From Hillary to Elizabeth, Democratic distractions hurting the party in midterms

With three weeks to go in what should be a strong midterm election for them, here's what the Democrats don't need:
Hillary Clinton justifying her husband's sexual affair with a White House intern because she was over 21.
Elizabeth Warren doing a DNA test that shows she has a minuscule fraction of Native American ancestry and getting denounced by the Cherokee Nation.
Heidi Heitkamp having to apologize for putting out a letter naming sexual assault victims without their permission.
These are, to put it mildly, all self-inflicted wounds.
The plain fact is that there's only so much media oxygen out there in an election that Donald Trump has clearly nationalized. When one of the name-brand Democrats steps in it, the media pile on, and that means the party's message is obscured — especially important with less than three weeks until the election.
Of course, some GOP candidates have screwed up as well. And Trump drew enormous criticism yesterday for tweeting, after a federal judge tossed Stormy Daniels' defamation suit against him, "Great. Now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer," White House wannabe Michael Avenatti.
This of course reminded Trump critics of a series of comments about women's faces, and why go there after winning the lawsuit? While it created a media storm, voters have already made up their minds about the president's penchant for personal insults. And he's got the huge megaphone, which he is using, on many other issues.
That's not true of the Democrats, who seem to lack a unified message other than Trump is awful so we should take over the House. It's always a challenge for a minority party without a national leader and in this case, a zillion people positioning themselves to run in 2020. But that underscores why these ancillary controversies are a wasted opportunity.
Clinton drew flak for her comments about Monica Lewinsky in a "CBS Sunday Morning" interview. She said, not surprisingly, that her husband should not have resigned two decades ago, when he was being impeached, and that she's only responsible for her own behavior.
But when correspondent Tony Dokoupil said Bill couldn't possibly have had a consensual relationship with Lewinsky because of the huge power imbalance, Hillary retreated to saying "she was an adult." That angered many in the #Me-Too movement and made her sound tone-deaf.
Come on. Lewinsky was a very young woman in an extramarital relationship with the most powerful man on the planet. You might think, after all this time, that Clinton would have crafted a better answer.
Warren, obviously stung by Trump's "Pocahontas" attacks, completely botched her rollout of DNA evidence purporting to show she did have a distant Native American ancestor. All you need to know is that the Cherokee Nation's secretary of state said:
"It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage."
How could she not have sounded out the group first?
The Boston Globe has issued two corrections on the story. The first one said that under the test Warren "would be 1/1024 Native American, not 1/512."
The second said that the senator had "misstated the ancestry percentage of a potential 6th to 10th-generation relative." Ouch.
I understand that Warren wanted to put the Native American controversy behind her and send a clear smoke signal that she's running for president. But while the ensuing back and forth with Trump might help her, it does nothing for her fellow Democrats who are up in November.
One of those is Heitkamp, who is running about 10 points behind Republican Kevin Cramer in the North Dakota Senate race. She made an extraordinary blunder in issuing an open letter to him that was published in several newspapers.
That letter named some sexual assault survivors who say they are not victims of assault, and others, expressing their outrage on Facebook, who say they never gave permission to be publicly identified.
The senator said in a statement: "I deeply regret this mistake and we are in the process of issuing a retraction, personally apologizing to each of the people impacted by this and taking the necessary steps to ensure this never happens again."
That was political malpractice by Heitkamp's campaign that obviously hurts her candidacy, but also achieved story-of-the-day status that drew attention from other Democrats.
None of these mistakes was dreamed up by a hostile conservative media, and have actually drawn sharp criticism from liberal pundits. Together they amount to an unintended gift to the GOP.

