Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) would not deny Tuesday that her plan for “Medicare for All” raised taxes on the middle class — even as she did everything she could to avoid confirming it.
A CNN panel in the spin room after the fourth Democrat debate on Tuesday night in Columbus, Ohio, struggled to pin Warren down on the question of whether her policy would raise middle class taxes.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the author of the bill Warren backs, has admitted openly that middle class Americans would pay higher taxes under his (and her) plan, but argues that middle class families would save money overall because their health insurance costs would supposedly fall.
But Warren has dodged the question in debate after debate, and interview after interview — and did so again when confronted by her opponents in the debate.
In the spin room after the debate, CNN’s anchors and political pundits struggled to extract an answer from Warren. Jake Tapper tried to help her craft an answer that would admit the tax hike, but argue for lower overall costs; John King pointed out, sympathetically, that Warren ran the risk of being accused of lying to the public.
Warren replied, over and over again: “My commitment is I will not sign a bill into law that raises costs on middle class families.”
David Axelrod, former White House adviser to President Barack Obama during the Obamacare fight, was incredulous at Warren’s claim that she knew with certainty that “Medicare for All” would not result in higher overall costs for any middle class family. “How can you even make an assurance as to how all this is going to pencil out?”
Warren stuck to her talking point, refusing to admit she would raise taxes — but declining to deny she would, either.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) confirmed to her Democrat Caucus on Tuesday that there will be no formal floor vote to officially launch an impeachment probe against President Trump.
Fox News Congress reporter Chad Pergram and Congress writer for The Hill Scott Wong both confirmed Pelosi has no plans to hold a full House vote.
Rather, Pelosi and her fellow Democrat coup plotters are moving full steam ahead with secret impeachment proceedings ‘to keep President Trump and his lawyers in the dark,’ as Adam Schiff previously stated.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) admitted on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the reason for holding secret testimonies behind closed doors is to keep President Trump and his lawyers in the dark.
And so Schiff can selectively leak to the media…
The crooked Democrats on Tuesday changed the rules again in their sham impeachment inquiry.
The Dems shifted the closed-door interviews to depositions in order to limit the questioning to one attorney per round.
Another reason why Pelosi won’t hold a full House vote on the floor is because she will expose vulnerable red-state Democrats who are up for a tough reelection in 2020 — Pelosi knows the majority of Americans do no support impeachment.
Furthermore, the Dems are able to block the Minority members from issuing subpoenas and questioning witnesses.
In a move surely meant to muzzle President Trump, Twitter has announced new rules for the accounts of world leaders, making clear that certain content will result in “enforcement action,” according to a press release.
“There continues to be meaningful public conversation about how we think about Tweets from world leaders on our service,” Twitter stated Tuesday. “We welcome the conversation and want to share more context on our principles and process for reviewing reported Tweets from these accounts.
“When it comes to the actions of world leaders on Twitter, we recognize that this is largely new ground and unprecedented. We understand the desire for our decisions to be “yes/no” binaries, but it’s not that simple. The actions we take and policies we develop will set precedent around online speech and we owe it to the people we serve to be deliberate and considered in what we do.”
“Our mission is to provide a forum that enables people to be informed and to engage their leaders directly. We also have a responsibility to the people who use Twitter to better explain why we make the decisions we make, which we will do here.”
Twitter then lays out their “Enforcement scenarios” that would limit a world leader’s account or the ability of users to share their posts.
“The below areas will result in enforcement action for any account on our service (without consideration of the potential public interest value in allowing the Tweet to remain visible behind a notice):”
– Promotion of terrorism;
– Clear and direct threats of violence against an individual (context matters: as noted above, direct interactions with fellow public figures and/or commentary on political and foreign policy issues would likely not result in enforcement);
– Posting private information, such as a home address or non-public personal phone number;
– Posting or sharing intimate photos or videos of someone that were produced or distributed without their consent;
– Engaging in behaviors relating to child sexual exploitation; and
– Encouraging or promoting self-harm.
“In other cases involving a world leader, we will err on the side of leaving the content up if there is a clear public interest in doing so.”
