Pelosi Cartoons

Workers, car owners, dealers and GM feel pinch from strike

DETROIT (AP) — As the United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors stretches into a second week, it’s not just the company and striking workers getting pinched.

With many replacement part warehouses shut down, dealers are beginning to run short of components to repair cars, trucks and SUVs. And companies that make auto parts are also starting to see work slow down. Dealer inventory of new vehicles is holding up but starting to get depleted on a few models.

Meanwhile, GM is losing millions of dollars and has been forced to close one Canadian factory and send workers home at another. The 49,000 striking workers are going to have to get by on $250 per week in strike pay.

This doesn’t even include the restaurants and other businesses around the more than 30 U.S. factories that have been closed due to the strike. And the longer the strike lasts, the worse it will get for everyone.

Here’s a look at the ripple effects of the strike as bargaining continues:

AUTO PARTS: The biggest impact so far seems to be the lack of availability of some replacement parts for GM vehicles. The strike has shut down a parts depot in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the Southeast region normally gets its replacements, said Ed Williamson, who owns several GM dealers in the Miami area.

Parts suppliers, especially smaller ones where GM is the main customer, are also starting to get hit, says Morningstar analyst David Whiston. Even bigger ones like Magna International, a Canadian company that makes components for many GM models, is reporting temporary layoffs at some of its U.S. and Canadian operations.

GM spokesman Jim Cain acknowledged there are some parts shortages, but says it is still shipping parts from depots staffed by management, dealers that stockpile parts for sale to other dealers, and outside companies that make parts for GM vehicles.

“Obviously it’s a difficult situation, and we are working to find other sources of parts around the country,” he said.

DEALER INVENTORY: GM had a hefty 77-day supply of vehicles at the end of August, but big SUVs were only at about 55 days, lower than the industry average of 61. With no shipments since Sept. 16, supplies are starting to drop.

Michelle Krebs, executive analyst for Autotrader, said dealers have told her that they’ll have ample supply for another week or so. Sales in September thus far have been slowing from August levels, so supplies aren’t being depleted that quickly, she said.

Williamson said he’s still got plenty of vehicles, including 80 to 90 days worth of big SUVs such as the Cadillac Escalade and GMC Yukon. But he’s running short of the Cadillac XT5 midsize SUV.

GM IN CANADA AND MEXICO: Citi analyst Itay Michalei estimates GM is losing $100 million in profits per day. The strike has already caused GM to lay off 1,850 workers and shut down its assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, near Toronto. Another 730 were laid off from an engine plant in St. Catherine’s, Ontario, according Unifor, the Canadian auto workers union.

Thus far, GM says no Mexican plants have been shut down, nor has a factory in Ontario that builds the Chevrolet Equinox compact SUV.

UAW WORKERS: Striking workers received their last GM paycheck this past Friday and now will have to rely on $250 per week in union strike pay that starts this Friday. When they’re on the job, most workers get about $30 per hour in wages, or roughly $1,200 per week. Whiston estimates that the work stoppage will cost the UAW’s roughly $750 million strike fund about $31.5 million per week in strike pay and health care costs.

