Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Cartoons

Judge in Manafort trial says he's been threatened over case

Jurors in the trial of ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were sent home for the weekend, as the judge in the fraud trial revealed Friday he has received threats over the case and now travels with U.S. Marshals.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, in rejecting a motion to release juror information to the media, argued that he's confident the jurors would be threatened as well if their information were to be made public.
“I can tell you there have been [threats]. ... I don't feel right if I release their names,” he said, adding that because of threats against him, “The Marshals go where I go.”
The startling revelation came as the jury completed its second day of deliberations without a verdict. The jury will reconvene Monday.
Ellis, a famously prickly judge known for his colorful comments, has attracted considerable attention during the Manafort trial for his frequent sparring with the attorneys -- particularly those on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team.
Earlier Friday morning, Ellis acknowledged facing pushback about how he’s handled this case. He told attorneys “I’m no stranger to criticism,” but said “this case has brought it to a new level.”
The juror motion itself was filed by multiple news organizations – the Washington Post, New York Times, AP, CNN, NBC, Politico and BuzzFeed. They sought to unseal records in the case, including information about the jurors.
Rejecting the request about the jury, Ellis said “to [grant it] would create a risk of harm to them.”
The judge also denied a motion to unseal all the bench conferences and sidebars, which have been sealed. Ellis said all that will be released to the public at the end of the trial.
After a trial spanning nearly three weeks, Manafort, 69, is awaiting a verdict on 18 tax evasion and bank fraud charges.
He has been accused of hiding income earned from his Ukrainian political work from the IRS. He’s also accused of fraudulently obtaining millions in bank loans.

“The Marshals go where I go."
- U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III

Manafort has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Since the jury began deliberating Thursday, the defense has been expressing increasing confidence about its chances. Kevin Downing, Manafort's attorneny, told reporters he sees the continued deliberations as "a great sign for the defense."
He echoed those remarks after the jury sent Ellis a note Friday asking to end deliberations for the day because one juror has an event.
On Thursday, Ellis read aloud another note detailing four questions from the jury, which covered foreign financial accounts, shelf companies, the definition of reasonable doubt and other evidence in the case.
In closing arguments this week, prosecutor Greg Andres told the jury, "The government asks you to return the only verdict that is consistent with the evidence, which is guilty on all charges."
It takes a unanimous guilty verdict from all 12 jurors to convict on each count.
Fox News' Peter Doocy contributed to this report.
Alex Pappas is a politics reporter at FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexPappas.

Newt Gingrich: Democrats have no idea what demons they are unleashing

A few weeks ago, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote an article for Vox explaining the movement’s goals – to end capitalism and radically change America.
In normal times, the declarations of a fringe party and ideology in America would not merit much attention. However, these are not normal times. A new Gallup poll shows that 57 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of socialism – while only 47 percent view capitalism positively.
This pattern has been building for a while. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont took socialism mainstream in the party during the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries. Since then, Democratic Party candidates have been increasingly attaching themselves to the ideology.
Most notably, a telegenic young member of the Democratic Socialists of America named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated a senior Democrat in New York City’s 14^th Congressional District and has since been on a whirlwind media tour, spreading the gospel of socialism.
So the Vox article (or manifesto) is worth taking seriously. Reading it, I was struck by how remarkably honest it was.
The writer, Meagan Day, a member of the East Bay Chapter of DSA, explicitly debunks the apologists in the mainstream media trying to paper over the group’s radicalism.
Day quotes several prominent news “analysts” who argue that Democratic Socialism is just New Deal liberalism rebranded. She then dumps a bucket of cold water on them, writing that “in the long run, Democratic Socialists want to end capitalism.”
In fact, she writes that the liberal, big-government reforms the movement has chosen to rally behind in partnership with the Democratic Party are simply steppingstones to this eventual goal.
“Social democratic reforms like Medicare-for-all are, in the eyes of DSA, part of the long, uneven process of building that support, and eventually overthrowing capitalism,” she writes.
This explicit goal of ending capitalism makes clear what Ocasio-Cortez meant when she said cryptically in a recent interview, that “capitalism has not always existed in the world, and it will not always exist in the world.”
This is a clear threat to the system which has made us prosperous and the envy of the world, but I appreciate the honesty. Ultimately, the United States is a democratic republic.
If Day, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders want to try and convince most Americans to end capitalism and embrace a planned, totally redistributionist economy, they are welcome to use the democratic process to do so. It is up to those of us who know better to convince Americans of socialism’s folly.
However, the second notable item in Day’s article suggests that Democratic Socialists don’t value democracy all that much. Day also identified herself as a staff writer at a New York-based, socialist magazine called Jacobin. In fact, several members of the Democratic Socialists of America are writers and editors at Jacobin magazine.
A magazine that would enthusiastically embrace this title is signaling that, like socialist movements of the past, the DSA is willing to drop the “democratic” part of its moniker and instead rely on the traditional method for socialist revolution – bloodshed, violence and tyranny.
The Jacobins were the most violent and radical political group of the French Revolution. Led by Maximilien Robespierre, the group responded to a growing backlash against the revolution by executing anyone their so-called Committee of Public Safety deemed insufficiently loyal.
The Jacobin clubs located throughout the country were used as a secret police force to root out dissent among politicians and the general populace alike.
Historian Timothy Tackett estimates that almost 40,000 people were killed under the Jacobin control of the French government. Many were beheaded by guillotine in a grotesque public spectacle after a show trial, and others were brutally executed with firearms.
In the case of one period in the city of Lyon, people were executed en masse by cannon fire. This period of carnage was known as the Reign of Terror.
A few years ago, Callista and I saw “Dialogues of the Carmelites” at the Washington National Opera. It is a moving, true story of the Carmelite nuns who refused to denounce Christ at the peak of the Reign of Terror. (The French Revolution was virulently anti-Catholic – many churches were closed and reopened as “Temples of Reason.”)

