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Every turn of every investigation into Russia and the 2016 election has hit a dead end, and likewise, no one should expect a thrill ride when special counsel Robert Mueller finally turns in his report.

A new Time article by former prosecutor Renato Mariotti readies liberals and other critics of President Trump for that ultimately disappointing outcome to the yearslong special counsel investigation. True, that’s the likely end facing Trump’s opponents, but Mariotti is 100 percent wrong in arguing that it will be because of a “successful disinformation crusade” by Trump.

Mariotti wrote that Trump “worked to raise a nearly impossible and definitely illogical bar for Mueller to clear: proving ‘collusion’ and charging a grand criminal conspiracy involving the Trump campaign and the Russian government.”

No, no, no, no, no. Any raising of expectations for the special counsel was done exclusively by the Democratic Party and the national news media, both of which in 2017 demanded the creation of a special counsel with limitless legal authority to find the golden egg, proof that Trump’s campaign had worked in coordination with Russia to tip the election in his favor.

Yes, that demand came after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was probing former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s clandestine conversations with Russian officials. But it’s well worth a reminder that firing Comey was also something Democrats and liberals in the media wanted.

The hardest evidence that anything happened with Russia in the 2016 election are indictments of some Russians for “fraud and deceit.” The product of their mass conspiracy was a bunch of tweets and Facebook posts spread on the Internet with the intention of getting people angry about politics. In essence, Russians looked at what was already on America’s Facebook and Twitter and repeated it.

What an ingenious plan to snatch the election from Hillary Clinton!

The grand social media scheme wasn’t a heist. It was a mirror.

After Facebook took measures in 2017 to fight any “fake” political posts on the platform, one liberal organizer told the Washington Post: “Russians might have been there, but Russians are not creating and invoking these feelings. These are real feelings, not Internet-created feelings.”

The FBI, the House, the Senate, and the entire national news media have been investigating Russia and any ties to Trump since 2016. Here are some of their findings:

  • Michael Flynn contacted Russian officials during the presidential transition and asked that they not escalate tensions with the U.S. over sanctions enacted by the Obama administration. There was no crime here until Flynn lied to the FBI about it.
  • Well, into the 2016 election, it appears Trump was pursuing a business deal in Russia to construct a Trump Tower Moscow, a project he has reportedly fantasized about since the 1980s. There is no crime here.
  • Paul Manafort, who for a period served as one of Trump’s campaign managers, reportedly showed internal polling campaign data to a Russian, a crucial bit of information, no doubt, in Russia’s tweet strategy. There is no crime here.

The purpose of the Time article is to sink expectations lower than they already were, as every “revelation” of the never-ending Russia nightmare has failed to lead us to the holy grail.

There’s a lot of wreckage as a result of Mueller’s rampage into the past professional lives of Trump associates. That alone kneecapped Trump’s presidency, compromising any goodwill he might have had with congressional Democrats and depressing his political capital with the public.

Democrats almost certainly won’t get the final kill shot from Mueller’s report. But that’s not Trump’s fault. It’s theirs.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/if-robert-muellers-report-disappoints-its-because-everything-on-russia-has-been-a-disappointment

Prosecutors in California have decided not to charge two police officers who fatally shot an unarmed black man last year, saying the “shooting was lawful.”

Sacramento County District Attorney Marie Schubert announced on Saturday that Officers Terrance Mercadal and Jared Robinet would not face criminal charges in the March 18 death of Stephon Clark after an independent review of the case found that the pair used lethal force lawfully.

The 61-page review conducted by the prosecutor’s office stated that  Mercadal and Robinet “had honest and reasonable belief that they were in imminent danger of death or great bodily injury.”

Schubert said the decision “does not diminish in any way the tragedy, the anger and the frustration that we heard since the time of his death.”

She added: “We cannot ignore that there is rage within our community.”

Reaction to the decision came swiftly on Saturday. Among the first to weigh in was Clark’s mother, Sequette, who refused to accept prosecutors’ judgment. “They executed my son,” she said, according to The Associated Press. “It’s not right.”

Also on Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and civil rights activists called for criminal justice reforms concerning use of deadly force. Newsom called it a hard truth that “our criminal justice system treats young black and Latino men and women differently than their white counterparts. That must change.”

How the community at large will react to prosecutors’ decision remained an open question early Saturday evening, though Sacramento has been bracing for protests; business owners were warned by a business association and state government workers told by legislative officials in recent days to stay away from downtown at least through the weekend.

