universal background checks on potential gun owners.
Pro-gun protesters also showed up in Boston; Indianapolis; Albany, N.Y.; Austin, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and other cities.

A man holding a 3% flag as a group recited the pledge during a pro gun-rights rally at the state capitol in Austin, Texas.  (Associated Press)

"We've got to stop being quiet," Nagle told the Free Press.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Cartoons

US warships, B-1 bombers strike against Assad after suspected chemical attack

The United States on Friday announced it approved precision military strikes on Syria after alleging that the Assad regime used chemical weapons in a recent attack in the country.
The size of the strike was twice the size of the U.S. assault last year. Fox News confirmed that warships and U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers were used in Friday's bombing campaign.
The B-1 bombers flew out of Qatar and have the ability to fire from 600 miles away. U.S. guided-missile destroyers can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles with a maximum range of  1,500 miles.
President Trump called the assault "a combined operation with the armed  forces of France and the United Kingdom." The U.S. said Russia was not notified about the strike.
Defense Secretary James Mattis said no follow-up attacks are planned.  He said the Pentagon was careful to ensure the safety of Russian troops and Syrian civilians in the area. There were three targets in the strikes as opposed to the single airbase in last year's assault.
"Clearly the Assad regime did not get the message last year," Mattis said. "This time our allies and we have struck harder."
Mattis said the U.S. intelligence has determined that the Syrian government used chlorine gas in last Saturday's poison attack.
Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., said a pre-designed scenario is being implemented.
“Again, we are being threatened," he said. "We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences. All responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris."
Trump, in the meantime, touted the support of two major allies who also blame the chemical attacks on Assad.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the operation was targeting the "clandestine chemical arsenal."
British Prime Minister Theresa May said she "authorized British armed forces to conduct coordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the Syrian Regime’s chemical weapons capability and deter their use."
Trump's announcement immediately preceded reports of loud explosions lighting up the sky in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Syrian TV reported that Syrian air defenses responded to the U.S.-British-French attack. There have been multiple strikes against at least two sites, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said late Friday from the Pentagon.
"Important infrastructure was destroyed," Dunford said, noting that sites associated with the Syrian chemical weapons program were both "targeted and destroyed."
Trump said the U.S. is prepared to "sustain" pressure on Assad until he ends what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons.
At least 40 people died in the chemical attack in Douma last Saturday, about 10 miles east of Damascus, and over 500 people, mostly women and children, were injured and brought to medical centers.
The attack occurred amid a resumed offensive by Syrian government forces after the collapse of a truce. Syrian activists, rescuers and medics said families suffocated in their homes.
Assad's actions, Trump said, "are not the actions of a man," but "are the crimes of a monster instead."
A similar chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017 that killed nearly 100 people prompted the U.S. to launch dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons in the future, officials said. But during the weekend, images of dead and sick women and children again circulated following another alleged chemical attack.
Trump also hit Russia and Iran for their sustained support of the Assad regime.
"The nations of the world can be judged by the friends that they keep," he continued. "Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or continue with civilized nations."