Wednesday, May 13, 2020
YUGE: Republicans Sweep Congressional Special Elections, Reclaiming California District from Democrats
Mike Garcia and Tom Tiffany won special elections.
Republicans won two special elections for the House of Representatives on Tuesday, picking up victories in Wisconsin and California. Republicans Mike Garcia and Tom Tiffany defeated Democrats Christy Smith and Tricia Zunker.
Garcia’s election victory, which takes place in California’s 25th congressional district, was set forth to replace former Democrat Representative Katie Hill following her resignation over a sex scandal. Hill resigned after being exposed for intimate and inappropriate relationships with subordinate congressional staff, yet has claimed that she represents a form of feminist victim for her inappropriate workplace behavior.
The former Navy fighter pilot’s victory over a Democratic State Assemblywoman ensures that the Republican Party has flipped back the first of the congressional seats it lost in the 2018 midterms. As of Wednesday morning, Garcia is up by a percentage count of 55% to 44%, suggesting a handy victory for the Republican to flip the district.
Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote of the northern Los Angeles county district by 6 percentage points in 2016, suggesting a possibility that the Republican Party could be broadening...
Impeachment Boomerang: Contacts exposed between US embassy, Hunter Biden-connected Ukraine firm
Ambassador’s impeachment testimony omitted mention of Burisma meetings, letters.
During President Trump’s impeachment, former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified to Congress that she knew little beyond an initial briefing and “press reports” about Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian natural gas firm that had hired Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and was dogged by a corruption investigation.
“It just wasn’t a big deal,” she declared under oath on Oct. 11, 2019.
But newly unearthed State Department memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Yovanovitch’s embassy in Kiev, including the ambassador herself, was engaged in several discussions and meetings about Burisma as the gas firm scrambled during the 2016 election and transition to settle a long-running corruption investigation and polish its image before President Trump took office.
Yovanovitch, for instance, was specifically warned in an email by her top deputy in September 2016 — three years before her testimony — that Burisma had hired an American firm with deep Democratic connections called Blue Star Strategies to “rehabilitate the reputation” of the Ukrainian gas firm and that it had placed “Hunter Biden on its board,” the memos show.
She also met directly with a representative for Burisma in her embassy office, less than 45 days before Trump took office, a contact she did not mention during her impeachment deposition.
The discussions about Burisma inside Yovanovitch’s embassy were so extensive, in fact, that they filled more than 160 pages of emails, memos and correspondence in fall 2016 alone, according to the State Department records obtained under FOIA by the conservative group Citizens United.
The contacts included a detailed private letter hand-delivered to Yovanovitch by one of Burisma’s lawyers in September 2016, a briefing later that month from her staff on Burisma’s issues, and a meeting scheduled between the ambassador and a Burisma representative shortly before Christmas 2016 as the Obama administration was preparing to leave office.
Yovanovitch, who recently retired from State, did not respond Tuesday to a message sent to her private email seeking comment. Her lawyer during the impeachment proceedings, Lawrence S. Robbins, also did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
State officials declined comment.
David Bossie, a former congressional investigator and current outside adviser to Trump who runs Citizen United, said the documents his group obtained raise questions about Yovanovitch’s testimony last fall and what else Congress may not know about the embassy’s involvement with the Hunter Biden-connected Burisma firm.
"These new records clearly don't support Ambassador Yovanovitch's testimony under oath during...
Every breath you take and every move you make I'll be watching you...
Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you
Every single day, every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I'll be watching you
[Chorus]
Oh can't you see, you belong to me
How my poor heart aches with every step you take..
President of French pro-migrant association murdered by Afghan migrant
In Cherbourg, the president of the association for aid to migrants was killed at his home on Tuesday, May 12. He had housed an Afghan asylum seeker. The individual was taken into custody for murder.
This man was hospitable enough to accommodate in his own house in Bretteville-en-Saire, a migrant of Afghan origin. But Jean Dussine was unfortunately murdered on Tuesday, May 12. Witnesses said the victim “was sleeping when [the alleged assailant], an Afghan migrant barely 20 years old, attacked him with an iron rod. He could not be revived,” reported regional news outlet France 3 Normandy.
Jean Dussine was a retired teacher and former director of the Gonneville school in the Manche. At the same time, he had housed other migrants at his home, witnesses to the scene. They even reportedly raised the alarm which allowed the arrest of the alleged murderer.