STEPHON CLARK SHOOTING: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Clark was shot and killed March 18;  the two officers were responding to a report of somebody breaking car windows. Police said they believed Clark was the suspect, and that he ran when a police helicopter responded and failed to obey officers’ orders.

Police said they thought Clark was holding a gun when he moved toward them with his arms extended and an object in his hands. He was later found to only have a cellphone on him.

Police video of the shooting does not clearly capture all that happened after Clark ran into his grandmother’s backyard.

It showed him initially moving toward the officers, who were peeking out from behind a corner of the house, but it’s not clear whether he was facing them or that he knew the officers were there when they opened fire after shouting “gun, gun, gun.” The video showed Clark staggering sideways and falling on his stomach as the officers continued shooting.

OUTRAGE GROWS OVER POLICE KILLING OF STEPHON CLARK IN SACRAMENTO: ‘20 SHOTS OVER A CELLPHONE’

“We must recognize that they are often forced to make split-second decisions and we must recognize that they are under tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving circumstances,” Schubert said on Saturday.

A review of the district attorney’s findings stated that “the law recognizes an inherent right to use deadly force to protect oneself or others from death or great bodily harm.”

It continued: “This fundamental legal principle is known as the right of ‘self-defense.’ A police officer does not lose his fundamental right by virtue of becoming a police officer.”

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Clark’s family, including his two sons, his parents and his grandparents, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in January seeking more than $20 million from the city, Mercadal and Robinet. The suit alleges that the use of force was excessive, and that Clark was a victim of racial profiling.

One of the officers who shot Clark is black and the other is white, police said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/2-california-police-officers-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-wont-face-charges-prosecutors-say

The second day of the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference is officially underway at Oxon Hill, Md.

Going on from Feb. 27 to March 2, CPAC is one of the most prominent gatherings of conservatives in the country held every year and features speakers from all over the right side of American politics, from pundits, to members of Congress, and even President Trump himself.

Trump, who is scheduled to speak at 11:30 a.m. EST on Saturday, is a regular attendee of the event since 2011, when he again began considering the possibility of running for president.

Since then, Trump has only missed a single year, 2016, when he chose to campaign in key states ahead of the 2016 election. As president, Trump spoke in 2017 and 2018 at CPAC. Vice President Mike Pence is set to speak on Friday.

On the first full day of speeches, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he plans to process as many conservative judges as possible as Judiciary chairman.

Sebastian Gorka, meanwhile, pointed to the “Green New Deal” in warning conservatives they are on the “frontlines of war” against communism.

Friday’s speakers include White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

You can read all of the Washington Examiner‘s coverage for CPAC 2019 here.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/watch-live-day-2-of-cpac-2019

NEW YORK (AP) — Bernie Sanders kicked off his presidential campaign Saturday miles from the rent-controlled apartment where he grew up in Brooklyn and forcefully made the case that he is nothing like fellow New Yorker Donald Trump, proclaiming himself the Democrat best prepared to beat the incumbent in 2020.

“My experience as a child, living in a family that struggled economically, powerfully influenced my life and my values. I know where I came from,” Sanders boomed in his unmistakable Brooklyn accent. “And that is something I will never forget.”

The Democrats in the 2020 race have taken varied approaches to Trump, with some avoiding saying his name entirely, while others make implicit critiques of his presidency. Sanders has never shied from jabbing Trump in stark terms, and during his speech at Brooklyn College, he called Trump “the most dangerous president in modern American history” and said the president wants to “divide us up.”

The Vermont senator positioned himself in opposition to Trump administration policies from immigration to climate change. Beyond the issues themselves, Sanders, who grew up in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Flatbush in a middle-class family, drew a stark contrast between himself and the billionaire in the White House who hails from Queens.

“I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs,” said Sanders, who has lived in Vermont for decades. He pegged his allowance as a kid at 25 cents a week.

Sanders also said he “did not come from a family of privilege that prepared me to entertain people on television by telling workers, ‘You’re fired.'”

“I came from a family who knew all too well the frightening power employers can have over every day workers,” he added.

More than 200 miles away in suburban Washington, Trump reveled in his 2016 victory and said Republicans “need to verify it in 2020 with an even bigger victory.”

While Trump didn’t mention Sanders explicitly in a two-hour speech, he railed against the policies of “socialism” in a continued attempt to portray Democrats as out of touch with ordinary Americans. Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist.

“Socialism is not about the environment, it is not about justice, it is not about virtue. It is only about one thing – it is called power for the ruling class,” Trump said. “We know the future does not belong to those who believe in socialism”

Speaking at the same conference Friday, Vice President Mike Pence called Sanders an “avowed socialist.”

