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China vows response if US deploys missiles in region, arms race feared

A top Chinese military official on Tuesday said Beijing would “not stand idly by” if the U.S. goes forward with deploying intermediate-range missiles in the Indo-Pacific region, raising new fears an arms race.
Last weekend, Mark Esper, the U.S. defense secretary, said that he “would like to” place these missiles in Asia, while in Sydney. Australia's defense minister has said that country will not be a base for the missiles.
It was not clear when these missiles would be put into place, but one senior official from the U.S. told Reuters that it would be years away.
Esper made the comments after the U.S. withdrew from an arms control treaty with Russia from the Cold War-era. A senior U.S. official said Russia was in “material breach of the treaty” and made no effort to “come back into compliance.” The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Moscow accused the U.S. of breaching the treaty and asked for evidence that it was in violation.
Fu Cong, the chief arms control official in China, also Tuesday warned neighboring countries not to allow the U.S. to deploy such weapons on their territory.
Fu said China had no intention of entering a trilateral arms control deal with the U S. and Russia but would remain engaged in disarmament discussions.
The Pentagon has reportedly taken notice of the importance of its missile arsenal.
Defense One reported that the Pentagon is increasing its “stealthy long-range cruise missile” stockpile. Lockheed Martin is reportedly building an entirely new facility in Alabama to accommodate the demand for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, which were used in Syria and fired from a B-1 bomber.
The Associated Press contributed  to this report

California sued over law blocking Trump from ballot unless he releases tax returns

Four voters in California, along with the conservative transparency group Judicial Watch, announced Monday they have filed a federal lawsuit against the left-wing state, alleging its new law aimed at strong-arming President Trump into releasing his income tax returns is patently unconstitutional.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law known as the "Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act" last week. Its provisions would require Trump and other presidential primary candidates to file their tax returns for the most recent five years to the California secretary of state by November 26 or be excluded from the March 3, 2020 presidential primary ballot.
The law does not apply to the general election, so Trump would still appear on the November 2020 California presidential ballot if he secured the national Republican Party nomination.
"Within five days of receipt of the candidate’s tax returns, the Secretary of State shall make redacted versions of the tax returns available to the public on the Secretary of State’s internet website," the law states.
The measure sailed through the state's Democratic-led legislature. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown had vetoed a similar version of the law last year, noting that it "may not be constitutional" and sets a "slippery slope precedent" that could lead the state to demand all kinds of documents from candidates.
"Today we require tax returns, but what would be next?" Brown asked. "Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power."
But Newsom, a frequent Trump critic who declared in June that the GOP is "finished" and will devolve into a third party, disregarded those concerns.
The Constitution requires only three things of presidents: They have to be a natural-born U.S. citizen; must be at least 35 and must have lived in the country for at least 14 years. (Although the precise legal meaning of the term "natural-born U.S. citizen" is debated, it generally is taken to apply when someone is either born in the U.S. or born abroad to a U.S. citizen.)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Newsom signed a law Tuesday, July 30, requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns to appear on the state's primary ballot, a move aimed squarely at Republican President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The four plaintiffs are two Republicans, one Democrat and one independent.
In their federal complaint, the plaintiffs call the law an unprecedented attempt by a state to add additional qualifications for the presidency.
"No state or federal law has ever mandated that presidential candidates disclose their tax returns to qualify or appear on a ballot," the complaint says. "The voluntary release of presidential candidates’ tax returns is a recent, and partial, phenomenon, notwithstanding a current media narrative suggesting otherwise."
In a statement, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said: "This is a nonpartisan concern about the state running roughshod and attempting to amend the Constitution on its own."
“California politicians, in their zeal to attack President Trump, passed a law that also unconstitutionally victimizes California voters," Fitton added. "It is an obvious legal issue that a state can’t amend the U.S. Constitution by adding qualifications in order to run for president. The courts can’t stop this abusive law fast enough.”
Attorneys for Judicial Watch argue California's law effectively alters the Constitution by adding a new requirement for tax returns, something they say state governments don't have the authority to do.
California's law says voters need to know details about presidential candidates' finances to "better estimate the risks of any given Presidential candidate engaging in corruption."
But Judicial Watch argues that rationale could lead states to demand things like medical and mental health records and eventually things like Amazon purchases, Google search histories and Facebook friends. Conservatives, who recognize that Trump stands no chance of winning California's electoral votes regardless of the outcome of this dispute, have similarly sounded the alarm about where these restrictions might go in the future.
Judicial Watch also argues that by limiting the law to primary elections, it does not apply to independent candidates. Judicial Watch also says the law violates voters' constitutional rights to associate with presidential candidates and the voters who support them, rights it says are guaranteed under the First and 14th amendments.
The lawsuit names Secretary of State Alex Padilla as the defendant because his office is in charge of enforcing the law. Representatives for Padilla and Newsom declined to comment on Monday, saying they have not been officially notified of the lawsuit.
When he signed the law last week, Newsom released statements from three lawyers, including the dean of the University of California, Berkeley law school, saying the law is constitutional.
"SB 27, which requires that presidential candidates disclose tax returns, is constitutional. It does not keep any candidate from being on the ballot so long as he or she complies with a simple requirement that is meant to provide California voters crucial information," Berkeley dean Erwin Chemerinsky said. "This is the state acting to make sure that its voters have information that might be very important to them when they cast their ballots as to who they want to be President of the United States."
Newsom contends Congress has changed aspects of the presidency previously, including limiting presidents to two terms after President Franklin Roosevelt was elected to four terms, and passing anti-nepotism laws after President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert, U.S. attorney general.

