Pelosi Strikes Deal That Nearly Promises Her Speakership Position

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By Politico. Nancy Pelosi struck a deal Wednesday with Democratic rebels intent on denying her the speakership, paving the way for her to reclaim the gavel she lost eight years ago.

The California Democrat has agreed to limit her time as speaker to four years at most. In return, a critical number of lawmakers who vowed to oppose Pelosi will support her in a crucial Jan. 3 House floor vote.

The proposal also limits the time her two deputies, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), can stay in their posts, although those changes will likely have to be ratified by the full caucus.

“Over the summer, I made it clear that I see myself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders, a recognition of my continuing responsibility to mentor and advance new Members into positions of power and responsibility in the House Democratic Caucus,” Pelosi said in a statement announcing the agreement. (Read more from “Pelosi Strikes Deal That Nearly Promises Her Speakership Position” HERE)

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Nancy Pelosi Cuts Deal With Democratic Rebels to Ensure Return to Speakership

By NPR. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has very likely sewn up the support she needs to become speaker of the House next year when the new Congress is sworn in.

In a deal struck with a group of House Democrats who had vowed to vote against the longtime Democratic leader in next month’s House speaker election, the California lawmaker agreed to term limits that would see her hold the post through 2022 at the latest. . .

The term limits agreement, which still needs to be formalized by a vote of House Democrats, would limit caucus leaders to three terms, and a fourth term if two-thirds of the caucus agrees to it. The new limits would apply retroactively to Pelosi as well as incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and incoming Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.

While that exit date is four years away, the agreement satisfies the key demand that the anti-Pelosi lawmakers had focused on: the fact that the same small group of Democrats has led the caucus for years, choking off substantial advancement opportunities for younger lawmakers. (Read more from “Nancy Pelosi Cuts Deal With Democratic Rebels to Ensure Return to Speakership” HERE)

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France Terror Suspect Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ Before Attacking Christmas Market

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Before he opened fire on a crowded Christmas market in Strasbourg, France on Tuesday, 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt yelled “Allahu Akbar,” Paris’ public prosecutor said Wednesday — the first official statement pegging the deadly shooting as an Islamic terror attack.

Though no groups have claimed responsibility for the attack, Islamic terrorists have a history of plotting assaults at Christmas markets — including one disrupted plot in which nearly a dozen militants sought to bomb the Strasbourg market around the millennium.

Chekatt escaped from the scene in a taxi, bizarrely bragging to the driver about being injured in a firefight with soldiers after killing 10 people, officials said. Police said three people were killed in the attack.

A wide-scale manhunt was underway near Strasbourg as the French government raised the security level and sent police reinforcements to the city, located about 305 miles east of Paris. But a top French official admitted Chekatt may no longer be in the city and could have slipped through the police dragnet into neighboring Germany, where he’d spent time in prison. . .

[Senior Interior Ministry official Laurent] Nunez said Chekatt had been radicalized in prison and was being monitored by French intelligence services since at least 2015 due to his suspected religious extremism. Authorities did not say which religion; however, supporters of the Islamic State terror group were celebrating the shooting online, according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence group, which monitors jihadi communications worldwide. (Read more from “France Terror Suspect Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ Before Attacking Christmas Market” HERE)

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FBI Recommended Michael Flynn Not Have Lawyer Present During Interview, Did Not Warn of False Statement Consequences

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Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who arranged the bureau’s interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 — the interview that ultimately led to Flynn’s guilty plea on one count of making false statements — suggested Flynn not have a lawyer present at the session, according to newly-filed court documents. In addition, FBI officials, along with the two agents who interviewed Flynn, decided specifically not to warn him that there would be penalties for making false statements because the agents wanted to ensure that Flynn was “relaxed” during the session.

The new information, drawn from McCabe’s account of events plus the FBI agents’ writeup of the interview — the so-called 302 report — is contained in a sentencing memo filed Tuesday by Flynn’s defense team.

Citing McCabe’s account, the sentencing memo says that shortly after noon on Jan. 24 — the fourth day of the new Trump administration — McCabe called Flynn on a secure phone in Flynn’s West Wing office. The two men discussed business briefly and then McCabe said that he “felt that we needed to have two of our agents sit down” with Flynn to discuss Flynn’s talks with Russian officials during the presidential transition.

