McConnell predicts 'high likelihood' of new stimulus bill, dismisses Dem proposal as 'parade of absurdities'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told "Special Report with Bret Baier" Thursday that another coronavirus stimulus bill is likely, but dismissed House Democrats' latest $3 trillion proposal as "unsalvageable."
"The president and Senate Republicans are going to be in the same place. We will let you know when we think the time is right to begin to move again," McConnell said. "I think there's a high likelihood we'll do another bill."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Thursday that the so-called HEROES Act faces long odds of becoming law, but suggested the massive bill could be a starting point for negotiations with the White House and Senate.
"We're putting our offer on the table, we're open to negotiation," Pelosi said. The House is set to vote on the measure Friday.
When Baier asked McConnell why he would not treat the Democratic proposal as a starting point for negotiation, the Kentuckian described it as a "liberal wish list" and "a parade of absurdities that can hardly be taken seriously."
Earlier in the interview, the Majority Leader emphasized that any futher coronavirus aid bill would have to include liability protection for businesses and other organizations that resume operations amid the pandemic.
"Our red line is going to be liability protections for those who are brave enough to begin to open up the economy again in the wake of the trial lawyers who are descending already on hospitals and doctors and businesses as of about a week and a half ago," McConnell said.
"And people have to be brave enough to begin to engage in economic activity," he added. "How about the presidents of universities? Are they willing to open up for the fall or are we going to have another period of time where not only K through 12 students, but potentially college students are still at home? All of those questions need to be answered by the fall."
McConnell also admitted Thursday that he had misspoke earlier this week when he claimed that the Obama administration "did not leave to this administration any kind of game plan for something like this."
"I was wrong, they did leave behind a plan. So I clearly made a mistake in that regard," McConnell said. "As to whether or not the plan was followed, who's the critic and all the rest, I don't have any observation about that because I don't know enough about the details of that, Bret, to comment on it in any detail."
Fox News' Marisa Schulz and Joshua Nelson contributed to this report.

Townhall Cartoons May 2020

Pennsylvania health official draws fire after her mother leaves care facility as coronavirus patients return

She or He

Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine defended herself Wednesday after reports that her 95-year-old mother relocated from a care facility after Levine said such centers could begin accepting coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals.
Cases of the virus in nursing homes have skyrocketed in Pennsylvania, with about two-thirds of the state's 3,800 deaths being residents of long-term care facilities, PennLive reported.
"My mother requested and my sister and I, as her children, complied to move her to another location during the COVID-19 outbreak," Levine said in a news conference, according to Harrisburg's WHTM-TV. “My mother is 95 years old. She is very intelligent and more than competent to make her own decisions."
But Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano called for Levine’s resignation this week over her handling of nursing home outbreaks, specifically a policy calling for nursing home residents hospitalized with the virus to be returned to the care centers once they’re ready to leave the hospital, according to PennLive.
“Our secretary of health, Dr. Levine, decided that it would be good to allow COVID-positive patients to be returned to elder-care facilities. And as a result of that, it broke out like fire,” Mastriano said during a protest rally Monday.

“Our secretary of health, Dr. Levine, decided that it would be good to allow COVID-positive patients to be returned to elder-care facilities. And as a result of that, it broke out like fire.”
— Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, Republican

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, defended Levine.
“Dr. Levine has done a phenomenal job of making sure that we do what we need to do in keeping Pennsylvanians safe,” he said, according to PennLive. “I think it’s a tribute to her that Pennsylvania has actually done a better job than many of our surrounding states in terms of the infection rate and the death rate.”
Levine announced a strategy this week to help protect care facility residents, which includes mobilizing Pennsylvania's National Guard to provide testing for places unable to do it themselves. And facilities will be required to report testing, cases and deaths using the same system as hospitals.
Levine said all residents who are hospitalized will be tested for the virus before returning home.
“By testing every resident and every staff member in every nursing home, we will be able to pinpoint exactly who has COVID-19, who has been exposed but has no symptoms, and cohort positive cases to prevent further spread,” she said, according to WHTM.

