Another Obama, Clinton donor joins Mueller's legal team investigating Trump campaign

The newest lawyer to join Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible Trump campaign team collusion with Russia gained notoriety for her conduct in defending former President Obama's immigration orders, Politico reported Saturday.

Besides her work for Obama, Kyle Freeny, now the 16^th member of Mueller’s legal team, Federal Election Commission records show she donated in each of the past three presidential elections to Democratic nominees, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Freeny and her colleagues came under judicial fire while defending a lawsuit in which Texas and 25 other states contested Obama’s executive order in 2014 on immigration. The federal judge hearing the case, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, blasted Freeny and her colleagues for misleading him when the litigation began by indicating that none of the changes Obama had ordered had taken effect. In actuality, one major change, to issue longer work permits, had already begun.
Hanen said the government lawyers had engaged in “misconduct” that was “intentional, serious and material,” according to Politico
“In fact, it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct,” wrote the judge, who eventually dropped plans to impose sanctions on the government lawyers.
Freeny is one of nine attorneys on Mueller’s team who has donated to Democrats a total of nearly $65,000, according to The Daily Caller.
She had been working in the Justice Department’s money-laundering unit where she helped lead an effort to seize profits from the “The Wolf of Wall Street” film because it was allegedly financed with assets looted from Malaysia’s government. Read another report on Kyle Freeny below: 

 

Names Of DOJ Attorneys Who 'Misled' Judge In Immigration Case Scrubbed From Court Doc

 The U.S. Department of Justice won't release the names of attorneys whose conduct in a high-profile immigration case was called "unseemly and unprofessional" by a federal judge, or whether those attorneys will face internal disciplinary action.

The DOJ says it "emphatically" disagrees with Judge Andrew Hanen's May order in State of Texas, et al. v. United States of America, et al., in which he wrote that he was “disappointed” that the court even had to address the subject of lawyer behavior when it has “many more pressing matters on its docket.”
Hanen concluded that DOJ attorneys “effectively misled” the plaintiff states into foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order or an earlier hearing on a motion for an injunction.
Their names, following a court order, were redacted from the department’s response to the judge's order.
Their misrepresentations, the judge said, also “misdirected” the court as to the timeline involved in the implementation of a 2014 Department of Homeland Security directive, which included amendments to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
DOJ attorneys said Obama's three-year amnesty plan wasn't being implemented, but the judge says it actually was - and more than 100,000 aliens were to be affected.
The Justice Department declined to release a complete list of all those attorneys involved, and their salaries, to Legal Newsline.
Many DOJ lawyers are listed as participating in the case. They are James Gilligan, Daniel Hu, Adam Kirschner, Jennifer Ricketts, Daniel Schwei, John Tyler, Kathleen Hartnett, Bradley Cohen and Kyle Freeny.

California lawmakers approve 'sanctuary state' bill ( Bringing Down America )

Bringing Down America

Twenty-two out of 24 Latino legislative members are Democrats.
Latinos now constitute nearly 40% of California’s population, surpassing the white, non-Latino population.

Lawmakers in California on Saturday passed “sanctuary state” legislation even as President Trump and his administration have vowed to crack down on jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration agents.

The bill approved early Saturday limits police cooperation with federal immigration authorities and is intended to bolster protections for illegal immigrants in the state.

But the acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday warned of “tragic consequences,” saying the policy “will make California communities less safe.”
“By passing this bill, California politicians have chosen to prioritize politics over public safety,” Thomas Homan, the acting director of ICE, said in a statement. “Disturbingly, the legislation serves to codify a dangerous policy that deliberately obstructs our country’s immigration laws and shelters serious criminal alien offenders.”
Homan said ICE wants to work with local law enforcement to prevent “dangerous criminal aliens” from being released back onto the streets.
The legislation will now be considered by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who announced his support after the top state Senate leader agreed to water down the bill and preserve authority for jail and prison officials to cooperate with immigration officers in many cases.
The bill that passed Saturday prohibits law enforcement officials from asking about a person's immigration status or participating in immigration enforcement efforts.
SANCTUARY CITIES: WHAT ARE THEY?
It also prohibits law enforcement officials from being deputized as immigration agents or arresting people on civil immigration warrants.
The legislation follows Trump’s vow to crack down on sanctuary cities. Such policies limit just how much local law enforcement officials cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The debate about sanctuary cities intensified in July 2015 when Katie Steinle, 32, was killed as she strolled along the San Francisco waterfront with her father. Steinle was fatally shot by a man with a criminal record who had slipped into the U.S. multiple times illegally.
On Friday, a federal judge in Chicago has ruled Attorney General Jeff Sessions can't withhold public grant money from so-called sanctuary cities for refusing to follow federal immigration policies.
U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber made the ruling Friday, in which he granted Chicago's request for a temporary "nationwide" injunction.
The ruling means the Justice Department cannot deny grant money requests until Chicago's lawsuit against the agency is concluded. Leinenweber wrote that Chicago has shown a "likelihood of success" in its arguments that Sessions overstepped his authority with the requirements.
The city of Chicago sued the Trump administration in August after it threatened to withhold funds from sanctuary cities, and refused to comply with the Justice Department's demand that it allow immigration agents access to local jails and notify agents when someone in the U.S. is about to be released from custody.
At least seven cities and counties, including Seattle and San Francisco, have refused to cooperate with new federal rules regarding sanctuary cities.

