Trump, Kushner get win as prison reform bill passes House in overwhelming vote

Trump 2020 Campaign senior advisor Katrina Pierson, Democratic strategist Kevin Walling, Olympic Media managing editor Katie Frates and retired NYPD lieutenant Darrin Porcher discuss President Trump's call on Congress to deliver him a prison reform bill.
President Donald Trump and his son-in-law scored a legislative victory Tuesday after the House overwhelmingly approved a prison reform bill that aims to help ex-convicts rebuild their lives after their release from prison.
The so-called First Step Act was authored by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Doug Collins, R-Ga., who also worked closely with the White House -- particularly Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser, who advocated for the reform after witnessing how his father, Charles Kushner, was treated in prison.
The act would provide $250 million over five years to expand and support programs that reduce reoffending rates and encourage good behavior, the New York Post reported.
It would also require prisoners to be housed within 500 miles from their relatives and prohibit prisons from shackling pregnant women. Some prisoners would also be allowed to spend more of their sentences in a halfway house or home confinement.

“President Trump promised to fight for the forgotten men and women of this country — and that includes those in prison.”

“President Trump promised to fight for the forgotten men and women of this country — and that includes those in prison,” Kushner wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.  (Reuters)

“America is a nation that believes in the power of redemption,” Trump said Friday at a prison reform summit at the White House. “America is a nation that believes in second chances, and third chances, in some cases. And, I don’t know, I guess even fourth chances.”
The reform effort earned support from multiple diverse groups, including Dream Corps’ #cut50 initiative – a movement led by CNN analyst Van Jones, a longtime critic of Trump, Mother Jones magazine reported.
But Jones’ support for the bill heralded by Kushner came under fire from progressive Democrats who oppose working with the Trump administration. ShareBlue media’s Oliver Willis accused Jones of aiding racism, tweeting: “Van provides window dressing so racist administration can point to their black friend without really doing anything.”
“Aiding Donald Trump is aiding racism. And Van Jones is aiding Trump (even worse he did a dog n pony show for Ivanka, Jared, and Rick Perry). It was gross and disgusting,” Willis added in another tweet, prompting mockery for opposing a reform that helps inmates.
Jeffries said his bill would give additional funding to programs that allow inmates to attend vocational and college courses and get help with mental health and substance abuse issues.
“These are individuals who are in the system right now without hope, without opportunity, without a meaningful chance at transforming themselves,” Jeffries said on the House floor. “And the First Step Act will provide that. … Why would we possibly refuse that?”
The bill now moves to the Senate where it will face a tough battle as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he wants any prison reform linked to sentencing reforms as well.

A civil war is looming for Democrats. Primary results Tuesday in four states explain why

Cindy Benton celebrates after voting in the Arkansas primary election on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 in Little Rock, Ark. The Democratic and Republican parties held elections Tuesday, while all registered voters were allowed to vote in judicial elections.  (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel)

As the Democratic Party struggles to find its identity this primary season, it’s clear that Tuesday’s contests continued to show the internal struggle for the party’s future direction.
The results speak volumes: progressives are overwhelmingly beating their more moderate primary opponents and uncertainty remains around the Democratic Party’s ability to retake the House in November
The growing progressive insurgency presents serious questions for the Democratic Party as it continues its leftward movement.
In particular, two gubernatorial primaries demonstrated the tension between progressives and moderate candidates who are arguably more electable in November.

Progressives are overwhelmingly beating their more moderate primary opponents and uncertainty remains around the Democratic Party’s ability to retake the House in November.