McCabe, by his own account, urged Flynn to talk to the agents alone, without a lawyer present. “I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [Flynn] and the agents only,” McCabe wrote. “I further stated that if LTG Flynn wished to include anyone else in the meeting, like the White House counsel for instance, that I would need to involve the Department of Justice. [Flynn] stated that this would not be necessary and agreed to meet with the agents without any additional participants.”

Within two hours, the agents were in Flynn’s office. According to the 302 report quoted in the Flynn sentencing document, the agents said Flynn was “relaxed and jocular” and offered the agents “a little tour” of his part of the White House.

“The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview,” the Flynn memo says. According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials “decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport.” (Read more from “FBI Recommended Michael Flynn Not Have Lawyer Present During Interview, Did Not Warn of False Statement Consequences” HERE)

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Top Reasons You Should Own an AR-15

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1. Being armed is your right and may be your civic duty.

On the one hand, for defense against common criminals, handguns can have advantages over the other two basic types of firearms: rifles and shotguns. Within and away from the home, a handgun carried in a holster is always within reach. Also, a handgun is more easily wielded with one hand, while the other hand dials 911; opens or closes a door; pulls, pushes, or carries someone to safety; or is injured. . .

2. The AR-15 is the most useful firearm with which to defend against ‘every species of criminal usurpation’ because, first and foremost, it is a rifle.

One day, new technologies in “arms”—“weapons of offense, or armour of defence,” according to a popular Founding-era dictionary—will be introduced, and we should object to the rationale the Supreme Court has established for upholding laws that would prohibit people from owning them. However, for the present, rifles are the type of firearm most useful for the entire range of defensive applications, which, in addition to defense against common criminals, includes the three historic purposes of the militia: repelling invasions, suppressing insurrections, and defeating tyranny, the latter the threat the Framers had in mind when they adopted the Second Amendment. . .

Over the last 55 years, the AR-15 has been improved more often and in more ways than the M16 and M4, and today it is the most versatile semi-automatic rifle in history. It is more accurate and, properly maintained, more reliable than the supposedly ultra-reliable AK-47 and the legendary M1 “Garand,” which, during World War II, Gen. George S. Patton called “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” Furthermore, some AR-15s exceed military specifications for the M16 and M4 in terms of accuracy and quality controls related to durability and reliability. (Read more from “Top Reasons You Should Own an AR-15” HERE)

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California Rep Claims Trump Could ‘Face Jail Time’

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By The Washington Examiner. California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday he believes President Trump could spend time in jail once he leaves the White House, after his former attorney Michael Cohen implicated him in campaign finance violations.

“My takeaway is there’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him. That he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time,” the California Democrat said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Schiff, who likely will lead the House Intelligence Committee next year, has been a persistent critic of Trump’s during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump referred to him on Twitter last month as ” little Adam Schitt.” (Read more from “California Rep Claims Trump Could ‘Face Jail Time'” HERE)

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Top House Dems Raise Prospect of Impeachment, Jail for Trump

By AP. Top House Democrats on Sunday raised the prospect of impeachment or almost-certain prison time for President Donald Trump if it’s proved that he directed illegal hush-money payments to women, adding to the legal pressure on the president over the Russia investigation and other scandals. . .

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, described the details in prosecutors’ filings Friday in the case of Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as evidence that Trump was “at the center of a massive fraud.” . . .

In the filings, prosecutors in New York for the first time link Trump to a federal crime of illegal payments to buy the silence of two women during the 2016 campaign. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office also laid out previously undisclosed contacts between Trump associates and Russian intermediaries and suggested the Kremlin aimed early on to influence Trump and his Republican campaign by playing to both his political and personal business interests. (Read more from “Top House Dems Raise Prospect of Impeachment, Jail for Trump” HERE)

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5 Jaw-Dropping Moments From Trump’s WILD Meeting With Pelosi and Schumer

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President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had a wild meeting at the White House Tuesday, when a debate over government funding for a border wall spontaneously erupted in front of the press and ended with Trump vowing to take the blame for a potential government shutdown.

Kicking things off, Trump welcomed the press to the meeting and discussed the issues they would talk about. The tone was set when Trump joked to Schumer about wall funding being “easy” and Schumer snidely corrected him, “It’s called funding the government, Mr. President.”

Trump predicted that he might not come to an agreement with the Democratic leaders. Calling on Pelosi to say something, she said the government “should not have a Trump shutdown.”

That set the president off.