Media’s Ukraine reporting pressures Pelosi into finally backing impeachment

With Nancy Pelosi finally bowing to Democratic pressure and launching a formal impeachment inquiry, many in the media may be getting their wish.
After all, many pundits, especially on the left, longed for the same outcome during the Russia investigation, only to be bitterly disappointed.
But the Ukraine uproar has a far simpler story line than the complicated Russia probe. And it proved a tipping point for the House speaker, who has long believed that impeachment could boomerang on the Democrats without ultimately ousting Trump, who she sees as highly vulnerable in 2020. But with 175 of her members, including some moderates, hopping on the impeachment bandwagon, Pelosi could no longer stem the tide.
In a flag-bedecked speech, Pelosi said Trump’s actions on Ukraine “have seriously violated the Constitution,” that he “must be held accountable,” and announcing an “official” investigation by a half-dozen committees.
As strange as it sounds, Pelosi’s reluctant move could in some ways help Trump, because it shifts the terms of debate.
Trump’s preferred mode of defense is to go on offense—whether it’s against Crooked Hillary, Mueller’s angry Democrats or Sleepy Joe’s alleged transgressions. It’s all about demonizing the other side, just as the left does to Trump.
Especially after his planned release today of a transcript of his July call with Ukraine’s leader, the president and his allies can argue that even if he went too far in bringing up Joe Biden with a foreign leader, it does not warrant the drastic remedy of impeachment.
He’s already called it “witch hunt garbage,” and will undoubtedly cast it as one perpetrated by his enemies in the opposition party, the press and the Deep State. He can energize his supporters, who will see their hero in danger of being forced from office. And the resulting fireworks will not only obliterate any semblance of a Democratic agenda, it will overshadow what Biden, Bernie, Elizabeth and the rest are doing on the trail.
Trump asked, not unreasonably, how Pelosi could take this step without even having seen the details of the phone call.
Outside the hothouse of the media and political world, I don’t sense that Ukraine has quite reached the level of a political earthquake. And that, for the moment, has the president’s critics baffled.
I believe the media coverage is a key factor, as I’ll explain in a moment.
But first, there’s no doubt that the Washington Post moved the ball with a report that Trump told his acting chief of staff “to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.”
The piece says that OMB officials relayed Trump’s order to State and the Pentagon, and were ordered to give members of Congress no explanation beyond that the delay was part of an “interagency process.”
The story also quoted Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy as saying that Ukrainian President Zelensky told him during a visit this month that the aid was cut off as a “consequence” of his unwillingness to launch a probe of the Bidens. (The money has since been released.)
The president did not deny the story but shifted his explanation, saying he held up the money because he wanted Europe to pay more for Ukraine’s defense. He also scoffed at the notion of impeachment before his speech at the U.N., telling reporters: “What Joe Biden did for his son, that’s something they should be looking at.”
The New York Times’ Peter Baker reported yesterday morning that Trump now seems to be saying, as the headline puts it, “So What If I Did?”
The piece calls this “an astonishing breach of the norms governing the American presidency…If anything, the president has grown even more defiant since Mr. Mueller found insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, almost as if having avoided charges, he is daring the establishment to come after him again. The man who once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan without consequence seems to be testing whether he can do the political equivalent.”
With more House Democrats coming out for impeachment—more than two-thirds of Nancy Pelosi’s caucus is now in that camp—the question of whether Ukraine is a dramatic tipping point looms large.
My sense is that there’s a fatigue factor for Trump scandals. And besides the president and Rudy Giuliani trying to shift the spotlight to the Bidens, as I wrote yesterday, the media coverage of the last few years is coloring the current climate.
Take the Bob Mueller probe. While I’ve always argued the Russia investigation was a legitimately big story that led to several high-level indictments, can anyone really dispute that the coverage was so histrionic as to be misleading? The constant drumbeat was so relentless and so negative that it seemed only a matter of time before Trump was run out of town. Every minor development was cranked up to 11.
And while the final report contained disturbing material, it also found no evidence that Trump actively cooperated with Russian operatives or hackers, and Mueller’s halting testimony was the final nail in the coffin.
When the media fixated for more than a week on Sharpie-gate—and yes, Trump fueled the coverage with daily blasts about his handling of the hurricane—it was another case of runaway hype.
The same was true in episode after episode: Porn stars! Michael Cohen! S-hole countries! Omarosa! Tax returns! Greenland! Go back where they came from! Rat-infested Baltimore!
Most of these controversies were very real, sometimes troubling, and yet trumpeted with a this-time-he’s-gone-too-far tone until each story faded. Trump’s constant pushback against the “fake news media,” and his attacks on Democrats and “witch hunt” investigators, added to the feeling that these were nothing more than partisan brawls.
In other words, journalists are suffering from boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome. Now that they have extremely serious allegations to pursue, the ensuing uproar sounds too much like so many other scandals and mini-scandals that, fairly or unfairly, didn’t move the needle.
There’s also an emerging theory, argued for some time by the Federalist’s Ben Domenech, that Trump wants to be impeached.
Ross Douthat, the conservative, anti-Trump New York Times columnist, expanded on this view yesterday:
“If the Democrats impeach him they will be doing something unpopular instead of something popular… the likely Democratic nominees are all more popular than Trump, and so anything that puts the Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion may look better, through Trump’s eyes, than the status quo…
“Trump is happy to pit his overt abuses of power against the soft corruption of his foes. This is an aspect of Trumpism that the president’s critics find particularly infuriating — the way he attacks his rivals for being corrupt swamp creatures while being so much more nakedly compromised himself.”
Whether or not you agree that he did something wrong, he excels at these dual-corruption debates, that it’s the other side that should face prison terms.
No president, not even Donald Trump, wants to be impeached. But if past journalistic excesses help convince the public that the Ukraine story is just more exaggeration, and if the press is viewed as a pro-impeachment movement, Trump will paint the media as helping the Democrats try to end his term.