State parties reach out to Arizona GOP after novel virtual convention, staffer says

Several other states have reached out to Arizona’s Republican Party this week after the party ran a virtual state convention last weekend due to the coronavirus, according to a staffer.
More than 1,100 Arizona Republicans participated in Saturday’s convention to vote for the state’s 54 delegates for the national convention this summer in North Carolina.
Communications Director Zach Henry told Fox News while Utah used the same app for electronic voting during their convention a few weeks ago, Arizona was the first state to incorporate live streaming and telephone townhall elements.
“Livestreaming the events of the day and syncing that up with our telephone to allow anyone, anywhere to watch or hear the day's proceedings in real-time was first put into practice on Saturday in Arizona,” he added.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said during the convention that state Chairwoman Kelli Ward not only came up with the virtual model but “the RNC asked her to present this to other state parties and it’s being duplicated across the country and it’s allowing us to deliver delegates to President Trump in a timely manner."
The party used Voatz, a mobile elections platform, and Phoenix-based video production company Visual Impulse to pull off the convention.
Ward called it an "enormous undertaking."
“Never before has a political party attempted to plan and carry out a convention of this scale and magnitude – amid a global pandemic – in a similar virtual manner," she said in a statement. "Yet not only did we succeed in what was previously uncharted territory; we trailblazed the way for others to follow.”

President Trump to visit Pennsylvania amid battle over state’s coronavirus shutdown policies

President Trump plans to be in Pennsylvania on Thursday, three days after asserting on Twitter that the state’s residents have grown frustrated with their Democrat governor’s coronavirus shutdown rules.
“The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now,” the president wrote Monday, “and they are fully aware of what that entails.”
The scheduled trip also follows a protest in late April that saw hundreds of demonstrators gather outside the Statehouse in Harrisburg, where they called for Gov. Tom Wolf to loosen the state’s stay-at-home order.
Trump is scheduled to visit Owens & Minor Inc. in Upper Macungie Township, near Allentown, according to FOX 29 of Philadelphia. The company distributes medical equipment, which became a key commodity during the virus outbreak as the nation’s hospitals grappled with surges in patients.
The president is expected to speak about the nation’s efforts regarding coronavirus testing, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Pennsylvania is considered a key state as Trump looks ahead to the November election. He won the state by only 44,000 votes in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Thursday’s trip will be his 18th visit to the state since taking office, The Morning Call of Allentown reported.
The president may also be looking to improve his job-approval numbers in Pennsylvania, where 45 percent of respondents support his handling of the coronavirus, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.
Trump is eager to revive the nation’s economy following quarantines and business shutdowns that have cost millions of Americans their jobs and brought what had been a record-shattering economy to a screeching halt.
“We will defeat this horrible enemy, we will revive our economy, and we will transition into greatness,” the president said Monday, according to Politico. “That’s a phrase you’re going to hear a lot because that’s what’s going to happen.”
Last week, Wolf extended his stay-at-home order to June 4 to parts of the state while saying he would allow 24 counties, mostly in the rural north-central region, to reopen businesses to some degree. He later added 13 western Pennsylvania counties to that list, FOX 29 reported.
But Pennsylvania Republicans and some business owners still accuse Wolf of moving too slowly, the report said.
On Monday, Wolf issued a warning to business owners who defy his orders.
“To those politicians who decide to cave in to this coronavirus, they need to understand the consequences of their cowardly act,” Wolf said, according to FOX 29.
He also threatened to withhold state and federal funding from counties “that put us all at risk by operating illegally,” the report added.
A recent Federal Aviation Administration advisory calls for restricted airspace of 30 nautical miles around Lehigh Valley International Airport between 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., suggesting Trump will be visiting sometime during those hours, the Morning Call reported.

Lawyer appointed by Judge Sullivan to offer arguments in Flynn case already has slammed Trump WH's 'improper political influence'

D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an unusual order Wednesday appointing a law firm partner "to present arguments in opposition to the government's motion to dismiss" the matter -- and to consider whether the court should hold Flynn in contempt for perjury.
The partner, retired federal judge John Gleeson, has openly criticized the Trump administration's handling of Michael Flynn's case, raising concerns that he was selected to improperly bolster Sullivan's efforts to keep the Flynn case alive even though both the government and defendant want it dismissed.
Sullivan has previously suggested Flynn may have committed treason, in a bizarre 2018 courtroom outburst, and seemingly confused key details about Flynn's overseas lobbying work.
The precise reasons for the perjury review were not clear in Sullivan's order. Last year, Flynn abruptly abandoned his plan to provide testimony against a former associate, after admitting that he had lied on federal forms required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Flynn has said he received constitutionally inadequate legal advice.
Although Flynn was never charged with the FARA violations or perjury, he admitted to making “materially false statements and omissions” concerning his work in Turkey as part of his plea agreement. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty only to one count of lying to FBI agents in the White House in January 2017 as his legal bills mounted, leading him to sell his home.
Flynn did not plead guilty to perjury, which applies to false statements under oath in a legal proceeding. (In leaked remarks this week, though, former President Obama conspicuously suggested Flynn had been charged with perjury.)