Notably, if Twitter believes a world leader violated these policies, the company will freeze other users’ ability interact with that leader’s post.
“We haven’t used this notice yet, but when we do, you will not be able to like, reply, share, or Retweet the Tweet in question,” Twitter stated. “You will still be able to express your opinion with Retweet with Comment.”
Though Twitter made a similar announcement back in June, these new restrictions are far more severe than simply “down-ranking” a post.
Democrats will likely pressure Twitter relentlessly to enforce these limitations on Trump because they’re triggered by everything he says or tweets.
Regardless of what Democrats try to do, Twitter has clearly decided it will serve as the gatekeeper for what information you can and cannot disseminate from your elected leaders.
Chris Menahan InformationLiberationCNN’s Bakari Sellers said Tuesday that “there is no question” that Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is “a puppet for the Russian government” and anyone who disagrees with him is probably a Russian “bot.”
There was some very mild questioning of Sellers' repugnant, McCarthyite accusations of treason against Gabbard, but only very mild and quick, then they moved on to something else as if it never happened, and obviously Sellers will be right back on CNN doing this vile garbage: pic.twitter.com/TkK1VqOQbq
SELLERS: There is a slightly — there is a chance that Tulsi [Gabbard] is not just working for the United States of America, but I digress.
RYAN: Wait a minute, what?
SELLERS: No, I firmly —
RYE: That’s a hell of an allegation.
SELLERS: That’s not just an allegations. I firmly believe that —
RYAN: Uh oh, messages is coming now!
SELLERS: No, yeah, watch the bots come on Twitter now! I firmly believe that Tulsi Gabbard stands on that stage and is the antithesis to what the other 11 individuals stand for, especially when it comes to issues such as foreign policy. There is no question, there is no question that Tulsi Gabbard, of all the 12, is a puppet for the Russian government.
RYAN: Whoa, whoa, that was strong.
CAMEROTA: How is there no question?
SELLERS: I think that you look at her relationship doing the bidding, her relationships and affection for people like Bashar al Assad, her admiring somebody we know to be a war criminal, propping them up. I think that those are questions that are going to have to be answered.
Those are the only questions the media ever ask her about!
She’s answered those questions a million damn times!
Unfortunately, Gabbard seems to think it’s a good strategy to give in to the media’s bullying and has been flip-flopping all over the place to try and somehow stay in their good graces.
She could have had a serious impact on this race had she just stuck to her guns and went hard against the establishment (as Trump did during his presidential campaign) but she botched it with her endless flip-flopping and equivocating.
Her only chance at this point is to go nuclear during the upcoming Dem debate.
CNN: The 2020 presidential candidates comment on the impeachment inquiry at the CNN/New York Times debate in Westerville, Ohio.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN MODERATOR: Since the last debate, House Democrats have officially launched an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, which all the candidates on this stage support. Senator Warren, I want to start with you. You have said that there’s already enough evidence for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office. But the question is, with the election only one year away, why shouldn’t it be the voters who determine the president’s fate?
WARREN: Because sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. And I think that’s the case with this impeachment inquiry.
When I made the decision to run for president, I certainly didn’t think it was going to be about impeachment. But when the Mueller report came out, I read it, all 442 pages. And when I got to the end, I realized that Mueller had shown, too, a fare-thee-well, that this president had obstructed justice and done it repeatedly. And so at that moment, I called for opening an impeachment inquiry.
Now, that didn’t happen. And look what happened as a result. Donald Trump broke the law again in the summer, broke it again this fall. You know, we took a constitutional oath, and that is that no one is above the law, and that includes the president of the United States.
Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences. This is about Donald Trump, but, understand, it’s about the next president and the next president and the next president and the future of this country. The impeachment must go forward.
COOPER: Thank you, Senator Warren. You’re all going to get in on this, by the way. Senator Sanders, do Democrats have any chance but to impeach President Trump? Please respond.
