Showing posts with label McConnell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McConnell. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 06, 2019

Election wrap up if you are interested in the Truth!


The Truth, nothing that happened in the elections yesterday will have any impact on the 2020 presidential election.  There are off-year elections when congress runs for office and the president does not (2018) and there are off-off or way-off year elections like yesterday when a handful of states have mostly obscure offices up for grabs, except for the governor races in Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi.

In Mississippi the Republican won an open race, meaning no incumbent was running.



Virginia Returns to Democrat controlled state
When one party controls the three vital centers of state political power—the office of the governor, the state House, and the state Senate — it is considered a Democrat or Republican state.  Such control makes it easier for the dominant party to pursue its agenda, and more difficult for opposition parties to challenge it.
Virginia currently operates under divided government.
In Virginia, Republicans held control of state government from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2012 to 2013. Democrats held control from 1992 to 1993. In all other years, control of state government was divided.

One of the Virginia Democrats elected yesterday as supervisor for the Algonkian District in Loudoun County, Virginia became famous because she flipped off the President's motorcade in a great showing of respect for the presidency.


GOP loses Kentucky Governor but reasserts statewide dominance


One of the most unpopular governors in the nation lost re-election in Kentucky and not even President Trump could save him, although the actual vote is still too close to call and subject to a possible recount.

While Democrats around the country are celebrating Andy Beshear’s narrow win Tuesday in the high-profile gubernatorial race in Kentucky, some analysts are playing down what his victory over Republican incumbent Matt Bevin could mean for the 2020 election.
There were six statewide elections in Kentucky and while the governor’s race is still too close to call, the other five races were easily won by Republicans backed by Mitch McConnell and President Trump.

Cook Political Report analyst Dave Wasserman offered what he described as a “reality check.” Wasserman tweeted that a Democratic victory by less than a percentage point against “an unpopular GOP governor” is not a sign that Kentucky will be “competitive at the federal level in 2020.” In other words, don’t bet on Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell losing to Democratic challenger Amy McGrath, or on President Donald Trump struggling in the state, which he carried by a 30-point margin in 2016.

Other analysts echoed Wasserman’s view on the election results in Kentucky, where Bevin so far hadn’t conceded. The Republican incumbent reportedly lost by less than 5,000 votes, as 1.4 million Kentuckians voted and turnout rose to 41% from 31% four years ago.




Here is the most stunning outcome of the election.

In Tucson Arizona, a very liberal and Democrat controlled town where over one third of the population is Latino, the liberal effort to change Tucso into a Sanctuary City was easily defeated to the astonishment of the progressive and left-leaning backers sho poured out-of-state money into the campaign.


Liberal Tucson, Arizona rejects plan to be sanctuary city
Associated Press Associated Press 7 hours ago

FILE - In this Monday, June 25, 2012, file photo, a small crowd protests at the Arizona State Building in Tucson, Ariz., during a rally after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Arizona SB1070. On Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019, residents voted not to designate Tucson a “sanctuary city” with further restrictions on how and when police officers can enforce immigration laws. The initiative explicitly aimed to neuter the 2010 Arizona immigration law known as SB1070, which drew mass protests and a boycott of the state. Courts threw out much of the law but upheld the requirement for officers to check immigration papers when they suspect someone is in the country illegally. (David Sanders/Arizona Daily Star via AP, File)