President Trump has said he will not release his tax returns as long as they are under audit. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

"If the federal government is not going to act, California needs to act. We've always done that," Newsom said in a video posted to his Twitter account.
Citizens have had to pay federal income taxes since 1913, but it wasn't until 1973 when a U.S. president made his personal tax returns public. Republican Richard Nixon released his tax returns publicly while he was being audited by the IRS, after an IRS employee leaked a portion of his returns to the media.
Ever since, U.S. presidents have released at least a summary of their personal income taxes. That includes most major candidates for president, with some exceptions. Former California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown did not release his tax returns when he ran for president in 1992.
In their lawsuit against California, the plaintiffs noted that  "one study found that 7 of 34 'major' candidates for president since 1976, or about 20 percent, refused to produce their tax returns."
The complaint specifically alleges violations of the Qualifications Clause of the Constitution, as well as the plaintiff's First Amendment rights to express their political preferences. Additionally, because the law only applies to party-affiliated candidates (non-party candidates do not participate in primaries), the suit also alleges a violation of the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause and a federal equal protection statute.
Trump has refused to release his tax returns, saying they are being audited by the IRS.
Fox News' Louis Casiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Trump to visit El Paso mass shooting site, in spite of Dems' warning to stay away

El Paso, Texas, Mayor Dee Margo told reporters on Monday that President Trump will visit the city on Wednesday, even as several prominent Democrats indirectly blamed the president for Saturday's mass shooting there -- with some warning him, in frank terms, to stay away.
News of Trump's planned appearance teed up a potentially bitter national political moment just four days after suspected gunman Patrick Crusius, 21, allegedly opened fire at a Walmart and killed 22 people while injuring more than two dozen others.
"He is president of the United States," Margo, a Republican, told reporters. "So in that capacity, I will fulfill my obligations as mayor of El Paso, and hope that if we are expressing specifics that we can get him to come through for us."
The mayor said he anticipated "political spin" and was “already getting the emails and the phone calls” from individuals "with lots of time on their hands," but that his focus remains on his community, not politics. He added that Trump had called and was "very gracious" and offered any support necessary.
“We’re dealing with a tragedy of 22 people who have perished by the hateful, evil act of a white supremacist,” Margo said. “I don’t know how we deal with evil. I don’t have a textbook for dealing with it other than the Bible.
"I’m sorry. We are going to go through this," he continued. "The president is coming out. I will meet with the president. I guess for people who have lots of time on their hands, I will deal with the emails and phone calls.”
The White House has not confirmed Trump's schedule, or whether he will also visit Dayton, Ohio -- where a gunman who reportedly supported the violent left-wing group Antifa, as well as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, killed nine people over the weekend. But the Federal Aviation Administration has advised pilots of a presidential visit Wednesday to both El Paso and Dayton.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat, told reporters that she had "not gotten a call" about a presidential visit as of late Monday, and didn't have more details.
But both before and after Margo's announcement, several Democrats forcefully urged Trump not to visit El Paso. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, who represents the district that is home to the Walmart where Saturday’s shooting took place, lashed out at the president on Monday morning -- placing some of the blame for the weekend’s tragedy at his feet.
“The president has made my community and my people the enemy,” she told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Greg Zanis prepares crosses to place at a makeshift memorial for victims of a mass shooting at a shopping complex Monday in El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