The nuns were beheaded for their unwillingness to denounce their faith. Moments before the guillotine dropped, they displayed the power of God’s love by singing hymns and renewing their vows.
A few years later we visited the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. It holds the graves of the martyred nuns and more than 1,300 victims of the Terror in a six-week period of 1794. It is a very sober reminder of what the Jacobins did during the Reign of Terror. It is not a record for which any American should advocate.
Christopher Hibbert’s “The French Revolution” contains more vivid details of the horrors the Jacobins inflicted upon the people of France. In one instance, he writes, “a woman was charged with the heinous crime of having wept at the execution of her husband. She was condemned to sit several hours under the suspended blade which shed upon her, drop by drop, the blood of the deceased whose corpse was above her on the scaffold before she was released by death from her agony.”
Make no mistake: This is the history of violent revolution, religious oppression, and dictatorship that Jacobin magazine, the DSA, and opportunistic Democrats are embracing – whether they know it or not.
Sen. Sanders, and more have recently shared articles from Jacobin magazine on their social media accounts. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., once sent a Jacobin piece to everyone in Congress.
It is hard to imagine a modern-day Reign of Terror happening in America. But consider the recent phenomenon of outrage mobs on social media demanding people be fired and ostracized for expressing un-PC points of view.
Think about the left-wing activists taking over classrooms to prevent conservative voices from speaking. Think about the rash of people being attacked for wearing MAGA hats. Think about the violence of Antifa.
Perhaps it is not so difficult to imagine.
While I do not know Ocasio-Cortez, I have interacted with Bernie Sanders numerous times in my career. He is an earnest guy, and I seriously doubt he would countenance violence in pursuit of his socialist goals.
Sanders should keep in mind, however, that the Jacobins eventually turned on Robespierre (in fact they executed him). So perhaps Sanders and Democrats rushing to embrace Democratic Socialism should be a little more careful about the demons they are unleashing to win elections.
Newt Gingrich is a Fox News contributor. A Republican, he was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Follow him on Twitter @NewtGingrich. His latest book is "Trump’s America: The Truth About Our Nation’s Great Comeback.”

