'Next idea?' After Electoral College fail, anti-Trump forces look for new cause

Idiots

A last-ditch effort by die-hard Donald Trump foes to derail the president-elect’s victory in the Electoral College fell flat Monday, leaving the never-Trump movement licking its wounds and looking to 2017 for ways to thwart Trump’s presidency and agenda.
The push to deny Trump the requisite 270 electors and send the election to the House of Representatives seemingly was doomed from the start, though it received significant media attention. In the end, only two Republican electors broke ranks – more defected on the Democratic side from Hillary Clinton.
What comes next for anti-Trumpers isn't entirely clear.
Some are preparing to attack him over his business ties, while the "I" word already is being bandied about.
Liberal filmmaker and activist Michael Moore tried to crowdsource ideas after the Electoral College flop, asking, “He's not president for four and a half weeks. Next idea?”
The Hamilton Electors – the group of electors behind the push to deny Trump 270 votes – published a statement Monday indicating their fight was not over, urging supporters to "stay tuned."
“Hamilton Electors hope this watershed moment will lay the groundwork for the emerging grassroots resistance to Trump’s agenda,” the statement read.
Texas Republican elector Chris Suprun, who voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday, hinted that a push for Trump's impeachment could be in the works.
“As a person who has always played fast and loose with the law, Trump will likely be impeached within the first year of his Presidency by responsible Republicans in Congress. For the rest of us Americans, his presence in the Oval Office represents a crisis for the Constitution, the economy and the country,” he said in the statement.
Republican lawmakers and mainstream conservative voices for the most part have indicated they're ready to work with Trump. Some were buoyed by conservative picks in his Cabinet such as Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for Health and Human Services secretary and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for attorney general.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton, too, signaled immediately after the election that Democrats should give Trump a chance.
But some Trump critics remain, if nothing else, on high alert for any constitutional violations from the Trump presidency.
Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin tweeted Tuesday what he called a “call to action” from Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter. Gerson called on citizens to defend the legislature and judiciary from “any encroachment,” and defend people from “organized oppression, including Muslims and refugees.”
With Trump's inauguration now inevitable, his foes may turn next to battling his Cabinet picks.
Some dissent has been bubbling over the choice of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of State, with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., warning that Tillerson’s relationship with Russia is “a matter of concern for me.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other Democratic allies also are eyeing a fight over Trump’s business interests. Last week, five Democratic senators including Warren announced they would introduce legislation to require Trump to divest assets that could be a conflict of interest, and put them into a blind trust.
Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Chris Coons, D-Del., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., are all backing the bill, which would deem a violation of conflict-of-interest laws “a high crime or misdemeanor under the impeachment clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
"The American people do not want the President encumbered by conflicts of interest that put him in violation of the Constitution or US law," Cardin said in a statement.
This isn’t the only sign Democratic lawmakers are gearing up for an impeachment threat sometime in the future. Politico reported Wednesday that House Democrats have held a mock hearing on Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest, using staging, television cameras and testimony from witnesses.
The narrative that Trump could run afoul of the Emoluments Clause -- which bars government officials from receiving gifts from foreign states -- is gaining support from some progressive voices.
GQ’s Keith Olbermann said in a video that Trump is a “moving, breathing conflict of interest who will likely be guilty of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors within hours if not minutes of his inauguration.”
Olbermann went one step further, advising Americans: "Never address Trump as president. He is Trump. Just Trump. Never president."
Former 2000 Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader also wrote an open letter (published in the Huffington Post) earlier this month telling Trump to divest or face impeachment.
“The only appropriate response is to completely divest on December 15 and therefore avoid potentially becoming a walking Article of Impeachment beginning on January 20,” he said.
Republican officials, meanwhile, argue it's time for those fighting his presidency to stand back.
After the Electoral College decision on Monday, RNC Co-Chair Sharon Day said in a statement:
“This historic election is now officially over and I look forward to President-elect Trump taking the oath of office in January. Our unified Republican government will hit the ground running next year so we can deliver real change and make America great again. For the good of the country, Democrats must stop their cynical attempts to undermine the legitimacy of this election, which Donald Trump won decisively in the Electoral College with more votes than any Republican since 1988.”