In Georgia, former state House Minority Leader and staunch progressive Stacey Abrams defeated moderate former State Rep. Stacey Evans by an overwhelming margin of 74 percent to 26 percent.
Abrams, who is now one step closer to becoming the nation’s first African-American female governor, notably received an endorsement from former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who recorded a robocall on her behalf.
Abrams is also backed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, along with his progressive super PAC, Our Revolution.
On the Republican side in the race for governor of Georgia, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp advanced to compete against each other in a July 24 runoff. They were the two finishers in a field of six Republican candidates.
Moving west, Texas’ gubernatorial race also showed signs of the Democratic base favoring a progressive over a moderate.  Progressive Lupe Valdez, the state’s first Latina sheriff, defeated moderate Andrew White, who was known for his appeal to suburban voters and personal opposition to abortion.
In terms of congressional primaries, Georgia’s 6^th District in suburban Atlanta – where Republican Karen Handel won last year in a special election that was the most expensive in House race in history – will see a Democratic runoff in June to compete against her in November. Moderate former TV news anchor Bobby Kaple, who supports prudent changes to the Affordable Care Act, will face community activist Lucy McBath, a proponent of gun control and the mother of a son who was shot and killed.
Another primary pitting moderate and progressive Democrats against one another played out in Kentucky’s Lexington-based 6th District, where has been held by Republicans since 2012. The national party recruited Lexington Mayor Jim Gray to run for the Democratic nomination, but Marine Corps veteran and first-time candidate Amy McGrath won by a considerable margin
In November, McGrath will face three-term incumbent Republican Rep. Andy Barr, who most recently won reelection in 2016 by more than 20 points.
There were, however, three consequential elections in which moderate Democratic candidates prevailed. These elections, all in Texas, took place in three of Texas’ 23 Republican-held congressional districts where Hillary Clinton beat President Trump in 2016.
Perhaps the most critical race that epitomized the growing civil war within the Democratic Party between moderates and the emboldened progressive faction took place in Texas’ 7th District in the Houston suburbs. Moderate Democrat and former attorney Lizzie Panill Fletcher defeated Our Revolution-endorsed progressive Laura Moser.
Despite controversy surrounding the involvement of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in this race and its decision to release opposition research against Moser, Fletcher overcame the insurgent Moser and will now face potentially vulnerable Republican incumbent John Culberson in November.
In Texas’s 23^rd District, occupying a large swath of west Texas along the U.S.-Mexican border, DCCC-endorsed Gina Ortiz Jones beat out the severely underfunded Rick Trevino, an activist and former Bernie Sanders delegate backed by the Sanders-affiliated group Our Revolution.
Ortiz Jones, an Iraq War veteran and Obama administration alumna, will now face Republican Rep. Will Hurd in November.
Texas’ 32^nd District in the northern suburbs of Dallas also represented a win for a moderate, former Obama administration official. Colin Allred, a DCCC-endorsed former NFL player and Department of Housing and Urban Development attorney, emerged victorious over a more progressive primary opponent Lillian Salerno. He will face incumbent Republican Rep. Pete Sessions in November.
Overall, Tuesday’s results prove that the problematic trend of far-left progressives winning Democratic primaries over moderate centrists continues, showing that the party is more divided than ever.
It is time to move forward with a plan that unifies, rather than divides the party, or squander the opportunity to retake either chamber of Congress in November.

Caputo says Mueller team didn't seem to care about alleged informants in Trump campaign

Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo opened up to Fox News about alleged informants who approached him during the 2016 presidential election, and revealed that special investigators didn’t seem to care at all.
“I gave this information to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and I gave this information to the Mueller team. They never reached out to the intermediary to check on it,” he told Neil Cavuto Tuesday on “Your World.” “They didn't even seem to be taking notes.”
Caputo said he was approached in early May 2016 by an intermediary “who had been talking to a government official” looking to connect with the Trump campaign -- purportedly to hand off Hillary Clinton-related emails.
Caputo told Cavuto that this intermediary is a friend of his willing to go on the record at the right time. He noted both were amazed to be contacted from a government organization, which he didn’t name.
Caputo said actual staff members of the government agency had Clinton’s emails. He noted he didn’t want possession of these emails, thinking they might be classified documents. He urged the intermediary to go through proper whistleblower channels.
He also said he didn’t want to bring the information to the Trump campaign for fear of looking “kooky.”
Caputo added, “It was frightening to me. It could be a crime for me to take them into my own custody.”
He also noted he didn’t think much about the incident until WikiLeaks revealed information about the Clinton campaign in October 2016.
Caputo had been detailing from revelations he previously disclosed.
"When we finally find out the truth about this, Director Clapper and the rest of them will be wearing some orange suits," Caputo said on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" Monday night, referring to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Fox News also has confirmed that the original reported informant was in communication with at least three campaign officials.
The informant spoke with Trump campaign adviser Sam Clovis, in addition to Carter Page and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
A source told Fox News' John Roberts that Clovis met with the informant, whom he knew to be a professor, and had a conversation related to China. The source told Fox News that Russia did not come up.
The source told Fox News that Clovis received a follow-up email from the individual in the months before the election with research material on China, and another email on the day after the election congratulating the campaign.

Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

Investigating the investigators: Why the Trump probes are now a morass

So just to bring you up to date:
--The FBI used an informant to spy on Trump campaign aides who had contacts with Russia. The New York Times and Washington Post extensively described the man and what he did, based on FBI leaks, but refused to publish his name out of concern for his safety. Their narratives enabled several mostly smaller outlets to identify the retired American professor living in London, leaving the big organizations protecting a secret that is no longer secret.
--The president of the United States then demanded that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI or DOJ infiltrated or surveilled his campaign for political purposes. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, who the president may or may not be trying to force out, asked the department's inspector general to look into the matter.
--At the same time, DOJ is resisting a subpoena from House intel chairman Devin Nunes for all documents related to the professor—but not his name—which the panel has been trying to get for months.
--Hours before Gina Haspel was sworn in as CIA director yesterday, Trump went on a Twitter tear against Barack Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, for having disgraced himself and the country, blaming Brennan for ginning up the whole Russia probe as a political hit job. Brennan says Trump is on a disastrous path.
--Trump also lambasted the Justice Department for not continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton over her email server, and questioned why the brother of her campaign chairman, Tony Podesta, has not been charged in conection with his lobbying work.
--And the Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. met with an emissary for two Arab princes who wanted to offer help to the campaign, a story the president dismissed as boring.
Got it?
And that's without getting into Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti, the hush money to Stormy Daniels, and other allegations swirling around the president.
During a break in my show on Sunday, the assembled journalists agreed that it is becoming increasingly hard, even for those of us who do this seven days a week, to keep unraveling every thread of this tangle of investigations and allegations.
So what must it be like for average Americans who are busy with work and family and couldntt tell Carter Page from George Papadopoulos?
I believe much of the country, despite the nonstop media coverage, is tuning this out, or that it's been reduced to background noise. That means Trump has, at least for now, neutralized what the press is casting as a grave threat to his political survival. Maybe that's why his approval ratings are inching up.
There are monumental issues at stake here. From the right, it seems outrageous that the Obama administration would use a secret informant who's had past dealings with the CIA to infiltrate an opposing presidential campaign. And Trump's push to investigate the investigators is viewed as justified because of "deep state" opposition, with the side benefit of undercutting the Robert Mueller investigation.
From the left, it seems outrageous that a president would force his own Justice Department to investigate a duly authorized probe that, despite charges of politicization, the FBI managed to keep secret until the final days of the campaign. And Trump's continued insistence on investigating his defeated opponent and other Democrats is viewed as shattering all previous presidential norms.
But when you have this endless cycle of charges and countercharges on such complicated issues, it can all seem like a blur.
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.

