Category: VOX

Federal Appeals Court Revives Emoluments Case Against Trump

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By Joshua Caplan

A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Friday that a lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause can move forward.

The lawsuit, filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was dismissed for lack of standing by a lower-level judge in December 2017. The plaintiffs, comprised of the president’s rivals in the hospitality industry, have alleged that the president’s profiting off his “foreign and domestic government clientele” have hurt their businesses.

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“The Plaintiff establishments cater to foreign and domestic government clientele, and allege that they are direct competitors of hospitality properties owned by the President in Washington D.C. and New York City. The complaint alleges that President Trump, operating through corporations, limited‐liability companies, limited partnerships, and other business structures, is effectively the sole owner of restaurants, hotels, and event spaces, which are patronized by foreign and domestic government clientele,” reads the appellate court’s explanation of the case.

“The President has announced that, since assuming office, he has turned over day‐to‐day management of his business empire to his children and established a trust to hold his business assets. However, he maintains sole ownership, receives business updates at least quarterly, and has the ability to obtain distributions from the trust at any time,” it added.

Noah Bookbinder, CREW’s executive director, lauded the development and called on the president to “end his violations” of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses.

“We thank and applaud the judges of the Second Circuit for their decision today. We never wanted to be in a position where it would be necessary to go to court to compel the President of the United States to follow the Constitution,” Bookbinder told Law&Crime. “However, President Trump left us no choice, and we will proudly fight as long as needed to ensure Americans are represented by an ethical government under the rule of law.”

“If President Trump would like to avoid the case going further and curtail the serious harms caused by his unconstitutional conduct, now would be a good time to divest from his businesses and end his violations of the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution,” he added.

 

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SICK: Never Trumper David French Calls Drag Queen Story Hour a ‘Blessing of Liberty’

By Shane Trejo

Long-time National Review columnist David French has been one of the most vicious and dishonest Never Trumpers for many years, but he has hit a new low with an endorsement of drag queen story hour.

In a profile published in the New Yorker about the future of conservatism, French gave a full-throated endorsement for the grooming operation that has given pedophiles and other cross-dressing perverts intimate access to young children across the country.

“There’s this idea that victory is the natural state of affairs and defeat is the intolerable intrusion,” French said, demonstrating the mindset that has caused mainstream conservatism to conserve nothing throughout the decades.

“What I’ve been trying to tell people is that none of this stuff is fixed. There is not necessarily an arc to history, and you don’t have to surrender first principles to fight over stuff that you care about. The day is not lost in any way, shape, or form. And, oh, by the way, you can’t define victory as the exclusion of your enemies from the public square,” French added.

This is when French went completely off the deep end, making statements that are an affront to every principle that the founding-era revolutionaries put their lives on the line to protect.

“There are going to be Drag Queen Story Hours. They’re going to happen. And, by the way, the fact that a person can get a room in a library and hold a Drag Queen Story Hour and get people to come? That’s one of the blessings of liberty,” French said.

French has gone on many Twitter tirades in favor of drag queen story hour in recent months, making justifications for the obscene practice at every turn.

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“Disney should rehire James Gunn. We’re rapidly reaching a point where we’re telling our most creative and interesting people that they can never, ever speak outside the lines,” he wrote after Gunn was fired. French eventually got his wish, and Gunn was re-hired to direct “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” despite his vile comments.

Making matters worse, French and his wife adopted a young foreign child from Ethiopia in 2010. The craven opportunist has frequently used his daughter to virtue signal and attack the President and his supporters. With his support of a glorified grooming operation for pedophiles and a man who make remarks in favor of pedophilia, one can only imagine the horrors this child is subjected to within this monster’s household.

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145 Corporate Oligarchs Call for Gun Control

By Jose Nino

The New York Times reports that a group of top business executives called on the U.S. Senate to pass gun control.

“Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety,” wrote the CEOs from 145 companies, which included Twitter, Uber and Bloomberg LP.

This letter was shared with the Times.

The corporate big wigs are now demanding that the Senate pass the political establishment’s favorite gun control schemes such as universal background checks and “red flag” laws.

“The Senate must follow the House’s lead by passing bipartisan legislation that would update the background checks law, helping to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, in an effort to save lives,” the CEOs wrote.