“He has told the country that we are people to be feared, people to be hated," Escobar continued. "From my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning.”
And Democratic presidential candidate Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, urged Margo in a televised interview to "quietly" tell Trump that he is not "welcome" in the city, because of his rhetoric on immigration.
Ryan has escalated his language in the last 24 hours, as he struggles to raise his political profile. He tweeted “Fck me” after Trump mistakenly, at one point in his televised remarks earlier in the day, said the Ohio shooting took place in Toledo and not Dayton.
For Ryan, the language appeared to be part of a deliberate approach: Earlier Monday, the longshot candidate went on CNN and tore into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying, "Mitch McConnell needs to get off his a-- and do something.” On Sunday, he tweeted: “Republicans need to get their s--- together and stop pandering to the NRA. Period.”
Sanders also called out the president, saying "I say to President Trump, please stop the racist anti-immigrant rhetoric. Stop the hatred in this country which is creating the kind of violence that we see."
In 2017, a far-left Sanders supporter fired upon a Republican congressional baseball practice, critically wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and injuring three others before U.S. Capitol Police took him down. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said the gunman was screaming, "This is for healthcare." Sanders did not take responsibility for that episode.
Trump, for his part, on Monday called for reforms at the intersection of mental health and gun laws -- including so-called "red flag laws" to take guns from those deemed a public risk -- in the wake of the back-to-back mass shootings over the weekend, which left at least 31 people dead in total.
The Trump administration previously enacted an unprecedented ban on firearm bump stocks that enable weapons to fire with greater rapidity, like machine guns -- and the ban was recently upheld by the Supreme Court. The move came after a 2017 massacre in Las Vegas, Nevada killed 58 people.
In unequivocal terms, the president on Monday also condemned white supremacy, responding to reports that the shooter in El Paso wrote a racist manifesto ahead of the violence. The manifesto specifically said that Trump's rhetoric was not to blame for the shooting, and said the shooter's views "predate" Trump's presidential campaign.
However, some observers cautioned that mass shooters are increasingly using disingenuous manifestos primarily as a means to cause division and sow political discord, rather than to advance a particular agenda. Crusius became the third mass shooter this year believed to have posted to the website 8Chan, which is a haven for both ironic trolls and racists, prior to going on a shooting rampage.
"The first mistake people are making is to assume the creep meant anything he said in his manifesto," wrote columnist Brian Cates. "Something new has been added into the mix in the last year and we have to recognize it: Mass shootings done for **fun** as the ultimate troll where these [shooters] write confusing manifestos and then sit back & watch the fun as both sides claim he belongs to the other."
Cates pointed out that the Christchurch, New Zealand mass shooter's manifesto contained a mixture of left-wing and right-wing rhetoric, and by its own explicit terms, was intended to cause international political division. The purported El Paso manifesto, like the New Zealand shooter's manifesto, also espoused eco-fascist principles and lamented the destruction of the environment.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden falsely suggested after Trump's remarks that Monday was the first time the president had condemned white supremacy.
Later, McConnell – a Republican who has been lambasted by Democrats for refusing to allow votes on gun control legislation – said Monday he is willing to consider “bipartisan” solutions in the wake of the mass shootings, though he emphasized that he opposes gun control policies that infringe “on Americans’ constitutional rights.”
Democrats have been demanding McConnell recall Congress from its current recess, which is slated to run to the second week of September, to address the matter.
The political fight over Trump's visit came amid a series of rapid-fire developments in the investigations in both El Paso and Dayton. Crusius was booked on capital murder charges, and authorities said Sunday that he is under investigation for alleged domestic terrorism. Officials were also looking into whether hate crime charges are appropriate.