Today's Excuse

California's stupidest politicians in America Cartoons

Californians don't mess with Texas.

Californians don't mess with Texas.

Californians don't mess with Texas.

Californians don't mess with Texas.

Californians don't mess with Texas.

GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher: Violence in Charlottesville Was Masterminded by Dems

Republican U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher.

A Republican congressman say he believes the protests in Charlottesville were masterminded by liberals.
California Representative Dana Rohrabacher explained his views in an interview Thursday.
He believes it was an attempt to — quote — “put our president on the spot.”
Rohrabacher believes Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders hired Civil War re-enactors to defend the Confederate statue and pretend to be white nationalists.
The California lawmaker currently faces nine challengers in the 2018 election.
His district in the state traditionally votes Republican, but flipped for Clinton in the last election, making it a focus for Democrats trying to retake the House.

Chelsea Clinton tweets false story claiming Michigan passed bill allowing EMTs to deny gay patients treatment

Just like her mommy :-)

Chelsea Clinton falsely tweeted Friday that the Michigan House of Representatives had voted to allow emergency medical providers choice in treating patients, specifically giving EMTs the option to deny treatment to gay patients.

"Absolutely appalling," the former First Daughter tweeted, "Michigan House Passed Bill Allowing EMTs To Refuse Treatment To Gay People."

The story Clinton cited was from a website for the LGBT New Now Next Awards, and was posted in 2014. When followers pointed out the story was old, Clinton deleted her tweet.
Not only was the story old, but the actual premise was deeply flawed. What the Michigan House actually passed was a garden variety Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which would have exempted religious individuals from laws that infringed on their religious beliefs.
Like most state RFRAs, the Michigan bill contained a clause that allows the state to infringe on religious beliefs when there's a "compelling government interest." The preservation of human life is widely considered to qualify, according to legal experts.

Newt Gingrich: Tax cuts for small business would change GOP trajectory

Time is running out for Republicans if they want to keep their governing majority in 2018.

After 238 days of having control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the GOP has only one major legislative achievement – the Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

This is, in part, because Republicans tried to run before they could walk. Attempting to immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare without an iron-clad strategy for success was a mistake driven by post-election excitement and inexperience. Remember, many current House Republicans have never served when there was a Republican in the White House, and our Senate majority is still too slim to pass transformative conservative legislation.
But while early mistakes are to be expected, it is not too late to change the Republican trajectory.
Before we can fully bring our country out of the liberal, big government, dependency model, Republicans need to develop an economic-growth-focused strategy, build legislative momentum on the floor of Congress, and gain full support from the American people.
The key to achieving these goals – and growing our majority in both the House and Senate next year – is to pass simple, popular, tax cut legislation by this year’s end – preferably by Thanksgiving.
The cornerstone of this legislation must be a serious tax cut for small businesses so they can expand, create more jobs, and revive the middle class.
Small businesses represent 99 percent of our country’s employers, employing nearly half of our country’s private sector workers and creating three out of every four new jobs. However, instead of paying the corporate tax rate, more than 90 percent of these businesses report their income through their owners’ individual income tax filings.
Despite what some on the Left assert, these are not “the rich” or “the top 1 percent” – far from it. Most small businesses are truly small.
U.S. Treasury data and a report by the National Federation of Independent Business show only 2.4 percent of small businesses report incomes in excess of $250,000 a year. In fact, 88 percent of income tax returns by small business owners show adjusted gross income of less than $200,000. Seventy-one percent of such returns show adjusted income that is less than $100,000 a year.
On the high end, the Tax Foundation reports that the top earning small businesses pay marginal federal tax rates as high as 44.6 percent (when you combine the individual rate, the self-employment tax, and the net investment income tax). Adding state income taxes to the mix means these small business owners face tax rates that approach 50 percent.
This must change.
Republican lawmakers should create a graduated system that caps the tax rate on the highest small business incomes at no more than the corporate rate of 38.92 percent, drastically reduce the individual income tax rates, or both.
Relieving small businesses of this enormous tax burden will allow them to buy more equipment, expand their operations, hire more people, raise workers’ wages, and generate massive economic growth.
Despite a slow start for the Republican-led government, Gallup reported on Wednesday that 51 percent of Americans approve of the way President Trump has handled the economy. This is higher than the economic ratings Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton each received during their eighth month in office.  Only George W. Bush in 2001 had a higher economic approval rating, at 72 percent.
It is not surprising that Americans approve of how President Trump has been handling the economy. Since taking office, the stock market has been booming. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 12.25 percent; The Nasdaq Composite Index is up 22.92 percent; and the S&P 500 is up 11.49 percent.
Tax cuts on small business and the middle class will provide an enormous boost to the already improving economy. This will result in even more jobs, higher take home pay, and stronger growth.
When voters head to the polls on November 6, 2018, if they have been experiencing a robust American economy that is dramatically stronger than the slow-growth economy during the previous years of Democratic leadership, then they will elect more Republicans to office.
But Republicans must pass serious tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses by Thanksgiving to make that happen. It’s that simple.
Newt Gingrich is a Fox News contributor. A Republican, he was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Follow him on Twitter @NewtGingrich. His latest book is "Understanding Trump."