FBI warrant released in Clinton email case

Judge orders FBI to unseal search warrant against Clinton

A federal court on Tuesday released the search warrant documents filed by the FBI to access a laptop used by disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, revealing new details about why the bureau revisited the email case just days before the presidential election.
The FBI’s earlier investigation found “27 email chains containing classified information” that were exchanged between Clinton and Abedin, and investigators wanted to see what was also on the Abedin-Weiner laptop, according to the government affidavit unsealed Tuesday. That laptop, the FBI noted, “was never authorized for the storage or transmission of classified or national defense information,” according to the application for the warrant, which was partially redacted.
The October re-opening of the Clinton investigation sprung from an unrelated case involving Weiner allegedly sexting with an underage girl. During the course of that inquiry, agents discovered the joint laptop and later found emails addressed to and sent from Clinton.
READ THE DOCUMENTS
U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel on Monday ordered the warrant and accompanying documents released, which he said were secretly filed with the court on Oct. 30.
In the aftermath of Clinton’s Election Day defeat, many of her top supporters – including husband former President Bill Clinton – have publicly blamed FBI Director James Comey for her loss.
“James Comey cost her the election,” Bill Clinton said earlier this month during remarks which were recently published in the Bedford-Pound Ridge Record Review.
Just days after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Hillary Clinton also took Comey to task. “Our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum,” Clinton said during a Nov. 12 conference call with donors.
Comey was criticized not just for revisiting the case but for announcing that decision, in an Oct. 28 letter to Congress, only to confirm two days before the Nov. 8 vote that the inquiry uncovered no new evidence of wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, Clinton's attorney David Kendall said that the affidavit "highlights the extraordinary impropriety" of Comey's letter, which he called "legally unauthorized and factually unnecessary."
The unsealed search warrant files, however, may help explain why Comey decided to revive the Clinton investigation despite the pending election.
“Out of the 27 email chains, six email chains contained information that was classified as the Secret level at the time the emails were sent, and information in four of those email chains remains classified at that level now,” the application stated.
Agents also were looking “to determine if classified information was accessed by unauthorized users or transferred to any unauthorized systems.”
The affidavit clearly states that the warrant relates to a “criminal investigation” of Clinton, terminology Clinton’s team previously had disputed.

Blame the messengers: Dem boss Schumer fires staffers after November rout

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, smarting from the Democratic Party's big November losses, is blaming the messengers.
With Christmas days away, nearly every member of the Senate Democratic Media Center has been fired, a senior Democratic aide confirmed to Fox News. Schumer swung the axe on Friday, according to Politico, which first obtained “goodbye” emails from staffers, including some with decades' experience.
The move comes amid plans to revamp the unit, which handles video content, in an effort to help the Senate Democratic caucus get their message out in the New Year. The party not only lost the presidential race, it failed to capture the Senate or House and lost state legislative races throughout the country.
Critics, including some within the party, say the party has become dominated by East and West coast elites who can't connect with working class folks in the country's interior.
A senior democratic aide told FoxNews.com that Schumer decided Senate Democrats would need to produce sharper, more creative digital content.
“As a result, we are bringing in new people with expertise in digital videos and content for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media,” a senior democratic aide told FoxNews.com. “The mission of the revamped SDMC will be to produce more content to make content more creative and catchy, and to do so faster than we’ve been able to in the past.”
The timing could not be worse, given the holidays. But the 115^th Congress begins just two days after the New Year, and Schumer apparently wanted to start fresh, and hit the ground running.
“We don’t comment on personnel decisions,” a spokesman from the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), which serves as an advisory board to the Democratic Leadership in which Sen. Schumer will serve, told FoxNews.com in an email.
The aide would not share the number of employees fired, or the official number of employees working at the Senate Democratic Media Center.
A Republican Senate aide called the timing "brutal."
“Job creation has never been a strength of the Democrats,” a Republican aide told FoxNews.com. “But firing staffers just days before the holidays so they can play catch-up is pretty brutal.”