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — After Arizona passed a law that required local police to check the immigration status of people suspected to be in the country illegally, the state's second-largest city wanted to send a message.
The Democrats who control Tucson designated their town an "immigrant welcoming city" in 2012, and the police department adopted rules limiting when officers can ask about the immigration status of people they encounter.
But on Tuesday, given the chance to push the envelope further, the heavily Democratic city voted overwhelmingly not to become an official "sanctuary city" with more restrictions on how and when police officers can enforce immigration laws.
The incongruous result followed a contentious disagreement that divided progressives between those eager to stand up for immigrants and against President Donald Trump, and those who said the initiative would bring nothing more than unintended consequences.
"The city of Tucson, in all respects except being labeled as such, operates as a sanctuary city," Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said in an interview before the vote.
The sanctuary initiative, he argued, would have tied the hands of police even on matters unrelated to immigration while inviting expensive retaliation from the Trump administration and Republicans in the state Legislature.
The Trump administration has fought sanctuary cities and tried to restrict their access to federal grants. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in June that the Trump administration could consider cities' willingness to cooperate in immigration enforcement when doling out law enforcement money.
Tucson has a deep history welcoming immigrants. It's widely credited as the birthplace of the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s, an effort by churches to help refugees from Central America and shield them form deportation.
The ballot measure was pushed by activists who wanted to give a voice to Tucson's Latino community. They said it would have sent the message that immigrants are safe and protected in Tucson at a time when many are fearful of Trump's immigration policies.
"We have been failed by the city government here," Zaira Livier, executive director of the People's Defense Initiative, which organized the initiative, told supporters following the vote, according to KOLD-TV.
Tucson politicians say they stand with immigrants, but when the going gets tough, they back down, she said.
"We are here to test you and to tell you that the bare minimum is no longer good enough and we expect better," Livier said.
The initiative explicitly aimed to neuter a 2010 Arizona immigration law known as SB1070, which drew mass protests and a boycott of the state. Courts threw out much of the law but upheld the requirement for officers to check immigration papers when they suspect someone is in the country illegally.
A handful of Republican state lawmakers have said they would pursue legislation to punish Tucson. Prior legislation approved by the GOP Legislature to tie the hands of liberal cities, including Tucson, allows the state to cut off funding for cities that pass laws conflicting with Arizona laws.
Meanwhile, Tucson voters elected their first Latina mayor. Regina Romero will be the first woman to lead Arizona's second-largest city after Phoenix, with a population of about 546,000 people.
Tucson's last Hispanic mayor was Estevan Ochoa, who was elected in 1875 — nearly four decades before Arizona became a state and just 21 years after the United States bought Southern Arizona, including Tucson, from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase.
Romero, who is on the city council, opposed the sanctuary city initiative, saying it's unnecessary given Tucson's welcoming attitude and policies toward immigrants.
"I am so proud and so humbled for tonight," she said in a victory speech.

Thanking her family, she added, "No single person can make history on their own."

Thursday, October 31, 2019

RealClear Investigations "Exposes" Trump "Secret" Whistleblower - Democrats Impeachment house of cards starts crumbling!







The Beltway's 'Whistleblower' Furor Obsesses Over One Name

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations

October 30, 2019, 4:21 PM Eastern

For a town that leaks like a sieve, Washington has done an astonishingly effective job keeping from the American public the name of the anonymous “whistleblower" who triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump — even though his identity is an open secret inside the Beltway.



Eric Ciaramella as a class of 2004 Connecticut
prep student: He later moved on to Yale and
 the White House. Now he could be at the
 center of an impeachment storm.

More than two months after the official filed his complaint, pretty much all that’s known publicly about him is that he is a CIA analyst who at one point was detailed to the White House and is now back working at the CIA.

But the name of a government official fitting that description — Eric Ciaramella — has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry. Fearing their anonymous witness could be exposed, Democrats this week blocked Republicans from asking more questions about him and intend to redact his name from all deposition transcripts.

RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official's status as a “whistleblower” is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate" -- as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.

Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.



Joe Biden: Invited Ciaramella to state
Luncheon with Italian premier. Also invited:
Brennan, Comey, Clapper. 
AP Photo/Matt Rourke



Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

“He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,” said a former NSC official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Also, Ciaramella huddled for “guidance” with the staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former colleagues also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff’s office had recently recruited from the NSC. Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the impeachment inquiry.

And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said. The operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American who supported Hillary Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican campaign to the Russian government. “He knows her. He had her in the White House,” said one former co-worker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.







Alexandra Chalupa: DNC oppo researcher was
invited to the Obama White House by Ciaramella.
Afric Vision NouvelleTV/YouTube

Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015.  She visited the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.

With Ciaramella’s name long under wraps, interest in the intelligence analyst is so high that a handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on him. A classified version of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill, and briefings have been conducted based on it. One briefed Republican has been planning to unmask the whistleblower in a speech on the House floor.

On the Internet, meanwhile, Ciaramella's name for weeks has been bandied about on Twitter feeds and intelligence blogs as the suspected person who blew the whistle on the president. The mainstream media are also aware of his name.






Fred Fleitz, Trump adviser:
“Everyone knows who he is." 
fredfleitz.com/Wikimedia





“Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is,” said Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and national security adviser to Trump, who has fielded dozens of calls from the media.

Yet a rare hush has swept across the Potomac. The usually gossipy nation’s capital remains uncharacteristically — and curiously — mum, especially considering the magnitude of this story, only the fourth presidential impeachment inquiry in U.S. history.

Trump supporters blame the conspiracy of silence on a “corrupt” and "biased” media trying to protect the whistleblower from justified scrutiny of his political motives. They also complain Democrats have falsely claimed that exposing his identity would violate whistleblower protections, even though the relevant statute provides limited, not blanket, anonymity – and doesn’t cover press disclosures. His Democrat attorneys, meanwhile, have warned that outing him would put him and his family “at risk of harm," although government security personnel have been assigned to protect him.

