You probably never heard about this but in December, House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) successfully pushed through Congress his $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that will also fund visas for nearly 300,000 more Muslim migrants over the next 12 months.
The omnibus bill also funded sanctuary cities, illegal alien tax credits, and changed federal law to allow for a massive increase in low-skilled H-2B workers– an immigration expansion opposed by more than nine in ten GOP voters. Yet at the first gathering of all House Republicans since the omnibus’s passage, Politico reports that GOP lawmakers gave Ryan a standing ovation at the close of this week’s Republican Congressional retreat.
Politico writes: “Retreats like this week’s pow-wow at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor are typically contentious affairs. For the past four years, lawmakers used it as an occasion to scream at John Boehner and Eric Cantor. During their last session here, however, Ryan got a standing ovation as he made commitments to [pursue] big ideas.”
Yet neither John Boehner nor Eric Cantor joined Barack Obama to expand Muslim immigration in to the United States– a distinction which is uniquely Paul Ryan’s . . .
Interestingly, nowhere in Ryan’s priorities is the topic of immigration mentioned– even though Paul Ryan views mass immigration as part of his vision for growing the economy, along with passing President Obama’s unpopular trade policies. (Read more from “Paul Ryan Received a Standing Ovation at the Republican Congressional Retreat for This Despicable Reason” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-12 00:47:182016-04-11 10:51:38Paul Ryan Received a Standing Ovation at the Republican Congressional Retreat for This Despicable Reason
An Ohio judge has granted teenagers who will turn 18 before Election Day the right to vote in the state’s presidential primary elections in a new decision that could boost Bernie Sanders’s chances in the state on Tuesday.
Sanders’s team sued to change the state law, but a judge decided Friday on a different state-level case that effectively provided the same outcome.
The Vermont senator’s White House campaign has been boosted by strong support from younger voters, so the decision could prove important in the crucial state of Ohio, which has 143 delegates up for grabs.
Ohio had barred 17-year-olds from voting on primary day regardless of if they would be eligible for the general election.
But the timing of the decision, just days before the Tuesday primary, could dampen any potential gains. (Read more from “Ohio Judge Rules Some 17-Year-Olds Can Vote in Primary” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-12 00:46:352016-04-11 10:51:38Ohio Judge Rules Some 17-Year-Olds Can Vote in Primary
Rarely in American political history has a presidential candidate’s campaign urged voters to cast a ballot for his rival. As further evidence of the 2016 Republican presidential primary’s volatile nature, however, that is precisely what one campaign mouthpiece is doing ahead of Tuesday’s Ohio primary.
Marco Rubio communications director Alex Conant, who just days ago was employed to dispel CNN’s report that the Florida senator was planning an imminent campaign suspension, appeared on the network again Friday to urge Ohio Republicans to join him in an unusual strategy.
As a clear GOP voter coalition emerges to take down unconventional front-runner Donald Trump, Conant conceded the best way to achieve this goal is to back John Kasich, not Rubio, in the Ohio primary.
Currently serving as the state’s governor, polls show Kasich presents the best campaign to defeat Trump in Ohio.
“If you are a Republican primary voter in Ohio and you want to defeat Donald Trump,” Conant said, “your best chance is John Kasich.”
Of course, Rubio’s home state also hosts its primary on Tuesday — and Conant’s advice was much different to Republicans in that state.
Read more from this story, “Rubio Campaign Just Told Supporters to Vote for Kasich,” HERE.
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 13:33:222016-04-11 10:51:39Rubio Campaign Just Told Supporters to Vote for ANOTHER Candidate – People Are Stunned
Department of Justice officials have impaneled a federal grand jury in the Hillary Clinton email case and FBI agents have launched a second, separate investigation on political corruption involving the former secretary of state’s official activities and the Clinton Foundation, a former U.S. attorney told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Joseph E. diGenova, who served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for four years, said Wednesday he believes the FBI is investigating two separate Clinton scandals.