SANDERS: No, they don’t. In my judgment, Trump is the most corrupt president in the history of this country. It’s not just that he obstructed justice with the Mueller Report. I think that the House will find him guilty of — worthy of impeachment because of the emoluments clause. This is a president who is enriching himself while using the Oval Office to do that, and that is outrageous.
And I think in terms of the recent Ukrainian incident, the idea that we have a president of the United States who is prepared to hold back national security money to one of our allies in order to get dirt on a presidential candidate is beyond comprehension. So I look forward, by the way, not only to a speedy and expeditious impeachment process, but Mitch McConnell has got to do the right thing and allow a free and fair trial in the Senate.
COOPER: Vice President Biden, during the Clinton impeachment proceedings, you said, and I quote, “The American people don’t think that they’ve made a mistake by electing Bill Clinton, and we in Congress had better be very careful before we upset their decision.” With the country now split, have Democrats been careful enough in pursuing the impeachment of President Trump?
BIDEN: Yes, they have. I said from the beginning that if, in fact, Trump continued to stonewall what the Congress is entitled to know about his background, what he did, all the accusations in the Mueller Report, if they did that, they would have no choice — no choice — but to begin an impeachment proceeding, which gives them more power to seek more information.
This president — and I agree with Bernie, Senator Sanders — is the most corrupt president in modern history and I think all of our history. And the fact is that this president of the United States has gone so far as to say, since this latest event, that, in fact, he will not cooperate in any way at all, will not list any witnesses, will not provide any information, will not do anything to cooperate with the impeachment. They have no choice but to move.
COOPER: Senator Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that members of Congress have to be, in her words, fair to the president and give him a chance to exonerate himself. You’ve already said that based on everything you’ve seen, you would vote to remove him from office. Is that being fair to the president?
HARRIS: Well, it’s just being observant, because he has committed crimes in plain sight. I mean, it’s shocking, but he told us who he was. Maya Angelou told us years ago, listen to somebody when they tell you who they are the first time.
During that election, Donald Trump told us he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And he has consistently since he won been selling out the American people. He’s been selling out working people. He’s been selling out our values. He’s been selling out national security. And on this issue with Ukraine, he has been selling out our democracy.
Our framers imagined this moment, a moment where we would have a corrupt president. And our framers then rightly designed our system of democracy to say there will be checks and balances. This is one of those moments. And so Congress must act.
But the reality of it is that I don’t really think this impeachment process is going to take very long, because as a former prosecutor, I know a confession when I see it. And he did it in plain sight. He has given us the evidence. And he tried to cover it up, putting it in that special server. And there’s been a clear consciousness of guilt. This will not take very long. Donald Trump needs to be held accountable. He is, indeed, the most corrupt and unpatriotic president we have ever had.
COOPER: Senator Booker, you have said that President Trump’s, quote, “moral vandalism” disqualifies him from being president. Can you be fair in an impeachment trial? Please respond.
BOOKER: So, first of all, we must be fair. We are talking about ongoing proceedings to remove a sitting president for office. This has got to be about patriotism and not partisanship.
Look, I share the same sense of urgency of everybody on this stage. I understand the outrage that we all feel. But we have to conduct this process in a way that is honorable, that brings our country together, doesn’t rip us apart.
Anybody who has criticisms about a process that is making all the facts bare before the American public, that works to build consensus, that’s what this nation needs, in what is a moral moment and not a political one. So I swore an oath to do my job as a senator, do my duty. This president has violated his. I will do mine.
COOPER: Thank you, Senator Booker.
Senator Klobuchar, you have — what do you say to those who fear that impeachment is a distraction from issues that impact people’s day-to-day lives, health care, the economy, and could backfire on Democrats?
KLOBUCHAR: We can do two things at once. That’s our job. We have a constitutional duty to pursue this impeachment, but we also can stand up for America, because this president has not been putting America in front of his own personal interests.
He has not been standing up for the workers of Ohio. He’s not been standing up for the farmers in Iowa. And I take this even a step further. You know, when he made that call to the head of Ukraine, he’s digging up dirt on an opponent. That’s illegal conduct. That’s what he was doing. He didn’t talk to him about the Russian invasion. He talked to him about that.