They added,”Background checks on all gun sales are a common-sense solution with overwhelming public support and are a critical step toward stemming the gun violence epidemic in this country.”

After three mass shootings in Austin, the pressure has been dialed up on Congress to pass gun control legislation. Corporate America has played a major role in these calls for gun control during the last few years.

This letter is one of the most notable developments in Corporate America’s campaign against guns. It’s also a sign of the increased politicization of all facets of society.

Some polls claims that gun control is no longer a divisive issue. A Washington Post–ABC News poll that was unveiled earlier this week found that 89 percent of respondents, which includes 83 percent of Republicans, support universal background checks.

However, poll numbers and even the questions that they deal with do not always accurately portray popular sentiment and also do not show how enthusiastic people are about a certain policy proposal. So, it’s not inevitable that gun control will pass.

Earlier this year, the House passed a universal background check bill but it is now stagnating in the Republican-controlled Senate.

In the wake of recent shootings, stores like Wal-Mart and Kroger have discontinued the sale of firearms and changed open carry policies at their stores.

Their letter can be read here

Dear Members of the Senate :
Our hearts are with the victims, their families and loved ones and all those affected by the tragic
shootings ElPaso and West Texas , and Dayton, Ohio . These families becamemembers of a
club that no onewants to join : the millions of Americans whose lives have been forever altered
by gun violence.
Every day , 100 Americans are shot and killed andhundredsmore are wounded . These are more
than mass shootings; in recentweeks, gun violence has devastated Chicago, Canoga Park,
NewportNews, Gilroy and Brooklyn, among others. This is a public health crisis that demands
urgent action
Asleaders of some of America smost respected companies and those with significant business
interests in theUnited States, weare writing to youbecause wehave a responsibility and
obligation to stand up for the safety ofour employees , customers and all Americans in the
communitiesweserve across the country . Doing nothing America ‘ s gun violence crisis is
simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety .
Gun violence in America is not inevitable ;it’s preventable . There are steps Congress can , and
must,take to prevent and reduce gun violence .Weneed our lawmakers to support common
sense gun laws that could prevent tragedies like these .
That s why we urge the Senate to stand with theAmerican public and take action on gun
safety by passing a bill to require background checks on all gun sales and a strong Red
Flag law thatwould allow courts to issue life-saving extremerisk protection orders.
Background checks and Extreme Risk laws(also referred to as “Red Flaglaws” ) are proven to
save lives. Since Congress established the background check system 25 years ago ,background
checkshave blocked more than 3. 5 million gun sales to prohibited purchasers, including to
convicted felons, domestic abusers, and people who have been involuntarily committed .
However, in the decades since, the law requiring background checks on gun sales has notbeen
updated to reflecthow people buy guns today. The Senate must follow the House s lead by
passingbipartisan legislation that would update the background checks law , helping to keep guns
outofthe hands of people who shouldn ‘ t have them , in an effort to save lives. Background
checks on all gun sales are a common -sense solution with overwhelming public support and are a
