Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan emphasizes need for Space Force

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Wednesday, March 20, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:35 AM PT — Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan recently reiterated the need for a Space Force. While speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Wednesday, Shanahan said the force is needed to protect the U.S.
“We can’t afford to lose our margin of dominance,” he stated. “What is vital is that we protect a $19 trillion economy and the systems our military runs on.”
The acting defense secretary said China and Russia already treat space as a war fighting domain. He mentioned China is rapidly growing its presence in space. Shanahan said their government put 38 rockets in orbit last year, which is more than double the 17 the U.S. launched in 2018.
The proposed Space Force would be a potential sixth military branch, with about 15,000 to 20,000 personnel. It would be under the Department of the Air Force (DAF), which is similar to the Marine Corps’ relationship with the Navy.
The Pentagon has requested more than $72 million for fiscal year 2020 to set up the branch. It submitted its proposal to Congress, which must authorize the new service.
“To move forward effectively, space needs an advocate — that advocate will be the Space Force,” stated Shanahan.

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SCOTUS gives Pres. Trump victory on immigration, upholds push to detain illegals

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 10:39 AM PT — Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Supreme Court recently issued a ruling on immigration, favoring the Trump administration’s policy proposals. In a five-to-four vote Tuesday, the nations highest court ruled to restrict parole or bail for illegal aliens during their deportation proceedings.
The Supreme Court said ‘catch and release’ may not be available for criminal aliens, and those who are seen as potentially able to commit a crime. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have previously criticized ‘catch and release’ as well as weak immigration laws.
The ruling allows ICE to detain deportable aliens at any time, and is said to mark a major victory for President Trump.
“We’re on track for a million illegal aliens to rush our borders,” stated the president. “People hate the word invasion, but that’s what it is, it’s an invasion of drugs and criminals…we capture them because border security is so good.”
The Supreme Court ruling also reverses last year’s decision of the notoriously leftist Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which mandated to release certain illegals from detention.

Trump: Dems 'Are Getting Very Strange'

President Donald Trump jabbed Democrats, saying they are getting very “strange” for a proposal to eliminate the Electoral College and change the size of the Supreme Court.
Trump’s comments came in a tweet shortly after midnight Wednesday.
He wrote:

“The Democrats are getting very ‘strange.’ They now want to change the voting age to 16, abolish the Electoral College, and Increase significantly the number of Supreme Court Justices. Actually, you’ve got to win it at the Ballot Box!”

His post on Twitter came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, said Monday that she would support abolishing the Electoral College. And some Democrat candidates have also backed lowering the voting age and adding more Supreme Court justices, Newsweek reported.

Trump's middle-of-the-night post followed on the heels of a pair of tweets from late Tuesday that seemed to oppose the idea of eliminating the Electoral College:

“Campaigning for the Popular Vote is much easier & different than campaigning for the Electoral College. It’s like training for the 100 yard dash vs. a marathon. The brilliance of the Electoral College is that you must go to many States to win. With the Popular Vote, you go to....

“....just the large States - the Cities would end up running the Country. Smaller States & the entire Midwest would end up losing all power - & we can’t let that happen. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A.”

Rep. Cummings: White House 'Stonewalling' House Panel

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D- Md. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., says the White House has “engaged in an unprecedented level of stonewalling, delay and obstruction.”
Cummings, who is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, made his comments in a column posted by The Washington Post on Tuesday evening.

“In November, the American people voted overwhelmingly to put Democrats in charge of the House of Representatives to start serving as a truly independent check and balance on the executive branch,” he said. “Since then, President (Donald) Trump and his allies have complained of “Presidential Harassment,” decrying Democrats for having the audacity to request documents and witnesses to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities.

“The problem is that the White House is engaged in an unprecedented level of stonewalling, delay and obstruction.”
Cummings claimed he has sent 12 letters to the White House on a half-dozen topics. But the administration has refused to turn over any documents and has not produced any witnesses for interviews.

He said his committee is reviewing White House security clearances, “hush money” payments to silence women alleging affairs with Trump, White House officials’ alleged use of personal email in violation of federal law and other issues.
Cummings maintained the refusal to produce any documents or witnesses “to the primary investigative committee in the House reflects a decision at the highest levels to deny congressional oversight altogether.”

And he added: “If our committee must resort to issuing subpoenas, there should be no doubt about why. This has nothing to do with presidential harassment and everything to do with unprecedented obstruction.”