“They’re hiding him,” Fleitz asserted. “They’re hiding him because of his political bias."
A CIA officer specializing in Russia and Ukraine, Ciaramella was detailed over to the National Security Council from the agency in the summer of 2015, working under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He also worked closely with the former vice president.





Susan Rice: Ciaramella worked under
Obama's national security adviser.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File



Federal records show that Biden’s office invited Ciaramella to an October 2016 state luncheon the vice president hosted for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Other invited guests included Brennan, as well as then-FBI Director James Comey and then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper.



Several U.S. officials told RealClearInvestigations that the invitation that was extended to Ciaramella, a relatively low-level GS-13 federal employee, was unusual and signaled he was politically connected inside the Obama White House.

Former White House officials said Ciaramella worked on Ukrainian policy issues for Biden in 2015 and 2016, when the vice president was President Obama's "point man" for Ukraine. A Yale graduate, Ciaramella is said to speak Russian and Ukrainian, as well as Arabic. He had been assigned to the NSC by Brennan.

He was held over into the Trump administration, and headed the Ukraine desk at the NSC, eventually transitioning into the West Wing, until June 2017.

“He was moved over to the front office” to temporarily fill a vacancy, said a former White House official, where he “saw everything, read everything.”

The official added that it soon became clear among NSC staff that Ciaramella opposed the new Republican president’s foreign policies. “My recollection of Eric is that he was very smart and very passionate, particularly about Ukraine and Russia. That was his thing – Ukraine,” he said. “He didn’t exactly hide his passion with respect to what he thought was the right thing to do with Ukraine and Russia, and his views were at odds with the president’s policies.”

“So I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the whistleblower,” the official said.

In May 2017, Ciaramella went “outside his chain of command,” according to a former NSC co-worker, to send an email alerting another agency that Trump happened to hold a meeting with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office the day after firing Comey, who led the Trump-Russia investigation. The email also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had phoned the president a week earlier.

Contents of the email appear to have ended up in the media, which reported Trump boasted to the Russian officials about firing Comey, whom he allegedly called “crazy, a real nut job.”
In effect, Ciaramella helped generate the “Putin fired Comey” narrative, according to the research dossier making the rounds in Congress, a copy of which was obtained by RealClearInvestigations.

Ciaramella allegedly argued that “President Putin suggested that President Trump fire Comey,” the report said. “In the days after Comey’s firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls for the standup [sic] of the special counsel to investigate ‘Russia collusion.’ “

In the end, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no conspiracy between Trump and Putin. Ciaramella’s email was cited in a footnote in his report, which mentions only Ciaramella’s name, the date and the recipients “Kelly et al.” Former colleagues said the main recipient was then-Homeland Security Director John Kelly.



House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam
Schiff: "Whistleblower" complaint amounts to
impeachable offense.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite




Ciaramella left the Trump White House soon after Mueller was appointed. Attempts to reach Ciaramella were unsuccessful, although his father said in a phone interview from Hartford, where he is a bank executive, that he doubted his son was the whistleblower. “He didn’t have that kind of access to that kind of information,” Tony Ciaramella said. “He’s just a guy going to work every day.” The whistleblower's lawyers did not answer emails and phone calls seeking comment. CIA spokesman Luis Rossello declined comment, saying, “Anything on the whistleblower, we are referring to ODNI.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.

In his complaint, the whistleblower charged that the president used “the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”  Specifically, he cited a controversial July 25 phone call from the White House residence in which Trump asked Ukraine’s new president to help investigate the origins of the Russia “collusion” investigation the Obama administration initiated against his campaign, citing reports that “a lot of it started with Ukraine," where the former pro-Hillary Clinton regime in Kiev worked with Obama diplomats and Chalupa to try to “sabotage” Trump’s run for president.

Later in the conversation, Trump also requested information about Biden and his son, since “Biden went around bragging that he” had fired the chief Ukrainian prosecutor at the time a Ukrainian oligarch, who gave Biden’s son a lucrative seat on the board of his energy conglomerate, was under investigation for corruption.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff argued the whistleblower's complaint, though admittedly based on second-hand information, amounts to an impeachable offense, and they subsequently launched an impeachment inquiry that has largely been conducted in secret.

The whistleblower filed his “urgent” report against Trump with the I.C. inspector general on Aug. 12, but it was not publicly released until Sept. 26.

Prior to filing, he had met with Schiff’s Democratic staff for “guidance." At first, the California lawmaker denied the contacts, but later admitted that his office did, in fact, meet with the whistleblower early on.