Dear Republicans: To end Senate Democrats' obstruction, make them talk, make them work, make them vote

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 17, 2016.  (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Speaker Newt Gingrich was fond of saying “The Democrats are our adversaries.  The Senate is our enemy.”  The Senate has long been a frustration to the impatient warriors for change.  Its rules and culture are intentionally designed to be slow and deliberative, in contrast to the quick-moving partisan House.
Today, Republicans have control over all the levers of power.  The White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the state legislatures, and the governors -- they are all dominated by Republicans.  The conservative grassroots is rightfully expecting big things after years of promises.  And big things are happening.  The Trump administration is moving rapidly on a deregulatory agenda to use the administrative powers to advance conservative principles. The states are leading change in a wide range of areas -- right to work, fiscal responsibility, education freedom, and health care, to name a few.  And finally, nearly every week, the House of Representatives passes legislation with conservative reforms.
Conspicuously absent is the United States Senate.  Other than tax reform and judicial confirmations, the Senate has accomplished very little this year, and restless conservatives are eager for improvement.
In fact, as recently as last week, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., led a group of fifteen Republican senators in sending a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., imploring him to let the Senate work. Outside conservative groups are making the same request.
If senators want to avoid a last minute, $1.3 trillion spending bill in December, fight back against Democratic obstruction and achieve conservative policy victories, they need to double down – before their month-long August break.
Even President Trump has echoed this request, calling on Congress to stay in town until they pass legislation to fund the government.

The second thing is to make them work. The Senate currently works an average of 2.5 days a week. Holding the Senate in town on Fridays and weekends would advance the Trump agenda while preventing the Democrats from going home to campaign for re-election

How can Republicans in the Senate force action in the face of Democrat obstruction? Three simple things: Make Democrats SPEAK. Make them WORK. Make them VOTE.
The first and most obvious, is to make them speak.  When most Americans think about a filibuster, we are reminded of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  Yet today, what do we see when we turn on CSPAN to watch a so-called filibuster? 
Most often, you will see nothing happening, and there will be a note on the TV screen saying, “the Senate is conducting a quorum call.”  But the clerk is not reading the names.  This is because the Senate Majority Leader has instructed the clerk to read the names slowly as a delay mechanism. 
In effect, it is not the Democrats who are filibustering; it is the clerk!  One easy change would be to instruct the clerk to actually read the names at a normal pace. Once the roll is called and a quorum is produced (this usually takes 15 minutes), the Democrats would either be forced to do an actual filibuster, or the Senate would immediately vote on the pending bill or nomination.
The second thing is to make them work.  The Senate currently works an average of 2.5 days a week.  Yes, 2.5 days.  They come in on Monday night, vote on an inconsequential nomination, and then they leave town after lunch on Thursday.  Not only is this resulting in an anemic pace of legislative achievement, it is helping the Democrats win re-election. 
Twenty-six Senate Democrats and only five Republicans are seeking re-election this year. Seven of those Democrats are in Republican-leaning states and two more are in toss-up states. With the exception of Dean Heller of Nevada and the seat currently held by Jeff Flake of Arizona, who is not seeking reelection, all the Republican senators seeking re-election are in relatively safe seats.
In other words, it is the Democrats who want to go home and campaign.  Holding the Senate in town on Fridays and weekends would advance the Trump agenda while preventing the Democrats from going home to campaign for re-election. Before the Virginia elections last fall, the Senate recessed on Thursday, November 2 at lunchtime, allowing Virginia’s senators to barnstorm the state all weekend, while Trump nominees languished without any votes.
Third, deploy the Two Speech Rule. Senate Rule 19 restricts senators to two speeches on any bill. Far from being nuclear, this rule is as old as the Senate. Indeed in Jefferson’s Manual. By keeping senators in town, making them talk, and restricting them to their allotted two speeches, you would force the Democrats to actually work. Eventually they would tire, filibusters would end, and votes would commence.
Finally, trust the American people. Notwithstanding the media noise and the inside the beltway blather, the American people have common sense. They see through the games.  To demonstrate this we need look no further than the latest government funding fight.  The Democrat plan was to close the government hoping to force Republicans to swallow an amnesty bill.  The geniuses inside the beltway claim that Republicans always take the blame for every shutdown, even when the Democrats are the obvious cause. But this is because usually, the Republicans cave. 
This time, Republicans stuck to their guns.  And the public saw through the cynical game the Democrats were playing, Sen. Schumer got smart and reversed course. They didn’t need 60 votes, or even 51.  The bill passed unanimously, with consent. It didn’t even need a vote.
Message to the Republican senators: Work hard, trust your principles, use the weapons at your disposal, and trust the American people, and victory will be yours. 
Adam Brandon is the president of FreedomWorks.
Jim DeMint is a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina and currently Chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute.