Chief Justice Roberts says Supreme Court nonpartisan

Really??

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday said that justices on the Supreme Court are not swayed by politics despite the current fraught political climate.
“When you live in a polarized political environment, people tend to see everything in those terms,” he told the audience at New York synagogue Temple Emanu-El Streicker, according to Reuters. “That’s not how we at the court function and the results in our cases do not suggest otherwise.”
The courts have been criticized by President Trump for rulings against some of his policies and Democrats have complained the Supreme Court is becoming too conservative.
“The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it,” a brief written last August by a handful of Democratic senators said regarding a firearms case. Roberts rebuked Trump last November when he complained about a ruling from an “Obama judge," according to Reuters.
“A lot of criticism is based on a misperception of the court,” he said.
He pointed out that of the 19 5-4  Supreme Court decisions last term, seven were split along ideological lines, Reuters reported.
Roberts is considered to be a moderate conservative who was appointed by George W. Bush in 2005.

WH to release document showing intel community watchdog found whistleblower had 'political bias,' official says

A senior Trump administration official told Fox News late Tuesday that the administration will release a document showing the intelligence community inspector general found the whistleblower who leveled an explosive accusation against President Trump concerning his talks with Ukraine had “political bias” in favor of “a rival candidate” of the president.
The official did not identify the name of the rival candidate. Separately, a senior administration official told Fox News the White House has been working as quickly as it can to release to Congress the whistleblower complaint involving President Trump's conversations with the leader of Ukraine, as long as it's legally possible.
The news came just hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated a formal impeachment inquiry by alleging that the administration was hiding the complaint. Other top Democrats had previously said such an inquiry was already underway.
The senior administration official told Fox News that the White House had nothing to hide, that there has been no wrongdoing, and that the White House's general position has been that it will make everything possible available to Congress or the public regarding Trump's conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint to the intelligence community's inspector general.
A source familiar with the matter told Fox News this week that the whistleblower had no firsthand knowledge of Trump's July call with Zelensky. Trump vowed earlier Tuesday to release a "complete" transcript of the call by Wednesday.
A senior administration official told Fox News there are a “few words” in the transcript that will raise eyebrows, but it is nowhere near as inflammatory as Democrats have suggested.
The contents of the call, as well as the whistleblower complaint, could throw cold water on Democrats' explosive suggestions that the president improperly threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless it investigated Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Republicans had predicted over the weekend that such an impeachment inquiry could backfire on Pelosi, and administration officials have said Trump was concerned only with broader corruption in Ukraine.
Joe Biden has acknowledged on camera that, when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, while Shokin was investigating the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings — where Hunter Biden was on the board. Shokin himself had separately been accused of corruption.
Just after midnight Wednesday, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani -- who has long publicly called for Ukraine to investigate Biden's dealings in Ukraine -- posted a series of messages on Twitter suggesting Democrats have a bigger problem on their hands.
"Democrat party is covering up a pattern of corruption involving high level members of the Obama cabinet," Giuliani wrote. "The multi-million and billion dollar pay-for-play is mind boggling. Biden Family sale of office to Ukraine was not the only one or the most egregious. Slimy Joe is not alone."
Giuliani added: "We know corrupt Ukrainian oligarch laundered $3 million to the Biden Family. But $3 to $4m more was laundered to Biden. So release all the financial records of all businesses involving Biden, Kerry’s stepson and notorious mobster Whitey Bulger’s nephew. ... Biden should agree to release records to see if he flew Hunter to China in Dec. 2013 on AF 2 to facilitate Hunter’s sale of his office to China for a total of $1.5 billion. Is there any doubt that China paid it to compromise VP. But they bought another pol as well. Guess?"
In her televised remarks, Pelosi specifically charged that the administration had violated the law by failing to turn over the whistleblower complaint. Citing testimony that the director of national intelligence was blocking the release of that complaint, she said: "This is a violation of law. The law is unequivocal."
Meanwhile, attention focused anew Tuesday night on previous apparent efforts by Democrats to pressure Ukraine on its investigations. The Washington Post's Marc Thiessen pointed out that CNN reported in May that Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy pushed Ukraine’s top prosecutor not to close four investigations perceived as critical to then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe -- and seemingly threatened that their support for U.S. aid to Ukraine was at stake.
The senators wrote: "In four short years, Ukraine has made significant progress in building [democratic] institutions despite ongoing military, economic, and political pressure from Moscow. We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump." The senators called for the top prosecutor to “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”
It remained unclear late Tuesday exactly what the president said on his call with Ukraine's leader. Fox News is was told the White House has taken steps to alleviate concerns about the precedential nature of releasing a transcript of the phone call with Zelensky. With the upcoming planned release of the transcript on Wednesday, the White House has put in place protections to preserve the confidential nature of conversations between the president and world leaders.
Also in the evening, The New York Times reported that the White House had dropped its objection to the whistleblower speaking to Congress. That came after the GOP-controlled Senate passed a unanimous resolution seeking access to the whistleblower's complaint.

US Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and US Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, will lead the review -- with Schiff in charge. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

DNI Inspector General Michael Atkinson said in a Sep. 9 letter to the House Intelligence Committee that the whistleblower complaint "appeared credible" and related to an "urgent" matter. But the DNI general counsel said days later that, after consulting with the DOJ, the matter did not meet the legal definition of an “urgent concern," and was not subject to mandatory disclosure to Congress.
“Furthermore, because the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications by persons outside the Intelligence Community, the DNI lacks unilateral authority to transmit such materials to the intelligence committees,”  Jason Klitenic, the DNI general counsel, wrote.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire will testify before the House Intelligence Committee at an open hearing on Thursday, and is expected to face a series of questions about these and other issues.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said earlier Tuesday afternoon that testimony from the whistleblower might also be imminent.
"We have been informed by the whistleblower’s counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI [Director of National Intelligence] as to how to do so," Schiff said in a tweet. "We‘re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week."
Despite the apparent progress in releasing the relevant information, Pelosi, D-Calif., told the nation that "the president must be held accountable" for his "betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and the betrayal of the integrity of our elections."
"This week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically," Pelosi said. "Therefore, today, I'm announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I'm directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella.
"The president must be held accountable," she continued. "No one is above the law."
The House committees then would gather evidence and president it to Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who would make the ultimate determination on whether to hold an impeachment vote.
A Democratic source told Fox News that the House Intelligence Committee, led by Schiff, would take the lead in the impeachment investigation -- and that Nadler might not be pleased with the arrangement.
"I don’t think he’s happy that he has less influence here, but everybody is on the same page and has the same role," the source said of Nadler.
Schiff "will have a heavy role here because the foundation of the Ukraine allegations is thorough his committee," the source said.
The speaker effectively endorsed the process, which to some degree has already been underway, after facing fresh pressure from inside the caucus to act. The move could help Democrats' disputed arguments in court that impeachment proceedings were in fact in progress, which could entitle Congress to obtain additional documents.
At the same time, at an event Tuesday, Pelosi intimated that impeachment would remain on the table, regardless of what the transcript showed. Many conservatives charged that she was moving the goalposts and lowering expectations.
"We have many other, shall we say, candidates for impeachable offenses in terms of the Constitution, but this one is the most understandable by the public," Pelosi said, referring to the Ukraine phone call allegation. "It's really important to know this: There is no requirement that there be a quid-pro-quo in the conversation."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, left, shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Other prominent Democrats also seemingly said Trump should be impeached no matter what.
"The president has committed several impeachable offenses," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters after Pelosi's remarks on impeachment. In another indication that Democrats were apparently hedging their bets on the Ukraine matter, Ocasio-Cortez said alleged Emoluments Clause violations by the president could be included in prospective articles of impeachment.
Republicans said the move would prove to be a major political mistake.
"It is a colossal error," Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn told Fox News just prior to Pelosi's comments. "And, I’m kind of surprised that Speaker Pelosi, as shrewd as she is, would let it get to this point."
Swing district Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., acknowledged to Fox News that supporting the impeachment inquiry "could" affect her electorally, but she maintained that Trump voters in her district "understand," and that Trump crossed a red line.
Trump, for his part, ripped into Democrats in a series of tweets immediately after Pelosi's comments, writing that "PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT" was in progress again.
In remarks to reporters at the United Nations on Monday, Trump denied linking the aid money to Ukraine's investigative actions. “No, I didn’t — I didn’t do it,” Trump said. But, he also repeatedly called the Bidens' actions in Ukraine a "disgrace," acknowledged that Biden had come up during the call and added: "It's very important to talk about corruption. ... Why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?"