AP: Trump, Republicans Increasingly Optimistic That Mueller Will Show No Collusion

It's a witch hunt, a vendetta, the worst presidential harassment in history.
That's what President Donald Trump has shouted for two years about the special counsel's Russia probe. Now, barring an eleventh-hour surprise, Trump and his allies are starting to see it as something potentially very different: a political opportunity.
With Robert Mueller's findings expected any day, the president has grown increasingly confident the report will produce what he insisted all along — no clear evidence of a conspiracy between Russia and his 2016 campaign. And Trump and his advisers are considering how to weaponize those possible findings for the 2020 race, according to current and former White House officials and presidential confidants who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
A change is underway as well among congressional Democrats, who have long believed the report would offer damning evidence against the president. The Democrats are busy building new avenues for evidence to come out, opening a broad array of investigations of Trump's White House and businesses that go far beyond Mueller's focus on Russian interference to help Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
It's a striking role reversal.
No one knows exactly what Mueller will say, but Trump, his allies and members of Congress are trying to map out the post-probe political dynamics.
One scenario would have seemed downright implausible until recently: The president will take the findings and run on them, rather than against them, by painting the special counsel as an example of failed government overreach and Trump himself as the victim who managed to prove his innocence.
The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, said on the House floor last week that he had a "news flash" for Democrats who had high hopes that the report would be damaging to Trump.
"What happens when it comes back and says none of this was true, the president did not do anything wrong?" Collins asked. "Then the meltdown will occur."
Trump's tweeted version was even more graphic: The Democrats' House investigative committees were going "stone cold CRAZY."
That was in reaction to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler's document requests to 81 people, businesses and organizations related to Trump. Nadler said his panel must look at "a much broader question" than Mueller has.
Adam Schiff, chairman of the intelligence committee, also said there's much more to look into. Mueller, he said, "can't be doing much of a money laundering investigation" if he hasn't subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, which has loaned millions of dollars to Trump. Schiff's panel, along with the House Financial Services Committee, is looking into money laundering and Trump's foreign financial entanglements.
"We have a separate and independent and important responsibility," Schiff has said. "And that is to tell the country what happened."
The Russia probe, taken over by Mueller in May 2017, has posed a mortal threat to the presidency since Trump was elected — a possible case for collusion or obstruction of justice that could begin a domino effect ending with impeachment. Those fears still exist, but as the investigation winds down, other feelings have taken hold in the White House, namely a cautious optimism that the worst is over, that no smoking gun has been found.
Even if Mueller's final report does not implicate the president in criminal conduct, the investigation was far from fruitless. His team brought charges against 34 people, including six Trump associates, and three companies. His prosecutors revealed a sweeping criminal effort by Russians to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and showed that people connected to the Trump campaign were eager to exploit emails stolen from Democrats.
Trump, of course, has railed relentlessly against the probe, deeming it a baseless "witch hunt," sometimes in all capital letters, and has said it was based on unfounded allegations perpetrated by his "deep state" enemies in the Department of Justice, as well as his foes in the Democratic Party and the media.
If the report proves anticlimactic, says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a strong Trump ally, "there would no longer be any justification for what the House Dems want to do. They have their report, they had the guy they wanted writing it, and he had the full power of the federal government behind him and they still didn't get the president.
"Trump can say: Here is the report. I didn't fire Mueller, I didn't interfere with him. If you want to keep investigating me, it just shows that it is purely partisan."
In fact, Trump has told his inner circle that, if the report is underwhelming, he will use Twitter and interviews to gloat over the findings, complain about the probe's cost and depict the entire investigation as an attempt to obstruct his agenda, according to advisers and confidants.
The president's campaign and pro-Trump outside groups will then likely amplify the message, while his advisers expect the conservative media, including Fox News, to act as an echo chamber. A full-throated attack on the investigation, portraying it as a failed coup, could also be the centerpiece of Trump campaign events, including rallies, they say.
While Trump's base has long been suspicious of Mueller, the president's team believes independents and moderate Democrats who backed him in the last election but have since soured may return to the fold if convinced he has been unfairly targeted.
In the meantime, the president and his surrogates will labor to link the report with the mounting investigations launched by House Democrats.
One of Trump's most ardent defenders, North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, tweeted last month that Democrats will "keep investigating if Mueller doesn't find what they want. Amazing."
Meadows wrote in a separate tweet: "Their message is shifting. The 'Russian collusion' narrative is falling apart, and they know it." (The Associated Press.)

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Trump Admin Seeks $86B in Intelligence Agency Spending

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats

The Trump administration is requesting $86 billion in spending for intelligence agencies, including $23 billion for highly classified military intelligence activities (MIP) in fiscal year 2020, The New York Times reports.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said the administration wants $62.8 billion for its intelligence agencies while the Pentagon asked for $22.95 billion for its secretive "black budget."
Overall, the budget includes a 6 percent spending increase and covers the costs of cyberweapons, spy satellites, and the national intelligence program that supports the armed services and tactical units.

Both budgets also propose spending more money on capabilities to compete with Russia and China, according to officials who spoke with the Times.
The MIP supports "defense intelligence activities intended to support tactical military operations and priorities," according to a 2016 Congressional Research Service, while funding for the National Intelligence Program goes to nondefense organizations.

The Pentagon in a statement said the request includes base budget funding as well as the war fund known overseas as the overseas contingency operations account.

"The department determined that releasing this top-line figure does not jeopardize any classified activities within the MIP," the statement noted. "No other MIP budget figures or program details will be released, as they remain classified for national security reasons."