Two Tier Justice Cartoons

President Trump: GOP will have ‘far better’ health care plan than Obamacare

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:17 PM PT — Wednesday, March 27, 2019

“We are going to be the Republicans, the Party of Great Health Care.” — President Trump

President Trump is doubling down on his commitment to provide better health care for all Americans. While speaking to reporters at the White House, the president said Obamacare is “terrible” and the Democrats have let Americans down. He said he has already gotten rid of the individual mandate, which he described as the worst part of the health care law.
“Obamacare doesn’t work, it’s too expensive, and you take a look at everything with deductibles — it’s a disaster, it’s disaster for our people, we’re not going to allow it to go,” he stated.
The president went on to defend the Trump administration’s decision to stand behind a federal judge’s ruling to strike down all of Obamacare. The Justice Department submitted a filing to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the case could go all way up to the Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Fabiana Rosales, a Venezuelan activist who is the wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“And if the Supreme Court Rules that Obamacare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far-better than Obamacare,” said President Trump
The president has vowed to make the GOP the “Party of Health Care,” and is calling on all Republicans to revive the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Smollett damage control seen in internal email from Foxx's office as she defends 'alternative prosecution model'

CHICAGO – An internal email from the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, obtained by Fox News on Wednesday, asked assistant state's attorneys to dig for any examples to bolster Foxx’s claim that the dropped charges in the Jussie Smollett case weren’t as uncommon or shocking as they seemed.
The email read in part, “We are looking for examples of cases, felony preferable, where we, in (exercising) our discretion, have entered into verbal agreements with defense attorneys to dismiss charges against an offender if certain conditions were met...”
The email added, “Nobody is in trouble, we are just looking for further examples of how we, as prosecutors, use our discretion in a way that restores the victim…”
It was not clear who sent it, and exactly when it was sent. Foxx recused herself from the case last February but defended her office offering Smollett “an alternative prosecution model” in a series of interviews Wednesday.
An internal email from Kim Foxx’s office obtained by Fox News asked workers to dig for examples bolstering Foxx’s claim that the dropped charges in the Jussie Smollett case weren’t as uncommon or shocking as they seemed. (Getty, File)
Illinois Attorney Rod Drobinski told Fox News that because a special prosecutor was not appointed in the Smollett case, there were appearances of impropriety on behalf of Foxx's office. “Even the prosecutor said it was a strong case. That makes it even more unusual that they didn’t demand that he admit to what he did as part of this dismissal.”
Foxx has been defending the decision by her staff to drop charges against the “Empire” actor after investigators revealed he allegedly staged a racist, anti-gay attack.
Foxx told Fox 32 on Wednesday she believed the matter was handled properly for a case of its kind. She pointed to Smollett forfeiting his $10,000 bond and doing community service.
“When we look at similarly situated people charged with this offense, without a background, I think in this case, justice was, um, appropriate,” Foxx told Fox 32 Chicago. “He was availed to an alternative prosecution model that anyone without these riches, without this fame, would also be availed to.”
Cook County prosecutors dismissed all charges but still maintained Smollett lied about being attacked in downtown Chicago on Jan. 29. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel has called the dropping of charges “a whitewash.”
Smollett’s attorney, Patricia Brown Holmes, said in a statement: “We are disappointed the local authorities have continued their campaign against Jussie Smollett after the charges against him have been dropped. The facts are clear.  The Assistant State’s Attorney appeared in court and dismissed the charges. Mr. Smollett forfeited his bond. The case is closed. No public official has the right to violate Mr. Smollett’s due process rights. Mr. Smollett, like every citizen, is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Mr. Smollett is entitled to the same Constitutional protections as any citizen charged by the government with a crime— including the right to speak freely about his innocence, the right to be viewed as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and the right to hold the State to its burden of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  None of that has occurred in this case.”
The National District Attorneys Association, which claims to represent roughly 2,700 prosecutors’ offices around the country, heavily criticized Foxx in a statement to Fox News.
“First, when a chief prosecutor recuses him or herself, the recusal must apply to the entire office, not just the elected or appointed prosecutor. This is consistent with best practices for prosecutors’ offices around the country,” the statement began.
It added, “Second, prosecutors should not take advice from politically connected friends of the accused. Each case should be approached with the goal of justice for victims while protecting the rights of the defendant. Third, when a prosecutor seeks to resolve a case through diversion or some other alternative to prosecution, it should be done so with an acknowledgement of culpability on the part of the defendant. A case with the consequential effects of Mr. Smollett’s should not be resolved without a finding of guilt or innocence.”
The statement concluded: “Fourth, expunging Mr. Smollett’s record at this immediate stage is counter to transparency. Law enforcement will now not be able to acknowledge that Mr. Smollett was indicted and charged with these horrible crimes and the full record of what occurred will be forever hidden from public view. Finally, we believe strongly that hate crimes should be prosecuted vigorously but the burden of proof should not be artificially increased due to the misguided decisions of others.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mueller Probe Exposed Plot to Overthrow President Trump