Justice Clarence Thomas Cartoons

GOP senator: Museum ignores Clarence Thomas' accomplishments

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz says the Smithsonian has made a mistake by not including the "extraordinary accomplishments" of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.
In a letter to leaders of the Smithsonian Institution on Monday, the Texas senator says he was deeply disturbed to learn that Thomas is only briefly noted in the context of his contentious 1991 confirmation hearings, when he faced allegations that he sexually harassed Anita Hill when they were colleagues in the federal government.
"I am concerned that millions of Americans, of all ages, races, religions, and walks of life, when passing through this museum, will be subjected to a singular and distorted view of Justice Thomas, an African-American who survived segregation, defeated discrimination, and ascended all the way to the Supreme Court," Cruz wrote.
Thomas has long been a hero to conservatives, but remains a pariah among civil rights groups. He's been a fierce opponent of affirmative action and voted with the conservative majority to block a key part of the Voting Rights Act designed to protect minority voters from discrimination.
Cruz, who was once a law clerk at the Supreme Court, shares Thomas' philosophy of adherence to the original text and meaning of the Constitution.
"Justice Thomas' dramatic journey from enduring entrenched racial discrimination to serving on the highest court in a country of 320 million people is one that should be shouted from the rooftops to all Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity," Cruz wrote.
A spokesman for the Smithsonian Institution did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thomas recently celebrated 25 years on the court, and is "known behind the scenes as one of the most jovial, down-to-earth, and gracious personalities to ever don the robe," according to Cruz.
In the letter, Cruz says the first and only other African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, is briefly praised in the museum. He suggests an exhibit on Marshall and Thomas and their different judicial approaches.
"To be clear, I am not petitioning for a partisan hagiography of Justice Thomas, nor am I asking that everything critical of him be excluded," Cruz wrote. "I am simply requesting that a fair and accurate portrayal of his powerful story be included, for the great benefit of millions of future museum-goers."
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only African-American Republican in the Senate, sent Smithsonian directors a similar letter earlier this month. And a group of Republican senators led by Cruz's Texas colleague, Republican Sen. John Cornyn, introduced a resolution to encourage the museum to give Thomas a prominent place in its exhibits.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka: 'The front line is when you leave your house in the morning'

Dr. Sebastian Gorka

National security expert Dr. Sebastian Gorka said that Monday's attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany represented "the sad reality" of the fight against terrorism.
"There is no front line like there was in World War I and World War II," Gorka told Eric Bolling on "Hannity" Monday night. "The front line is when you leave your house in the morning or when you go to a Christmas market in downtown Berlin."
SUSPECT IN BERLIN CHRISTMAS MARKET ATTACK REPORTEDLY CAME TO GERMANY AS A REFUGEE
Gorka added that ISIS had "learned from the mistakes of Al Qaeda," making them more dangerous than Usama bin Laden's jihadis.
"Al Qaeda was, ironically, too successful on Sept. 11. They killed 3,000 people in 102 minutes. So afterward ... they wanted to go bigger and bigger and bigger," Gorka said. "ISIS understands this is just about guerilla warfare. They’ve said, ‘You don’t need to build a bomb, you don’t even need to get a gun. Get in a truck and' — literally, they wrote — 'mow the infidel down like grass.'"
Gorka said that the key to preventing or surviving terror attacks like those in Berlin or in Nice, France on Bastille Day of this year was to be "tactically aware."
AT LEAST 12 DEAD, 48 INJURED AFTER TRUCK PLOWS INTO BERLIN CHRISTMAS MARKET IN APPARENT TERROR ATTACK
"Look at downtown centers or any suburb, and people are walking around staring at their iPhone or their Android," Gorka said. "Well, you know what? Then you are a target. You’ve got to be aware of your surroundings.
"So, people need to – as the police say, your head should be on a swivel and you should be tactically aware every time you leave the house in the morning."