If Ocasio-Cortez is going to run from debate, then she isn't really running

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist congressional candidate from New York City, missed an opportunity when she recently refused conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro’s invitation to debate.
By turning down Shapiro’s offer to donate $10,000 to her campaign if she would agree to a one-hour televised debate on the issues and her socialist ideas, Ocasio-Cortez gave up a significant amount of money. But more importantly, she showed she is afraid to defend her radical leftist ideas in a debate.
Since the House of Representatives is in the business of debating legislation whenever it is in session, it seems curious that a candidate who is afraid to debate wants to become a member. Will she remain silent on the House floor and in committee meetings her entire time in Congress?
Because she is running in a heavily Democratic district, Ocasio-Cortez, 28, is the overwhelming favorite to win the November election and represent the district in the House.
The first-time candidate also showed this week that she doesn’t want her ideas scrutinized by the media, when she barred the media from covering a campaign event she held in New York City.
Will she be introducing a bill in Congress to prevent the reporters and C-SPAN from the House chamber? Winning passage of this measure would be difficult if she refused to participate in a debate about it.
I was the captain of the debate team and a teacher of the debate class in high school, and debating taught me and other students a great deal.
High school debate was incredibly competitive. Despite what some idealists may think, the goal was not to better understand the nuances of the issues and agree on a path forward – it was to win.
Often, these debates could be more show than substance. Half the battle was managing your appearance and currying favor with the judge. Nevertheless, I would leave every tournament, whether we won or lost spectacularly, with a much stronger understanding of all sides of the issues discussed.
In a debate, you have to understand what you are debating or you will lose and come off losing foolish. You have to be able to make persuasive arguments to support your positon, and explain convincingly why the position of the other side is wrong.
It’s this marketplace of ideas that distinguishes America’s form of government from those in dictatorships, many of which have billed themselves as socialist or communist over the past 100 years. You won’t find meaningful candidate or parliamentary debates in these countries.
When challenged to a standard political debate by Shapiro, Ocasio-Cortez responded with a tweet: “Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions. And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one.”
Implying that Shapiro was making a sexual advance with “bad intentions” by calling for a televised debate is insulting, sexist and absurd.
If Ocasio-Cortez is elected to the House, will she accuse male and female members who want to debate her ideas of “catcalling” and “bad intentions?”
The only logical explanation for Ocasio-Cortez to refuse to debate and to keep the media out of her town hall event with voters is that she is afraid she will be unable to defend her radical socialist beliefs.
At the moment, the majority of Americans outside partisan circles have no strong opinions about Ocasio-Cortez – a fact that she could capitalize upon to appeal to a broader swath of voters, particularly if she seeks higher office. A highly publicized debate with a strong opponent like Shapiro would change all that.
Ocasio-Cortez’s position is made all the more difficult by the fact that she won her primary race as a populist, Democratic socialist with no background in policy.
As is common with populists and socialists throughout history, her political ascent was predicated on ambiguous, unattainable promises of free higher education, health care and many other benefits – all funded by higher taxes on “the rich.”
The problem is, the numbers simply don’t add up for those on the far left like Ocasio-Cortez. There aren’t enough rich people making enough money to pay for all the free goodies the far left promises voters. And if you raise taxes to confiscatory levels, “the rich” will either stop working or move out of the country.
Ocasio-Cortez may know enough to understand that the empty rhetoric that has brought her this far simply will not stand under the magnifying glass of reason and logic that a sharp debater like Shapiro would throw at her.
Even if Ocasio-Cortez was the best debater in world, defending the bankrupt and destructive philosophy of socialism would be quite a challenge. Once she got beyond the slogans, there wouldn’t be much to say.
If socialism and communism were such wonderful systems, after all, why have countries around the world jettisoned them in recent years and adopted capitalism – or at least modified capitalism – instead?
Why do people from around the world try to immigrate – both legally and illegally – to the United States if capitalism is so awful? You don’t see immigrants banging down the doors to enter China, North Korea, Cuba and other socialist and communist nations.
If Ocasio-Cortez made an embarrassing gaffe in a debate or a town hall open to the media, she could lose her star power. Therefore, the candidate and her allies have sought every excuse not to participate in debates – and now even to bar reporters from covering a town hall with voters.
To put it in liberal-speak, if someone is running for office, don’t they at least have a responsibility to face the American people and explain their views while being asked the tough questions that are warranted? And is that not exactly what Ben Shapiro has proposed?
In high school, one parent or coach judged the debates I participated in. My debate team won some and lost some, but we were willing to subject ourselves to the rigors of a battle of ideas. In elections, voters are the judge. Refusing to participate in debates deprives voters of information they need to make their decisions.
Critics argue that debates aren’t needed because with the polarizing, 24-hour news-cycle, people are already stone-set in their opinions. There is some truth to this. Those in Shapiro’s or Ocasio-Cortez’s respective bases are unlikely to reconsider their support based on a debate.
But one must also remember that many eligible voters don’t vote. As many as 45 percent of eligible Americans don’t vote in presidential elections and turnout is even lower in non-presidential election years.
Debates may not be conducive to convincing hard-set partisans, but they offer those undecided or indifferent the perfect opportunity to see what the candidates believe and how they comport themselves.
Any political candidate afraid to engage in debate ought to look for another line of work. A candidate afraid of debating makes a much sense as a pilot afraid of flying.
Adam Barsouk is a medical student at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and a researcher at the Hillman Cancer Center.