So I’m still waiting to find out from him how making that call to the head of Ukraine and trying to get him involved in interfering in our election makes America great again. I’d like to hear from him about how leaving the Kurds for slaughter, our allies for slaughter, where Russia then steps in to protect them, how that makes America great again. And I would like to hear from him about how coddling up to Vladimir Putin makes America great again.
It doesn’t make America great again. It makes Russia great again. And that is what this president has done. So whether it is workers’ issues, whether it is farmers’ issues, he has put his own private interests…
COOPER: Thank you.
KLOBUCHAR: … and I will not do that.
COOPER: Thank you. Secretary Castro, is impeachment a distraction?
CASTRO: Not at all. We can walk and chew gun at the same time. And all of us are out there every single day talking about what we’re going to do to make sure that more people cross a graduation stage, that more families have great health care, that more folks are put to work in places like Ohio, where Donald Trump has broken his promises, because Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania actually in the latest jobs data have lost jobs, not gained them.
Not only that, what we have to recognize is that not only did the Mueller Report point out 10 different instances where the president obstructed justice or tried to, and he made that call to President Zelensky of the Ukraine, but he is in ongoingly — in an ongoing way violating his oath of office and abusing his power.
We have to impeach this president. And the majority of Americans not only support impeachment, they support removal. He should be removed.
COOPER: Mayer Buttigieg, you have said that impeachment should be bipartisan. There’s been, obviously, very little Republican support to date, yet Democrats are proceeding. Is that a mistake?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, it’s a mistake on the part of Republicans, who enable the president whose actions are as offensive to their own supposed values as they are to the values that we all share.
Look, the president has left the Congress with no choice. And this is not just about holding the president accountable, for not just the things emerging in these investigations, but actions that he has confessed to on television. It’s also about the presidency itself, because a president 10 years or 100 years from now will look back at this moment and draw the conclusion either that no one is above the law or that a president can get away with anything.
But everyone on this stage, by definition, is competing to be a president for after the Trump presidency. Remember, one way or the other, this presidency is going to come to an end. I want you to picture what it’s going to be like, what it’s actually going to feel like in this country the first day the sun comes up after Donald Trump has been president.
It starts out feeling like a happy thought; this particular brand of chaos and corruption will be over. But really think about where we’ll be: vulnerable, even more torn apart by politics than we are right now. And these big issues from the economy to climate change have not taken a vacation during the impeachment process.
I’m running to be the president who can turn the page and unify a dangerously polarized country while tackling those issues that are going to be just as urgent then as they are now.
COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Congresswoman Gabbard, you’re the only sitting House member on this stage. How do you respond?
GABBARD: If impeachment is driven by these hyperpartisan interests, it will only further divide an already terribly divided country. Unfortunately, this is what we’re already seen play out as calls for impeachment really began shortly after Trump won his election. And as unhappy as that may make us as Democrats, he won that election in 2016.
The serious issues that have been raised around this phone call that he had with the president of Ukraine and many other things that transpired around that are what caused me to support the inquiry in the House. And I think that it should continue to play its course out, to gather all the information, provide that to the American people, recognizing that that is the only way forward.
If the House votes to impeach, the Senate does not vote to remove Donald Trump, he walks out and he feels exonerated, further deepening the divides in this country that we cannot afford.
COOPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.
Mr. Steyer, you’ve been calling for impeachment for two years. Does there need to be bipartisan support?
STEYER: Well, Anderson, this is my first time on this stage, so I just want to start by reminding everybody that every candidate here is more decent, more coherent, and more patriotic than the criminal in the White House.
(APPLAUSE)
But I also want to point out that Anderson’s right. Two years ago, I started the Need to Impeach movement, because I knew there was something desperately wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that we did have the most corrupt president in the country, and that only the voice and the will of the American people would drag Washington to see it as a matter of right and wrong, not of political expediency. So, in fact, impeaching and removing this president is something that the American people are demanding. They’re the voice that counts, and that’s who I went to, the American people.