Maylin Reyes hangs a Mexican flag at a makeshift memorial near the scene of a mass shooting at a shopping complex Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza said his office will seek the death penalty against the suspect.
"The loss of life is so great, we certainly have never seen this in our community. We are a very safe community," he told reporters at a news conference on Sunday. "We pride ourselves on the fact that we're so safe, and certainly this community is rocked, shocked and saddened by what has happened here yesterday."
El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said Monday that the gunman got lost in a neighborhood before ending up at Walmart "because, we understand, he was hungry." Allen didn't elaborate. Crusius' hometown is the affluent Dallas suburb of Allen.
The police chief said the gun used in the shooting was legally purchased near the suspect's hometown.
In his application for a public defender on Monday, Crusius said he has been unemployed for five months, and has no income, assets or expenses. He claimed he has been living with his grandparents.
In Ohio, authorities revealed that the gunman in the Dayton rampage, 24-year-old Connor Betts, opened fire outside a bar around 1 a.m. Sunday, killing his adult sister and eight others. Police say he was fatally shot by officers within 30 seconds, and was wearing a mask, bulletproof vest, earplugs and had at least 100 rounds.
Authorities provided a dramatic video of officers rushing onto the scene and taking Betts out before he could enter another packed bar.
Police had not determined a motive for the attack as of Monday evening. Reports linked him to Antifa, and showed that he supported Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Betts was armed with an AR-15-style rifle, police said. If all of the magazines he had with him were full, which hasn't been confirmed, he would have had a maximum of 250 rounds, said Police Chief Richard Biehl.
"It is fundamentally problematic. To have that level of weaponry in a civilian environment is problematic," Biehl added.
Of the more than 30 people injured in Ohio, at least 14 had gunshot wounds; others were hurt as people fled, city officials said. Eleven remained hospitalized Monday, Fire Chief Jeffrey Payne said.
Still unknown is whether Betts targeted any of the victims, including his 22-year-old sister, Megan, the youngest of the dead.
"It seems to just defy believability he would shoot his own sister, but it's also hard to believe that he didn't recognize it was his sister, so we just don't know," Biehl said.
While the gunman was white and six of the nine killed were black, police said the speed of the rampage made any discrimination in the shooting seem unlikely.
Fox News' Liam Quinn, Brooke Singman, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New York City businesses struggle after minimum wage increase