critical step toward stemming the gun violence epidemic in this country .
Perpetrators ofmass shootings , school shootings, and hate crimes often display warning signs
before committing violent acts. Additionally, peoplewho end their lifewith a gun also often
show signs that they are in crisis before they act Interventionsin states with ExtremeRisk laws
have already prevented potential tragedies . Expanding Extreme Risk laws to enable families and
law enforcement nationwide to intervene when someone is at serious risk of hurting themselves
or others is critical to preventing future tragedies.
These proposals are common-sense , bipartisan and widely supported by the American public . It
is time for the Senate to takeaction.
Sincerely
Organizations with morethan 500 employees :
Brian Chesky, Co-Founder, Head of Community and CEO , Airbnb
KeithMestrich, Presidentand CEO , Amalgamated Bank
John Connaughton and Jonathan Lavine, Co-Managing Partners, and Josh Bekenstein and
Steve Pagliuca, Co -Chairmen, Bain Capital
Ethan Brown, Co-Founder and CEO , Beyond Meat
Peter T. Grauer, Chairman , Bloomberg LP
Ric Clark , Chairman, Brookfield Property Group
Fritz Lanman, CEO , ClassPass
Roger Lynch, CEO , CondéNast
Ken Lin, Founder and CEO , Credit Karma
Edward Stack , CEO, DICK ‘S SportingGoods
Tony Xu, Co -Founder and CEO , DoorDash
Doug Baker, Chairman and CEO , Ecolab
Richard Edelman, President and CEO, Edelman
Julia Hartz, Co-Founder and CEO , Eventbrite
Art Peck, CEO ,Gap Inc.
Eddy Lu, CEO GoatGroup
Ben Lerer, Co -Founder and CEO, Group NineMedia
Yannick Bolloré, CEO, Havas Group
BillKoenigsberg, President, CEO and Founder, HorizonMedia
Patrick O . Brown,MD, PhD, Founder and CEO , Impossible Foods
MichaelRoth, Chairman and CEO , Interpublic
Rob Frohwein, Co-Founder and CEO , and Kathryn Petralia, Co-Founder and President,
Kabbage Inc. and Drum Technologies
Chip Bergh, President and CEO , LeviStrauss & Co.
Logan Green, Co-Founder and CEO, and John Zimmer, Co -Founder and President, Lyft
Dev Ittycheria, Presidentand CEO , MongoDB, Inc.
HowardMarks, Co-Chairman, Oaktree CapitalManagement
Todd McKinnon, Co -Founder and CEO, Okta
John Wren , Chairman and CEO , Omnicom Group
Ben Silbermann, Co- Founder and CEO, Pinterest
Bastian Lehmann, Co-Founder & CEO , Postmates
Hamid R . Moghadam , Chairman and CEO , Prologis
Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO , Publicis Groupe
Steve Huffman, CEO, Reddit
Richard Fain , CEO , RoyalCaribbean Cruises Ltd.
ScottRechler, Chairman and CEO , RXR Realty
Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO , Shutterstock , .
Jack Dorsey, CEO, Square and Twitter
Anthony Casalena, Founder and CEO, Squarespace
Zander Lurie, CEO, SurveyMonkey
AriannaHuffington, Founder and CEO , Thrive Global
Blake Mycoskie, Founder and Chief Shoe Giver, and Jim Alling, CEO , TOMS
Jeff Lawson, Co-Founderand CEO Twilio
DaraKhosrowshahi, CEO , Uber
Mark Read CEO, WPP
JeremyStoppelman, Co-Founder and CEO, Yelp
Organizations with fewer than 500 employees:
Kevin P . Ryan , Founder and CEO , AlleyCorp
Travis Truett, Co-Founder and CEO , Ambition
John W . Rogers, Jr., Founder , Chairman and Co -CEO , and Mellody Hobson, Co-CEO &
President, Ariel Investments , LLC
Mike Steib , CEO , Artsy
Sean Knapp, Co-Founder and CEO , Ascend
Andrei Cherny , Co -Founder and CEO , Aspiration
Abdur Chowdhury , CEO , Aura
Fahim M . Aziz , Founder and CEO , Backpack
Abrams, Chairman and Co-CEO, and Katie McGrath , Co-CEO Bad Robot
Ari Paparo , CEO , BeeswaxIO Corporation
Ryan Block , Co -Founder, Begin
John Borthwick , Founder and CEO , Betaworks
Raphael Crawford -Marks, Co -Founder and CEO , Bonusly