Sanders enters the race at a moment that bears little resemblance to when he waged his long-shot bid in 2016. Democrats have been mobilized by the election of Trump and are seeking a standard-bearer who can oust him from office. Many of Sanders’ populist ideas have been embraced by the mainstream of the Democratic party. The field of Democrats that he joins includes a number of liberal candidates, most notably Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who share similar sensibilities.

As Sanders launched his campaign in Brooklyn, Warren was campaigning in Waterloo, Iowa and was questioned repeatedly about Sanders. Though the two have been friends since before they came to the Senate, Warren did not endorse Sanders in 2016, a decision that angered his supporters.

“I’m going to be blunt – we can’t go back and relitigate 2016,” she told a voter who asked why she declined to back Sanders. “We’ve gotta keep our focus on how we’re going to win in 2020.”

Later asked by reporters how she’ll distinguish herself from Sanders, she said she would focus on issues, and emphasized the need for the Democratic field to stick together.

“The way I see it, I got plenty to talk about as it is — about the structural change we need in this country and laying out how we can do this. This is hopeful. People come and they hear what’s broken, that we can fix it and that we do it together.”

Sanders’ rally was his first campaign event since announcing a week ago that he would run against Trump for the White House. Sanders will make his first trip to the leadoff caucus state of Iowa next week, with plans to campaign in Council Bluffs, Iowa City and Des Moines. He is headed to the early state of Iowa

Hours before his speech in Brooklyn College’s East Quad, a line of supporters snaked down the snowy streets.

A reggae band played before Sanders spoke, and he was introduced by a number of supporters including Nina Turner, the former Ohio state senator who is a co-chair of Sanders’ campaign this year, and Shaun King, the writer and civil rights activist.

King cited Sanders’ participation in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, when he was a student at the University of Chicago.

“This is the origin story of an American revolutionary,” King said of Sanders, who will return to Chicago on Sunday evening for a second campaign rally, where he’s expected to further highlight his own activism.

Paul Crewdson, 37, of Brooklyn, came to the rally carrying a hand-drawn cardboard sign that read, “Win Michigan, Win Ohio, Win Wisconsin.”

“I think this was the reason that Democrats lost in 2016,” he said.

As he began his speech, Sanders himself hinted at how he sees the race, a campaign that runs beyond the battlegrounds. “This is a 50-state campaign,” he said. “We will not concede a single state to Donald Trump.”

This version of the story is corrected to say that Pence spoke Friday at the conservative conference, not Thursday.

Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe in Waterloo, Iowa, and Kevin Freking and Zeke Miller in Oxon Hill, Maryland, contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-returns-new-york-roots-says-he-can-defeat-n978581

Image copyright
AFP

Image caption

Tens of thousands of US military personnel are based in South Korea

The US and South Korea have confirmed plans to end large-scale joint military exercises amid efforts to thaw relations.

Smaller-scale drills will continue, but major planned war games will now not go ahead.

A number of exercises were suspended last year after US President Donald Trump met North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

North Korea has always regarded the games as preparation for a military invasion by the two countries.

A Pentagon statement said the defence ministers from the two countries had agreed to end the Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises in a phone call on Saturday. It is unclear if the suspension is permanent.

Critics have said cancelling the drills could undermine US and South Korean military defences against the North, but others say those concerns are unjustified.

President Trump has previously complained of the cost of such exercises, although he has ruled out withdrawing US troops from the peninsula.

The country has about 30,000 US troops in South Korea.

Mr Trump’s second summit with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam this week ended abruptly without a deal.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47431309

President Trump intends to sign an executive order that would put at risk federal research funding to colleges and universities that fail to protect free speech on campus, he announced Saturday.

“Today I am proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars,” the president said during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.

“If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many other great young people and old people, to speak, free speech,” said Trump. “If they don’t, it will be very costly. That will be signed very soon.”

The specific details of Trump’s executive order are unknown.

The president’s announcement came after he brought on stage Hayden Williams, a conservative activist with Turning Point USA who was punched in the face Feb. 19 at the University of California, Berkeley.

Campus police on Saturday arrested Zachary Greenberg, who allegedly was behind the attack on Williams. Bail for Greenberg, 28, was set at $30,000.

Trump joked that Williams “could take a punch” and urged him to sue not only Greenberg “forever,” but also the University of California, Berkeley.

“He took a hard punch in the face for all of us, remember that,” Trump said. “He took a punch for all of us, and we can never allow that to happen. And in closing with Hayden, here is the good news: He is going to be a very wealthy young man.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-to-sign-executive-order-requiring-colleges-universities-to-support-free-speech-on-campus

A controversial poster showing a photo of Muslim Representative Ilhan Omar underneath an image of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack led to a partisan confrontation at the West Virginia statehouse Friday. 

