Presumptuous Politics

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Louisiana newspaper say 'glad' Obama has now decided to visit flood damage, after vacation is over

A Day Late and a Dollar Short?

The editor of the major Louisiana newspaper that urged President Obama to cut short his summer vacation to see the devastating flooding that has damaged roughly 40,000 home said Friday he’s pleased that the president will visit the state.
“Our feeling is that this is a crisis that calls for presidential leadership, and we're glad to see the president is coming,” Advocate Editor Peter Kovacs told Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “The magnitude of the devastation is something you really have to come here to see.”
An editorial in the newspaper, the largest in Louisiana, on Thursday asked that Obama visit the state before his vacation ends Sunday in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., saying the president should “back his bags now” and leave the “playground for the posh and well connected.”
However, Obama is scheduled to visit Louisiana on Tuesday, the White House said Friday.
Earlier that day, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and running-mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence toured the flood damage, handed out supplies and vowed to help “rebuild.”
“We are not here to say we think the president should have come,” Kovacs also told Fox News. “We are glad he is coming. We are not here to say who got here first. We need all these leaders here.”
Roughly 70,000 people have reportedly registered for individual assistance, and roughly 9,000 have filed flood insurance claims in Baton Rouge and other parts of Louisiana, for which Obama has declared a state of emergency.
Thirteen people have died as a result of the flooding.
While, the federal response has largely received high marks, Kovacs also argued that the federal government “in many ways” told residents in the impacted areas previously that they didn’t need to buy flood insurance and is now telling them that they are not going to be helped because they didn't have flood insurance.

Advocate Editor Peter Kovacs

Facing Trump, Democrats could have their own 1994 landslide, but numbers appear against them

