Not to the huge surprise of anyone,
incoming Democrat House committee chairmen are planning on taking office with a specific administration official in their sights.
Apparently,
Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva is going to make Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke the target of a never-ending stream of investigations.
He laid out his marker in this op-ed:
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke must resign.
If Mr. Zinke stays,
stonewalling in the belief that a cabinet secretary answers only to Trump would be a mistake.
Zinke can be a superlative Interior Secretary,
and in many ways he has been.
Rep. Raul M. Grijalva quietly arranged a "
Severance package"
in 2015 for one of his top staffers who threatened a lawsuit claiming the Arizona Democrat was frequently drunk and created a hostile workplace environment,
revealing yet another way that lawmakers can use taxpayer dollars to hide their misbehavior on Capitol Hill.
4/
What Zinke did not address in his response were any of Grivalja's issues in the oped,
including the at least "
17 publicly known formal probes of either or his department since he took office"
- one of which was referred to DOJ. - Jake Tapper November 30,
2018.
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/11/30/ryan-zinke-calls-incoming-democrat-committee-chairman-drunk-hes-right/
"
The UN's global compact on refugees could be a game-changer-and Canada is well-placed to help make it a reality,
say two cabinet ministers and a UN official.
Jean-Nicolas Beuze is the representative in Canada of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
" The Compact and its renewed commitment toward refugees and the countries and communities that host them is a moment of truth,
as it calls upon all players-development actors,
the private sector,
non-governmental and faith-based organizations,
and states-to contribute and to share responsibilities in a fairer manner.
With input from domestic NGOs,
Canada was one of the first countries to offer concrete suggestions in the early days of the consultations around issues that the Compact should highlight and address,
from the benefits of refugees'
economic inclusion,
to the imperative of increasing political and financial support for frontline hosting countries,
to ways to increase pathways to durable solutions in third countries,
and to the specific vulnerabilities faced by refugee women and girls.
"
In parallel with the highly criticised migration pact,
the UN has also prepared a refugee pact.
Every four years starting in 2019,
a global refugee forum will check and produce an index for how each country has lived up to the agreement's obligations.
Promote a positive attitude towards refugees being transferred from one country to another.
https://canadafreepress.com/article/canadas-prime-minister-leading-the-charge-to-steal-u.s.-sovereignty
Comparing data from the 2014 national House poll and the 2016 presidential and national House polls to those from the 2018 national House polls demonstrates that while the party lost ground among both sexes,
men moved more against Republicans than did women.
In 2014,
Independent men gave Republicans a 19-point advantage,
while Independent women gave the GOP only a four-point edge.
This year,
Independent men voted for Democrats by a seven-point margin,
while Democrats carried Independent women by 17 points.
Independent voters from both sexes shifted blue,
but men shifted substantially more.
Independent men gave Republicans and Trump an identical 12-point margin,
while Independent women voted for Democrats in the House by one point and Clinton by five.
Independent men are why Donald Trump is president,
and their switch this election is why Republicans lost so many seats in the House.
Republican efforts going forward must be focused on giving Independent men and women an acceptable choice.
https://www.city-journal.org/independent-male-voter
All records of communication,
including but not limited to e-mails,
text messages,
or instant chats,
sent between officials in the offices of the FBI Director,
Deputy Director and General Counsel on the one hand,
and officials in the offices of the Attorney General,
Deputy Attorney General and or Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General on the other hand,
regarding the closure or possible closure of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
"
This lawsuit showed the sleazy details.
For example,
in April 2009 controversial Clinton Foundation official Doug Band pushed for a job for an associate.
In the email Band tells Hillary Clinton's former aides at the State Department Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin that it is"important to take care of [
Redacted].
Band is reassured by Abedin that "
Personnel has been sending him options."
Band was co-founder of Teneo Strategy with Bill Clinton and a top official of the Clinton Foundation,
including its Clinton Global Initiative.
Included in the documents we received as a result of the lawsuit was a 2009 email in which Band,
directs Abedin and Mills to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department's "
Substance person"
on Lebanon.
We have since uncovered many other instances of seeming pay-to-play and favoritism for the Clinton Foundation at the Clinton State Department.
We have joined with Allied Educational Foundation in filing an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting petitioner Tyson Timbs against the State of Indiana,
which we contend abused its power in a civil asset forfeiture case and a $
1,200 fine.