According to NBC News, one person was injured during the melee and another staffer resigned after allegedly accusing Muslims of being terrorists. 

The incident occurred during a state Republican-sponsored event called WVGOP Day held in the West Virginia Capitol building. 

The Washington Post reports, though the person or group behind the poster has not yet been identified, it appears to have been positioned next to a sign for the group ACT For America, which has been accused of being anti-Muslim.

The poster’s text was also inflammatory. Placed over the World Trade Center image were the words, “‘Never forget’ — You said.” 

Related: Minnesota Rep IIhan Omar

FILE – In this Jan. 5, 2017, file photo, new State Rep. Ilhan Omar is interviewed in her office two days after the 2017 Legislature convened in St. Paul, Minn. Omar, already the first Somali-American to be elected to a state legislature, is jumping into a crowded race for a Minnesota congressional seat. Omar filed Tuesday, June 5, 2018, for the Minneapolis-area seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)




And below the Congresswoman’s photo were the words, “I am the proof you have forgotten.” 

State Democrats objected to the poster, with one member declaring that it was “hateful.” 

Omar herself has since blasted Republicans over the incident, tweeting: “No wonder why I am on the ‘Hitlist’ of a domestic terrorist and ‘Assassinate Ilhan Omar’ is written on my local gas stations. Look no further, the GOP’s anti-Muslim display likening me to a terrorist rocks in state capitols and no one is condemning them!”

Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/03/02/poster-linking-muslim-congresswoman-ilhan-omar-to-911-sparks-confrontation/23682519/

Every turn of every investigation into Russia and the 2016 election has hit a dead end, and likewise, no one should expect a thrill ride when special counsel Robert Mueller finally turns in his report.

A new Time article by former prosecutor Renato Mariotti readies liberals and other critics of President Trump for that ultimately disappointing outcome to the yearslong special counsel investigation. True, that’s the likely end facing Trump’s opponents, but Mariotti is 100 percent wrong in arguing that it will be because of a “successful disinformation crusade” by Trump.

Mariotti wrote that Trump “worked to raise a nearly impossible and definitely illogical bar for Mueller to clear: proving ‘collusion’ and charging a grand criminal conspiracy involving the Trump campaign and the Russian government.”

No, no, no, no, no. Any raising of expectations for the special counsel was done exclusively by the Democratic Party and the national news media, both of which in 2017 demanded the creation of a special counsel with limitless legal authority to find the golden egg, proof that Trump’s campaign had worked in coordination with Russia to tip the election in his favor.

Yes, that demand came after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was probing former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s clandestine conversations with Russian officials. But it’s well worth a reminder that firing Comey was also something Democrats and liberals in the media wanted.

The hardest evidence that anything happened with Russia in the 2016 election are indictments of some Russians for “fraud and deceit.” The product of their mass conspiracy was a bunch of tweets and Facebook posts spread on the Internet with the intention of getting people angry about politics. In essence, Russians looked at what was already on America’s Facebook and Twitter and repeated it.

What an ingenious plan to snatch the election from Hillary Clinton!

The grand social media scheme wasn’t a heist. It was a mirror.

After Facebook took measures in 2017 to fight any “fake” political posts on the platform, one liberal organizer told the Washington Post: “Russians might have been there, but Russians are not creating and invoking these feelings. These are real feelings, not Internet-created feelings.”

The FBI, the House, the Senate, and the entire national news media have been investigating Russia and any ties to Trump since 2016. Here are some of their findings:

  • Michael Flynn contacted Russian officials during the presidential transition and asked that they not escalate tensions with the U.S. over sanctions enacted by the Obama administration. There was no crime here until Flynn lied to the FBI about it.
  • Well, into the 2016 election, it appears Trump was pursuing a business deal in Russia to construct a Trump Tower Moscow, a project he has reportedly fantasized about since the 1980s. There is no crime here.
  • Paul Manafort, who for a period served as one of Trump’s campaign managers, reportedly showed internal polling campaign data to a Russian, a crucial bit of information, no doubt, in Russia’s tweet strategy. There is no crime here.

The purpose of the Time article is to sink expectations lower than they already were, as every “revelation” of the never-ending Russia nightmare has failed to lead us to the holy grail.

There’s a lot of wreckage as a result of Mueller’s rampage into the past professional lives of Trump associates. That alone kneecapped Trump’s presidency, compromising any goodwill he might have had with congressional Democrats and depressing his political capital with the public.