The year 1994 was a pivotal, landslide year for Republicans.
The GOP seized control of the Senate from Democrats for the first time in eight years. But the big story was the historic win by Republicans in the House. Republicans netted a staggering 54 seats, flipping the House to their control for the first time since 1952.
Several things worked in the GOP’s favor.
Republicans successfully portrayed President Bill Clinton as a “tax and spend” liberal and propounded the so-called “Contract with America” as their electoral promise.
They excoriated the Clinton over the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas and his effort (alongside that of spouse Hillary Clinton) to move health care reform legislation through Congress. Health care reform died miserably, never even hitting the floor.
In retrospect, some Republicans now may take the Clinton proposal over ObamaCare, which didn’t develop until 16 years down the road. But that’s another story.
Combine GOP efforts to tarnish Clinton’s record with the impacts of redistricting from the 1990 census and congressional Democrats were cooked.
One would think that sophisticated political analysts would be prescient enough to see such a landslide months in advance. However, the most compelling narrative of the 1994 midterm elections was that virtually nobody was able to detect the possibility of one of the most lopsided shellackings in American history until just a few weeks ahead of time.
This brings us to this year’s House and Senate contests and what could happen down ballot. There are questions about what November could mean for congressional Republicans if GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to perform as poorly as he is now and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, ignites the Electoral College scoreboard.
We have known since before this election cycle started that retention of the Senate for Republicans was a jump-ball proposition at best.
However, the House is another story. It has always been a challenge for Democrats to cobble together an electoral strategy that bounces the GOP from the majority and pockets them 30 seats.
Democrats salivated at the possibility of Republicans nominating a candidate like Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, thinking either would be so toxic that it could help them in congressional races.
Well, Democrats got their wish. Even so, Trump’s nomination doesn’t predict much of anything for House contests this fall.
Yet.
Yes, it’s August. Early voting begins in many states in about four weeks. So far, there’s little reason to think the House is in jeopardy for Republicans. And if there is going to be a hint that the House could flip -- like 1994 -- such indiciators are most likely going to emerge rather late.
It won’t take 54 seats. But a 30 seat bar is a lot for Democrats. And handing over control of the House to the Democrats constitutes a landslide.
Major factors still inhibit Democrats from having a snowball’s chance of picking up the lower chamber. They’ve struggled to recruit strong candidates in some key districts.
Some may even criticize Democratic leaders for failing to convert the Trump nomination into a cakewalk for House Democrats. In other words, if the GOP could galvanize opposition around Bill Clinton in 1994, shouldn’t Democratic demonization of Trump be child’s play in 2016?
To be fair, those aren’t apples to apples comparisons.
One of the biggest problems House Democrats face is the political map. In the 22 years since the Republican sea change, both parties have worked to narrow the playing field. They segregated Democratic and Republican votes into districts that are more and more Democratic or Republican.
The result is that electoral politic experts denote only about 56 districts out of 435 as competitive. That means Democrats have to hold the approximately dozen seats they now control -- which are in the swing category -- and simultaneously lock up three-quarters of every GOP seat that could fall into play.
But that doesn’t tell the full story.
In reality, only about 25 seats are truly competitive. The issue for Democrats is that there might not be enough seats available to flip to capture the House.
Here’s another problem for Democrats. The electorate isn’t excited for Hillary Clinton. However, Democratic voters are energized against Trump.
Still, that cuts two ways. Many Republicans may not be ready to vote for Trump. But theories now abound that GOP voters could show up to vote Republican in House and Senate contests to represent a check against Clinton, should it be obvious she may win.
All of this centers on turnout.
Trump’s nomination could spark a sit out by Republicans. Couple that with an Electoral College landslide by Clinton and various House contests that aren’t on the board now could become competitive in late September and October.
Trump’s hiring of Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon could result in the unleashing of an even more bellicose nominee.
If that’s the case, congressional Republicans are in trouble and will have to scramble to further distance themselves from the top of the ticket. Of course, the good news on that front is that many Republicans are running races that form a firewall between them and Trump. That strategy has been in place for months.
One of the best things going for Republicans is that they sit on an historic majority that could serve as a failsafe.
In 2014, House Republicans won 247 seats, their biggest majority since 1928. The 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting process dramatically favored Republicans. The body politic still feels reverberations from those electoral exercises.
The Census and redistricting stopgaps could mean there’s almost no way for Democrats to claim the House until the midterm election of 2022. That would follow the 2020 Census and another round of reallocating congressional seats.
An Electoral College landslide in favor of Clinton -- coupled with a prodigious number of Republican voters simply staying home -- is probably the best scenario Democrats can hope for in House races this year. Electoral College landslides aren’t enough.
Republicans only earned 12 seats in 1984 after President Ronald Reagan won 49 states over Walter Mondale. In 1972, President Richard Nixon walloped George McGovern with 49 states. That provided a minimal 12 seat GOP pickup in the House.
It comes down to voter turnout. It’s still too early to understand who might show up in November or participate in early voting.
Thus, it remains an outside shot for Democrats to win the House. But if the House does move into play, it’s likely the scenario will mirror 1994 in at least one fashion: we won’t spot that possibility in the viewfinder until very late.

Trump tries to appeal to Hispanic, black voters; argues Dems have abandoned them

GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln

Donald Trump met Saturday with his newly formed Hispanic advisory board, part of a new effort by the Republican presidential nominee and his new-look campaign team to win at least some support from minority voters as the White House race enters its final stages.
Trump met in New York with the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump -- a coalition of elected officials, business leaders and faith leaders -- with hopes of improving relations with Latino voters.
Helen Aguirre Ferri, director of Hispanic communications for the Republican National Committee, called the meeting a "game-changing" opportunity.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said the meeting would be an exchange in which the leaders would “share their insights and experience,” then return to their communities to “relay Mr. Trump's message of ending the failed status quo to their congregations and media audience.”
Priebus also said the meeting was “just one component of our expansive effort to engage the Hispanic community.”
Still, winning over Hispanic voters will not be easy. Trump infamously accused Mexico of sending rapists and criminals across the southern U.S. border at his campaign kickoff event last year. The real estate mogul also vowed to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.
Washington Republicans have been trying to improve their standing among Hispanic voters since the 2012 election, when exit polls showed President Obama won re-election with roughly 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to about 27 percent for Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
And most polls show Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Trump among Hispanic voters, with early voting in some states set to begin in less than two weeks.
Earlier this week, the Trump campaign announced that Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, was its new chief executive and that GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway had been promoted to campaign manager. On Friday, campaign Chairman Paul Manafort resigned.
Trump has also made efforts to try to appeal more to black voters, whom he argues should support his campaign after years of reliably supporting Democrats.
At a rally in suburban Michigan on Friday night, Trump said to the crowd that “no group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African Americans.”
"Look at how much African-American communities are suffering from Democratic control,” Trump continued in a speech similar to one he gave the day before in North Carolina. “What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? … You live in your poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs -- 58 percent of your youth is unemployed."
His efforts are similar to those of other Republicans who have publically argued that Democrats have for decades run major U.S. cities like Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia but have failed their residents, many of them minorities, with poorly-run or under-performing services and facilities.
Democrats were quick to denounce Trump’s comments in Michigan, with Democratic National Committee official Brandon Davis on Saturday saying Trump “has shown little interest engaging the black community and his comments underscore just how out of touch he is with the African American community.”
On Saturday, Trump told supporters in Fredericksburg, Va. that Republicans "must do better, and will do better" at appealing to African-American voters.
Noting that the "GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln," Trump said, "I want our party to be a home of the African-American voter once again."