More than six months after the $15 minimum wage went into effect in New York City, business leaders and owners say the increased labor costs have forced them to cut staff, eliminate work shifts and raise prices.
Many business owners said these changes were unintended consequences of the new minimum wage, which took effect at the beginning of the year.
Susannah Koteen, owner of Lido Restaurant in Harlem, said she worries about the impact raising wages could have on her restaurant, where she employs nearly 40 people. She hasn’t had to lay off anyone, but the increase has forced her to cut back on shifts and be more stringent about overtime. She said she changes her menu offerings seasonally and raises prices more often since the wage boost.
“What it really forces you to do is make sure that nobody works more than 40 hours,” Ms. Koteen said. “You can only cut back so many people before the service starts to suffer.”
Ms. Koteen said she shelved plans to move her restaurant to a larger location. That would require her to hire more staff, and she isn’t willing to take the risk with the unpredictability of her business. “You would just have no choice but to cut people at the bottom,” she said.
In June, the city’s unemployment rate was 4.3%, compared with the state’s unemployment rate of 4%, according to the New York State Department of Labor. Both numbers have remained relatively steady during the past year.
New York City’s minimum wage has increased three times for employers with at least 11 employees in the past three years. At the end of 2016, the hourly rate rose to $11 from $9 an hour. In 2018, the minimum wage jumped to $13 from $11 an hour. The rate will increase to $15 an hour for employers with 10 or fewer workers at the end of 2019.
The current federally mandated minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Other states have passed $15-minimum-wage legislation, including Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Anthony Advincula, spokesman for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, which advocated for the $15 minimum wage, said there are other factors beyond higher wages that result in unsuccessful businesses, and owners shouldn’t blame the boost for their struggles.
“Increasing to $15 would reduce income inequality, and the number of individuals living in poverty now is ridiculously high,” he said. “This is not just a business issue, this is a race, gender, pay-equality issue.”
Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Jackson Books, employs 75 people at four shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Ms. McNally said she hasn’t cut hours or reduced the number of people she employs to mitigate the increase, but she is working to open two more shops and scale her workload to stay profitable.
While Ms. McNally said she always has paid her employees at least $5 above minimum wage, January’s increase tightened that gap. “With raising minimum wage to living wage, it feels now like we’re at the bottom of the pay spectrum,” she said. “There’s absolutely no benefit to being a retail business in New York.”
Thomas Grech, president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, said he has seen an uptick in small-business closures during the past six to nine months, and he attributed it to the minimum-wage legislation.
“They’re cutting their staff. They’re cutting their hours. They’re shutting down,” he said. “It’s not just the rent.”
Lisa Sorin, president of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, said Manhattan businesses and their customers can afford to pay more to compensate for the wage increase, while those in the surrounding boroughs probably couldn’t. “It’s almost like a whirlwind of keep up or get out,” Ms. Sorin said.
Restaurants and establishments with customer bases with less disposable income are challenged, but all are experiencing changes in customer habits regardless of borough, said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance.
To mitigate the challenges restaurants face, Mr. Rigie said, local and state government should consider providing tax incentives to owners and preserve the tip credit, which allows restaurants to count some or all of an employee’s tips toward its minimum-wage obligations.
“Many people working in the restaurant industry wanted to work overtime hours, but due to the increase, many restaurants have cut back or totally eliminated any overtime work,” he said. “There’s only so much consumers are willing to pay for a burger or a bowl of pasta.”