COOPER: Mr. Yang, do you think there’s already enough evidence out there to impeach the president? Please respond.
YANG: I support impeachment, but we shouldn’t have any illusions that impeaching Donald Trump will, one, be successful or, two, erase the problems that got him elected in 2016. We’re standing in the great state of Ohio, the ultimate purple state, the ultimate bellwether state.
Why did Donald Trump win your state by eight points? Because we got rid of 300,000 manufacturing jobs in your towns. And we are not stopping there. How many of you have noticed stores closing where you work and live here in Ohio? Raise your hands.
It’s not just you. Amazon alone is closing 30 percent of America’s stores and malls, soaking up $20 billion in business while paying zero in taxes. These are the problems that got Donald Trump elected, the fourth industrial revolution. And that is going to accelerate and grow more serious regardless of who is in the Oval Office.
The fact is, Donald Trump, when we’re talking about him, we are losing. We need to present a new vision, and that even includes talking about impeaching Donald Trump.
COOPER: Congressman O’Rourke, on impeachment, please respond.
O’ROURKE: You know, I think about everyone who’s ever served this country in uniform. We have two examples here on this stage tonight in Mayor Buttigieg and Congresswoman Gabbard, those who have willingly sacrificed their lives to defend this country and our Constitution. We are the inheritors of their service and their sacrifice.
And we have a responsibility to be fearless in the face of this president’s criminality and his lawlessness. The fact that as a candidate for the highest office in the land, he invited the participation, the invasion of a foreign power in our democracy. As president, he lied to investigators, obstructed justice, fired James Comey, head of the FBI, tried to fire Mueller, head of the investigation, then invited President Zelensky to involve himself in our politics, as well as China, in exchange for favorable trade terms in an upcoming trade deal.
COOPER: Thank you, Congressman.
O’ROURKE: If we do not hold him to account, if there is not justice, not only have we failed this moment, our Constitution and our country, but we have failed everyone who has sacrificed and laid their lives down on the line.
ABC News is refusing to issue an on-air correction to the fake video they put out twice which they claimed showed “Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians” after being “abandon[ed]” by President Trump.
Wow! ABC News is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria pic.twitter.com/zfTWtwwSfZ
On Monday, ABC News got caught lying about having a video allegedly showing Turkish troops slaughtering Kurdish civilians in northern Syria, when, in fact, it was video from a gun range in Kentucky. Seemingly thinking a pair of weak apologies on Twitter were enough, the liberal broadcast network refused to correct the record and inform viewers on their journalistic malpractice during that evening’s World News Tonight.
[…] Later that evening, despite anchor David Muir dedicating five minutes and 28 seconds to the fighting in Syria, the network refused to acknowledge their misleading story and correct the record for their millions of viewers. And as the Examiner further reported:
[…] According to TVNewser, for the week of September 30, World News Tonight raked in 8.2 million viewers. For that same week, TVNewser found Good Morning America came in first with 3.7 million viewers. So, it’s likely that the show misled millions of people while a fraction of them saw the tweets. Let’s see if they’re saving the on-correction for Tuesday morning.
Nicholas Fondacaro noted Tuesday morning it has been over 24 hours without an on-air correction.
ABC News mislead millions with outright fake news and propaganda on two of their flagship programs but then “corrected” their propaganda with some tweets on the least popular of all the major social media sites.
If it wasn’t for Wojciech Pawelczyk catching this hoax and going viral, ABC News’ propaganda never would have been exposed and they’d probably still be airing the footage on all their other programs.
Incidentally, the Kurds we “abandoned” have since allied with Assad to fight against Turkey’s invasion.
Had they done this on day one rather than hold out for the US to reverse course to please neocons like Lindsey Graham they likely would not have suffered such massive losses from Turkey’s blitzkrieg.
A panel of CBS hosts and analysts agreed that Hunter Biden’s “Good Morning America” interview likely complicated his father’s presidential ambitions and handed President Trump ammunition against Joe Biden.