However, Democratic politicians have had the black vote for decades, and this year’s election appears to be no different.
Clinton overwhelmingly won the black vote in South Carolina early in the Democratic primary season and continued to win it in other Southern states to secure the nomination, despite challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders’ strong populist promise to cut the social and economic inequality gap in the United States.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Illegal Immigration Cartoons

Judges nixed DHS bids to deport illegal immigrants 100,000 times: report

Immigration judges around the country are denying the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to deport illegal immigrants in record numbers, according to a new report.
Over the last 10 months, immigration judges opted against the department’s efforts to remove some 96,223 illegal immigrants, including criminals, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based nonprofit.
At this rate, TRAC estimates the number of illegal immigrants allowed to remain in the U.S. despite DHS attempts to remove them will surpass last year’s breaking number of 106,676. With the court’s protection, subjects can often remain indefinitely.
“It’s concerning to me that the immigration courts are becoming such a frequently used back-door route to green cards,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC-based research institute, noting these cases will be nearly 10 percent of the green cards approved in 2016.
“Many of them arrived illegally, and are being awarded legal status simply because they managed to stay a long time and have acquired family members here.”
One in four of the illegal immigrants allowed to stay in the country despite DHS efforts to remove them this year is from Mexico, TRAC reported.
Another 44 percent were from the three Central American countries — El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — where vast numbers of unaccompanied minors and women with children have crossed the border to seek asylum.
There are a number of reasons why an individual may be allowed to remain in the country, according to TRAC.
“… the judge can find that the government did not meet its burden to show the individual was deportable,” the report stated. “Or, the judge may have found that the individual was entitled to asylum in this country, or may grant relief from removal under other provisions of the law.
“A person also may be allowed to remain because the government requests that the case be administratively closed through the exercise of ICE's prosecutorial discretion, or for some other reason,” the report also stated.
The Phoenix federal Immigration Court had the highest percentage of non-citizens allowed to stay in the country over the objections of DHS officials.
“In more than four out of every five, or 82.2 percent of its 3,554 cases closed so far in 2016, the individuals were successful in their quest to remain in the U.S,” TRAC reported.
The New York Immigration Court was not far behind at 81.5 percent of the 16,152 non-citizen cases closed to date, followed by the Denver Immigration Court at 78.0 percent of its 831 cases.
Nationwide, there is a backlog of around 500,000 cases pending in the immigration courts, and as it grows, judges become more lenient, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
“This is by design,” Mehlman said. “The longer the attorneys draw out the cases, the better it is for their clients because the likelihood that they will get to stay in the country increases. It is also better for the immigration attorneys because they can charge more fees.
“From the judge’s perspective, because the courts are so backlogged, it is easier to let people stay in the country than actually try to remove them,” he said. “There are endless layers of appeal and no finality in it.”
On the opposite end of the scale, Oakdale, La., Lumpkin, Ga. and Napanoch, N.Y., Immigration Courts only allowed between 11.3 percent and 17.5 percent of the non-citizens slated for removal to remain in the U.S., TRAC reported.
There is a great deal of money spent, and government resources dedicated, to prosecute a removal case for detention, to monitor those who are released, for attorneys to prosecute removal cases and for the court personnel to conduct hearings, said Claude Arnold, a retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations.
Arnold believes the Obama administration has sent the message to immigration judges to push back when DHS attempts to enforce its rules regarding illegal immigrants. By law, they are subject to deportation when local, state or federal authorities cross paths with them, but several local governments refuse to cooperate in the removal process.
The administration of the immigration courts does not comment on third-party analysis of data, said Kathryn Mattingly, spokesperson for the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. However, she said the year prior to the TRAC report, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015, immigration judges granted 48 percent of asylum applications, marking the third year in a row that percentage has decreased, falling from 56 percent in 2012.