The investigators are trying to determine the motive for this murder and the exact circumstances of the drama. Public prosecutor Yves Le Clair confirmed the arrest of the Afghan migrant. The suspect was taken into custody for first degree murder....
5 Key Provisions in Democrats’ COVID-19 Bill That Will Hurt Our Economy
Spanning more than 1,800 pages, the bill represents a partisan laundry list of mostly bad policies, calling for trillions of dollars of additional deficit spending on handouts and items unrelated to the crisis.
Lawmakers should focus on the task at hand and respond directly to the public health crisis and its related effects, not abuse these unprecedented circumstances to push through partisan priorities that would derail the recovery.
In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>
Lawmakers must work together to create the conditions to safely reopen America, removing barriers to working, creating, and trading, and to enable American society to rise up again and drive the economic recovery.
1. Extending the $600 unemployment bonus: The bill would extend the misguided and harmful $600 unemployment bonus through January 2021, with an additional extension possible through March of next year.
It’s one thing to provide short-term and targeted unemployment benefits during forced shutdowns, but providing a year’s worth of unprecedented additional unemployment benefits—up to an extra $30,000 or more per worker—would be devastating to our economy, potentially even threatening our ability to combat COVID-19 and Americans’ supply of essential goods and services.
Using taxpayer dollars to pay unemployed workers more than employed workers is incredibly unfair to the hardworking Americans who continue to work each day—and wholly un-American.
Policymakers should be focused on creating the conditions that enable the 1 in 5 Americans who have lost their jobs to reconnect with their previous employers or find new employment, instead of incentivizing them to remain unemployed until 2021.
The HERO Act’s perverse unemployment benefits threaten the well-being of the workers they claim to want to help. Tantalizing workers with unemployment benefits equal to 150% or 200% of their usual earnings will only hurt them in the long run, by leading to long-term unemployment and to lower incomes and fewer opportunities, while slowing the American recovery.
2. Lifting the SALT cap: The House Democrats’ bill would lift the current $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes in 2020 and 2021.
Temporarily lifting the cap would provide a two-year windfall tax cut to the wealthiest taxpayers in the highest-tax states.
Before the 2017 reforms, high-tax states such as California, Connecticut, and New York were subsidized by other federal taxpayers across the country. In the case of high-income California taxpayers, the federal state and local tax deduction reduced their overall state tax bill by 40%.
If this proposed change to uncap the deduction were made permanent, it could encourage state governments to increase some of their most economically harmful individual taxes, slowing the economic recovery and passing the costs onto more responsible states.
3. Bailing out states and localities: The bill also includes more than $1 trillion in aid to state and local governments with the vast majority being unrestricted aid that does not directly respond to costs incurred in the fight against COVID-19.
Congress should not be sending blank checks to states and localities, which would only serve to bail out many states that are financially mismanaged and to prop up excessive levels of state and local government spending, and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.
Congress can avoid creating perverse incentives by relieving state governments of unfunded mandates and federal red tape that raise costs and reduce the effectiveness of state and local spending.
4. Forgiving student loans:
Top six revelations from House Russia probe's newly declassified witness interviews
From thousands of pages of transcripts, here's what you should know about witness testimony in the House Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation.
After a nearly two-year delay, the Russia witness transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee’s extensive probe have been made public.
The thousands of pages of documents were released last week by the committee chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), but only after acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell threatened to have his agency release them.
Revelations found in the documents came as the Justice Department dropped its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe. After extensive review of the transcripts, Just the News has identified these six revelations as the most important to emerge so far:
1. No Collusion: The U.S. intelligence community never had any evidence of collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. This was previously confirmed by the 2019 release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. But the House intel committee transcripts reveal that Schiff and then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) knew back in 2017 that the government had no evidence. Throughout the transcripts, witnesses repeatedly say that they had not seen any direct evidence of collusion. For example, former DNI James Clapper said: “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or anyone in it was conspiring with the Russians to meddle in the election.” Other top Obama administration officials, including former acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates gave similar testimony.