Townhall Back to School Cartoons

AOC aide faces federal investigation amid resignation: report

The controversial chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who resigned on Friday is currently being investigated by federal officials, a new report says.
Saikat Chakrabarti faced a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission in March for alleged violations having to do with illegal fundraising. An investigation is currently underway, sources told the New York Post. According to the FEC, complaints only lead to investigations if there is enough evidence for them to believe there may have been a violation.
“Upon finding reason to believe that a violation has occurred or is about to occur, the Commission may authorize an investigation,” an FEC enforcement guidebook says.
The investigation is reportedly related to Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, two PACs Chakrabarti started to back progressive candidates. The March complaint alleged that the groups funneled more than $885,000 to the similarly named Brand New Campaign LLC and the Brand New Congress LLC -- companies controlled by Chakrabarti that, unlike PACs, are exempt from reporting all of their significant expenditures. The PACs claimed the payments were for "strategic consulting."
Chakrabarti and Ocasio-Cortez were hit with another complaint in April over accusations that they used Brand New Congress LLC to illegally provide in-kind political contributions by offering consulting services for cheap rates, operating at a loss by only charging candidates a portion of the costs.
Ocasio-Cortez has denied any wrongdoing, telling reporters in April: "It's conservative interest groups just filing bogus proposals."
Federal officials are also looking into Chakrabarti’s salary from Ocasio-Cortez, the Post reported. The independently wealthy aide earned $80,000, as opposed to the average of $146,830. This not only allowed junior staff members to get a pay bump, it let Chakrabarti avoid requirements to reveal outside income, which only kick in for those earning at least $126,000.
The FEC did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment, and Chakrabarti could not be reached. A statement from Ocasio-Cortez's office announcing Chakrabarti's departure said he was leaving in order to take a new role at the non-profit group New Consensus to help with work on a Green New Deal.
Earlier this summer, Chakrabarti put himself at the center of a rift in the Democratic Party, with Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib on one side, and the party’s establishment led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the other.
In June, he criticized Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, for her votes on issues to do with the migrant crisis at the border.
“I don't think people have to be personally racist to enable a racist system. And the same could even be said of the Southern Democrats. I don't believe Sharice is a racist person, but her votes are showing her to enable a racist system,” he tweeted.
The caucus Twitter account reacted by saying, "Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?” an apparent reference to how Ocasio-Cortez accused Pelosi of singling out women of color by making comments about her and the other progressive freshman congresswomen.
Fox News' Louis Casiano, Adam Shaw, Gregg Re and Andrew Keiper contributed to this report.