Michael C. McGoings
Chief Immigration Judge (Acting) U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch appointed the new judge.

Michael C. McGoings was appointed acting chief immigration Judge in March 2016. He was appointed principal deputy chief immigration judge in March 2013. He was appointed deputy chief immigration judge in October 2009. Judge McGoings received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 from Morgan State University, a Master of Science degree in 1967 from the University of Illinois, and a Juris Doctor in 1973 from the Catholic University of America. From March 1995 to October 2009, Judge McGoings served as an assistant chief immigration judge. During this time, from February to July 2009, he served as chief immigration judge (acting). From 1994 to 1995, Judge McGoings was an associate general counsel serving as chief of the Enforcement Legal Program, and from 1991 to 1994, he was an associate general counsel for the Employer Sanctions and Civil Document Fraud Legal Program, both at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). From 1987 to 1990, he served as an assistant general counsel for the former INS. Judge McGoings is a member of the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Bars.

Jewelry designers are branded 'trashy' over note that they sent to Ivanka Trump in which they snidely boast about donating proceeds from her purchase to Hillary Clinton

IDIOTS Jill Martinelli and Sabine Le Guyader

Ivanka Trump has been fervently campaigning for her father Donald, but the savvy businesswoman inadvertently donated money to his opponent Hillary Clinton when she purchased an ear cuff from an indie jewelry brand worn by Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Selena Gomez.

After the 34-year-old ordered an $84 gold Helix Ear Cuff from their website, the brand's co-founders and designers, Jill Martinelli and Sabine Le Guyader, took to the company's Instagram page on Tuesday to share a photo of the handwritten note they had sent to Ivanka.

The publicly shared message revealed that the jewelry designers donated the proceeds of the sale to various organizations, including the Hillary Clinton campaign, and while some fans admired their moxie, others accused them of being 'unprofessional' and 'tactless'.

'Dear Ivanka, Thank you so much for your web order!' reads Jill and Sabine's message. 'We’re happy to let you know that the proceeds of your sale have been generously donated to the American Immigration Council, the Everytown for Gun Safety organization, and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

'We hope you enjoy your new Lady Grey #helixearcuff. Best, Jill + Sabine.'

When captioning the photo of their handwritten note, they added: 'Dear @ivankatrump, #thanksbutnothanks #payitFORWARD.'

Jill and Sabine told New York magazine in an email that the note was included in her package, which shipped last week directly from their studio in Brooklyn.

Clinton reportedly told FBI Colin Powell pushed private email; Powell denies

Hillary Clinton reportedly told federal authorities during her questioning over her email practices that former Secretary of State Colin Powell encouraged her to use a private email account, but that was news to Powell.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Clinton’s revelation is part of the FBI’s notes that were given to Congress on Tuesday about the agency’s questioning in July that led Director James Comey not to pursue criminal charges against her over her use of private emails.
An email exchange emerged from 2009 between Clinton and Powell during the questioning that revealed that she had asked the former secretary of state about his email practices under George W. Bush, a source told The Times. Clinton had already set up her private email server during that time.
The Times reported that the conversations between Clinton and Powell are revealed in an upcoming book detailing Bill Clinton’s political life after his presidency, titled “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” by Joe Conason.
The book details a conversation between Clinton and Powell at a party hosted by Madeleine Albright in Washington.
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” a passage details. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”
A spokesperson for Powell issued a statement saying
"General Powell has no recollection of the dinner conversation," the statement read. "He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department. At the time there was no equivalent system within the Department.
"He used a secure State computer on his desk to manage classified information," the statement added.
Howard Krongard, a former watchdog for the State Department, told Fox News in May that he would have immediately opened an investigation if he caught wind of a secretary of state used a private account.
Krongard shot down the notion that she was in line with her predecessors’ in using a private email account for State Department business. He pointed to a May 25 inspectors general report that stated Condoleezza Rice did not use personal email for government business. It said Powell used personal email on a limited basis to connect with people outside the department, and he worked with the State Department to secure the system. The report found Clinton did neither.
The report concluded Clinton’s use of a private server and account was not approved, and broke agency rules. The report said by the time she became secretary, the rules had repeatedly been updated, and were “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated.”
The Times reported that the State Department has asked to review the FBI’s notes from Clinton’s questioning before they are officially released.
Clinton campaign officials fear that materials could be leaked in order to hurt her campaign.