Trump was eager to defend his position, arguing that he has the votes for a wall in the House but that Schumer’s Senate Democrat obstructionism is blocking wall funding in the Senate. Pelosi did not want to have this debate in front of the press.

Disagreements intensified. An argument over whether strong border security necessitates a physical wall devolved into squabbles over the state of the economy and over the margin of victory for Democrats and Republicans in the 2018 midterms.

At one point, Schumer shot at Trump: “When the president brags that he won North Dakota and Indiana, he’s in real trouble.”

Schumer and Pelosi repeatedly stated that they had come in “good faith” to prevent a government shutdown. But Trump had had it with both of them. The president insisted on funding for a wall and vowed to take the blame for a government shutdown, if that’s what it takes.

So what did we learn?

First, Trump and the Democratic leaders are living in different realities on wall funding. There’s likely not much room for compromise there. The Democrats got what they want when Trump said he’d take the blame for a shutdown. Trump got what he wanted by putting them on the spot in front of television cameras. After this performance, it’s hard to imagine either side backing down from a government shutdown.

Second, Pelosi and Schumer do not want this debate to air in front of the press. It’s harder to cast Trump as a villain when he’s in the same room insisting on protecting Americans from violent criminal illegal aliens and drug-pushing gangs.

Third, though the media hate this president because he insults them, he once again proved he is the most transparent and media-friendly American president in living memory. Can you imagine any other president allowing this debate to play out in front of the press? (For more from the author of “5 Jaw-Dropping Moments From Trump’s Wild Meeting With Pelosi and Schumer” please click HERE)

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Woman Sues Orchestra for Pay Discrimination. There’s Just One Problem.

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The first chair flutist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is suing the organization, claiming she receives $70,000 less than her male counterpart because she is a woman.

Elizabeth Rowe, who joined the BSO when she was 29 after a blind audition, which, according to the Washington Post involved playing “behind a brown, 33-foot polyester screen” so no one knew her gender or race. Rowe is now 44, and knows that John Ferrillo, a 63-year-old man, makes nearly $70,000 more than her, because his salary was disclosed in a tax filing, since the BSO is a nonprofit organization.

Ferrillo has been with the BSO since 2001. Rowe has been with the orchestra since 2004. Ferrillo was also lured away from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Post reported, by offering to pay him “twice what the orchestra’s rank-and-file-make.”

But the biggest difference between the two? Rowe plays the flute, while Ferrillo plays the oboe. Two very different instruments. So, this is not a case of unequal pay for equal work. BSO provided the Post with a statement, in which it “defended its pay structure, saying that the flute and oboe are not comparable because, in part, the oboe is more difficult to play and there is a larger pool of flutists.” . . .

To be fair to Rowe, she didn’t want her lawsuit to become public. The Post reports that she only wanted her bosses to know about the lawsuit, but the Boston Herald discovered the suit and spoke to Rowe. Her lawsuit will test the Massachusetts Equal Pay Law, which her lawsuit claims requires the orchestra she needs to be paid the same or more than a male in a comparable position. She contends lead oboist is comparable. The BSO says otherwise. (Read more from “Woman Sues Orchestra for Pay Discrimination. There’s Just One Problem.” HERE)

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Why Democrats Would Be Insane to Impeach Donald Trump

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When the dust settled from the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1999, his approval rating sat at an astounding 73 percent. That’s a note of caution to Democrats who believe that, having taken the House of Representatives, they should impeach Donald Trump.

The situation and times are not completely analogous, of course. Trump would probably be lucky to hit 73 percent approval in his own White House. But there are enough comparisons for this historical note to give Democrats serious pause.

The current calls for impeachment stem from U.S. prosecutors’ allegation that Trump directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to pay hush money to mistresses in what they say was a violation of campaign finance law. Assuming for a moment (although legal scholars disagree on this) that Trump did commit a campaign finance violation, or even a crime. Democrats, including likely incoming House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, say it would be sufficient grounds for impeachment. . .

That potential for voters to see impeachment of Trump as an overreach must weigh very heavily on the minds of congressional Democrats even while many in their base demand the action. Assuming this alleged campaign finance violation is the basis of the impeachment, Democrats would be saying to voters, “He had affairs and paid hush money without reporting it because he was worried it would hurt his election chances.”