Democrats almost certainly won’t get the final kill shot from Mueller’s report. But that’s not Trump’s fault. It’s theirs.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/if-robert-muellers-report-disappoints-its-because-everything-on-russia-has-been-a-disappointment

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo clashed with the head of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday night over whether President TrumpDonald John TrumpDem lawmaker to introduce bill blaming Kim Jong Un for Otto Warmbier death Cindy McCain rips conservative commentator over CPAC address The Memo: Trump world faces sea of troubles MORE is generally honest.

“This president has made a mockery of political discourse, decency and truth-telling, and you know it,” Cuomo told Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union that hosts CPAC, in an interview on “Cuomo Prime Time.”

“I don’t know that,” Schlapp responded.

The pair sparred throughout the segment, with Cuomo repeatedly saying that the president “lies all the time” and calling him “a liar.”

“The president was very clear with the American voter about what he intended to do,” Schlapp said. “What he has done is to put into place what he said he would do. What you all are obsessed with is the inaccuracies that some people say exist along the way.”

Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes Schlapp serves in a top communications role in the Trump White House, argued that the host was focused on small details and not broader issues.

“Talk about the forest,” he said. “You’re missing the forest for some little saplings.”

“I don’t see them as saplings,” Cuomo responded. 

Cuomo ended the segment by telling Schlapp he was always welcome on his show, but added, “I just get a little touchy when we ignore the obvious.”

The interview was broadcast in the main auditorium at CPAC on Saturday as the audience awaited Trump’s speech there.

CPAC is an annual conservative conference that features prominent right-leaning speakers. The conference, largely attended by university students, was set to wrap up later Saturday.

Source Article from https://thehill.com/media/432330-cnns-chris-cuomo-spars-with-cpac-head-over-trump-hes-a-liar

Two police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man in his grandmother’s backyard, will face “no criminal liability,” said Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert on Saturday.

Quick take: The night of March 18, 2018, Clark damaged 3 cars and broke a backyard glass door belonging to an 89-year-old man, during which the officers, both of whom were wearing body cameras, chased Clark, ultimately shooting him 8 times. The officers claimed that Clark had pointed a gun at them.

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/prosecutors-not-charge-two-sacramento-officers-in-shooting-92decfb1-e372-4866-971b-0a8dbb23c061.html

President Trump on Saturday paid tribute to “beautiful” American college student Otto Warmier — who died in 2017 after being detained in North Korea — and defended his negotiations with the country after he was criticized for saying he took North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “at his word.”

“We got our great people back … and that includes our beautiful, beautiful Otto, Otto Warmbier, whose parents I’ve gotten to know, who’s incredible,” he told a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) crowd in Maryland.. “And I’m in such a horrible position because in one way I have to negotiate and the way I love Mr. and Mrs. Warmbier and I love Otto and it’s a very delicate balance.”

WARMBIER’S PARENTS PUSH BACK ON TRUMP’S COMMENTS, BLAME KIM’S ‘EVIL REGIME’ FOR SON’S DEATH

“He was a special young man and to see what happened was so bad,” he said.

Trump drew bipartisan criticism for saying during Thursday’s summit with Kim in Hanoi that he took the dictator “at his word.”

“I believe something very bad happened to him,” Trump said. “I don’t think leadership knew about it.”

Fred and Cindy Warmbier released a brief statement on Friday morning reiterating their long-held claim that the regime was indeed responsible for their son’s death:

“We have been respectful during this summit process.  Now we must speak out. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.”

The 22-year-old University of Virginia student died in June 2017 after being returned home in a vegetative state. His parents have said he was tortured. The suburban Cincinnati youth was visiting North Korea with a tour group when he was detained in 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. North Korea has denied mistreating Warmbier.

NEWT GINGRICH: TRUMP AND HALEY RIGHT TO CONDEMN NORTH KOREA IN OTTO WARMBIER’S DEATH

There have been conflicting reports over whether Warmbier was tortured. But Trump himself asserted in September 2017 that Warmbier was “tortured beyond belief by North Korea.”

On Friday, Trump said he had been “misinterpreted” and said that “of course I hold North Korea responsible for Otto’s mistreatment and death.”

“Most important, Otto Warmbier will not have died in vain. Otto and his family have become a tremendous symbol of strong passion and strength, which will last for many years into the future. I love Otto and think of him often!” he tweeted.

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At CPAC, Trump said that the Hanoi summit, the second such summit with Kim, was a “good meeting,” although he ultimately had to walk away from the talks.