California Assembly OKs plan for March presidential primary

The only problem Texans have with Californians moving to Texas is that they bring their stupid ideas of government with them. Look what they've done to their state, Don't mess with Texas.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –  The California Assembly has voted to move the 2020 presidential primary to March to give the nation's most populous state more influence in choosing nominees.

The bill approved Friday will now go to the state Senate where it's expected to pass. Gov. Jerry Brown has not said whether he'll sign it.

The bill would move the presidential primary to the Tuesday after the first Monday in March -- three months earlier than the June contest held in 2016, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were already the presumptive nominees.

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A March primary would likely fall on so-called "Super Tuesday," when roughly a dozen states typically vote following the early primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and several other states.
"Candidates will have to spend more time in California," said Democratic Assemblyman Kevin Mullin of San Francisco.
An earlier primary could give an edge to well-funded candidates.
California is home to 11 media markets, making it expensive to campaign.
It's easier for candidates with limited money to compete alongside financial heavy-hitters in early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. In 2016, for example, John Kasich took second in New Hampshire with limited money, while Jeb Bush, who had more than $100 million, placed fourth.
"The cost of playing in California versus playing in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina is incredibly different," said Mike Biundo, Republican Rick Santorum's 2012 campaign manager who later worked for Kasich and Trump. "A Jeb Bush or a Hillary Clinton, I think, have the advantage if California is earlier."
An earlier primary, especially one held on Super Tuesday, wouldn't mean every candidate will spend more time in the state. In 2016, for example, Texas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Virginia and eight other states voted that day.
And it doesn't ensure the political relevance that California lawmakers crave. The last time California voted early -- in February 2008 -- the state backed Clinton, but Barack Obama went on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency.
California's last truly relevant presidential primary was perhaps in 1972, when George McGovern defeated Hubert Humphrey on McGovern's way to winning the Democratic nomination.
Michael Schroeder, Republican Ted Cruz's California political director in 2016, said it's too early in the political calendar to predict the impact of an earlier primary in 2020.
"Right now, California is completely irrelevant for picking presidents. We didn't pick Hillary (Clinton) and we didn't pick (President Donald) Trump," he said, referring to 2016 contests that were essentially settled before the state voted.
Changing the date "will make us at least somewhat relevant; it could make us very relevant," he said.
The Republican and Democratic national committees have not yet set rules for the 2020 contests, including the preferred primary calendar and delegates awarded to each state. Depending on rules set, other states could attempt to leapfrog ahead of California, pushing the entire primary season earlier.
California historically awards more delegates than any other state.
California may also become the first state to require presidential candidates to release their tax returns to appear on the state ballot. Lawmakers sent Brown a bill Friday requiring candidates to publicly share five years of returns; he hasn't said if he'll sign it.
President Donald Trump's refusal to release his tax returns during the 2016 sparked similar legislation in dozens of states from New Jersey to Hawaii. The documents reveal income sources, tax exemptions, charitable donations and potential financial conflicts of interest. Until Trump, every major presidential candidates has released his or hers for decades.