Americans can learn a great deal from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — it just won’t have anything to do with the Russia collusion hoax.
In the end, Mueller’s $30 million investigative apparatus failed to produce any evidence of collusion between President Trump’s 2016 election campaign and the Russian government, despite nearly two years of intense effort by Mueller’s team of partisan lawyers with extensive ties to the Democratic Party.
As it turns out, the investigation was, indeed, a witch hunt.
With its failure to uncover any evidence of collusion, though, Mueller’s probe led to the revelation of something even more profound — a systemic plot to overthrow President Trump from within the federal government that the American people elected him to lead. Mueller’s findings demonstrate, beyond a doubt, that high-ranking government officials with access to sensitive information and extensive influence over the justice system abused their power to give credence to made-up allegations against the president.
Had it not been for Mueller’s appointment, the American people would likely never have known about the political cabal that was determined to frame Donald Trump for treason and see Hillary Clinton elected president. Although the details emerged gradually from a variety of sources — most notably congressional investigations, leaks, and a bombshell report by the Justice Department’s inspector general — all were either motivated or made relevant by the Special Counsel investigation that dominated the nation’s attention for two years.
Just as then-candidate Trump was surging to a rare lead in the 2016 polls over Hillary Clinton, the FBI opened a secret investigation into the Trump campaign. On July 31, 2016, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe directed agent Peter Strzok to open a counterintelligence investigation dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane” to spy on the Trump Campaign. The evidence? A phony dossier filled with salacious but unverified claims about Donald Trump that was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign.
For the first time in American history, a candidate for the country’s highest political office was allowed to use America’s intelligence apparatus to spy on an opponent. The agent in charge of surveilling candidate Trump, Peter Strzok, was the same agent who was later caught saying he’d “stop” him from ever becoming president.
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok’s former mistress Lisa Page asked him in one text. “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded in August 2016, shortly after opening “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Around the same time, Page and Strzok — both of whom would go on to serve on the Special Counsel’s team — had their notorious discussion of the secretive "insurance policy" in case Trump actually became president.

A few months after President Trump’s inauguration, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and his fellow D.C. bureaucrats were secretly plotting to overthrow the duly elected president by engineering a mutiny among his cabinet officials so that they would invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
It’s possible that these failed coup attempts would never have seen the light of day if the plotters hadn’t gone a step too far by orchestrating the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate made-up allegations that the Trump Campaign colluded with Russia. The Mueller investigation kept the public’s attention fixated on the collusion hoax for nearly two years, giving the previous efforts to overturn the results of the 2016 election relevance that they wouldn’t otherwise have had.
Even though the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate phony collusion claims cooked up by political partisans was a travesty that never should have been allowed to happen, its unintended consequence at least offered a silver lining. Thanks to Robert Mueller’s investigation, we now know that there’s an urgent need to root out political bias and corruption among the career bureaucrats in our most powerful law enforcement agencies entrusted with upholding the rule of law in this country.
As New York City’s 40th Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik was in command of the NYPD on September 11, 2001, and responsible for the city’s response, rescue, recovery, and the investigative efforts of the most substantial terror attack in world history. His 35-year career has been recognized in more than 100 awards for meritorious and heroic service, including a presidential commendation for heroism by President Ronald Reagan, two Distinguished Service Awards from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and an appointment as Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
The writer is author of the following: "The Grave Above the Grave," "From Jailer to Jailed," and "The Lost Son, A Life in Pursuit of Justice."