“We get along, we’ve developed a good relationship, very good, and made great, historic progress,” he said.

Fox News’ Judson Berger, Eric Shawn, Jason Donner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-praises-beautiful-otto-warmbier-after-criticism-over-north-korea-comments

Many supporters at the rally, a good number of whom were students, said that they had long been fans of Mr. Sanders and that they were excited to see him run for president a second time.

“Last election, we supported Bernie,” said Isabel Saffioti, 15. “We want to come out and support him again.” Standing beside her was her sister, Carmen, 19, a student at Brooklyn College, who said she was thrilled the senator had decided to start his campaign there. “I think it would be cool if he talked more about his roots,” she said.

Chris Huth, 19, said he liked Mr. Sanders because “he’s human.” But he also said that, though he supported the policies of “leftist people” like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, he had not decided yet whether he would vote for Mr. Sanders. “It’s still the beginning,” he said. “We’ll see.”

For the most part, the crowd was lively despite the chill. Before the rally, a snowman in a Bernie T-shirt became a popular photo companion. Speakers offered a playlist of songs with a theme of change: “Uprising” by Muse, “Revolution” by Flogging Molly.

But even as Mr. Sanders seemed ready to present more of himself to voters, some supporters suggested it was his unwavering commitment to policy that most endeared him to them.

“He’s been consistent since Day 1,” said Katie McCrudden, 23, who left her home in New Jersey at 7:30 a.m. to get to the rally in time. “His politics have not changed.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-democrats.html

Fox News host Sean Hannity is drawing fire for comments he made about Michael Cohen in an interview with President Trump on Thursday, and one lawmaker wants him called to testify in front of Congress.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who sits on the committee, tweeted “Sean Hannity is now volunteering himself as a witness. I look forward to his testimony” following Hannity’s comments about the president’s former longtime fixer, who spent three days testifying in front of Congress this week.

Cohen testified behind closed doors to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and publicly to the House Oversight and Reform Committee this week. He is set to testify to the House Intelligence Committee again next week. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments ahead of the 2016 election to two women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump, as well as lying to Congress.

In an interview with Trump in Vietnam, Hannity said that Cohen had told him he — not Trump — had made the decision on the payments without telling the then-candidate.

“He told me that personally,” Hannity said.

A Cicilline spokeswoman told CNN that Hannity volunteered firsthand knowledge about Cohen. “If he was lying, it wouldn’t be the first time. This is the same guy who claimed inside knowledge that Russia didn’t hack the DNC until a federal judge ordered him to stop. Regardless, if he feels he has information that’s relevant to this investigation, he should share it under oath before Congress.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/next-to-testify-on-hush-money-payments-sean-hannity

In retrospect, it was an important message that was obscured by the discussion of an end-of-war declaration.

What really mattered to Mr. Kim were the sanctions, which, after three new rounds in 2017, were strangling his nation’s already pitiful economy. The United States had even cut off critical humanitarian aid to the country by barring American aid groups from traveling there.

With diplomacy stalled, Mr. Trump decided to weigh in again.

Mr. Bolton announced in December that Mr. Trump wanted another summit meeting in early 2019 because North Korea had “not lived up to the commitments” it made in Singapore. To some diplomats and analysts, that seemed like a reason not to meet again.

The North Koreans appointed a former ambassador to Spain, Kim Hyok-chol, to lay the groundwork with Mr. Biegun, 55, a pragmatic former senior aide to Condoleezza Rice in the Bush administration who had been passed over for the national security adviser position in favor of Mr. Bolton.

The first meetings in Pyongyang did not go smoothly. And when the two sides met in Hanoi starting six days before the summit meeting, the North Koreans kept demanding that the five most recent rounds of sanctions imposed by the United Nations since March 2016 be lifted.

Mr. Ri, the foreign minister, said later that North Korea chose those sanctions because they affected ordinary citizens.

These sanctions, imposed to punish Pyongyang for new weapons tests, differed from previous restrictions that were focused on weapons and nuclear-related equipment. Instead, they covered entire export sectors, including minerals, metals, coal, agriculture and seafood.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/world/asia/trump-kim-jong-un-summit.html

President Trump, in an expletive-laden speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday, accused FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team of trying to take him out with “bulls—” and accused a top Clinton aide of not having recovered “from getting his a– kicked.”

Trump accused his opponents of moving away from a narrative of Russian collusion as Mueller prepares to file his report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He said that the report was being produced “by people who weren’t elected.”

TRUMP SAYS COHEN’S NEWLY REVEALED BOOK PROPOSAL BLOWS UP TESTIMONY: ‘TOTALLY DISCREDITED!’