Arabia Oil Cartoons

Pompeo lands in Saudi Arabia to meet with King Salman over missing writer

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, second right in front, walks with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir after arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. (AP)

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to meet with King Salman over the disappearance of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed to be dead.
Pompeo landed in Riyadh and was to speak Salman over the crisis surrounding Khashoggi and his alleged slaying. Pompeo was greeted by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.
Khashoggi vanished two weeks ago during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Pompeo is set to also visit the place where Khashoggi was last seen.
"The effort behind the scenes is focused on avoiding a diplomatic crisis between the two countries and has succeeded in finding a pathway to de-escalate tensions," said Ayham Kamel, the head of the Eurasia Group's Mideast and North African practice. "Riyadh will have to provide some explanation of the journalist's disappearance, but in a manner that distances the leadership from any claim that a decision was made at senior levels to assassinate the prominent journalist."
Turkish officials said they fear Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the consulate. Saudis have called the allegations “baseless.”
Media reports indicate that the Kingdom may acknowledge the writer was killed in the consulate.
Meanwhile, Turkish investigators were allowed to search the consulate on Monday, according to The Washington Post. But hours before the Turkish forensic team arrived, journalists photographed a cleaning crew entering the consulate, the paper reported.
The crew hauled buckets, mops and what appeared to be bottles of cleaning solution, The Post reported. Turkish investigators said they “smelled chemicals had been used,” two officials in contact with the investigators said, according to the paper.
“They are trying to make fun of us and our willingness to cooperate,” one of the officials said.
Forensics tests like spraying luminol, a chemical mixture, can expose blood left behind, said Mechthild Prinz, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who previously worked at the New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
"It depends on how well they cleaned it up," Prinz told the AP. "Obviously, you don't want anybody to have a chance to clean it up, but very often people do miss blood."
President Donald Trump, after speaking with King Salman, had dispatched Pompeo on Monday to speak to the monarch of the world's top oil exporter over Khashoggi's disappearance.
“I am immediately sending our Secretary of State to meet with King!” Trump tweeted Monday.
Khashoggi had written critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of King Salman, for The Washington Post. The prince is next in the line to the throne, and his rise to power prompted the writer’s self-imposed exile in the U.S.
Khashoggi has criticized Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its arrest of women's rights activists after the lifting of a driving ban for women—policies seen as initiatives of the crown prince.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kimmel backs Republican running for constable in North Las Vegas

By Amy Lieu | Fox News

2-3 minutes

---

Jimmy Kimmel appears in a campaign video to support his longtime friend Jimmy Vega for North Las Vegas constable.  (Jimmy Vega for North Las Vegas Constable)

Who says Jimmy Kimmel doesn't support Republicans?
Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel announced his support for a Republican (a lifelong friend) who is running for constable in North Las Vegas.
Kimmel appeared in a campaign video endorsing Jimmy Vega, who he's known since they were 12 years old. The host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” said he was proud of Vega for running.
Vega, 51, had been in the military for 25 years, and is currently in the naval reserves, he said.
“For me it was an integrity issue, is that, you know, you work hard, not everybody is meant to be a cop, not everybody is meant to be a firefighter, not everybody is meant to be in the military. You have to go through your prospective boot camps or academies to earn it, and that’s how I feel, I feel you just have to earn everything in life,” Vega said.
Kimmel has been vocal about his criticism of President Donald Trump and many Republican policies. But Vega said it’s not about partisanship.
“It’s just doing the right thing and helping the people, and that’s what I plan to do,” he said. “This race shouldn’t be a partisan race anyway. We’re law enforcement, we don’t create law, we just enforce law.”
North Las Vegas is “saturated” with veterans, according to Vega, and he has a passion to support veterans, he said. Vega said he wants to grow the department.
“There’s a lot of things that the current constable is not doing that I intend to do,” he said.

Jimmy Kimmel and longtime friend Jimmy Vega. (Jimmy Vega for North Las Vegas Constable)

According to Nevada law, Constables are considered peace officers, according to Nevada law. Their duties include evictions and summoning juries for justices of the peace.
Kimmel and Vega chuckle throughout the video, with the comedian throwing in a few jokes, including some about the eviction part of the constable job.
They both graduated from Clark High School, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Bezos says Amazon will work with DoD; says US in 'big trouble' without 'big tech' companies

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, speaking at the Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington. (AP)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has distinguished his company from other big tech firms in declaring its willingness to work with the United States Department of Defense.
“If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” Bezos cautioned in San Francisco Monday at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the tech magazine Wired.
AMAZON FOUNDER JEFF BEZOS GIVES $10 MILLION TO SUPER PAC IN FIRST MAJOR POLITICAL CONTRIBUTION
Amazon is bidding for a 10-year contract with the Defense Department known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, JEDI, to offer cloud computing services worth up to $10 billion.
“We are going to continue to support the DoD, and I think we should,” Bezos said.

