Dems won’t strike 'so help you God' from House committee oath after outcry

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., speaks during a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing on Nov. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday voted to keep "so help you God" in the oath administered to witnesses testifying before the panel, a day after Republicans denounced an apparent effort to strike the language.
A draft of a new committee rules package obtained exclusively by Fox News this week indicated the committee planned to omit the phrase from the oath "Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
DRAFT SHOWS DEMS PROPOSE STRIKING 'SO HELP YOU GOD' FROM OATH TAKEN IN FRONT OF KEY HOUSE COMMITTEE
But on Wednesday, the committee voted to keep “so help you God” in the oath as part of the rules package after a debate on the issue, according to aides and a video of the committee's deliberations posted to social media. A spokesman for Democratic Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the committee chairman, did not return a request for comment from Fox News.
A day earlier, Republican leaders reacted with dismay to the proposed change, suggesting it was part of a leftward shift by the Democratic Party. The draft placed the words "so help you God" in red brackets, indicating they were slated to be cut. The words "under penalty of law" were in red text, indicating that Democrats proposed to add that phrasing to the oath.
“It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority," House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., told Fox News. "They really have become the party of Karl Marx.”
The House Natural Resources Committee has oversight of national parks, wildlife and energy.
The proposed change was not the first time Democrats have sought to strike references to God in official party documents. In 2012, the floor of the Democratic National Convention erupted over a sudden move to restore to the platform a reference to God and recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital -- after heavy criticism from Republicans for initially omitting them. Democrats, though, were hardly in agreement over the reversal.
A large and loud group of delegates shouted "no" as the convention chairman (then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa) called for the vote. Villaraigosa had to call for the vote three times before ruling that the "ayes" had it. Many in the crowd booed after he determined the language would be restored.

Cornyn warns Texas Republicans against complacency ahead of 2020

Texas Republicans have their work cut out for them if they hope to maintain the party’s dominance there, according to the state’s senior U.S. senator.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Republican who has been representing Texas in the U.S. Senate since 2002, said last year’s election battle between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke should serve as a wake-up call for the state’s GOP because it revealed that Texas Democrats are determined to defeat President Trump – and take down other Republicans with him.
“I don’t think we can take for granted that Texas will be reliably Republican in the foreseeable future, unless we take care of our business,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News.
TEXAS SAYS IT FOUND 95,000 NON-CITIZENS ON VOTER ROLLS; 58,000 HAVE VOTED

“I don’t think we can take for granted that Texas will be reliably Republican in the foreseeable future, unless we take care of our business.”
— Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn

Democrats’ dislike for Trump was the key factor in why incumbent Cruz defeated O’Rourke by only a narrow margin, Cornyn said.
"President Trump was responsible for 100 percent of the turnout," Cornyn told the Morning News, referring to the November election in Texas. "Fifty percent turned out [for Cruz] because they wanted to support the president. Fifty percent turned out [for O’Rourke] because they wanted to defeat him.
“Effectively,” Cornyn said, “this was a referendum in some sense on [Trump]. That's still going to be a factor in 2020.”

"President Trump was responsible for 100 percent of the turnout. Fifty percent turned out [for Cruz] because they wanted to support the president. Fifty percent turned out [for O’Rourke] because they wanted to defeat [Trump]."
— Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn

By that year, more than a third of the U.S. electorate will be composed of nonwhite voters, according to a Pew Research Center analysis released Wednesday.
The trend tends to favor Democrats, who gained two U.S. House seats, plus 12 state House seats and two state Senate seats in November, the Morning News reported.
Cruz captured less than 51 percent of the vote when he defeated O’Rourke in November. The Democrat, a congressman from El Paso, attracted more than 48 percent of the vote – a strong showing that has fueled speculation that he will seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
Despite his concerns about 2020 and beyond, Cornyn has remained solidly behind President Trump.
Last week, Cornyn joined a group of other Republican senators in urging Trump to send ISIS fighters captured in Syria to the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
Also earlier this month, Cornyn applauded the president for taking his border wall push “directly to the American people” in a speech from the Oval Office.
"There is a train of misery coming into the United States from these transnational criminal organizations that traffic in drugs and people and human misery," Cornyn noted of the border situation.
In October, Cornyn denounced those who were trying to blame President Trump for a series of pipe bomb packages shipped to prominent Democrats.
“These are some of the same people who encourage their own partisans to incivility and to confrontation and to encourage the mob that we saw during the Kavanaugh hearings,” Cornyn told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade.