Darren Lachtman , Co-Founder , Brat
Trevor McFedries , CEO , Brud
Sameer Shariff, Co -Founder , Cambly
Analisa Goodin , Founder and CEO, Catch & Release , Inc.
Andrew Feldman , Founder and CEO , Cerebras Systems
George Favvas, CEO , Circle Medical
Alex MacCaw , CEO , Clearbit
Tyler Bosmeny , CEO , Clever
MattMartin , Co-Founder and CEO , Clockwise
Othman Laraki, Co -Founder and CEO Color Genomics
Jager McConnell, CEO , Crunchbase , Inc.
Apu Gupta , Co-Founder and CEO , Curalate , Inc .
David Oates , Co-Founder and CEO, Curtsy
Brian Ree , Founder and CEO , DAILYLOOK
Saurabh Ladha, CEO , Doxel, Inc.
Andy Coravos , Co -Founder and CEO , Elektra Labs
Laurene Powell Jobs, President, Emerson Collective
Pradeep Elankumaran , Co-Founder & CEO Farmstead
Desiree Gruber , CEO , Full Picture
Jared Hecht, Founder and CEO , Fundera
JudeGomila , Founder and CEO , Golden
Rick Nucci, Co-Founder and CEO , Guru
Kara Goldin , Founder and CEO , Hint, Inc.
Jeff Sellinger, Co -Founder and CEO , HipDot
Prerna Gupta , CEO , Hooked
Cyrus Massoumi,Managing Partner, humbition
Kristin Savilia , CEO , JOOR
Pierre Valade , CEO , Jumbo Privacy
William Martino, Founder and CEO , Kadena
Jake Perlman -Garr, CEO , Kanga
Warren Shaeffer, Co-Founder and CEO , Knowable
Jack Altman , CEO Lattice
Aaron N . Block , Co-Founder and Managing Director,MetaProp .
Afton Vechery , Co-Founder and CEO ,Modern Fertility
Dan Parham , Founder and CEO , and Tee Parham , Founder and CTO Neighborland
Shafqat Islam , CEO , NewsCred
Sarah Friar, CEO , Nextdoor
Athan Stephanopoulos , President, NowThis
Varsha Rao, CEO , Nurx
William E . Oberndorf, Chairman , Oberndorf Enterprises
Steven Rosenblatt , Co-Founder andGeneral Partner, Oceans
Nick Huzar, Co-Founder and CEO , OfferUp
James Segil , Co -Founder and President, Openpath
Jordan Husney , CEO , Parabol
Doug Aley, CEO , Paravision
John Milinovich , CEO , Plato Design
Rajat Suri, CEO , Presto
Christopher Gavigan , Founder and CEO , Prima
Adam Regelmann , Founder and COO , Quartzy
Nate Maslak , Co-Founder and CEO , andNate Fox, Co-Founder and CTO , Ribbon Health
Zachariah Reitano, Co-Founder and CEO , Ro
Gary Beasley , Co-Founder and CEO , Roofstock
Stephen Ehikian , Co -Founder and CEO , Ruist
Brian Schechter, CEO , SelfMade
Olga Vidisheva , Founder and CEO , Shoptiques Inc.
Dan Doctoroff , CEO , Sidewalk Labs
Jason Tan, CEO , Sift
Matt Cooper , CEO , Skillshare
Grant Jordan , CEO , SkySafe
Josh Guttman , Co- Founder and CEO and Florent Peyre, Co-Founder and President , Small Door
Michael Carvin , Co Founder and CEO SmartAsset
Aaron King, Founder and CEO , Snapdocs , Inc.
Neil Capel, CEO , Solve. io
Ben Hindman , Co-Founder and CEO , Splash
Evan Beard , Founder and CEO Standard Bots
Stanlee R . Gatti, Founder, Stanlee R . Gatti Designs
Bradford Oberwager, CEO , Sundia Corporation
Ross Feinstein , CEO , Sunlight Health
Paul Budnitz , CEO , Superplastic
Ron Conway , Founder , SV Angel
HeidiZak, Co-Founder and Co-CEO , and David Spector, Co-Founder and Co- CEO ThirdLove
Yashar Nejati, CEO , thisopenspace inc .
Joshua Kushner , Founder and Managing Partner, Thrive Capital
Chris Wang, CEO , ThunderCore Inc.
Corbett Kull, CEO , Tillable
Meghan Jewitt, CEO , Uniform Teeth
Nicholas Goldner , Co- Founder and CEO , and Christopher Bulow , Co-Founder and COO
Viosera Therapeutics
Ken Chong, CEO Virtual Kitchen Co
Irv Remedios, CEO , Voxer
Oliver Cameron , Co-Founder and CEO Voyage
Chase Adam , Co-Founder and CEO , and Grace Garey , Co-Founder and COO , Watsi
Liz Wessel , Co-Founder and CEO , WayUp
NeilWaller, CEO , Whalar
Bismarck Lepe, CEO , Wizeline
Dennis R . Mortensen , Founder and CEO , x .ai, inc.
Geoff Ralston, President, Y Combinator
Shan -Lyn Ma, Co -Founder and CEO Zola