Clinton's health continues to spur controversy and conspiracy

The real Hillary Clinton.

A two-page letter from Hillary Clinton's doctor a year ago, declaring the former first lady, senator and secretary of state "fit to serve" as president has done little to quell doubts about her health amid a gruelling campaign.

Photos of the Democratic presidential nominee being helped up stairs, frequent coughing bouts on the campaign trail and rumors that a 2012 concussion was worse than revealed have made the 68-year old's fitness a campaign issue.
“Hillary Clinton lacks the judgement, the temperament and the moral character to lead this nation," Donald Trump said in a recent foreign policy speech. "Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS, and all the many adversaries we face – not only in terrorism, but in trade and every other challenge we must confront to turn this country around.”
Clinton’s health has been a matter of scrutiny since the concussion she suffered while serving as secretary of state. While being evaluated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, doctors discovered a blood clot inside a vein in her head and prescribed blood thinners, she told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in 2014.
In part to quash speculation about Clinton’s health, the campaign released a summary of her medical records last summer.
In the July 28, 2015 letter, Dr. Lisa Bardack, an internist in Mount Kisco, N.Y., described Clinton “as a healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies.”
Unlike 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain who invited reporters to review the full 1,173 pages of his medical records, Clinton released only a summary of her past issues, including an elbow fracture in 2009 and several episodes of deep vein thrombosis.
Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson said the campaign has no plans to release more detailed records, but his position is at odds with many Americans.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that 59 percent of voters believe all major presidential candidates should release at least their most recent medical records to the public. That figure is up from 38 percent of Americans in May 2014, when questions about Clinton's health were first being raised.
Thirty percent don’t think candidates should have to release their recent medical records and 11 percent were undecided.
The people may want to see more medical records, but the Clinton campaign just sees right-wing conspiracy. A campaign spokeswoman blamed the health controversy on Roger Stone, a longtime conservative policeal operative who had a formal role as a Trump adviser until he was fired a year ago. Still an unabashed supporter of Trump, Stone is still working to get him elected, say critics.
“Donald Trump is simply parroting lies based on fabricated documents promoted by Roger Stone and his right-wing allies," said campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri. "Hillary Clinton has released a detailed medical record showing her to be in excellent health plus her personal tax returns since 1977, while Trump has failed to provide the public with the most basic financial information disclosed by every major candidate in the last 40 years.”
Requests for comment from the Clinton and Trump campaigns were not answered. Bardack’s office declined to comment.
“I think the questions being raised are legitimate given that it impacts who leads our nation," said Dr. Jan Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. "As a physician, you cannot help but to ask questions. But given that our information is limited, it would be wrong for any physician to diagnose someone without seeing them themselves.”
Orient said she has received both positive and negative responses to her recent column on the Association’s blog which asked whether Clinton is “medically unfit” to serve as president.
Television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky told KABC radio this week that he was concerned about the “1950s level of care” that Clinton was receiving and not as much about her actual health.
“It just seems like she’s getting care from somebody that she met in Arkansas when she was a kid,” he added.
While agreeing that a candidate’s health is a serious issue for voters to consider, one Trump advisor warned against either side diagnosing the physical or mental health of the candidates.
“I would be very cautious and would recommend the doctors for professional reasons to be very cautious when deciding you are going to analyze people,” said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on Fox & Friends.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Saturday, August 20, 2016

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