El Paso, Dayton could define August -- a historically turbulent month

El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, couldn’t be more different.
But they’re the same, now.
El Paso and Dayton are identical with Newtown, San Bernardino, Aurora, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Blacksburg and a host of other places.
This is why we fear August.
Beware of August. No month on the calendar warps the standard conventions for news like August. It shreds the quotidian with some of the most apocalyptic events imaginable … or unimaginable. August imposes its will, vexing members of Congress, presidents, cabinet officials, mayors and other leaders with the most catastrophic of circumstances. August tears the norms asunder, often steering a new political course for the nation – and sometimes the world.
The House and Senate usually abandon Washington for the fabled “August recess.” When it comes to Congress and politics, that’s precisely why people worry about August.
Some of the weirdest, most-influential events in American and global politics unfold in August.
Volatile political town halls erupt into chaos. We’ve had occasional recalls of Congress to Washington to wrestle with emerging issues or international crises. There was even a major earthquake (an actual geological one, not a political one) in Washington, D.C., during August a few years ago. 
Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, sparking the first Gulf War several months later. The U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. That ended World War II weeks later.
The East German government erected the Berlin Wall in August 1961.
President Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974.
The U.S. lurched into the Vietnam War as Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964. The measure’s stated goal was to “promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.” In reality, the resolution dragged the U.S. into a land war in Asia. That congressional blessing did nothing but fuel years of political dissent back home.
Few in Washington will forget the lasting political impact of Hurricane Katrina lashing New Orleans in August 2005.
“Beware the Ides of March,” wrote Shakespeare in "Julius Caesar." The Bard could have written about what President Trump said on Aug. 15, 2017 -- the “Ides” of August.” Mr. Trump uttered some of the most controversial remarks of his presidency that day about the Charlottesville, Va., melee a few days before.
The president claimed “There is blame on both sides,” adding there “were very fine people on both sides.”
Last August featured the double political whammy of a guilty verdict in the federal corruption trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a guilty plea by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen – within minutes of each other.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., died in August of last year.
In early August 2011, Congress approved the Budget Control Act to impose mandatory spending caps and hike the debt ceiling. Congress lived with those spending caps until last week. That vote marked the end of a tumultuous struggle over hiking the debt ceiling as the sides tried to marshal a “grand bargain” to constrain federal spending. Those efforts failed and lawmakers were stuck with the mandatory spending caps, known as “sequestration.”
It’s pretty simple. August is a defining month.
It’s pretty early in this August. But we think we know what will define this August. Better yet, how August will define American politics.
Of course, just a day or two ago, we thought impeachment or a spate of retirements by House Republicans could define August. Maybe another tweetstorm about Baltimore. To be sure, there’s still lots of runway in August.
The impeachment front bears watching this month. More than half of all congressional Democrats now support impeachment for President Trump or commissioning an impeachment inquiry. And it’s not just liberal Democrats anymore. Democrats who won battleground districts last year are increasingly demanding an impeachment inquest. Take Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Wexton just flipped her district from red to blue. Republicans now are goading moderate Democrats who seized other districts last fall to also endorse impeachment.
Here’s a mantra we often use in this space: It’s about the math. It’s about the math. It’s about the math. With more than half of all 235 House Democrats now backing impeachment, one wonders how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will respond to the impeachment push. But slightly more than half of the 235 House Democrats pushing impeachment isn’t 190 or 200. While “it’s about the math” in some respects,” it’s certainly “about the math” in other respects. The House is a long way from having the votes to impeach President Trump on the floor. Pelosi is keenly aware of both metrics. But Pelosi will inevitably have to respond in some fashion.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to be in recess until Sept. 9. But August could determine where the party goes with impeachment. Could there be a groundswell for impeachment? Or does the conversation lose its zing, struggling for relevance amid the fading vapor trail of the Robert Mueller hearings?
But El Paso and Dayton could well demarcate this August.
House Democrats have a pre-scheduled conference call at noon ET Monday. The call was on the books before the shootings this weekend. One senior congressional source tells Fox News the call could determine whether Democratic leaders recall the House to work on gun-related legislation. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers demand that Congress reconvene. In particular, many Democrats are clamoring for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to summon the Senate back to town to address some of the firearms legislation already approved by the House. But it’s doubtful McConnell would do that. In addition, the Kentucky Republican just fell at his home over the weekend and is nursing a fractured shoulder.
From the perspective of Democrats, there are several pieces of legislation the House could tackle.
Multiple sources tell Fox News the Disarm Hate Act is ready to go to the floor. The bill bars people convicted of a hate crime from possessing firearms.
Fox is told there’s still work to do on "Extreme Risk Protection Orders" and how to grapple “red flag” problems. In other words, how do authorities balance constitutional rights and seize weapons from mentally disturbed persons or those with other issues?
Legislation banning high-capacity magazines is ready but Democrats would still need to massage that subject with rank-and-file members.
Despite the din, House Democrats are not yet ready to advance a bill to outlaw “assault weapons.” Such arms were barred for a decade as a part of the 1994 Crime Bill – authored by former Vice President and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. In fact, Congress had to return to Washington during the August recess of 1994 to lug that measure across the finish line. But the assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Congress did not renew the prohibition.
Some Democratic sources tell Fox pressure could mount for Pelosi to recall the House this month, considering the Democrats’ rhetoric on guns. Moreover, such a move could increase pressure on Senate Republicans. This dynamic is amplified since House Democrats repeatedly describe the Republican-controlled Senate as a “legislative graveyard” and criticize McConnell’s stewardship. One source told Fox it could be impossible for Democrats not to rally back to Washington, to at least appear as though they are addressing the issue and Senate Republicans are not.
Pelosi and McConnell can recall their respective bodies at their own discretion. That said, Democrats aren’t prepared to return yet. We’re told Democrats would have to develop a legislative strategy behind an August session and make sure everyone in their caucus is in agreement. And, perhaps most importantly, they’d have to make sure they have the votes on any gun-related bills.
In addition, Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution says the President “may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of Them.”
No chief executive has deployed this gambit since President Harry Truman.
And so here we are. August is proving to be more flammable this year than most. And we’ve got three-and-a-half weeks yet to go.
The abnormal is just the norm in August.