Dem candidates embrace gun control in campaign for House takeover

As the Democrats shift to the left on a number of issues from health care to immigration, they’ve already gone all in on one of the most contentious issues around -- gun control
A study by The Wall Street Journal found that of the 63 candidates on the House Democrats’ campaign arm’s list of seats to flip in November, 62 support expanded background checks for gun purchases.
While Dems have long pushed for gun control, there was a time when some candidates ignored the issue, included gun rights as part of their platform or even allied with the National Rifle Association. But support for gun control among candidates has hardened in recent years after a rash of high-profile mass shootings including at schools -- most recently the February shooting in Parkland, Florida.
That shift is being reflected in activity on the campaign trail, with more Democrats being more vocal on gun control and their advocacy of proposals such as background checks.
There has been a spike in spending on ads by Democrats that focus on gun control across gubernatorial, Senate and House races, according to USA Today. In 2014, there were 558 pro-gun control spots, mostly from Democrats. In 2018, that number had rocketed to 18,416, in comparison to 8,897 anti-gun control spots by mostly Republicans.
In the House races, pro-gun control ads represented about 67 percent of those with explicit messages on guns, compared to just six percent in 2014.
DEMOCRATS TEST-DRIVE NEW MIDTERM SLOGAN AFTER FIRST ONE IS MOCKED 
That has in turn led to some significant about-faces on the issue from long-time lawmakers. The Journal points to Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz. In a 2010 ad, she bragged about her “A” rating from the NRA, but last month she said she would ban “assault weapons” and was given an “F’ by the pro-gun rights group. She said her position changed after the shooting of former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011.
But while the move may rally the Democratic Party base, it may also give the Republican base a boost -- which has repeatedly shown itself more motivated on Second Amendment issues.
The National Republican Congressional Committee suggested that the move was the latest example of the Democratic Party catering to its left-wing base rather than everyday Americans.
“Republican members and candidates are focused on the issues that are important to their respective districts and Democrats are more concerned about appealing to the most radical elements of their party,” an NRCC spokesperson told Fox News.
Gun control is always risky politically for Democrats, who are wary of the political lesson learned from the 90s.
In September 1994 the Democratic-controlled Congress passed an assault weapons ban, which was subsequently signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Less than two months later the Republicans led by Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., took control of both the House and the Senate in what was dubbed the “Revolution of 94.”
But Democrats say that their shift represents the changing mood of the nation after a spate of devastating shootings in recent years.
“2018 could be the first year in which intensity on our side of the issue exceeds intensity on the other side,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told The Journal.
Democrats are likely to be buoyed by the victory of Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., in a March special election -- who won campaigning for background checks in a district Trump won in 2016.
Additionally a WSJ/NBC poll found that Democratic voters rated gun control the second-most important issues after healthcare. For Republicans, guns were fifth. In midterms, where the party which motivates its base can decide who takes control of the chambers in Congress, tapping into those issues could be key.
But it also represents a broader trend in the party of allowing less diversity on certain litmus issues. Last year DNC Chair Tom Perez said that being pro-choice on the subject of abortion was “non-negotiable.”
"Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state,” he said.

Brennan Cartoons

Joke's on Brennan for failing to find humor in Trump's remark, 'Dilbert' cartoonist says

Imagine a scenario in which a top intelligence officer places the U.S. at risk all because he couldn't discern when the president was joking. It almost sounds like the plot for a comic strip.
Well, that's exactly what happened in the case of former CIA Director John Brennan, according to Scott Adams, creator of the popular “Dilbert” strip.
In a Twitter message Thursday, Adams slammed Brennan, asserting that the former CIA chief in 2016 didn't realize that President Trump was joking when the then-candidate urged Russia to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails.
“So Brennan may have started one of the most important political witch hunts in history based on not recognizing a joke — and I’m not even making that up,” Adams wrote.

“So Brennan may have started one of the most important political witch hunts in history based on not recognizing a joke — and I’m not even making that up.”
- Scott Adams, creator of "Dilbert."