2. FBI didn't have a case: Former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe admitted during his testimony that the agency knew from the start that Trump associate George Papadopoulos wasn’t in contact with Moscow, thereby undermining the agency’s entire basis for opening Crossfire Hurricane, i.e., the Russia investigation. “Papadopoulos, didn’t particularly indicate that he was the person that was interacting with the Russians,” McCabe told the House Intelligence panel. It makes increasingly little sense that the FBI would open a case to see whether Papadopoulos was colluding with the Russians to steal Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails, if agents knew from the outset that Papadopoulos wasn’t talking to anyone in Russia.
3. Podesta and Clinton knew about funding for Steele Dossier: John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, testified that he and Clinton were aware in general terms that the campaign was paying for opposition research to link Donald Trump to Russia, but he said neither of them knew specifically who had been hired to conduct the effort. "We, the campaign, directly purchased some opposition research," Podesta testified. "And [Clinton] knew, I think in general terms, that we were trying to figure out, which was not easy, what Mr. Trump's financial relationships were, what his relationships might be to Russia and other former Soviet Union actors that, you know. But I don't – I don't think we – I mean, she wasn't – you know, if I wasn't, she certainly wasn't sort of saying, 'Who are your vendors?’”
4. Clapper, Comey, and McCabe provide conflicting narratives:
Nancy Pelosi Unveils $3 Trillion, 1,815-Page Leftist Coronavirus Bill
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unveiled her $3 trillion phase four coronavirus bill on Tuesday that serves as a “policy wishlist” for Democrats and progressives.
Pelosi unveiled the Heroes Act, which is a 1,815-page bill that the House will likely vote on Tuesday.
The legislation was not negotiated with congressional Republicans or the Donald Trump administration, and even if it passes through the House, it will likely languish in the Senate.
Politico reported in May that the legislation serves as more of a wishlist for the House Democrat conference’s most progressive lawmakers.
Politico wrote:
Privately, several House Democrats concede their latest bill feels like little more than an effort to appease the most liberal members of the caucus, many of whom were chafed that their most important priorities were minimized or ignored entirely in previous coronavirus negotiations.The Heroes Act reportedly contains many leftist provisions in the bill, including:
- $755 million for the government for Washington, DC. The bill would also allow the D.C. government to participate in the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity (MLF) to support additional lending to the city.
- $1 million for the National Science Foundation to study the spread of coronavirus-related “disinformation.”
- $10 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as well as $10 million fo the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Eliminates limitations on the federal deduction for the state and local taxes (SALT). Republicans limited this deduction through the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The SALT deduction primarily benefits wealthy, largely Democrat states.
- Grants additional aid for State and local government bailouts. The bill contains $500 billion in funding for state government relief and $375 billion in aid to local governments. Senate Republicans such as Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have contended this will particularly aid fiscally irresponsible blue states such as California, New York, and Illinois to the detriment of more fiscally responsible states such as Texas and Florida.
- $25 million for migrant and seasonal farmworkers, including emergency support services through the Department of Labor.
- $1.7 billion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions, $20 million for Howard University, $11 million for Gallaudet University, $11 million for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.
- $15 million to maintain operations, rental assistance supportive services, and other actions to mitigate the impact on low-income people with HIV/AIDS through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
- Create a two month special enrollment period for Obamacare. The bill also extends full premium subsidies to allow workers to maintain their health insurance coverage through COBRA.
- Allows Attorney General William Barr to make grants to states to create state-run hate crime reporting hotlines.
- Relief for up to $10,000 of up-front debt relief for all Department of Education loan borrowers.
- Authorizes up to $50 million in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “environmental justice” grants to investigate or address the disproportionate impact of coronavirus in environmental communities.
- $75 billion for housing assistance.
- Mandatory early voting for every state and mandatory mail-in ballots for every state. Nate Madden, a press secretary for the House Oversight Committee Republicans, said it would be a “nightmare scenario for voter fraud.”
- Allows wealthy people who make money from dividends and royalties to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is designed for lower-income Americans.
- Extends assistance designed for nonprofits to political action groups and chamber of commerce-style associations. Open Markets Institute fellow Matt Stoller called it a “corporate lobbyist bailout.”
Pelosi’s Heroes Act represents a staggering amount of spending.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) noted that the bill has “70 appropriations in excess of a billion dollars each.”
Norman asked rhetorically, “When you walk out of secret negotiations with an 1800 page, $3 trillion bill that thas no chance of becoming law, why is that portrayed as...
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