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Australian Couple Travels Through Asia To ‘Break Stigma’ Of Countries Getting A ‘Bad Rap.’ They’re Reportedly In Jail In Iran.

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By Hank Berrien

An Australian couple traveling through Asia who wanted to “break the stigma around travelling to countries which get a bad wrap [sic] in the media,” reportedly found out the hard way that some countries may well deserve the reputation they have: the couple was reportedly arrested 10 weeks ago in Iran.

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Jolie King, who has dual U.K. and Australian nationality, and Mark Firkin, have over 20,000 followers on Instagram and YouTube, where they document their travels. According to the BBC, the couple was traveling through Asia to Great Britain, starting in 2017. The pair had a drone they used to take footage of the dozen countries through which they were passing.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, that drone landed them behind bars in Iran 10 weeks ago. “The pair has been held as prisoners for about 10 weeks after being arrested for reportedly flying a drone without a permit,” ABC reports.

The BBC reports that the couple is “believed to be being held in Tehran’s Evin prison.”

Another British-Australian woman, reportedly a University of Cambridge-educated scholar, has been jailed for 10 years in Iran, according to the BBC.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she spoke to the Iranian government about all three people last week. “Since they were detained, the Australian Government has been pressing the Iranian Government for their release,” said Payne. “I have communicated with my Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Zarif, many times about these cases, including through face-to-face face meetings. We met as recently as last week.”

“Our biggest motivation … is to hopefully inspire anyone wanting to travel, and also try to break the stigma around travelling to countries which get a bad wrap [sic] in the media,” King and Firkin had written about their travels.

In July, Australia announced that it would join the U.S. and the U.K. as they monitored the Strait of Hormuz. Reported Iranian provocations involving other nations’ ships have been rampant near the Strait in recent months.

The BBC reported that U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab met the Iranian ambassador and “raised serious concerns about the number of dual national citizens detained by Iran and their conditions of detention,” according to the Foreign Office.

The story of King and Firkin bears similarities to another story reported by The Daily Wire in August 2018 in which a “young American couple who took a year-long bike trip around the world, believing that evil was a make-believe concept, took a fatal route in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, where alleged ISIS terrorists stabbed them to death. Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, 29, quit their jobs last year in order to make their trip.”

Austin had written:

You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe murderers and monsters and worse.

I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own—it’s easier to dismiss an opinion as abhorrent than strive to understand it. Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this.

In June 2019, the man who was the alleged ringleader in the attack on Austin and Geohegan was asked if he interacted with the tourists at the gas station they stopped at just prior to the attack, Hussein Abdusamadov replied,“Yes. I talked to them. I asked them where they were from. I asked them what nationalities they were and they told me they were Americans … They said they were Americans and laughed.” He concluded, “Americans had to be killed.” 

 

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US Attorney Recommends CRIMINAL CHARGES Against Andrew McCabe – DOJ Rejects His Last Minute Appeal

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by Cristina Laila September 12, 2019

US Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended charging former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

The potential charges against McCabe are related to his false statements to feds in the FBI’s investigation into Hilary Clinton.

Via Mark Meadows–

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Fox News reported:

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe — the former deputy and acting director of the FBI — appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general, but he rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, “The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office.”

Comey confidant Benjamin Wittes said in a Lawfare blog post a couple weeks ago that he expected former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to be indicted any day now.

Wittes wrote in a blog post that he was “shocked” to find out federal prosecutors were in the final stages of deciding whether to indict McCabe on charges he lied to federal investigators, referring to the New York Times bombshell released a couple weeks ago.

The potential indictment of McCabe stems from the Inspector General’s findings that the FBI official lied to federal investigators.

McCabe was criminally referred to the US Attorneys office for prosecution in the Spring of 2018 and they are finally getting around to (maybe) indicting him.

The process has been dragged out because of internal deliberations and the case is taking so long that the term expired for the grand jury evidence. One of the lead prosecutors on the case has since left the DOJ out of frustration, according to the NYT.

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Some airplanes did something?! New York Times article ‘de-terrorizes’ 9/11 attacks

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On the anniversary of the most devastating terrorist attack on US soil, a story by the New York Times suggested that “airplanes” brought down the twin towers. The seeming shift of responsibility did not sit well with readers.

“18 years have passed since airplanes took aim and brought down the World Trade Center,” read a tweet from the New York Times on Wednesday. “Today families will once again gather and grieve at the site where more than 2000 people died.” Inside an accompanying article, the same bizarre sentence was repeated.