“I feel fairly confident in saying that what I just said is literally true: that the head of the CIA has almost destroyed the United States because he didn’t understand that an obvious joke was a joke.”
The comments came after Brennan lashed out at the White House for stripping him of his top security clearance Wednesday following a review of access granted to several top Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials.
The former CIA boss authored an explosive op-ed for the New York Times, saying that the president – by making the comment about Russia finding Clinton’s emails in July 2016 – encouraged and authorized his followers to collude with the Kremlin.
“The already challenging work of the American intelligence and law enforcement communities was made more difficult in late July 2016 … when Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, publicly called upon Russia to find the missing emails of Mrs. Clinton,” Brennan wrote.
“By issuing such a statement, Mr. Trump was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent,” he added.
The Trump administration justified the decision to revoke the security clearance of Brennan, saying he “has a history that calls his credibility into question,” and accused him of “leveraging” the clearance to make “wild outbursts” and claims about the current administration.
“The president has a constitutional responsibility to protect classified information and who has access to it, and that’s what he’s doing is fulfilling that responsibility in this action,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday.
But the cartoonist said Brennan deserved to lose the security clearance for not being able to distinguish an obvious joke at the height of a political race, a mistake that eventually led to efforts to investigate the Trump campaign.
“Now, if you’ve got a guy who’s willing to put the entire stability at risk because he can’t tell the difference between a joke and a serious statement, then that guy has got to lose his security clearance at least,” Adams said.
“I wouldn’t want him anywhere near a decision. Would you? After seeing how Brennan responded to a public joke would you want him to make any important decisions about anything?
"I mean, that’s some scary stuff,” Adams wrote.

Red state Democratic senators should listen to constituents and support Kavanaugh for Supreme Court

In the five weeks since President Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the Supreme Court, we have seen Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., take obstruction and hyper-partisanship to new heights.
Immediately following the president’s July 9 nomination of Kavanaugh – a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – Schumer vowed that he would oppose the nomination “with everything I’ve got.” If the weeks since are any indication, we should believe him.
Schumer has gone so far as to refuse to meet with Kavanaugh, and to encourage other Senate Democrats to also refuse to meet with the judge.
It is customary for the Senate leadership of both political parties to meet with a president’s nominee. In 2010, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., met with Elena Kagan the very first day she was on Capitol Hill, just two days after her nomination to the Supreme Court was announced by President Obama.
Likewise, Sonia Sotomayor met with nearly every senator of both parties the summer leading up to her confirmation as a justice on the high court.
To his credit, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., broke ranks with his party to sit down with Kavanaugh on July 30, calling the two-hour meeting “very productive.”
Shortly after Manchin announced that he would meet with Kavanaugh, Sens. Joe Donnelly D-Ind., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., also scheduled meetings with the nominee. Those meetings took place Wednesday when the Senate returned from its abbreviated summer recess.
In the face of these defections, even Schumer himself finally agreed to meet with Kavanaugh later this month.
Manchin, Donnelly, and Heitkamp were the only three Senate Democrats who voted for Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court last year. Yet all three senators are carefully toeing the fallback line set by Schumer to remain noncommittal about Kavanaugh, to give Schumer room to maneuver. Manchin has said that he plans to meet with Kavanaugh again after the judge’s Senate confirmation his hearing.
After Donnelly met with Kavanaugh he issued a statement saying that he “will continue a thorough review of Judge Kavanaugh’s record” and will to follow the judge’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing closely.
Donnelly added: “I plan to keep doing my homework and make a decision sometime after Kavanaugh’s committee confirmation hearing.”
Heitkamp was also circumspect, only saying that she will “continue reviewing his record” and “closely study his answers at his Senate hearing” after she met with Kavanaugh.
Schumer’s dogged opposition to Kavanaugh has put the three senators in a tight spot. A recent poll conducted by North Star Opinion Research shows that in Indiana, Hoosiers favor Kavanaugh’s confirmation 52 to 34 percent. In North Dakota, the margin is even greater, with 60 percent of people supporting Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and only 22 percent opposing.
The numbers hold strong for those who self-identify as independents: In Indiana, 48 percent of independents favor confirmation of Kavanaugh, versus 34 percent who oppose. In North Dakota, 60 percent of independents want to see Kavanaugh confirmed versus 18 percent who don’t.
Donnelly and Heitkamp find themselves at a crossroads now that they have met with Kavanaugh. Their constituents strongly favor the judge’s confirmation and recognize that critical issues are at stake with the appointment of the next justice to the Supreme Court.
People in both states care about preserving our nation’s constitutional structure and the framers’ respect for separation of powers. They desire checks on the power of the federal government, such as the protection of their Second Amendment rights. They want to enforce constitutional limits on the federal agencies that oversee an ever-more burdensome regulatory state.
This week (and later next month, when they make the decision to vote for or against Kavanaugh), Donnelly and Heitkamp have the chance to prove that they are not beholden to the obstructionist liberal leadership of their party, but rather are true representatives of the interests of their respective states.
Time will tell as to where their loyalties lie.
Carrie Severino is chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network.