Tucker Carlson and pro-choice advocate have heated debate on Virginia abortion bill

Fox News host Tucker Carlson and pro-choice advocate Monica Klein got into a heated debate Wednesday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” about a proposed Virginia law that would allow women to terminate a pregnancy up until the moment before birth.
The interview began with Carlson asking Klein for her thoughts on comments made by Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, that calls to reduce restrictions on late-term abortions. Klein accused Carlson of wanting to go back to a time when women resorted to back-alley abortions and used "coat hangers." 
“I think that right now, reproductive healthcare is under attack by the Republican Party. Seventy-two percent of Americans support right to choose,” Klein said. “We have [President Donald] Trump and sexual predator [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh trying to repeal Roe v. Wade and trying to take away control over our bodies. This isn’t about babies. This is about you attempting to control women’s bodies.”
Carlson accused Klein of throwing “talking points” at him while Klein said told Carlson that “as a man what you’re focused is on controlling women’s body.” The bill, dubbed The Repeal Act, would remove a number of restrictions currently in place regarding late-term abortions, including doing away with the requirement that two other physicians certify a third-trimester abortion is necessary to prevent the woman's death or impairment of her mental or physical health. The third trimester lasts until 40 weeks.
Carlson called Klein a “robot” and stressed that he just wanted to know what she thought about Northam’s remarks, saying: “Wow. Do you think that you’re making a case that most people agree with? That it’s okay to abort a child in the third trimester.” Klein then accused the Republican Party causing more harm to children by "tearing families apart at the border and allowing children to die in federal custody."
A spokeswoman for Northam told The Washington Post that his words were taken out of context. said his words were being taken out of context by Republicans, called the notion that he would approve of killing infants “disgusting.”
"I have devoted my life to caring for children, and any insinuation otherwise is shameful and disgusting," the governor said.

Trump needs intervention on intelligence, Schumer writes in letter to Coats

Not long after President Trump said the nation's intelligence chiefs were "naive" about Iran and perhaps should "go back to school," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested that it was the president who needed tutoring.
Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, to stage an intervention with Trump after the president took the unusual move Wednesday of criticizing Coats, CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray after their Tuesday appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"President Trump's criticism of the testimony you and other intelligence leaders provided to Congress yesterday was extraordinarily inappropriate," Schumer wrote to Coats, adding later that "I believe it is incumbent on you, Director Wray and Director Haspel ... to impress upon him how critically important it is for him to join you and the leadership of our Intelligence Community in speaking with a unified and accurate voice about national security threats."
The intelligence chiefs had told the Senate panel that North Korea was unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and that the Iran nuclear deal was working -- assessments that drew responses from the president via Twitter.
Trump insisted that the U.S. relationship with North Korea "is the best it has ever been," and pointed to a halt in nuclear and missile tests by North Korea, the return of some U.S. service members’ remains and the release of detained Americans as signs of progress. A second Trump-Kim meeting is expected in February.
The U.S. intelligence agencies also said Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other world powers. In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat. In May 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from that Obama-era accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.
Schumer's letter to Coats essentially echoed what many Democrats said in the aftermath of Trump’s tweets.
Sen. Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence panel, said in a tweet that, "The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality. People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter."

Obama State of the Union Cartoons

Kamala Harris maintains position calling for elimination of private health insurance: source

Idiot

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who recently announced a 2020 presidential bid, has not softened her position to eliminate all private health insurance despite a report that claimed that she is opened to moderating her stance.
A source at the Harris campaign told Fox News late Tuesday denied a report on CNN that cited an unnamed adviser who "signaled" that Harris would be open to other, moderate health plans being pitched by other Democrats.
Kamala Harris “supports Medicare for all. Period,” the source told Fox News.
Harris, 54, made the remarks on Monday during a town hall event with CNN’s Jake Tapper. When asked whether people could keep their current health insurance under Harris’ plan, the California senator indicated they could not.
KAMALA HARRIS UNDER FIRE AFTER CALLING FOR ABOLITION OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'THAT'S NOT AMERICAN'
“Who among us has not had that situation?” she said at the town hall. “Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, ‘Well I don’t know if your insurance company is going to cover this.’ Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.”
Amid backlash, CNN reported that Harris would be open to reforming rather than eliminating private health insurance, a proposal shared by more-centrist Democrats.