This is a great country and it does need to be defended.
— Jeff Bezos

Earlier this month, Google said it had removed its bid for JEDI because the contract went against the company's  "A.I. Principles." On Friday, Microsoft employees published an open letter on Medium, urging the company not to take the contract.
"Many Microsoft employees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war," the letter read.
AMAZON’S JEFF BEZOS TOUTS BLUE ORIGIN ROCKETS, WEB SERVICES AT AIR FORCE EVENT
Bezos acknowledged his unpopular stance.
“One of the jobs of the senior leadership team is to make the right decision, even when it’s unpopular,” Bezos said. "This is a great country and it does need to be defended."
"I know everybody is very conflicted about the current politics and so on,” he said, but, “This country is a gem.”

Sessions vows 'emergency' Supreme Court battles amid 'outrageous' discovery rulings by federal judges

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday lit into federal judges for what he called a dramatic uptick in "outrageous" decisions threatening to interfere with the separation of powers by exposing internal White House deliberations.
In a fiery speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, Sessions warned that "once we go down this road in American government, there is no turning back." He vowed to take "these discovery fights to the Supreme Court in emergency postures. ... We intend to fight this, and we intend to win."
Sessions specifically singled out New York district court judge Jesse M. Furman, who ruled that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could be questioned in an ongoing lawsuit concerning the legality of the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
Furman's decision, Sessions said, contradicts longstanding statutory provisions that protect certain executive branch discussions from disclosure, in order to encourage free and open deliberations by executive branch officials. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including several liberal states, are arguing in part that the White House added the citizenship question for political reasons.
The judge wants "to hold a trial over the inner workings of a Cabinet secretary’s mind," and inappropriately allow inquiry into the motivations for the Trump administration's decisions, Sessions said.
Furman's order, which was upheld by a New York federal appellate court, has been stayed by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The full Supreme Court is expected to decide the issue soon.

"Once we go down this road in American government, there is no turning back."
— Attorney General Jeff Sessions

The pending court challenges against the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question, legal experts tell Fox News, face an uphill battle not only because conservatives now command a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court, but also because traditionally it's been the White House's prerogative to decide whether to inquire about citizenship on the census.
Former President Barack Obama's administration didn't ask the question in the 2010 census amid fears it would cause illegal immigrants to avoid answering their census questions -- and thus not count toward population totals used to determine the number of seats each state receives in the House of Representatives. (The citizenship question was last asked on the census in 1950, but beginning in 1970, a citizenship question was asked in a long-form questionnaire sent to a relatively small number of households, alongside the main census. In 2010, there was no long-form questionnaire.)
Democrats would lose out because the citizenship question would affect predominately liberal districts, but that's not a legally sufficient objection, legal analysts say.
TRUMP CENSUS BUREAU NOMINEE QUIZZED BY SENATORS ON CITIZENSHIP QUESTION
"There is no credible argument to be made that asking about citizenship subverts the Constitution and federal law," Chapman University law professor and constitutional law expert John Eastman told Fox News. "The recent move is simply to restore what had long been the case."
Nevertheless, Sessions said Monday, liberal states and nonprofits have continued to push even longshot legal challenges in order to dig around in executive branch deliberations.
"This is not the first time we’ve had to seek emergency appellate intervention to stop outrageous discovery," Sessions said. Last year, the government filed a successful emergency motion to stop a district court's ruling that permitted plaintiffs to question a Department of Homeland Security counselor about advice relating to the contentious Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Sessions called that lower court ruling a "blatant violation of deliberative process and attorney-client privileges" and warned that it would have a "chilling effect" on deliberations in the White House.
He added, "Too many judges believe it is their right, their duty, to act upon their sympathies and policy preferences."
The attorney general blamed Obama for encouraging that approach. "One argument for activism was advocated openly by President Obama when he declared his judicial nominees must judge with 'empathy.' It is a seductive argument. But whatever empathy is, it’s more akin to emotion, bias, and politics than law," Sessions said.
"In the recent DACA litigation, for example, a judge last year told one of our DOJ litigators, 'You can’t come into court to espouse a position that is heartless,'" Sessions continued. "Not illegal. Not unlawful. Heartless. And later, after I responded in a speech that it isn’t a judge’s job to decide whether a policy is 'heartless,' the judge again scolded the DOJ lawyer by stating that I 'seem to think the courts cannot have an opinion.'"