Justice Department official Andrew Weissman in 2002. Weissman has previously worked with Gleeson. The Twitter user Techno Fog first spotted that connection. (REUTERS, File)

Gleeson, a retired New York federal district court judge, was specifically appointed as an "amicus curiae," or friend of the court. Gleeson is now a partner at the international law firm Debevoise & Plimpton.
Gleeson penned an op-ed this week apparently pre-judging the Flynn case, writing that "the [Flynn] record reeks of improper political influence."
"So if the court finds dismissal would result in a miscarriage of justice, it can deny the motion, refuse to permit withdrawal of the guilty plea and proceed to sentencing," Gleeson wrote.
The Twitter sleuth Techno_Fog pointed out that Gleeson has recently worked with Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team. And, attorney Ron Coleman noted that Debevoise has also represented Sally Yates -- the former deputy attorney general who was fired after she took the extraordinary step of refusing to defend a Trump administration executive order in court.
The unexpected move to appoint Gleeson came just a day after Sullivan issued an order indicating he'll soon accept "amicus" submissions in the case -- drawing immediate scrutiny and a planned ethics complaint against Sullivan, who had previously refused to hear amicus briefs in the case.
Sullivan notably has not appointed an amicus to counter Gleeson's argument.
Sullivan has said, however, that he anticipated that "individuals and organizations" will file briefs "for the benefit of the court," as he prepares to rule on the government's motion to dismiss the case, citing a mountain of previously undisclosed exculpatory evidence.
Among those unearthed materials was a handwritten note from a top FBI official debating whether the bureau's goal in pursuing Flynn was to "get him fired."
OBAMA KNEW DETAILS OF FLYNN CASE, SHOCKING TOP DOJ OFFICIAL, DOCS SHOW
"Judge Sullivan, who denied leave to file amicus briefs when he knew third parties would have spoken favorably of Flynn, now solicits briefs critical of Flynn," independent journalist and attorney Michael Cernovich wrote on Twitter Tuesday evening. "This is a violation of the judicial oath and applicable ethical rules. We will be filing a complaint against Sullivan."
Cernovich cited D.C. appellate precedent as precluding Sullivan from keeping the case alive, in defiance of the wishes of both the prosecution and defense, given that there has been no final judgment or sentencing.

FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2017, file photo, Michael Flynn, center, arrives at federal court in Washington. A judge set a sentencing hearing for Michael Flynn after rejecting arguments from the former Trump administration national security adviser that prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to his case. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Without a live "case or controversy," federal judges cannot exercise jurisdiction, according to the Case or Controversy Clause of Article III of the United States Constitution. The provision prevents judges from issuing advisory opinions, or acting on a matter that is not the subject of an ongoing dispute.
Will Chamberlain, a lawyer and the editor-in-chief of Human Events, separately noted that case law in the circuit generally prohibits trial court judges from second-guessing the government's decision not to prosecute a defendant.
Indeed, Sullivan himself had previously held in the Flynn case that "[o]ptions exist for a private citizen to express his views about matters of public interest, but the Court's docket is not an available option."
Flynn's legal team indicated in a filing Tuesday that a sealed amicus brief has already been submitted by a left-wing group known as the "Watergate Prosecutors," urging Sullivan not to toss out Flynn's guilty plea despite the Justice Department's request. That group was featured in an October 2019 Washington Post opinion piece, and listed Jill Wine-Banks -- who previously advanced unsubstantiated collusion theories involving the Trump campaign and Russia -- as one of its members.
WASHINGTON POST NEWSROOM DIVIDED OVER WHETHER FLYNN'S CALLS WERE EVEN NEWSWORTHY -- THEN OP-ED COLUMNIST WENT AHEAD
Wine-Banks was also explictly named as a member of the group seeking to file an amicus brief in the Flynn case.
"Mueller can prove conspiracy with Russia beyond any doubt," Wine-Banks previously wrote. She also claimed in 2017 that Flynn would receive "immunity for kidnapping as well as his federal crimes."
Late Tuesday, President Trump retweeted a post by the Twitter user Techno_Fog calling Wine-Banks a "Trump/Russia collusion nutter." The post concluded, sarcastically: "Good job Judge Sullivan!"
Wine-Banks did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.