Trump secures victory in Electoral College, as bid to flip electors flops

Ha Ha Poor Democrats :-)

Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday and secured his election as the 45th president of the United States, as the latest – and perhaps last – stop-Trump movement failed to gain traction in state capitals.

A fervent push by anti-Trump forces to persuade electors to defect had turned the normally mundane civic procedure into high drama.
But Trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win, as representatives tabbed to cast ballots in accordance with their states’ Nov. 8 decision mostly adhered to the election results. After all the states had voted, Trump finished with 304 votes and Clinton had 227.
Texas put Trump over the top, despite two Republican electors casting protest votes.

We did it! Thank you to all of my great supporters, we just officially won the election (despite all of the distorted and inaccurate media).

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2016

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence afterward tweeted "congratulations" to his running mate while saying he was "honored & humbled" to be officially elected the next vice president.
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Sharon Day urged Trump’s detractors to stop fighting his election, now that his victory is affirmed.
“This historic election is now officially over and I look forward to President-elect Trump taking the oath of office in January,” she said in a statement. “For the good of the country, Democrats must stop their cynical attempts to undermine the legitimacy of this election, which Donald Trump won decisively in the Electoral College with more votes than any Republican since 1988.”
Elector antics were few and far between throughout the day, with most the disruptions occurring on the Democratic side. A Democratic elector in Maine tried to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders, but switched to Clinton after it was ruled improper. Another who tried to vote for Sanders in Minnesota was replaced; a Colorado elector who tried to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich likewise was replaced. One of the biggest deviations was in Washington state, where three electors voted for Colin Powell and one voted for “Faith Spotted Eagle;” the remaining eight went to Clinton, the state’s winner.
It marked the first time in four decades the state's electors broke from the popular vote. Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman vowed to work with the state attorney general and charge the four unfaithful electors with a violation of Washington state civil law. Such violations carry a fine up to $1,000.
With Trump’s win now secured, a joint session of Congress is scheduled for Jan. 6 to certify the results.
Trump’s clear Electoral College victory could serve to deter any further last-ditch efforts to effectively nullify his November win and prevent his inauguration, though the battle may shift next to his Cabinet picks.
Few expected the “faithless elector” push to imperil Trump’s victory on Monday.
Only one Republican elector – Texas’ Chris Suprun – publicly stated he would vote for an alternative candidate. (He backed Kasich, while another Texas elector used his ballot to vote for former congressman Ron Paul.) More than three dozen Republicans would have had to abandon Trump to complicate his path to the presidency.
But GOP electors still faced immense pressure -- with some even receiving threats -- from Trump foes in the run-up to Monday’s Electoral College vote. Those urging disorder in state capitals often cited Clinton’s popular-vote win, by roughly 2.6 million votes, over Trump in November.
Celebrities made public appeals to electors to use the arcane process to upend Trump’s victory, as some Democratic electors tried to persuade their Republican counterparts to defect. Reports that U.S. intelligence officials determined Russia interfered in the election to boost Trump – findings disputed by Trump himself – only fueled efforts to wield the Electoral College vote as a political circuit-breaker.
As electors met, thousands of protesters descended on state capitals Monday in one last push to convince Trump voters to change their minds.
In Arizona, dozens of protesters gathered outside the meeting site, marching around the Capitol mall and carrying signs that said, "Stop Trump." More than 200 demonstrators gathered at Pennsylvania's Capitol, chanting, "No treason, no Trump!"
Both states, and dozens of others, cast their electoral votes for Trump anyway.
In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant dismissed attempts to sway Republican electors.
"This idea … that we want to change the electors’ minds who have been dedicated to Donald Trump very early in the process I think is just misguided,” he said.
If nothing else, the furor over Monday’s proceedings has served to re-acquaint Americans with a process that few pay attention to every four years.
The Electoral College was devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was a compromise between those who wanted popular elections for president and those who wanted no public input.
The Electoral College has 538 members, with the number allocated to each state based on how many representatives it has in the House plus one for each senator. The District of Columbia gets three, despite the fact that the home to Congress has no vote in Congress.
To be elected president, the winner must get at least half plus one -- or 270 electoral votes. Most states give all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins that state's popular vote. Maine and Nebraska award them by congressional district.
After a joint session of Congress certifies the results on Jan. 6, the next president will be sworn in on Jan. 20.
Trump already is nearly done naming his Cabinet appointees, as he prepares for confirmation hearings and the inauguration ceremonies, in addition to his first 100 days agenda.
Despite the transition process being well underway, Republican electors said they were deluged with emails, phone calls and letters urging them not to support the billionaire businessman in the days and weeks leading up to Monday’s proceedings. Many of the emails were part of coordinated campaigns.
"The letters are actually quite sad," said Lee Green, a Republican elector from North Carolina. "They honestly believe the propaganda. They believe our nation is being taken over by a dark and malevolent force."
Wirt A. Yerger Jr., a Republican elector in Mississippi, said, "I have gotten several thousand emails asking me not to vote for Trump. I threw them all away."
Arizona elector Robert Graham told Fox News on Saturday that the state’s 11 electors received hundreds of thousands of emails telling them not to vote for Trump and that he’s received information that some of the other 10 have been followed or have received a death threat.
“It’s out of hand when you have such … a small group of people that is pushing so hard against millions if not hundreds of millions of people who still appreciate this whole system,” said Graham, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. “The Electoral College is part of the Constitution.”