House Republicans to call for second special counsel to investigate alleged FISA abuse, Hillary Clinton probe

A group of congressional Republicans plans to introduce a resolution Tuesday calling for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate alleged misconduct at the FBI and Justice Department.
The resolution is backed by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus as well as two of the group's co-founders -- Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla.
Fox News has learned the 12-page resolution will ask a second special counsel to probe matters related to three topics: The ending of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's personal email server, the progress of the Trump-Russia investigation from its origins through the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, and abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the warrant application process.
The resolution is expected to say that a second special counsel would have greater autonomy to investigate those issues than the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General. Last week, Inspector General Michael Horowitz told lawmakers that he had completed his draft report on the Clinton investigation and submitted it to the DOJ and the FBI.
In March, Horowitz said he would also look into allegations that FBI and Justice Department officials abused their surveillance powers by using information compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy, and paid for by Democrats to justify monitoring Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to Trump.
At the time, Horowitz said his office would look at those claims as well as communications between Steele and DOJ and FBI officials.
Over the weekend, the Justice Department announced it had asked the watchdog to expand that investigation by examining whether any improper politically motivated surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016 took place.

In messaging shift, Democrats are now the ones promising to 'drain the swamp'

Democrats are now employing a familiar rallying cry that helped define President Trump's presidential campaign, a combative messaging shift ahead of what analysts say will be a bruising midterm election season.
Expect to hear Democrats urging voters to "drain the swamp" this time around, observers say, because their internal polling has shown that the electorate is increasingly concerned about weeding out corruption in Washington a year and a half after Trump's win.
"President Trump has embraced the most egregious establishment Republican norms and appointed the most conflict-of-interest-ridden Cabinet in my lifetime,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, told reporters Monday.
He added: “The swamp has never been more foul, or more fetid, than under this president.”
The move is a shift for Democrats, who last summer emphasized their positive plans to improve the economy, instead of taking shots at Trump and supposed cronyism in the White House, The Hill reported.
Last year's "Better Deal" program is out, replaced by a new "Better Deal for Our Democracy" slogan that's meant to emphasize the party's pledge to reduce the influence of lobbyists and implement stricter campaign finance laws.
And Democrats are widely expected to focus not just on the ongoing probe into key members of President Trump's campaign staff, but also on the alleged misdeeds of top administration officials, including EPA chief Scott Pruit, former HHS secretary Tom Price, and HUD head Ben Carson.
“Instead of delivering on his promise to ‘drain the swamp,’ President Trump has become the swamp,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said Monday. “We want Republicans and their corrupt, big donor-driven agenda to get out of the way. It has given the American people a raw deal.”
The new messaging is something of a return to form for Pelosi, who famously vowed in 2006 to "drain the swamp" just prior to becoming the first female speaker of the House in history. The midterm elections that year ended more than a decade of GOP control of the House. Democrats aren't the only ones accusing President Trump of abandoning his campaign pledge. Earlier this month, Fox News' Neil Cavuto acknowledged that some media coverage of the White House has been unfair, but excoriated Trump for contributing to the problem.
“Let me be clear, Mr. President,” Cavuto said. “How can you drain the swamp if you’re the one who keeps muddying the waters?
"You didn’t know about the $130,000 payment to a porn star, until you did,” he added. “Said you knew nothing about how your former lawyer handled this, until you acknowledged today that you were the guy behind the retainer payment that took care of this. You insist that money from the campaign or campaign contributions played no role in this transaction. Of that you’re sure. The thing is, not even 24 hours ago, sir, you couldn’t recall any of this.”