Saturday, February 16, 2019

National Emergencies not unprecedented


OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:32 PM PT — Friday, February 15, 2019
The first declaration under the National Emergencies Act of 1974 came during the Iran hostage crisis, which is a national emergency that is still active today. Former President Jimmy Carter blocked Iranian government property from entering the country, a move which has been renewed each year by all presidents since then.
“The steps I’ve taken today are those that are necessary now, other action may become necessary if these steps don’t produce the prompt release of the hostages,” President Carter stated the day he declared it.
President Trump has already issued three national emergency declarations during his tenure. The most prominent one is meant to punish foreign actors who interfere in U.S. elections. He’s also invoked his emergency powers to slap sanctions of human rights abusers around the world as well as on members of the Nicaraguan government amid corruption charges.
In his eight years office, former President Barack Obama declared 12 states of national emergency. These declarations touched on subjects from the H1N1 virus and blocking property transfers to people with connections to certain countries. Nearly all of his national emergencies are still active today.
Before that, former President George W. Bush declared 13 emergencies and former President Clinton declared 17 national emergencies, most of which are still active today.
In President Trump’s case, there’s two statutes that come to mind which allow the redirection of military construction funds. Questions remain as to whether building a border wall is actually a military construction project or whether the president can declare eminent domain over private property. However, even Democrat lawmakers have said he does, indeed, have the power to do so.
“Well unfortunately, the short answer is yeah, there is a provision in law that says the president can declare an emergency, its been done a number of times, but primarily its been done to build facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq,” stated Representative Adam Smith.
The problem for Democrats is many legal scholars aren’t sure who, if anyone, would have the legal standing to challenge such a declaration with a lawsuit.

House Democrats attempt to block president’s National Emergency declaration


 Amazon disses Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on way out of NYC: 'We don’t want to work in this environment'
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:20 AM PT — Friday, February 15, 2019
Two Democrat representatives said they are co-sponsoring a bill to stop President Trump’s National Emergency declaration. The proposal by New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Texas congressman Joaqin Castro is an attempt to block the president’s move to secure additional border funding.
On Thursday, Castro called the declaration a “fake emergency,” saying he would be filing a joint-resolution under the National Emergency Act to terminate the declaration.
“There have been very critical comments that have been made by senators, including Republican senators, about the president’s ability and wisdom of declaring a National Emergency for this purpose,” he stated.
In a recent tweet, Ocasio-Cortez said she and Castro aren’t going to let the president declare an emergency without a fight.
The House would have to vote on the resolution before it headed to the Senate.
When the bill would be introduced is still unknown as Congress has already adjourned, and will be out next week for the President’s Day holiday.

Friday, February 15, 2019

Stupid Gun Control Cartoons





Riot breaks out at migrant shelter across border from Eagle Pass, Texas (OANN.Com)

Do Americans really want these kinds of people into our country?
 Image result for Riot breaks out at migrant shelter across border
Migrants clash with security agents at a provisional shelter in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on Feb. 13, 2019.
Violence recently broke out at a migrant shelter located across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.
About two dozen rioters attacked Mexican police on Wednesday after they broke through a security barrier at the shelter. They were throwing pipes, tables, and chairs at the officers.
This is the second riot to break out at the facility this week. The migrants said they are upset at policies, which bar them from leaving the shelter without a humanitarian visa approved by Mexico.
The migrants claim they just want to go into town to buy extra food, clothes and medical supplies when the shelter runs low.
“All we want to do is go into town on foot to buy something, but no, they won’t even let us do that. People have been waiting in line since 6:00 a.m. and nothing happens and its provoking these clashes.” — Joel Sanchez, Honduran migrant 
About 2,000 Central American migrants from the latest caravan are living in the shelter while they wait to have their asylum applications processed by the U.S.

Pelosi says a Democratic president could declare gun violence a national emergency



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday theorized that if President Trump can declare a national emergency in order to bypass Congress to fund a border wall, there's no reason that a Democratic president in the future can't employ the same measure to deal with gun violence in the country.
Pelosi made the remarks during a press conference in the Capitol Thursday – the anniversary of the Parkland massacre in Florida that left 17 people dead.
"Let's talk about today: The one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America," Pelosi said. "That's a national emergency. Why don't you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would. "But a Democratic president can do that."
Pelosi reportedly said she was not calling for Democrats to declare a national emergency.
HOUSE REPUBLICAN WORRIES TRUMP'S EMERGENCY DECLARATION COULD HELP FUTURE DEM PRESIDENT ENACT GREEN NEW DEAL
A source told Fox News late Thursday that Trump will declare a national emergency in order to fund his long-promised border wall that will enable his administration to move $8 billion from various federal agencies to fund the project.
"A Democratic president can declare emergencies, as well," Pelosi said. "So the precedent that the president is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans."