“The Bureau has between 100 and 150 agents assigned to the case. They would not have that many people assigned to a classified information case,” he told TheDCNF, addressing Clinton’s use of a private email server located at her New York home.
“Based on reports that agents are asking questions about the foundation, it seems to me it is the subject of a second prong of the investigation,” he said.
The Department of State’s inspector general (IG) subpoenaed documents from the Clinton Foundation last fall to determine if State Department policies had been influenced by foundation activities. The State IG asked for records held by the foundation and Huma Abedin, who for six months simultaneously worked for former Secretary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
A number of the 55,000 pages of government-related emails that were released under a court order also show numerous emails between Clinton’s aides and the Clinton Foundation’s foreign policy director, Amitabh Desai.
The corruption probe is being led by the Justice Department’s public integrity division, a former FBI agent who requested anonymity told TheDCNF.
DiGenova said it was clear to him if a federal grand jury had been impaneled after Justice Department officials acknowledged they had issued statutory immunity to Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s former IT chief.
“It is inconceivable to me that they could have done that without subpoenaing documents from third parties,” he told TheDCNF, “You cannot declare immunity except in the grand jury context if it was statutory immunity.”
Department of Justice officials granted Pagliano immunity from prosecution in return for full cooperation with the FBI over the operation of the private server, according to the Washington Post.
“My long experience as the United States Attorney and an independent counsel makes me conclude as a matter of professional judgment that a grand jury exists,” diGenova told TheDCNF. “It is readily apparent to me that there is at least a grand jury impaneled for the purposes of issuing subpoenas,” he said.
Matthew G. Whitaker, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, agreed, saying “a grand jury impaneled for the purposes of issuing a subpoena makes a lot of sense.”
The Obama administration has been coy about whether or not a grand jury had been impaneled in the Clinton case. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch side-stepped the issue in a Feb. 29 Fox News interview, saying, “we don’t comment on specifics.”
DiGenova said he expected an FBI recommendation on at least one of its investigations to be sent to the Justice Department within the next 60 days.
A grand jury’s goal is to determine whether or not there is “probable cause” one or more persons have committed a federal offense. It is not an indictment. A grand jury can issue an indictment or return what is called a “no bill,” meaning there is no legal action.
It is also not clear who is the “target” of the grand jury. In a Monday interview with Fox News, Clinton insisted she was not a target of the Justice Department or of a grand jury. Clinton, however, could be the “subject” of an investigation, but not a target.
A “target” is when a prosecutor or a grand jury has substantial evidence to link a person to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a defendant. While a “subject” of an investigation is a person whose conduct is within the scope of a grand jury’s investigation but may not have committed a crime.
Whitaker also said Clinton can play dumb if her lawyers have not asked the Department of Justice outright if she is a target.
“The real question is whether her lawyers have asked the feds whether she’s the subject or target of an investigation,” he told TheDCNF. “If they have not asked the question, she would not ‘know’ the answer.”
Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer, also said that empaneling a grand jury does not mean guilt.
“Even if a grand jury is impaneled, it doesn’t mean culpability,” Zaid told TheDCNF.
The Justice Department cautions that convening a grand jury in itself is not the equivalent of an indictment.
The Department of Justice did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment. (For more from the author of “RED ALERT: Hillary Grand Jury Convened — FBI Also Pursuing Clinton Influence Peddling” please click HERE)
A group of Republican donors and strategists has been working to persuade former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to make an independent bid for president, according to a memo outlining the plan obtained by POLITICO Florida.
The group has grown increasingly dissatisfied with New York billionaire Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner who has roiled the party’s establishment as he has surged ahead in the polls.
“The reality of the the matter is that we will have President Trump or President Clinton — if we don’t have President Rice,” read the memo, which was written by Joel Searby, a consultant with Florida-based GOP firm Data Targeting.