State of the Union 2019: The Trump economy is a success story not even his harshest critics can deny

With the shutdown over (at least for now), the State of the Union address is back “on.” When President Donald Trump takes the House podium on Feb. 5, you can count on him to take the opportunity to celebrate one of his greatest achievements: the economy.
It is booming by nearly every meaningful measure, and the president has every right to take a large measure of credit for it.
In November, unemployment dropped to its lowest rate in a half century. African-Americans, Latinos and women are thriving. Black unemployment was at 5.9 percent in May, the lowest ever recorded. Women’s unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in 65 years.
ANDY PUZDER: PRESIDENT TRUMP DESERVES ALL THE CREDIT FOR OUR SOARING LABOR MARKET
And, no Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it is not because people are working two jobs and a zillion hours a week. Employment statistics don’t work that way. It’s because more people have jobs. And more people are encouraged about their prospects of finding a job.
Labor force participation continues to rise because strong wage growth is causing Americans who were once too hopeless to even look for work to pour back into the job market. In fact, unemployment ticked up slightly to 3.9 percent (still historically very low) in December despite adding 312,000 jobs because nearly 100,000 formerly “discouraged workers” decided to start looking for jobs.
For good reason. America has created more than five million jobs since Trump entered office. And for the first time there are more job openings in America than there are unemployed people.
Industries that some said were dead and never coming back – like manufacturing – are booming. Manufacturing added 284,000 jobs in 2018, the most in a year for more than a decade.

America has created more than five million jobs since Trump entered office. And for the first time there are more job openings in America than there are unemployed people.

A large part of these successes can be traced to the Trump-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In addition to sparking business investment and expansion by reducing corporate taxes, it also included a big tax cut for middle-class American families.
The average individual saw a tax cut of $1,400 while the average family with two children saw their taxes reduced by $2,917. In fact, Americans in every congressional district got a tax cut. While mega-millionaire House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed a couple thousand extra dollars as mere “crumbs,” those tax-cut tidbits have been a big deal for the average working American and the economy overall.
President Obama – who presided over an average GDP growth of 1.65 percent – proved himself no economic Nostradamus when he said: “Two percent real GDP growth is the new normal for the U.S. economy.” Really? It shouldn’t be and under this administration, it’s not. GDP growth during the Trump administration has been nearly twice the Obama average, and was more than four percent in the second quarter of 2018.
And this is just scratching the surface: With consumer confidence rising, more pro-growth deregulation on the way, new trade deals being negotiated, and an energy boom on our horizon, we may be in for a much better “new normal.”
All this economic success is not just something the administration and the millions of Americans with good new jobs have noticed. The world has noticed. After a long decline beginning during Obama’s tenure, America, in just one year, has moved up six places in the Heritage Foundation’s 2019 Index of Economic Freedom because of the strong economic and deregulatory policies the Trump administration has enacted.
The president’s political opponents and the media can gaslight and uproot goalposts all they want – and they will. But the success of the Trump economy is plain to the millions and millions of Americans whose lives are measurably better than they were two years ago.
So when President Trump enters the well of the House next week, he can stand confidently before America and the world and say that, when it comes to the economy, “the state of the union is tremendous.”

Meadows to Ocasio-Cortez: Congress isn't 'just sitting around eating bonbons'

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., reportedly butted heads with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a bit on Tuesday. (AP/Getty)

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., reportedly butted heads with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Tuesday.
The clash came at the first gathering of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in the 116th Congress, which is led by Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Bloomberg reported.
Meadows and fellow GOP lawmakers were trying to persuade Cummings to provide upward of three days' notice -- ideally, five days -- for Democratic lawyers' questioning of witnesses so members could sit in, the outlet said.
Five days' notice was reportedly seen by some as more ideal, to better accommodate members who don’t reside near the nation’s capital.
Ocasio-Cortez chimed in to say she didn’t “believe we need five days” as long as members were effectively carrying out their jobs, Bloomberg said.
Meadows reportedly addressed Cummings in his reply.
“Mr. Chairman, I can tell you on all of this at this particular point, we’re all wanting to cooperate,” Meadows said. “Sometimes our schedules, you know, we’re not just sitting around eating bonbons, waiting for the call of anybody.”
The freshman lawmaker went on to wonder if Republicans previously allowed for similar notice when they sat at the helm of the committee, to which Cummings replied, “No,” Bloomberg reported.
The committee chairman reportedly said he’d do what he could to give lawmakers the notice Meadows sought, while noting that this might not always be feasible.
On another matter, during a recess of the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Tuesday, Fox News Correspondent Peter Doocy asked Ocasio-Cortez whether she supported the proposal from California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris -- who recently announced her 2020 bid for the White House -- to eliminate private insurance companies. While speaking at a town hall Monday night, Harris vowed to scrap all private health care insurance for approximately 150 million Americans if she was elected president.
"I think that's the direction that we absolutely need to go in," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I think one of the things that we're hearing right here in our, that we're really discovering in our hearings is that we -- the real issue with our health care system is that we're trying to have it both ways. We're trying to have half a free market system, half a more public system. And it is in the half-commitments that our systems are breaking down."