Less than a week after President Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker,
then chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions,
as acting attorney general,
Frosh,
on behalf of the State of Maryland,
filed a motion asking the court to prohibit the simple administrative substitution of Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions as one of nine defendants in a pending lawsuit.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/weekly-update-jw-sues-over-clinton-foundation-cover-up/
It has been nearly two months to the day since Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul hoping to retrieve papers needed to marry his Turkish fiance - only to be killed and butchered by a 15-man Saudi murder squad. In the intervening weeks,
the Saudis have suffered remarkably little blowback:
To date,
the US and Canada have levied sanctions against a 17 Saudis suspected of participating or orchestrating Khashoggi's murder,
and a handful of countries who don't sell arms to Saudi Arabia have said they will stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
Clearly concerned about the flagging interest in holding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accountable for his suspected role in ordering the killing,
the CIA has decided to pick up where Turkey left off.
On Saturday morning,
the Wall Street Journal published the latest intelligence agency leak when it reported on the contents of intercepts revealing that during the hours after and immediately before the killing,
MbS had exchanged 11 messages with Saud al-Qahtani,
a close aide to the prince who is believed to have supervised the murder squad. Notably,
the WSJ report followed a vote in the Senate earlier this week to open debate on a measure to withdraw US support for Saudi Arabia's proxy war in Yemen.
The Saudi leader also in August 2017 had told associates that if his efforts to persuade Mr. Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia weren't successful, "
We could possibly lure him outside Saudi Arabia and make arrangements,"
according to the assessment,
a communication that it states "
Seems to foreshadow the Saudi operation launched against Khashoggi."
The previously unreported excerpts reviewed by the Journal state that the CIA has "
Medium-to-high confidence"
that Prince Mohammed "
Personally targeted"
Khashoggi and "
Probably ordered his death."
It added: "
To be clear,
we lack direct reporting of the Crown Prince issuing a kill order."
The judgment on Prince Mohammed's likely culpability,
the CIA assessment says,
is based on the crown prince's personal focus on Mr. Khashoggi,
his tight control over the Saudi operatives sent to Istanbul to kill him, "
And his authorizing some of the same operators to violently target other opponents."
The highly classified CIA assessment says that the Saudi team sent to kill Mr. Khashoggi was assembled from Prince Mohammed's top security units in the Royal Guard and in an organization run by Mr. Qahtani,
the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Royal Court,
the Saudi royal court's media department.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-01/saudi-crown-prince-communicated-khashoggi-murder-squad-hours-killing
- A federal judge in New York has ruled the Trump sanctuary city
crackdown illegal Friday but even went further and also
ruled the law Congress passed requiring information-sharing is
unconstitutional.
- Judge Edgardo Ramos decision frees
sanctuary jurisdictions in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode
Island, Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia to continue their
policies without fear of losing federal money.
- The ruling orders
the government to release federal money to states under the Byrne
Justice Assistance Grant program the program that former
Attorney General Jeff Sessions had tried to sanction.
- But the
Trump administration has also lost sanctuary city cases in Illinois,
California and Philadelphia, with judges named by both Republicans and
Democrats unanimously finding the president and his team overstepped
their bounds.
- The judge said the Trump administration attempted
to write new conditions of cooperation, including notifying the feds of
illegal immigrants ready for pickup, beyond what Congress had
authorized.
- But beyond that, the judge ruled Section 1373 of
immigration law, which requires at least some level of
information-sharing, to be a violation of the Constitution's
Tenth Amendment, which prohibits federal interference with state powers.
- The
Trump administration's attempt to withhold these vital funds
was nothing more than a political attack at the expense of our public
safety, said New York Attorney General Barbara D.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/30/judge-oks-sanctuary-cities/
- Republicans aren't willing to sign on to any deal that would
allow Democrats to pocket tax increases while deferring spending cuts,
and Democrats see no reason to sacrifice their domestic priorities to a
Republican Party that's unwilling to increase taxes.
- Policywise,
the aftermath of the 1990 budget deal also convinced Republicans that
if they trade tax hikes in exchange for promised spending cuts, that the
tax increases will go into effect, but the spending cuts will never be
realized.
- When Republicans took control of the House in 2011
committed (at the time) to debt reduction, there was no support among
Republicans for a "grand bargain" with President Obama that would
involve any increases to taxes.
- When Republicans retook Congress
in 1994, the incoming freshman class, whose political attitudes were
shaped by the betrayal of 1990, entered Congress with a much more
uncompromising attitude toward Democrats, which led to high-stakes
budget standoffs and ultimately several government shutdowns.
- But
then, in 1990, under pressure to strike a budget deal with the
Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush relented and agreed to hike taxes.
- Americans
for Tax Reform, the group led by Norquist, asks Republican candidates
at all levels of government to sign a pledge opposing any increases in
marginal tax rates or eliminations of deductions unless offset by equal
reductions in tax rates.
- In the wake of the election,
conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and anti-tax crusader Grover
Norquist made the case that the broken tax pledge cost Bush the
presidency.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-george-h-w-bushs-broken-no-new-taxes-pledge-changed-american-politics-and-policy-forever