Let’s think about this for a minute. The thrice-married Trump, who has been known to boast about adultery like a suburban dad who won the best lawn in the neighborhood award, apparently had sex with a porn star and a Playboy playmate. That seems about par for his course. But wait! He lied about it! Well, yeah, also pretty much behavior we knew about and expected. But there’s more! He might have violated campaign finance law! Okay, but so do a lot of campaigns. Usually they pay a fine and we all move along. (Read more from “Why Democrats Would Be Insane to Impeach Donald Trump” HERE)

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Terrorist Attack: Gunman Opens Fire at Christmas Market, Kills 3

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By The Guardian. France has upgraded its security threat level as police hunted a gunman who shot three people dead and injured 12 others in a terror attack on Strasbourg’s celebrated Christmas market on Tuesday evening.

Six hours after the gunman disappeared after firing at passers-by in the busy city centre, interior minister Christophe Castaner said the government had raised the risk level to the highest category. . .

French media reported that gendarmes had attempted to arrest the man for a separate crime at his home in the Neudorf district of southeast Strasbourg earlier on Tuesday. The suspect was not home, but officers reportedly found “grenades” in his apartment.

Shortly before 8pm local time, the man, armed with an automatic rifle, walked over one of Strasbourg’s many bridges around the Grand Île toward the Christmas market, which attracts millions of visitors every year. Witnesses said the man fired a first volley of rounds and then walked down the street before opening fire again. . .

Strasbourg’s Christmas Market, which started in 1570, is one of France’s most popular seasonal events. The “Grande Ile” where the market is held is surrounded by water, on one side the main channel of the River Ill and the other by the Canal du Faux-Rempart, is only accessible by bridges. (Read more from “Terrorist Attack: Gunman Opens Fire at Christmas Market” HERE)

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Strasbourg Shooting: Gunman at Large After Three Killed and 12 Injured Near French Christmas Market

By The Independent. Three people have been killed and 12 others injured after a gunman opened fire near a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening. . .

Thousands of people were confined to buildings as police searched for the gunman. Many have since been released.

Members of the European Parliament, which is based in the city, were sent a message warning of what “seems to be several gun attacks”. They were told to stay in buildings if they were in the city centre. . .

The attack came despite tight security, with unauthorised vehicles banned from streets surrounding the market during opening hours and access points to search pedestrians’ bags. (Read more from “Strasbourg Shooting: Gunman at Large After Three Killed and 12 Injured Near French Christmas Market” HERE)

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Gun Control Fail: Thousands of Illegal Guns Flood Chicago’s Streets – and It’s No Surprise

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By Townhall. For years, Chicago, Illinois has been the epicenter of the gun control movement. The city has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation yet they continue to have some of the highest crime and murder rates. And it’s not coincidental.

In fact, police officers in Chicago have seized more than 9,100 illegal firearms this year alone. And it could easily surpass 10,000 by the end of the year. . .

What’s happening in Chicago is what Second Amendment advocates have talked about for a long time. It’s sad that we have to continually reference what’s taking place in the Windy City.

The perpetual cycle that takes place in Chicago is one that can be solved by allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families. Gang members and criminals do not follow the law. That’s the very definition of being a criminal! Implementing gun control laws hurts the law-abiding, not the criminals. . .

Limiting who can own a legal firearm for self-defense empowers the gang members and criminals. They perpetuate fear because they know the only other people who are armed are also bad people. That gives them the ability to keep power and makes police officers’ job even harder than it already is. (Read more from “Gun Control Fail: Thousands of Illegal Guns Flood Chicago’s Streets – and It’s No Surprise” HERE)

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9,000 Firearms and Counting: Illegal Guns Flood Chicago

By AP. . .Chicago police regularly recover more illegal firearms than officials in larger New York and Los Angeles. Last year, the citywide haul was 7,932 firearms. The 2018 tally exceeds 9,100, and police say it could surpass 10,000 by year’s end.

Police seize an illegal weapon about once every hour, most connected to gangs on the South and West sides. Authorities cite two reasons for the heavy gun traffic: Penalties for carrying these firearms aren’t considered a deterrent and, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, suspects tell officers they “would rather be caught by police with a gun … than caught by a rival gang without one.”

The department’s 6th District, one of 22 in all, leads the city in guns recovered, accounting for almost 15 percent so far in 2018. District Commander William Bradley sees progress in those numbers, measuring success in the smallest increments. (Read more from “9,000 Firearms and Counting: Illegal Guns Flood Chicago” HERE)

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