Lindsey Graham: Congress Could Get Mueller Report in April

Attorney General William Barr has told the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that he's combing through special counsel Robert Mueller's report, removing classified and other information in hopes of releasing it to Congress in April.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he had dinner the previous evening with Barr, who said he is willing to testify before Graham's committee after he sends the report to Congress. Justice Department officials said Tuesday that more information could be released in "weeks, not months."
Democrats, meanwhile, frowned at the waiting game. Rep. Elijah Cummings, one of six committee chairmen who have demanded the full report by Tuesday, said much about the path forward depends on whether the report backs up Barr's conclusion that Mueller found no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 elections. By Barr's account, Mueller made no finding on whether the president obstructed justice, a question now in Congress' hands.

"The president has now an opportunity for weeks, it sounds like, to do these victory laps," while Democrats wait on key decisions about investigating the administration, Cummings said.
Challenges lie ahead for both the Republicans and the Democrats who hope to deny Trump re-election next year. Both parties are readjusting their aims and strategies in the post-probe landscape, pivoting to health care and other issues that are more important for many voters, even with Mueller's full findings still unknown.
Graham said the attorney general is going through the report to take out grand jury material and classified information, neither of which can be publicly disclosed under the law.
Barr wants to make sure nothing is released that could compromise national security or intelligence sources and methods, Graham said. He said Barr also told him he wants to check with prosecutors who have cases associated with Mueller's Russia investigation. Mueller had referred cases to other federal courts as part of his probe.

Graham later told CNN he had spoken to President Donald Trump about the Mueller report, who said "just release it." Graham said Trump was unlikely to claim executive privilege on any of the material.
The attorney general released a four-page summary of Mueller's confidential report on Sunday that said the special counsel did not find that Trump's campaign "conspired or coordinated" with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election. It also said that Mueller reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed the federal investigation, instead setting out "evidence on both sides" of the question.
Emboldened by the end of the investigation, Trump on Tuesday strode into a high-spirited gathering of Senate Republicans, flanked by party leaders, saying the attorney general's summary of Mueller's report "could not have been better." GOP senators applauded his arrival, and he celebrated what he called his "clean bill of health." He showed an eagerness to move on, Republicans said, specifically to focus anew on repealing President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

At House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's own closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday, she urged rank-and-file Democrats to "be calm" and focus on the policy promises of health care, jobs and oversight of the administration that helped propel them to the House majority last fall.
"Let's just get the goods," Pelosi said.
Not that the Democrats are forgetting Russia and the 2016 presidential election. Many Democrats dismiss Barr's four-page summary as inadequate.
"I haven't seen the Mueller report. I've seen the Barr report. And I'm not going to base anything on the Barr report," said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

Trump has said he "wouldn't mind" if the full report were released. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he's hesitant to agree to releasing information from Mueller that would "throw innocent people who've not been charged under the bus." He is blocking legislation approved unanimously by the House calling for the report's release.
The president seemed to have heeded advice from allies, including Graham, who encouraged him to use the political capital he's now gained to accomplish policy goals.
Pelosi's advice to Democrats to stick with the strategy that won them control of the House in 2018 was reinforced by Obama himself, who counseled freshman Democrats at a reception Monday night.
Obama advised the newly elected lawmakers to focus on constituents' hopes and concerns, while also identifying issues they feel so strongly about that they'd be willing to lose their House seats in fights over them, according to people at the private party.
The focus must go beyond Russia and collusion, Democratic leaders said.