“Former Vice President Biden is still facing criticism from President Trump over his son Hunter’s ties in the Ukraine. Does he have to respond to that tonight?,” co-host Anthony Mason asked the “CBS This Morning” panel on the Democrat debate Tuesday.
Biden “has to take the fight to Donald Trump,” said former Marco Rubio campaign adviser Terry Sullivan. “This is actually a huge opportunity that they’ve missed. You can either catch spears in politics or you can toss spears. Catching isn’t much fun.”
A host of Trump supporters were violently assaulted by antifa mobs on Thursday night but Minnesota’s largest newspaper’s main concern is whether President Trump’s visit made Somali refugees feel “welcome.”
“Trump supporters are literally fleeing the event after it ended as protestors are waiting around attacking attendees as they leave the arena,” Blaze TV’s Elijah Schaffer commented after capturing one of the mob’s assaults on film. “It is not safe in Minneapolis any longer for Trump supporters.”
Trump supporters are literally fleeing the event after it ended as protestors are waiting around attacking attendees as they leave the arena
It is not safe in Minneapolis any longer for Trump supporters. Please stay away from the vicinity and do not come out with branded gear pic.twitter.com/BLsJbtct0k
Whether Trump supporters were made to feel “welcome” wasn’t a question the Star Tribune felt was worth asking, but whether Trump made Somali refugees feel “welcome” is a question they’ve asked twice now in three days.
Abubakar Abdi skipped his usual after-work stop to visit friends at the local Somali mall on Thursday, heading to his Minneapolis home instead to catch President Donald Trump’s speech.
As he watched, the 22-year-old IT specialist said he was taken aback by the loud boos at the packed campaign rally when Trump mentioned Somalis.
“As you know, for many years, leaders in Washington brought large numbers of refugees to your state from Somalia without considering the impact on schools and communities and taxpayers,” Trump said at the rally. “I promise you that as president, I would give local communities a greater say in refugee policy and put in place enhanced vetting and responsible immigration control, and I’ve done that since coming into office.”
Abdi, born and raised in Minnesota, said the president’s words and the crowd’s reaction left him wondering: “What if my former classmates were among the ones booing? What if it was my former teachers booing?”
“I didn’t know we were hated like that,” he said. “Donald Trump is one man, but what scares me is the amount of support he has.”
Minnesota is home to the nation’s largest Somali population, numbering 57,000 in the latest census, though the current number is believed to be higher. Trump’s remarks about refugee resettlement and about U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom he called “a disgrace to our country” during his speech, stung and angered many Somali-Minnesotans, with some using words such as “dangerous,” “disgusting,” and “racist.”
The negative portrayal of people of Somali descent is making it harder for some to go about their lives without fear […]
Try walking down the street in a Trump hat.
By Faiza Mahamud
[…] Trump’s visit also spurred anxiety and fear for many Somalis here.
The nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group and local Somali-elected leaders were sounding the alarm about the long-term implications of Trump’s visit, suggesting it could spark a fresh surge in hate crimes in Minnesota — home to the nation’s largest Somali community.
“We’re also definitely concerned about his anti-Muslim and anti-Somali language,” said Jaylani Hussein, who leads the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which had urged Muslim-Americans to join protests Thursday.
[…] State Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, said it’s one thing dealing with Trump’s anti-Somali slurs and his hateful posts on social media about immigrants and refugees. But his visit to Minneapolis struck fear close to home, Noor said.
[…] State Rep. Hodan Hassan, DFL-Minneapolis, said she opposed Trump’s visit, asserting that it could have negative blowback on the community.
Hassan and Noor, both Somalis, said they had been going around the community to ease people’s fears. The two now plan to hold community conversations.
“Trump, his hate and his bigotry is not welcome in Minnesota,” Hassan said. “The Somali community here is strong. We know who we are, we know we are a valuable community here and we just want to make sure everyone is safe and protected.”
To address the fear and anxiety in the community, Minnesota Somali leaders said they are working with the FBI, have hired armed security guards to patrol Somali-owned businesses and are urging people to stay vigilant, particularly Muslim women who wear a hijab.
You gotta love how they explicitly say Trump is not welcome.
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