Trump warns Newsom: If California homeless crisis persists, feds 'will get involved'

President Trump issued a warning to California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, threatening federal intervention if Newsom is unable to solve his state's homeless crisis.
"Governor Gavin N has done a really bad job on taking care of the homeless population in California. If he can’t fix the problem, the Federal Govt. will get involved!" Trump tweeted.
The Golden State has led the nation in the number of homeless people with an estimated total of over 129,972 in January 2018, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] report. Just over 68 percent of the homeless population in California, the most populous U.S. state, is also categorized as unsheltered.
Earlier this month, Newsom blamed the Trump administration over rising homelessness in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, saying the White House was taking no action on "Housing First," the governor's approach to solving homelessness. The proposal would involve getting people in homes first, and potentially adding job-skills training or addiction services later.
"They're not serious about this issue," Newsom said. "They're playing politics with it... expect nothing but division coming from the folks at HUD and the Trump administration."
On Christmas day, Trump retweeted Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren who responded to Newsom's earlier comment, blasting him for his lack of accountability.
"Take accountability, Gavin," Lahren wrote. "This is your state and you and your democratic cohorts created this mess. You can’t blame @realDonaldTrump forever. Step away from the hair gel and get to work!!!"
Trump's latest criticism of the governor came a month after he attacked Newsom for doing a "terrible job of forest management" as wildfires raged across California.
He also put pressure on Newsom by suggesting there won't be any more federal funding to battle the wildfires unless the state improved its forest management system.

Christmas 2019 Cartoons

Christmas festivities begin in West Bank town of Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Thousands of Christian pilgrims descended on the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, ahead of Tuesday’s annual Christmas Eve celebrations.

The Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born, was set to host Palestinian dignitaries and pilgrims from around the world for a midnight Mass.

Uniformed Palestinian scouts wearing yellow and gold capes paraded past assembled visitors in Manger Square, bedecked with a large Christmas tree, playing drums and bagpipes.

Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, crossed an Israeli army checkpoint from Jerusalem to Bethlehem ahead of the holiday prayers, where he was greeted by prominent members of Bethlehem’s Christian community.

Pizzaballa said that he draws hope from the “desire, especially in the youth, to do something for their societies, families.”

“This is my hope, is that these people can make Christmas not just today, but everyday, because that’s what we need,” he said.

Christmas festivities are typically a boost for Bethlehem’s flagging economy and for the Holy Land’s dwindling Christian population, which has shrunk over the decades compared to the general population.

Palestinian Tourism Minister Rula Maaya said the number of foreign tourists visiting the West Bank rose to 3.5 million in 2019, from 3 million the previous year. At least 15,000 pilgrims were staying overnight in Bethlehem for Christmas, she said.

“All hotels in the city are full today,” said Maaya, including hotels newly completed this year.

Most of Bethlehem is in the Palestinian-controlled area of the West Bank, but Israel’s imposing separation barrier runs through part of the city and is a constant reminder of the complex political reality.

No Christmas at Notre Dame, as fire forces Mass into exile

PARIS (AP) — Notre Dame Cathedral is unable to host Christmas services for the first time since the French Revolution, because the Paris landmark was too deeply damaged by this year’s fire.

So its exiled clergy, choir and congregation are celebrating the holiday in another Gothic church next to the Louvre Museum instead.

The accidental April blaze consumed the medieval monument’s roof and collapsed its spire, and reconstruction is expected to take several years. Officials say the structure is too fragile to let visitors inside, and there’s still a risk of poisoning from the tons of lead dust released with the flames.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services will be held in the Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois church, once used for French royalty. Notre Dame’s rector, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, will celebrate Mass there Wednesday for Notre Dame’s faithful, accompanied by song from some of Notre Dame’s now-itinerant choir.

A wooden liturgical platform was constructed in the Saint-Germain church to resemble Notre Dame’s own. The cathedral’s iconic 14th century sculpture “The Virgin of Paris,” which survived the fire, is also on display.

The world-renowned cathedral has seen plenty of upheaval since its first stone was laid in 1163. It halted services after revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy and declared Notre Dame “a temple of reason,” but resumed religious activities under Napoleon in 1803, according to cathedral officials.

It kept going during two world wars, and Nazi occupation. Soldiers guarded its Christmas Mass in 2015, weeks after France’s deadliest-ever terror attacks.

Today, Notre Dame’s twin towers still look over the Ile de la Cite island at the heart of Paris, attracting tourists taking selfies along the surrounding quays. But this holiday season, its facade is shielded by scaffolding instead of the huge Christmas tree that normally graces its esplanade.