Federal judge orders release of search warrant from Clinton email case

A federal judge on Monday ordered the release of the search warrant the FBI used to reopen their probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server days before the November election.
U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel ruled Monday morning that the public had a right to see the warrant, which he said was secretly filed with the court on Oct. 30.
“The search warrant, the application for the search warrant, the affidavit in support of the application for the search warrant, and the search warrant return will be unsealed and posted on the Court's electronic case filing system” subject to redactions, Castel said in his order.
The Justice Department may seek to block the release before a federal appeals court.
The court dispute concerns the warrant agents used to get access to emails stored on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
FBI Director James Comey jolted the presidential race on Oct. 28 when he informed Congress that agents would be digging through the cache of emails between Abedin and Clinton for any new evidence related to Clinton's handling of sensitive State Department information.
Two days before the Nov. 8 election, Comey announced the inquiry had uncovered no new evidence of wrongdoing. Some in Clinton’s inner circle have blamed Comey for her loss, while President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers charge they’re making excuses.
The court documents are now set to be unsealed at noon Tuesday, with portions blacked out to conceal the names of the agents. The judge also ordered the redaction of any information about an open investigation of Weiner's online correspondence with a teenage girl.
Agents initially seized the computer in connection with that investigation.
Weiner, a Democrat, resigned his seat in Congress after sexually explicit texts and social media posts to various women. He tried for a political comeback two years later by running for mayor of New York, but his campaign was undone when evidence emerged that he hadn't given up his sexting habit.
Federal authorities began investigating him in late September after an online news outlet, the Daily Mail, published an interview with a North Carolina girl who said she had exchanged sexually explicit messages with him over several months.
Randol Schoenberg, a Los Angeles lawyer who specializes in recovering works of art stolen by the Nazis, petitioned the court to make the search warrant and supporting documents public.
In his order, Castel said public interest in the case overrode any privacy considerations.
"Ordinarily, a person whose conduct is the subject of a criminal investigation but is not charged with a crime should not have his or her reputation sullied by the mere circumstance of an investigation," he wrote. But in this instance, he said, the fact that the FBI investigated Clinton is hardly secret. "She has little remaining privacy interest in the release of the documents identifying her as the subject of this investigation."