Judge Nicholas Garaufis denied the government's motion to dismiss a DACA lawsuit, citing President Trump's "bigoted" comments. (Reuters, FIle)

That judge, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton. He ruled in March that a lawsuit seeking to preserve the federal DACA program can continue -- citing candidate Donald Trump's "racial slurs" and "epithets."
“One might reasonably infer,” Garaufis said in his politically charged ruling, “that a candidate who makes overtly bigoted statements on the campaign trail might be more likely to engage in similarly bigoted action in office.”
Separately, Sessions also said the 27 nationwide federal injunctions issued by individual judges during the Trump administration so far -- which brought temporary halts to high-profile policies like his ban on travel from Muslim-majority nations -- constitute an unprecedented "judicial encroachment."
"It is emphatically not the duty of the courts to manage the government or to pass judgment on every policy action the Executive branch takes," Sessions said. "In the first 175 years of this Republic, not a single judge issued one of these orders."
In his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court in September, then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was asked by Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy about the constitutionality of individual federal judges issuing nationwide injunctions against presidential action, a recent phenomenon. Kavanaugh demurred, saying he could not discuss potential pending issues before the Supreme Court.
Sessions noted that Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who concurred in the high court's decision earlier this year to reinstate Trump's travel ban, wrote that such injunctions “take a toll on the federal court system—preventing legal questions from percolating through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every case a national emergency for the courts and for the executive branch.”
He added: "Executive branch officers do not work for the judiciary. We work for the president of the United States. Respect runs both ways."

Made in China Cartoons

Chinese official finds Trump 'very confusing,' says US warships at China's doorstep building tension

President Trump's inner circle is "very confusing" for foreign diplomatic officials in Washington to navigate, China's U.S. ambassador Cui Tiankai told "Fox News Sunday" in an exclusive wide-ranging interview.
Cui added that U.S. warships are "on the offensive" near China, days after a U.S. destroyer nearly collided with a Chinese military vessel in the South China Sea. The Pentagon said the Chinese ship came within 45 yards of the U.S. destroyer, in an intentionally "unsafe" maneuver.
Cui's comments come as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump prepare for a possible meeting at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, next month, amid a rapidly escalating trade conflict between the two nations that some have called a new cold war.
Asked by host Chris Wallace whether Trump listens primarily to hardliners like trade director Peter Navarro -- who has characterized China as the economic "parasite of the world" -- or moderates like chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Cui responded simply, "You tell me."
The envoy added that other ambassadors seemingly have the same issue. President Trump has repeatedly said he tries to avoid "telegraphing" his moves to foreign adversaries.
"Honestly, I’ve been talking to ambassadors of other countries in Washington, D.C., and this is also part of their problem," Cui said. "They don’t know who is the final decision-maker. Of course, presumably, the president will take the final decision, but who is playing what role? Sometimes it could be very confusing."
Trump, citing widespread intellectual property theft in China that cuts into the profits of U.S. companies doing business there, placed tariffs on approximately $200 billion of Chinese imports in September, following his imposition of significant tariffs on nearly $35 billion in Chinese goods in July. China quickly retaliated with $60 billion in tariffs of its own.
The White House has bipartisan support for hitting back at Chinese intellectual property theft. In an interview in June, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ordinarily a fierce Trump critic, agreed with the administration's China policy and said that the country "takes total advantage" of the U.S.
“Not only do they steal our intellectual property, they keep our good companies out, and say the only way you’re going to be able to sell your American products in China … is if you come to China, make them there, and give us the techniques and intellectual property,” Schumer said.
And the president has insisted his tariffs are already having a major impact.
"Their economy has gone down very substantially, and I have a lot more to do if I want to do it," Trump told "Fox & Friends" last week. "They lived too well for too long and, frankly, I guess they think the Americans are stupid people. Americans are not stupid people. We were led badly when it came to trade."
WATCH: HAS US ENTERED NEW COLD WAR WITH CHINA?
But in his interview with Fox News, Cui denied that China permits or engages in widespread intellectual property theft, and said even the suggestion was an affront to the country's population.
"I think all of these accusations about how China has developed are groundless and not fair to the Chinese people," he told Wallace. "You see, China has 1.4 billion people. It would be hard to imagine that one-fifth of the global population could develop and prosper not by relying mainly on their own efforts, but by stealing or forcing some transfer of technology from others -- that’s impossible."