POLITICO reported last month about a memo that a group of donors was working on with Data Targeting to look at the viability of a third-party run amid Trump’s ascent. The newest memo, sent Thursday, is an update on the firm’s work.
“We have been in touch with Dr. Rice through her chief of staff,” read the plan, which is stamped “confidential.” “She is reluctant at this stage. We are asking for anyone wanting to assist to encourage her to run.” (Read more from “Huge: Here’s Who GOP Donors Are Pushing to Run an Independent Campaign” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:46:342016-04-11 10:51:39Huge: Here’s Who GOP Donors Are Pushing to Run an Independent Campaign
Days after former GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina made her endorsement of Ted Cruz official, another one-time contender has made a decidedly less formal pronouncement of support for unconventional front-runner Donald Trump. Dr. Ben Carson, who enjoyed a tentatively cordial relationship with Trump during the first leg of the election season, said in a Fox News Radio interview on Thursday that he is “leaning” toward endorsing the brash billionaire.
When Carson began surging in the polls late last year, however, the friendship soured as Trump repeatedly and emphatically challenged his rival’s autobiography.
To be fair, no one treated Ben Carson as well as Donald Trump did, with endearing terms like "child molester." It just warms the heart.
In attempting to make the case for Trump, Carson did not rely on public statements. Instead, he tried to reassure concerned voters that Trump is not always the controversial character they see during debates and campaign rallies.
“There are two Donald Trumps,” the retired neurosurgeon declared.
One, he explained, is the “entertainer” Americans see “on television” and “in front of big audiences.”
In private, however, Carson described “a thinking individual” who is ready to admit that “he doesn’t have all the answers.” (Read more from “Ben Carson Just Revealed Who He’s Endorsing” HERE)
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has rebuked multiple claims this week that his presidential candidacy is in its death throes. At least two notable media reports, citing separate unnamed sources, have indicated the struggling Republican would drop out of the race even before his home-state primary next Tuesday.
When CNN ran a report to that effect, Rubio communications director Alex Conant paid the network a visit, telling anchor Wolf Blitzer that the allegation was “fiction” and “100 percent false.”
Following a poor showing during Tuesday’s primary elections, a Fox Business Network report cited the candidate’s donors as among those suggesting he would exit the race — barring any favorable polling shifts — prior to the Florida primary.
Rubio himself addressed these assertions with Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly Wednesday, insisting that he plans to win Florida and continue what he has previously referred to as a national campaign.
“I’m fighting all the way through,” he said.
Blaming an unorthodox primary season, Rubio noted his was not the first candidacy to have been prematurely eulogized. (Read more from “Marco Rubio Just Said Something About His Campaign That’ll Tell You Exactly Where It’s Heading” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:34:552016-04-11 10:51:40Marco Rubio Just Said Something About His Campaign That’ll Tell You Exactly Where It’s Heading
Imagine a prominent Democrat committee chairman promoting private Social Security accounts or right to work legislation. Try to picture a long-serving Democrat senator filing a brief in a pending Supreme Court case in favor of the right to concealed carry. You will have a tough time conjuring up such images because there are no prominent Democrats who promote major policy initiatives of the other side. Therein lies the imbalance between our nation’s two major political parties.
On Tuesday, the Orwellian-named Constitutional Accountability Center filed an amicus brief in support of Obama’s executive amnesty in U.S. v. Texas. The brief was filed on behalf of a number of former Republican members of Congress in addition to Democrat members. Not only do they support the underlying policy of open borders, this brief demonstrates that these Republicans, who were influential in crafting party policy in their respective times, do not believe in the Constitution nor in the concept of separation of powers. They defiantly assert that Obama’s executive amnesty “is legally no different than countless other exercises of executive discretion engaged in by presidents of both parties and blessed by both parties in Congress.”
Sure, a president unilaterally granting illegal aliens work permits, Social Security cards and a backdoor path to citizenship is just another day at work in the Oval Office.