“Unfortunately you put the wrong people in a couple of positions and they leave people for a long time that shouldn’t be there and all of a sudden they’re trying to take you out with bulls—,” he mused to the delighted crowd in Maryland, as he mocked “the collusion delusion.”

Trump’s remarks come just days after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified to a House committee, and appeared to partially shut down some of the claims surrounding theories about the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Moscow — including denying that he traveled to Prague in 2016, and saying he has no knowledge of any compromising material Russia may have on Trump.

President Donald Trump hugs the American flag as he arrives to speak at Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2019, in Oxon Hill, Md., Saturday, March 2, 2019.
(AP)

In his speech, Trump pointed to alleged hypocrisy from Democrats who he said wanted to fire former FBI Director James Comey, only to change tune when Trump fired him in 2017. He pointed in particular to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and former Hillary Clinton campaign Chair John Podesta.

“Podesta, I believe that day, because he still hasn’t gotten over getting his a– kicked in the election, the great genius of campaigns, he called for Comey’s resignation.”

He went on to say he told First Lady Melania Trump that the move would be popular.

“And I fire a bad cop, I fire a dirty cop and all of sudden the Democrats say ‘How dare he fire him? How dare he do this?’” he said. “That’s where we are. In this swamp of Washington D.C. but you know what? We are winning and they’re not.”

The rip into the Russia probe marked only one aspect of a lengthy speech, where he regularly went off-script to josh and joke with the audience, as well as to wax lyrical on the issues of the day, on everything from media bias (“These people are sick”) to his “Never Trump” opponents within the GOP (“They’re on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”)

He saved some of his barbs for Democratic policies like The Green New Deal — a comprehensive overhaul of America’s economy and a shift to 100 percent renewable energy.

“When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric: ‘Darling, is the wind blowing, I’d like to watch television,” he quipped.

But he jokingly encouraged them to keep on pushing the Green New Deal, apparently sensing that the policy may be unpopular and lead to Trump’s re-election.

“I like the Green New Deal, I respect it greatly, it should be part of the dialogue of the next election,” he said to laughter from the audience.

He also used anecdotes to promote his policies at home and abroad, particularly pulling back troops from the Middle East. At length he talked about how he flew it into Iraq over Christmas and was told to kill the lights on Air Force One as it came into land.

“We spent $7 trillion and we can’t land a plane with no lights on,” he said.

As Trump spoke at length, the crowd appeared to eat up everything he had to say. Ahead of the speech, audience members stood on chairs, craning their necks to get a glimpse as the Rolling Stones’ “Time Is On My Side” blared through the speakers — indicating the president’s imminent arrival.”

Fox News’ Liam Quinn contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-fires-up-cpac-with-expletive-laden-description-of-mueller-probe-theyre-trying-to-take-you-out-with-bulls

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(CNN)President Donald Trump has a perfect veto-free record so far, the result of support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and, until they lost their majority, Republicans in the US House.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/politics/trump-presidents-veto-congress-history-override-national-emergency/index.html

Angry arguments broke out in the West Virginia statehouse on Friday after the state Republican Party allegedly set up an anti-Muslim display in the rotunda linking the 9/11 terror attacks to a freshman congresswoman from Minnesota.

One staff member was physically injured during the morning’s confrontations, and another official resigned after being accused of making anti-Muslim comments.

The display featured a picture of the World Trade Center in New York City as a fireball exploded from the one of the Twin Towers, set above a picture of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim.

“‘Never forget’ – you said. . .” read a caption on the first picture. “I am the proof – you have forgotten,” read the caption under the picture of Omar, who is wearing a hijab.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gop-s-anti-muslim-display-likening-rep-omar-terrorist-rocks-n978371

Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.

Who do you want to believe? President Donald Trump, who has told more than 8,000 lies since becoming president, or his ex-attorney, the recently disbarred Michael Cohen, who has confessed to lying to Congress and is prison-bound for those fibs, as well as other charges, who now calls his former boss a “conman”? If you sided with the newly penitent former legal hitman, then you came out on the other side of seven ill-tempered hours of testimony with a modest increase in your stockpile of Russia evidence. A jamboree of “silliness,” to borrow Cohen’s word, but worth it.