"It’s important to notice who started this trade war. We never want to have a trade war."
— China's U.S. ambassador Cui Tiankai

He added: "It’s important to notice who started this trade war. We never want to have a trade war, but if somebody started a trade war against us, we have to respond and defend our own interests."
Concerns have been raised that China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasurys, might start dumping its holdings as a way to pressure the United States in the trade dispute. But Mnuchin said this possibility didn't concern him because it would be contrary to Beijing's economic interests to start dumping its Treasury holdings, and would be "very costly" to China.
Top U.S. officials have warned that the ongoing conflict with China extends beyond trade. In Senate testimony on Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that "China, in many ways, represents the broadest, most complicated, most long-term counterintelligence threat we face."
He added that "Russia is ... fighting to stay relevant after the fall of the Soviet Union," while "China is fighting tomorrow's fight…and it affects every sector of our economy."
Vice President Pence, meanwhile, has accused China of trying to interfere with U.S. elections, including by targeting tariffs toward industries that support Trump and even spreading propaganda in U.S. media outlets.
In response, Cui effectively called the U.S. the aggressor in several spheres of influence. Chinese state-run media companies have recently bought newspaper inserts in U.S. newspapers to influence local opinion in favor of China.
"You see, Chinese media, they are just learning from America media to use all these means, to buy commercial pages from newspapers, to make their views known or to cover what is happening here," Cui said. "This is normal practice for all the media." (China does not generally permit foreign-owned media companies to buy such political inserts in its own domestic papers.)
WATCH: HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY WARNS CHINA ENGAGING IN 'UNPRECEDENTED' INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
The envoy also said that Chinese warships, which harassed and nearly collided with a U.S. destroyer recently in the disputed South China Sea, had responded appropriately to an intervention on their "doorstep." Beijing has built up military fortifications on two contested Chinese man-made islands there despite pledging not to do so.
"Where the incident took place, you were right to say it was in South China Sea. So it’s at China’s doorstep," Cui told Wallace. "It’s not Chinese warships that are going to the coast of California, or to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s so close to the Chinese islands and it’s so close to the Chinese coast. So who is on the offensive? Who is on the defensive? This is very clear."
Cui said, however, that China would continue to "faithfully" implement sanctions against its longtime ally, North Korea, in order to restore stability to the region. He  said a "coordinated, phased, and step-by-step approach" to North Korean denuclearization is the best approach, mirroring the position of that country's leader, Kim Jong Un.
"How can you convince him to give up all the nuclear weapons without any hope that the U.S. would be following a more friendly policy towards him?" Cui asked.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Beijing last week, where top Chinese officials vowed to take "all necessary measures" to safeguard their country. They have since said that high-level communications continue between the two countries.
Still, there were signs tensions between China and the U.S. have eased somewhat in recent days. Global stock market indexes bounced back sharply Friday after their recent plunges, on word of the possible presidential meeting.
And reports have emerged that Mnuchin has advised against labeling China a currency manipulator — a status that could trigger penalties. The Chinese currency has been falling in value against the dollar in recent months, raising concerns that Beijing is devaluing its currency to make Chinese goods more competitive against U.S. products.
Mnuchin did not say this weekend what the forthcoming Treasury report, set to come out next week, will conclude about China's currency practices. In the past, Treasury has placed China on a watch-list but found that Beijing did not meet the threshold to be labeled a currency manipulator.
The Treasury secretary met Thursday with Yi Gang, head of China's central bank. "I expressed my concerns about the weakness of the currency." Mnuchin said.
Cui told Wallace that China, despite its ongoing spat with the U.S. on a variety of fronts, remains optimistic about November's planned meeting between Trump and Jinping. Kudlow, the chief White House economic adviser, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the one-on-one between the two leaders will "probably" happen.
"There’s a good mutual understanding and good working relationship between the two," Cui said. "I hope and I’m sure this will continue."
Fox News' Samuel Chamberlain, Chris Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.