FILE - This Dec. 13, 2019 file photo shows former President Barack Obama speaking at the Gathering of Rising Leaders in the Asia Pacific, organized by the Obama Foundation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)

In his brief order Tuesday, Sullivan quoted his fellow judge on the D.C. District Court, Amy Berman Jackson, who previously admonished the parties in the Stone case that allowing amicus submissions does not mean that the criminal case will become a "free for all."
Flynn's case, however, has sometimes seemed like just that. In a fireworks-filled sentencing hearing in December 2018, for example, Sullivan himself appeared open to the idea that Flynn could be charged with a death penalty-eligible offense.
"I'm not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense," Sullivan said during that hearing. He added that Flynn's allegedly unregistered work with Turkey "arguably" had undermined "everything this flag over here stands for.” (Flynn was never charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which had gone largely unenforced until recently.)
WHO IS JOE PIENTKA, MYSTERY FBI AGENT AT CENTER OF FLYNN AND CARTER PAGE CASES? ... FBI SCRUBS HIM FROM WEBSITE
In a bizarre moment, Sullivan then asked the government's attorneys whether they had considered charging Flynn with treason. The prosecutors said they had not, and Sullivan later walked back his comments after a brief recess.
Then, last December, Sullivan accused Flynn's legal team of plagiarism in a filing, saying they had "lifted verbatim portions from a source without attribution." Powell shot back that the claim "made no sense," and that she relied on one of her own cases as well as a brief primarily written by a friend whom she cited.

Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump text messages with Lisa Page. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

On the recommendation of U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who served as an FBI agent for more than a decade, the Justice Department last Thursday moved to drop its case against Flynn. The stunning development came after internal memos were released raising serious questions about the nature of the investigation that led to Flynn’s late 2017 guilty plea of lying to the FBI as his legal fees mounted.
One of the documents was a top official's handwritten memo debating whether the FBI's "goal" was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired." Other materials showed efforts by anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok to pursue Flynn on increasingly flimsy legal grounds.
It would not be unprecedented for the government to successfully move to dismiss a case after securing a conviction. In fact, Sullivan himself tossed the conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens in 2009, when it emerged the government had not produced a slew of exculpatory "Brady" material.
Powell has raised similar issues in the Flynn case. Fox News has chronicled numerous representations by the lead prosecutor in the Flynn case, Brandon Van Grack, concerning the government's supposed compliance with "Brady' requirements -- representations that now appear to have been inaccurate, as a mountain of striking exculpatory evidence has emerged.

Broken California Cartoons

California Democrats say 10-year rent-relief plan 'not a giveaway'

Idiots

California Democrats on Tuesday proposed giving tenants struggling during the coronavirus pandemic 10 years to pay their rent.
The state would purchase unpaid rents and allow renters a decade, starting in 2024, to pay it back, under the proposal by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, tthe Sacramento Bee reported. Landlords would receive a tax credit dependent on committing to not evict tenants.
“This is not a giveaway,” Democratic state Sen. Steven Bradford said, according to The Associated Press. "Our goal is to keep tenants houses and keep landlords out of foreclosure."
More than 4 million Californians have filed for unemployment benefits since Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order March 19, the AP reported, prompting state and local officials to seek ways to delay evictions.
Bradford said the proposal wouldn’t be for “large corporate landlords.” He added that renters could be forgiven the loan entirely if they continue to struggle financially.
Rent forgiveness is part of a larger $25 billion economic stimulus package introduced by Democrats this week.
California faces a projected $54 billion deficit for the next fiscal year as a June 15 deadlines to pass a balanced budget approaches, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to reveal a revised budget Thursday that may include spending cuts and tax increases.
But state Republicans are already criticizing the plan.
“Smoke and mirrors has worked before, but it all comes home to roost,” state Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, told the AP.

“Smoke and mirrors has worked before, but it all comes home to roost.”
— California state Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa

Tom Bannon, CEO of the California Apartment Association, said the gropup was committed to working with the state Senate to make sure “tenants can stay in their homes and rental property owners – especially mom-and-pop owners – are able to continue to pay their bills and their employees.”
“During these unprecedented times, we appreciate the Senate pro tem’s creative effort to help tenants and rental property owners,” he added, according to the Bee.
Separately, Democrats are proposing mortgage relief for homeowners and suspending evictions for tenants.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.