LBJ-era immigration changes skewed political power toward Dems, away from GOP: study

U.S. legal and illegal immigration levels will create a markedly different House of Representatives -- and post-2020 electoral college votes -- than would have existed otherwise, a new study claims.
The study, conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), claims to offer insight into how immigration reforms during the era of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson affected the distribution of American political power.
"Our findings indicate that, over time, immigration profoundly redistributes political power at the federal level by changing the apportionment of House seats and votes in the Electoral College," the study's authors wrote.
CIS analyzed Census data to determine that immigrants, and their U.S.-born children, will redistribute at least 26 House seats after 2020. Of those 26 lost seats, 24 will come from states that voted for President Trump in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, solidly Democratic states -- California, New Jersey, and New York -- will collectively gain 19 additional seats, CIS said Thursday.
In total, California will have nearly a dozen more seats than it otherwise would have without the presence of immigrants and their children. New York and Texas will each have four additional seats.
The study touches on many conservatives' claims that Democrats are effectively importing new voters to support them in future elections. In particular, conservative author Ann Coulter has repeatedly argued the Johnson-era reforms significantly altered legal immigration in a way that would benefit the party. Johnson served as president from November 1963, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, until January 1969, when Republican Richard Nixon took office. (Johnson had declined to seek a second term after being elected in 1964.)
CIS similarly said the reforms had a wide-reaching impact.
"Immigration laws were changed significantly in 1965, spurring a new 'Great Wave' of immigration as the number of immigrants grew roughly four-and-a-half fold between 1965 and 2019."
Each state's electoral vote is composed of the number of seats it holds in the House and Senate, meaning the CIS findings could shed light on the 2022 and 2024 elections as well. Congress will reapportion seats after the U.S. completes the 2020 Census, but that reapportionment won't take effect until after the 2020 election.
Trump was able to pick up electoral votes in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin -- states that will each lose at least one seat, according to CIS. Ohio, perhaps the most-watched state beside Florida, will lose three more seats than it otherwise would have.
Florida, however, would gain three additional seats while New Jersey would gain two and Illinois and Massachusetts will gain one additional seat. Each of those last three supported former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
"Apportionment is a zero-sum system; by adding more population to some states rather than others, immigration will continue to significantly redistribute political power in Washington," the study reads.
Just illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children will result in key swing states losing seats as well.
"Illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born minor children will redistribute five seats in 2020, with Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, Minnesota, and West Virginia each losing one seat in 2020 that they otherwise would have had," the authors wrote. "California and Texas will each have two additional seats, and New York will have one additional seat."
Republicans also criticized 2020 Democratic candidates for offering public services, like free health care, to illegal immigrants. Democrats typically contend that immigrants boost the U.S. economy, don't replace domestic labor, and add diversity to the country's civic culture.
Prior polling has shown that immigrants tend to support Democrats and a 2016 study seemed to confirm the threat that Republicans faced from growing immigration.
"The impact of immigration on Republican votes in the House is negative when the share of naturalized migrants in the voting population increases," the National Bureau of Economic Research study concluded.
It added that its results were "consistent with naturalized migrants being less likely to vote for the Republican Party than native voters and with native voters' political preferences moving towards the Republican Party because of high immigration of non-citizens."
The CIS favors lower immigration levels and has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) -- an accusation that prompted CIS to sue the SPLC in January.

Republicans fume over Dem threat of new impeachment articles: ‘Time to cut them off’