Dem presidential candidates act like they're in a high school election




Sen. Kamala Harris of California says she loved to smoke the Devil’s Lettuce in college, especially while jamming to Tupac and Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has little or no Native American ancestry, despite decades of claiming American Indian heritage for professional advantage, but she believes strongly in “the importance of lifting up and celebrating Native voices,” as she herself will tell you ad nauseam.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey wants you to adopt his faddish diet lest the world’s upwardly mobile hordes “destroy our planet” by eating meat.
MICHAEL KNOWLES: TRUMP AND THOSE SELF-OBSESSED, FRIVOLOUS DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSWOMEN
And when former U.S. House member and defeated Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke isn’t skateboarding through fast food parking lots, he passes his unemployed hours writing angsty public diary entries. He’s “been stuck lately,” you see, “in and out of a funk.”
These puerile Democratic politicians appear more inclined to run for president of their high school class than president of the United States. Yet Harris, Warren and Booker have announced their candidacies for the White House, while O’Rourke continues to ponder whether to run.
Has Harris ever tried marijuana? Her “memories” of smoking pot include listening to Tupac and Snoop while studying at Howard University, where she graduated in 1986 – five and seven years, respectively, before Tupac and Snoop released their debut albums.
More likely, the tough-minded Harris spent her years at Howard listening to Brahms and studying for law school. But her campaign spends precious little time advertising the candidate’s nearly three-decade career as a prosecutor, preferring to focus instead on “mood mixes” and marijuana.
Racial fraud aside, Warren could make a substantive case for her presidential qualifications. She was a tenured professor at two of the most prestigious law schools in the country. And she has influenced significant matters of public policy, from the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program to the founding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Yet instead of launching her presidential bid on her progressive policy accomplishments, Warren chose release a DNA test that suggested she might be 1/1,024th Native American.
Booker, a Rhodes scholar educated at some of the world’s finest universities, chose to make his opening argument for office not on his accomplishments as mayor of Newark or senator from New Jersey, but rather through a series of carefully choreographed temper tantrums in which he “cried tears of rage” and compared himself to Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator from the late Roman Republic.
Beto O’Rourke served in Congress and on the El Paso City Council for a dozen years before trying and failing to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Has he even once referred to his actual record in elected office in his quest for national office?
A bug and feature of democracy is that the people get what they want. Our elected officials reflect the people who put them in office.
For Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination, that means even potentially substantive candidates must abase themselves to appeal to their childish primary base.
Former prosecutor Harris needs the support of a party that complains about law enforcement in our cities and at our border.
Booker must energize leftists who increasingly reject factual correctness – to borrow a phrase from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. – for subjective feeling and “lived experience.”
Warren needs to attract primary voters in the throes of intersectional identity politics.
Beto O’Rourke – whose real name is Robert Francis O’Rourke – must appeal to voters at a time when women and minority candidates are enjoying great popularity.
So the candidates try on new identities and talk like schoolchildren about their favorite music, diets, drugs and feelings.
The sophomoric contest is only a prelude to the real battle. Whoever wins the Democratic presidential nomination is expected to face President Trump in November 2020.
The presidential nominees will debate economic growth, border security, trade, war, late-term abortion and other issues. Unfortunately for the eventual Democratic nominee – and to the incumbent’s advantage – general elections are no child’s play.

Alan Dershowitz: Ousting Trump via 25th Amendment is ‘clearly an attempt at a coup d’etat’

A coup d'état (/ˌk dˈtɑː/ (About this soundlisten); French: [ku deta]), also known as a putsch (/pʊ/), a golpe, or simply as a coup, means the overthrow of an existing government; typically, this refers to an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a dictator, the military, or a political faction.

 
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz on Thursday said the Department of Justice’s discussions to employ the 25th Amendment to oust President Trump-- if true-- amounted to an attempted coup.
Dershowitz appeared on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” to give his take on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s descriptions of Justice Department meetings where he said officials discussed ousting the president.
“If [McCabe’s comments are] true, it is clearly an attempt at a coup d’état,” Dershowitz said.
Evoking the 25th Amendment, Dershowitz added, would be a fundamental misuse of its original purpose. He said it was originally "about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke. It’s about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office."
Dershowitz said any justice official who discussed the 25th Amendment in the context of ousting the president "has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution."
Dershowitz, who authored the book: "The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump," further argued that using the 25th Amendment to circumvent the impeachment process or an election, "is a despicable act of unconstitutional power grabbing."
McCabe, who was fired from the bureau in March 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after it was determined he lied to investigators about a leak, sent shock waves through Washington on Thursday for comments he made during an appearance on CBS News' "60 Minutes."
The excerpts detail the eight days between the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. After Comey’s firing, McCabe was acting director of the FBI.
"These were the eight days from Comey's firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel," Scott Pelley, the '60 Minutes' host said. "And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president." He said people involved were "counting noses" and considering who might agree to the idea.
“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage. And that was something that troubled me greatly,” McCabe said in one excerpt, referring to a phone call he had with Trump on May 10, 2017.
President Trump later fired off a round of tweets, two blasting McCabe and another that quoted Dershowitz's appearance on Fox News.
 
  

CartoonDems