Here is a list of the Republicans who signed onto the brief and a description of their respective careers in the House or Senate:
LaHood, Raymond H. (“Ray”) Former Representative of Illinois (1995- 2009); Member of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, and the Republican Mainstream Partnership; Former United States Secretary of Transportation (2009-2013)
Leach, James A. Former Representative of Iowa (1977- 2007); Chair of the House Committee on Financial Services; Member of the Committee on International Relations; Chair of the Subcommittee on Asian-Pacific Affairs; Chair of the National Endowment of the Humanities (2009-2013)
Lugar, Richard Former Senator of Indiana (1977-2013); Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Porter, John E. Former Representative of Illinois (1980- 2001); Member of the House Committee on Appropriations; Chair of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education
We have here a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a man who crafted foreign policy for Republicans for years, who has no regard for our sovereignty and the rule of law. We have Republicans who shaped our domestic policy for years and were viewed as titans of the legislature, yet they believe in the predominance of rule by executive fiat over congressional statutes. All of these individuals held prominent positions in the party for years and nobody ever questioned their commitment to the Constitution, much less the platform of the Republican Party. Now we all know it was built on a lie. For so many Republicans over the past few decades, this has all been a fake fight.
This is why voters in the GOP feel so angry and betrayed. This is why voters have permanently severed all ties and interest with anything that smacks of the party establishment. They now understand that while Democrats were intrepidly promoting their agenda for years, so many Republicans who were supposed to be combating their fundamental transformation were really wolves in sheep’s clothing.
When choosing your candidate for president, make that decision wisely, making sure you are not selecting someone who will turn around in a few years and champion the very causes he promised to fight against today. (For more from the author of “Betrayed Again: Prominent Republicans File Brief Supporting Obama’s Illegal Executive Amnesty” please click HERE)
Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have gone Republican since the start of 2016, twice as many as have shifted the other way, as a wild primary fight continues to upend the business of politics as usual and challenge the status quo.
Needless to say, much of this movement is being attributed to the rise of Donald Trump and the so-called “Ditch and Switch” movement, which leans on lifelong Democrats to abandon the party, register Republican and help ensure Trump’s place in the November general election.
A website launched by two North Carolina sisters calling on Democrats to switch political parties and embrace Trump says, “For many years the Democratic Party has promoted agendas that most Americans did not agree with. Our country is deeply divided, and the silent majority has been bullied into silence by political posturing and underhanded agendas that favor the few while excluding the majority.”
The statement supports Dr. G. Terry Madonna’s theory that at least some of the 46,000 Democrats-turned-Republican in Pennsylvania belong to a disaffected class that felt overlooked by elected leaders, or at odds with Democratic party ethos.
“With the increase in support in exit polls for Trump among working class, blue-collar Democrats, it is my belief that these are people who fall into that genre,” said Madonna, who is director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. (Read more from “‘Ditch and Switch’: Trump May Be Behind Mass Democratic Party Exodus in Pennsylvania” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:33:362016-04-11 10:51:40‘Ditch and Switch’: Trump May Be Behind Mass Democratic Party Exodus in Pennsylvania
Donald Trump’s campaign is denying charges that top campaign official Corey Lewandowski got rough with a reporter during an event in Jupiter, Florida late Tuesday . . .
After the GOP front-runner spoke at a televised press conference, [Michelle] Fields, according to her Breitbart report, attempted to ask Trump a question on affirmative action as he was exiting the room.
Trump “acknowledged the question,” Fields said, “but before he could answer I was jolted backwards.”
“Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down,” she added. “I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken.”
Fields, who typically covers Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 race and was filling in for a colleague at the Trump event, said she did not recognize who had grabbed her, but cited Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, a witness to the events. (Read more from “Trump Campaign Under Fire for ‘Assault’ on Reporter” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-11 00:31:572016-04-11 10:51:43Trump Campaign Under Fire for ‘Assault’ on Reporter