Sean Misko: One of Ciaramella’s closest allies
at the NSC, now on Schiff's committee staff.
Center for a New American Security






Earlier this year, Schiff recruited two of Ciaramella’s closest allies at the NSC — both whom were also Obama holdovers -- to join his committee staff. He hired one, Sean Misko, in August — the same month the whistleblower complaint was filed.

During closed-door depositions taken in the impeachment inquiry, Misko has been observed handing notes to the lead counsel for the impeachment inquiry, Daniel Goldman, as he asks questions of Trump administration witnesses, officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings told RealClearInvestigations.

Republicans participating in the restricted inquiry hearings have been asking witnesses about Ciaramella and repeatedly injecting his name into the deposition record, angering Schiff and Democrats, who sources say are planning to scrub the references to Ciaramella from any transcripts of the hearings they may agree to release.

“Their reaction tells you something,” said one official familiar with the inquiry.

For example, sources said Ciaramella’s name was invoked by GOP committee members during the closed-door testimony of former NSC official Fiona Hill on Oct. 14. Ciaramella worked with Hill, another Obama holdover, in the West Wing.

During Tuesday’s deposition of NSC official Alexander Vindman, Democrats shut down a line of inquiry by Republicans because they said it risked revealing the identity of the whistleblower. Republicans wanted to know with whom Vindman spoke within the administration about his concerns regarding Trump’s call to Ukraine. But Schiff instructed the witness not to answer the questions, which reportedly sparked a shouting match between Democrats and Republicans.

Determined to keep the whistleblower's identity secret, Schiff recently announced it may not be necessary for him to testify even in closed session. Republicans argue that by hiding his identity, the public cannot assess his motives for striking out against the president. And they worry his political bias could color inquiry testimony and findings unless it’s exposed.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, asserted the American people have the right to know the person who is trying to bring down the president for whom 63 million voted.

“It’s tough to determine someone’s credibility if you can’t put them under oath and ask them questions,” he said.

Added Jordan: “The people want to know. I want to get to the truth."



Rep. Louis Gohmert: Ciaramella was “supposed
to be a point person on Ukraine, during the time
when Ukraine was its most corrupt, and he didn’t
blow any whistles on their corruption."
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin



In an open House Natural Resources Committee hearing last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) seemingly out of left field asked a witness about “Eric Ciaramella of the Obama National Security Council,” in what the Washington press corps took as a bid to out the whistleblower. He later told a Dallas radio station he knew the whistleblower’s name. “A lot of us in Washington know who it is,” Gohmert said, adding he’s a “very staunch Democrat” who was “supposed to be a point person on Ukraine, during the time when Ukraine was its most corrupt, and he didn’t blow any whistles on their corruption."

The Washington Post ran a news story over the weekend critical of Republicans for allegedly trying to “unmask” the whistleblower, for attempting to do the job journalists would normally do. Last week, the paper ran an op-ed by the whistleblower’s attorneys claiming he was no longer relevant to the inquiry and beseeching the public to let their client slip back into obscurity.

For its part, the New York Times ran a story last month reporting details about the whistleblower’s background, but stopped short of fully identifying him, suggesting it didn’t know his politics or even his name. “Little else is known about him,” the paper claimed.

On Thursday, Democrats plan a House vote on new impeachment-inquiry rules that would give Republicans for the first time the ability to call their own witnesses. Only, their requests must first be approved by the Democrats. So there is a good chance the whistleblower, perhaps the most important witness of all, will remain protected from critical examination.


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Monday, August 31, 2015

GOP control of Congress - how are they doing, compared to Democrats?

.

As Trump continues to confound GOP bosses - what have the GOP leaders done to show the voters How They will fix things with Control of Congress?


Last November the voters of America gave the Republicans a resounding victory and Obama a deafening defeat when control of the House and Senate fell into GOP hands for the first time since the election of Barack Obama in 2008.


Just over halfway into their first year in control of both Houses of Congress, a situation last seen when the Democrats controlled both the House and Senate during the first two years of the Obama presidency, what is the result?



Nothing if one looked at the press stories.  Nothing if one listened to Obama, but then he blames the Republicans for everything all the time.  If you listen to Hillary Clinton she says they have been ruthlessly investigating her and Bill and the Foundation as part of their ongoing paranoia and hatred of the Clintons.


Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says the Republicans continue to block everything Obama tries to do which of course ignores the few times the president and congress have agreed on anything.


Curiously, no Republican candidate seems to be praising the leadership of the GOP, nor the Speaker of the House John Boehner or Majority Leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell for all they have done since taking over the Capitol.


Perhaps the fact Trump can give honest and candid assessments of everyone mired in the political establishment of our nation's capitol, whether Democrat, Republican or news media, is what makes him so popular.


As the people seem to be saying with their support of Trump, maybe it is time to thrown them all out.
.