Republicans ratcheted up their accusations that Democrats are overplaying their impeachment hand after court filings from the House Judiciary Committee indicated the two articles of impeachment adopted last week may only be the beginning.
GOP lawmakers already were fuming at Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her surprise decision to delay transmitting the articles to the Senate in a bid to extract favorable terms for President Trump's trial. But in the latest twist, the Democrat-led Judiciary panel referenced the possibility of yet additional impeachment articles in briefs filed Monday related to their quest for testimony from former White House Counsel Don McGahn and secret grand jury material from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
If the court allows them to obtain the information they seek, their attorney wrote, "new articles of impeachment" could be considered based on the evidence. GOP lawmakers reacted with stunned disbelief.
"Democrats are treating impeachment as an open bar tab," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tweeted Monday afternoon. "Time to cut them off, take their car keys away (put GOP in control of the House), and end this insanity."
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who sits on the House Judiciary Committee that filed the briefs, reacted by saying, "You've got to be kidding."
He added: "It’s gone from the Kangaroo Court Impeachment... ...to the Keystone Cops Impeachment(s).. Will Pelosi send the Articles from the last Impeachment before drafting the next ones?!"
The notion of new articles of impeachment was floated as the committee justified their need to have McGahn testify and acquire Mueller's secret grand jury information. Previously, they had argued that their ongoing impeachment investigation presented an urgent need for both -- but with the House already voting to impeach Trump, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals gave them until Monday afternoon to explain why the case was still relevant and should not be dismissed as moot.
"If this material reveals new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the Articles adopted by the House, the Committee will proceed accordingly--including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment," committee attorney Douglas Letter wrote in the grand jury material case.
Letter used nearly identical language pertaining to McGahn's testimony in his brief in that case.
Trump last week was impeached on accusations of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, related to his efforts to pressure Ukraine to launch politically beneficial investigations, all while withholding military aid (though Trump has maintained there was no "quid pro quo").
The latest filings did not detail what potential additional articles could be considered. Regardless, the briefs stated that even if McGahn’s testimony or the grand jury material do not lead to new articles of impeachment, they could be used in an upcoming Senate trial in relation to the obstruction of Congress allegations that Trump is currently facing.

Pelosi Cartoons

White House predicts Pelosi will yield on impeachment delay

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is projecting confidence that it will prevail in a constitutional spat with Democrats over the nature of the Senate’s impeachment trial, which threatens to deprive President Donald Trump of the swift acquittal he seeks.

The House voted Wednesday to impeach Trump, who became only the third president in U.S. history to be formally charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate until Republicans provide details on witnesses and testimony in hopes of shaping the upcoming trial. Democratic and Republican leaders in the chamber remain at an impasse over the question of whether witnesses will be called, but the White House believes Pelosi won’t be able to hold out much longer.

“She will yield. There’s no way she can hold this position,” Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, said Sunday. “We think her case is going nowhere.’’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have been at an impasse over the issue of new testimony, leaving open the possibility of a protracted delay until the articles are delivered. Trump complained Saturday that the holdup was “unfair” and claimed that Democrats were violating the Constitution, as the delay threatened to prolong the pain of impeachment and cast uncertainty on the timing of the vote Trump is set to claim as vindication.

Schumer told reporters in New York that “the Senate is yearning to give President Trump due process, which means that documents and witnesses should come forward. What is a trial with no witnesses and no documents. It’s a sham trial.”

Short called Pelosi’s delay unacceptable, saying she’s “trampling” Trump’s rights to “rush this through, and now we’re going to hold it up to demand a longer process in the Senate with more witnesses.”

“If her case is so air-tight ... why does she need more witnesses to make her case?’’ Short said.

White House officials have highlighted Democrats’ arguments that removing Trump was an “urgent” matter before the House impeachment vote, as they seek to put pressure on Pelosi to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

McConnell has all but promised an easy acquittal of the president, and he appears to have secured Republican support for his plans to impose a framework drawn from the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. That trial featured a 100-0 vote on arrangements that established two weeks of presentations and argument before a partisan tally in which then-minority Republicans called a limited number of witnesses.

That has sparked a fight with Pelosi and Schumer, who are demanding trial witnesses who refused to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.

A close Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Pelosi would fail in her quest “to get Mitch McConnell to bend to her will to shape the trial.’’ Graham is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was a House manager, comparable to a prosecutor, during the Senate’s impeachment trial of Clinton.

“She’ll eventually send the articles because public opinion will crush the Democrats,″ said Graham. Asked whether he expected witnesses in the Senate, he replied: : “No, I don’t.”

At one point, Trump had demanded the testimony of witnesses of his own, like Democrats Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and the intelligence community whistleblower whose summer complaint sparked the impeachment probe. But he has since relented after concerted lobbying by McConnell and other Senate Republicans who pushed him to accept the swift acquittal from the Senate and not to risk injecting uncertainty into the process by calling witnesses.

The Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said his party is looking for a signal from McConnell that he hasn’t ruled out new witnesses and documents. But Durbin acknowledged that Democrats may not have much leverage in pushing a deal.

He criticized both Republican and Democratic senators who have already announced how they will vote in the trial, saying the Constitution requires senators to act as impartial jurors. Republicans hold a 53-vote majority in the Senate.

“The leverage is our hope that four Republican senators will stand up, as 20 years ago, we saw in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and say, this is much bigger than our current political squabbles,” Durbin said.

The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict in an impeachment trial — and Republicans have expressed confidence that they have more than enough votes to keep Trump in office.

Short spoke on “Fox News Sunday,” Durbin appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and Graham was on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

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AP Radio Correspondent Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report.