"It is a colossal error."
— Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn

House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called Democrats' efforts predictable and destructive in his own fiery statement.
"Democrats have been trying to impeach the President since the beginning of this Congress," Jordan said. "Michael Cohen's testimony was a bust. John Dean's testimony was a waste of time. The Mueller report did not live up to the hype.
"Speaker Pelosi's decision to pursue impeachment now - on the basis of unsubstantiated, indirect, and anonymous allegations - only shows that the Speaker has finally succumbed to unrelenting pressure from the socialist wing of the Democrat Party," Jordan added. "This was never about Russian collusion or Ukrainian prosecutions. It is all about undoing the 2016 election and the will of the American people."
Trump is set to meet with Zelensky in New York on Wednesday. The visit was previously scheduled, unrelated to the whistleblower allegation, although the two leaders are expected to face questions about the matter from reporters.
A total of 172 House Democrats have now signaled strong support for an impeachment inquiry -- 235 Democrats and 198 Republicans are in the House, with one pro-impeachment independent. A majority would be required to successfully impeach the president. A highly unlikely two-thirds vote in the GOP-controlled Senate would be needed to convict and remove the president.
Vice President Mike Pence would then take office in that scenario.
"The ironic thing is is that everything that our critics in the media are leveling at the president from this phone call, and leveling at our administration, everything that Democrats on Capitol Hill are running off and describing -- Vice President Joe Biden bragged about -- which was a quid-pro-quo -- withholding American aid in exchange for a specific action," Pence told Fox News' "Hannity" on Monday.
Fox News' Chad Pergram, Brooke Singman, Ronn Blitzer and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.

2019 Townhall Cartoons

U.S. foreign relations to be on full display at UN General Assembly in NYC

Nearly 200 leaders from around the world are flocking to New York City this week for the United Nations General Assembly. The annual gathering, referred to as UNGA, takes place Monday through Friday at United Nations headquarters.
While the event is themed around “poverty eradication, quality education, climate action and inclusion,” many are expecting U.S. policy to also take center stage.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Afghani President Ashraf Ghani are all expected to attend. Their attendance means everything from rising tension in the Middle East to concern about a so-called whistleblower complaint may be up for discussion.
While speaking ahead of the event Sunday, President Trump said “nothing is ever off the table” when asked whether he will be meeting with Iran.
“Nothing’s ever off the table completely, but I have no intention of meeting with Iran,” he stated. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen…I’m a very flexible person, but we have no intention.”

President Donald Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, as he prepares to board Marine One for the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

When asked about the whistleblower leak, President Trump said foreign leaders should have a right to privacy.
“The problem is when you’re speaking to foreign leaders, you don’t want foreign leaders to feel that they shouldn’t be speaking openly and you have to be talking to people, and the same thing for an American president,” he explained. “You want them to be able to express themselves without knowing that not every single word is going to be going out and going out all over the world.”
This comes ahead of planned talks between President Trump and the leader of Ukraine, which are expected to take place sometime on or before Wednesday.
In regard to Afghanistan, President Trump will come face-to-face with President Ashraf Ahani just weeks after the collapse of U.S.-Taliban peace talks. Negotiations fell apart earlier this month due a surge in violence from the insurgent group.
No official meetings between President Trump and Iran or Afghanistan have been scheduled, however, all eyes are expected to remain on the General Assembly as talks may unfold on the sidelines. Moving forward, President Trump is only slated to attend Monday through Wednesday.

President Trump: What Biden did is a disgrace

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the InterContinental Barclay hotel during the United Nations General Assembly, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Trump is calling out former Vice President Joe Biden, while continuing to highlight alleged corruption by the Democrat regarding Ukraine.
While speaking at the United Nations Monday, the president said he had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine and called Democrat speculation over it a “witch hunt.” He also said the one who has the problem is Biden, and noted it’s very important to talk about corruption.

..Breaking News: The Ukrainian Government just said they weren’t pressured at all during the “nice” call. Sleepy Joe Biden, on the other hand, forced a tough prosecutor out from investigating his son’s company by threat of not giving big dollars to Ukraine. That’s the real story!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2019

“Biden did what they would like to have me do except that one problem, I didn’t do it. What Biden did is a disgrace. What his son did is a disgrace. The son took money from Ukraine, the son took money from China. A lot of money from China. China would love to see, they could think of nothing they’d rather see than Biden get in because they will take this great deal that we’re about to make and they would really have themselves a deal.”

— President Trump

The president also said he thinks we’re going to see much more honesty from Ukraine with the new president.