Jussie Smollett Cartoons

Media mount counteroffensive against stinging criticism as probe ends

Forget the soul-searching. The media counterattack is underway.
With harsh criticism coming from the left as well as the right as Robert Mueller's probe ends, the leaders of major news organizations, along with assorted pundits, are defending their work and that of their colleagues.
And most of them aren't giving an inch.
Nope, they're basically saying we did everything right.
They're not reflecting on whether they banged the drum so loudly that it sounded like Donald Trump's presidency was headed toward collapse. They're not addressing whether they raised expectations for the probe to an absurd degree. They're not discussing whether reporting bled into commentary as more of its practitioners simultaneously joined the cable news parade.
The New York Times reached several of the news chiefs.
CNN President Jeff Zucker is "entirely comfortable" with the network's handling of the story:
"We are not investigators. We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did. A sitting president's own Justice Department investigated his campaign for collusion with a hostile nation. That's not enormous because the media says so. That's enormous because it's unprecedented."
Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron: "The special counsel investigation documented, as we reported, extensive Russian interference in the 2016 election and widespread deceit on the part of certain advisers to the president about Russian contacts and other matters. Our job is to bring facts to light. Others make determinations about prosecutable criminal offenses."
And Dean Baquet, the Times' executive editor: "We wrote a lot about Russia, and I have no regrets. It's not our job to determine whether or not there was illegality."
Joe Scarborough offered a high-decibel defense the coverage on his MSNBC show: "Don't knock reporters for The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the broadcast networks for doing their job right." He also took several shots at Fox opinion hosts.
Overall, I think there's something of a straw-man argument here.
Of course a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign, which yielded 37 indictments, and led to convictions of top former Trump associates, needed to be covered extensively and aggressively.
Of course the fact that Mueller declined to bring further charges doesn't mean that all the stories written about the allegations and Trump’s handling of them — not to mention his constant attacks on the special counsel — were wrong.
And of course politicians can behave unethically without explicitly violating the law.
So the issue isn't coverage vs. no coverage. It's proportionate coverage vs. Defcon 1 coverage, the drumbeat of here's-the-latest-outrage that could sink the president vs. here-are-the-latest-developments and new questions raised by our reporting.
While "journalists aren't investigators" in the law-enforcement sense, they routinely submit their investigative work for prizes, and promote it as "a New York Times/Washington Post/CNN investigation has found ..."
And that's without getting into the obliterated line between reporting, analysis and cable punditry in an era when most of the reporters covering the story have TV contracts. And that's without getting into commentary that portrayed the president as a potential traitor orchestrating a coverup that could lead to impeachment.
By the way, Fox News covered the hell out of this story too, though often in a skeptical vein and with more of a focus on possible wrongdoing within Mueller's office, the DOJ and the FBI, especially on the opinion side.
But what's striking to me is how the condemnations are coming from both conservatives and liberals.
Here's a piece in The Federalist:
"For the past two years, a large swath of the media engaged in a mass act of self-deception and partisan groupthink. Perhaps it was Watergate envy, or bitterness over Donald Trump's victory, or antagonism towards Republicans in general — or, most likely, a little bit of all the above. But now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has delivered his report on Russian collusion, it's clear that political journalists did the bidding of those who wanted to delegitimize and overturn Trump's election."
And here's one from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi:
"Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."
Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept told Fox that MSNBC "should have their top hosts on primetime, go before the cameras and hang their head in shame, and apologize for lying to people for three straight years ...
"There was a whole slew, not just me, of left-wing journalists with very high journalistic credentials far more than anyone on that network, like Matt Taibbi and Jeremy Scahill and many others, including myself who were banned from the network because they wanted their audience not to know that anybody was questioning or expressing skepticism about the lies and the scam they were selling because it was so profitable."
Alan Dershowitz, the liberal Harvard law professor, sounded a similar note on Fox, saying almost all the pundits "have just been dead wrong. It's time for them to fess up, it's time for CNN to issue an apology. CNN banned me from their air because I was being too fair. I was trying to assess what the essential issue was, and I wasn't being partisan. They didn't want that."
Of course, Dershowitz got more Fox invitations once he was regularly defending Trump.
The president isn't exactly moving on, tweeting yesterday that "the Mainstream Media is under fire and being scorned all over the World as being corrupt and FAKE." After pushing the "Russian Collusion Delusion," he said, "They truly are the Enemy of the People and the Real Opposition Party!" That’s the first time he's broadened the charge beyond just the "fake news," and in my view goes too far.
But when you have Ted Koppel saying Trump is right that "the establishment press is out to get him" — singling out the Times and Post — and former Times editor Jill Abramson saying its news coverage is "unmistakably anti-Trump," that ought to give people in the profession some pause.
For its leading members to say they have no regrets misses why much of the country is losing confidence in the media.

Trump Opposes Further Disaster Aid for Battered Puerto Rico

President Donald Trump is taking a hard line against further disaster aid for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico, telling GOP allies that the U.S. island territory has gotten too much rebuilding money compared with Southern states.

Trump's opposition to additional Puerto Rico funding sets up a showdown with House Democrats, who insist that a $13 billion to $14 billion disaster aid package that's a top priority for southern Republicans won't advance without Puerto Rico aid.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says Trump told Republicans at a luncheon Tuesday that aid for Puerto Rico "is way out of proportion to what Texas and Florida and others have gotten."
The disaster aid package cleared a procedural hurdle by a 90-10 vote and is expected to pass the Senate, setting up talks with the Democratic-controlled House.