Cohen had three or four advantages going into his liars’ contest with Trump as the House Oversight Committee swore him in to testify on Wednesday. First, Cohen has owned up to his lies, which is something Trump has never done. Second, he had the audacity to return to the forum where he told the original incriminating falsehoods—Congress—knowing his every statement would be assayed and scrutinized for untruth and additional prosecution. Third, he brought documents to support his assertions that his former boss had engaged in possible campaign finance violations by paying off paramour Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels), possible tax evasion, possible bank fraud, possible insurance fraud, and possible self-dealing through misuse of his foundation’s funds. Finally, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who presided over the hearings, lent additional veracity to the testimony, noting that he had vowed to Cohen that he would go Biblical on him at the hint of any new lies.

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“These were my exact words, ‘I will nail you to the cross,’” if you lie again, Cummings said.

The advantage went to the convicted liar over the unindicted liar, as Cohen supplied testimony that added new clarity to an array of previous accusations aimed at the president.

“A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes,” Cohen said.

Cohen described overhearing a July 2016 speakerphone discussion between Trump and self-described political dirty trickster Roger Stone in which Stone said he had just gotten off the phone with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange. According to Cohen, Stone said that Assange promised a massive dump of emails would arrive in a couple of days conveying damage to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign—which they did. Stone loosened his new gag order just enough to deny the speakerphone account and WikiLeaks stated that Stone and Assange had never had a phone call. Somebody’s lying here, but who?

Cohen also conveyed his belief that Trump knew in advance of the famous June 2016 Trump Tower encounter in which a bevy of Russians trundled into Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort on the pretext that they had “dirt” on Clinton. Cohen said he witnessed Junior entering Trump senior’s office, leaning over to tell his father, “The meeting is all set,” several days before the Russian visit. Cohen said he had no evidence that Trump or his campaign had colluded with Russia, “But I have my suspicions.” The president said from the Hanoi summit that he was “a little impressed” that Cohen, while lying about everything, nevertheless thought there was no collusion. He conveniently ignored the part about his former lawyer’s lingering doubts.

Cohen also earned Junior and Ivanka Trump invitations from Cummings to testify after Cohen testified both had been briefed about 10 times on the Trump Tower Moscow project. In September 2017, Russia scandal mavens will recall, Junior told the Senate Judiciary Committee he was only “peripherally aware” of Moscow project. Ivanka Trump said in a recent interview that she knew “literally almost nothing” about the Moscow deal.

Cohen’s testimony added additional pixels to the scandal picture and provided a potential “roadmap“ for future sleuthing by Congress. “All you have to do is follow the transcript,” Cummings told reporters. “If there were names that were mentioned, or records that were mentioned during the hearing, we want to take a look at all of that.” Junior and Ivanka, as well as Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, whose name came up 30 times in testimony, are now imagining the day when they too will endure the committee’s alternating comfort and condemnation. Meanwhile, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee has now instructed his attorneys to request several years of Trump’s tax returns. The House Intelligence Committee interviewed Cohen for seven hours in closed-door hearings Thursday, and he will be back for more next week. Former Trump associate Felix Sater, also mentioned in this week’s hearings, will testify before the intelligence committee on March 14. That one will be in public, which is sort of like offering an open bar at the prom – it just ends up with a lot of nicely dressed people talking loudly and behaving badly.

Most of the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee burned their time with filibusters that sought to impeach Cohen’s credibility, but they failed to make the convicted liar sound like anything but an honest witness. Meanwhile, some Democrats, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., wanted to break news. Twice Krishnamoorthi swung his pick-ax in hopes of busting loose a nugget, asking Cohen about his last communications with Trump and whether Trump had engaged in other criminal wrongdoing. Cohen answered “Yes” to that second question before slipping the knot. He said he had been asked by Southern District of New York prosecutors—the lawyers who squeezed him for his guilty pleas—“not to discuss and not to talk about these issues.”

Intimations that the SDNY is still on the case traps the president on three sides—congressional hearings, federal prosecutors and the special counsel Robert S. Mueller’s office (remember him?!). As these three forces work their way down the evidentiary chain, applying pressure on Trump’s family members and sifting through his financial records, how will the liar-in-chief react? If it’s true that Trump has never met a crisis he couldn’t lie his way past, prepare yourself for a festival of fudging, stonewalling and prevarication that will pale his previous outbursts.

And that ain’t no lie.

******

Send creative lies to Shafer.Politico@gmail.com. My email alerts have been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee and my Twitter feed by the House Oversight Committee. My RSS feed has this word for the Southern District of New York: “Top of the world, Ma!”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/02/cohen-russia-scandal-225516

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(CNN)President Donald Trump has a perfect veto-free record so far, the result of support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and, until they lost their majority, Republicans in the US House.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/politics/trump-presidents-veto-congress-history-override-national-emergency/index.html