Though technological dystopia was all the rage in 2001, what with the success of ‘The Matrix’ two years earlier and the passing of Y2K after that, the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by sentient airplanes, but by terrorist hijackers. Enraged readers made sure the NYT knew that, slating the newspaper for omitting the terms ‘Islamic terrorists’ or even the less-loaded ‘Al Qaeda’ from its story.

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The Times later deleted the tweet and amended its story, which, this time around, read: “Eighteen years have passed since terrorists commandeered airplanes to take aim at the World Trade Center and bring them down.” Responsibility was placed squarely with Al Qaeda in the updated article.

But why the strange phrasing in the first place? The Times did not report the recent mass shootings in Texas as the work of a disembodied AR-15. Nor does the paper attribute President Donald Trump’s executive orders to levitating pens, or climate change to fossil fuels deciding to burn themselves.

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To some observers, the watered-down description of the attacks was an effort to… not offend anybody, including ordinary Muslims who risk guilt-by-association for sharing their religious beliefs with the perpetrators. “Some airplanes did something,” jibed one commenter, comparing the Times’ coverage to a much-maligned soundbite from Democratic Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar earlier this year, in which Omar summarized the attacks as “some people did something.”

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To be fair, radical Islamic terrorists aren’t alone in having their deeds sanitized by the New York Times in recent days. The paper marked the 43rd anniversary of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong’s passing on Monday with a tweet describing how Chairman Mao “began as an obscure peasant” and “died one of history’s great revolutionary figures.”

After a similar backlash, the tweet was deleted, with the paper apologizing for not providing “critical historical context;” namely the famines that occurred on Mao’s watch and his role in the 1966-1976 ‘Cultural Revolution,’ events that left tens of millions of Chinese citizens dead.

 

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‘SAVE THE TREES, KILL THE CHILDREN’: AUSTIN, TEXAS CITY COUNCIL GIVES $150,000 TO FUND ABORTIONS

‘Save the Trees, Kill the Children’: Austin, Texas City Council Gives $150,000 to Fund Abortions

Measure will invariably lead to deaths of more unborn babies

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

The Austin, Texas, city council this week passed a measure giving $150,000 of taxpayer money to fund abortions.

On Tuesday, the council announced a budget package allocating the cash to the city’s Public Health Department, which in turn will distribute the money to groups helping poor women secure abortions.

“Pro-choice” Austin City Councilman Greg Casar praised the bill for increasing “access to abortion,” a move that will invariably lead to the death of unborn babies.

“Every day the anti-abortion elements in Texas, in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, wake up and think, ‘How can we restrict access to abortion today,’” Casar told NBC. “That makes it our job, every day, to work to expand access to abortion and health care and other basic services related to abortion.”

Texas pro-life groups, however, lamented the fact the city passes resolutions to protect the environment and not the unborn.

“It is appalling the city of Austin doubled-down on its policies to ‘save the trees, kill the children,’” said Nicole Hudgins with the pro-life group Texas Values. “This budget amendment is a political stunt attempting to circumvent the law. If the city really wants to help women, they should lower their taxes and stop killing innocent children.”

LifeNews.com’s Micaiah Bilger notes Texas Gov. Greg Abbott passed a resolution this year preventing local governments from funding organizations which perform abortions, however, the city’s new measure appears to be an attempt to skirt that law by instead giving the money to groups that assist women in obtaining abortions.

Bilger writes the money could in effect fund late-term abortions by paying for women to travel to states where the practice is legal.

Pro-life group Texas Right to Life labeled the council’s measure “grotesque news.”

“This grotesque news is another example of the abortion industry exploiting taxpayers to profit off vulnerable women and kill preborn children,” they wrote.

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OCASIO-CORTEZ: REPUBLICAN PARTY IS ‘SCARED’ OF US ‘BECAUSE THEY KNOW HOW POWERFUL’ WE ARE

Ocasio-Cortez: Republican Party Is ‘Scared’ of Us ‘Because They Know How Powerful’ We Are

“They know how powerful we are more than sometimes our own – frankly I think – our own party does.”

Breitbart – SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

The far-left members of the “Squad” – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) – participated in an NAACP forum Wednesday evening and declared that members of the Republican Party are “scared” of them “because they know how powerful” they are.

Ocasio-Cortez talked about her background as a waitress and told the moderator, Angela Rye, that she does not “shy away” from her background of working in restaurants because it prepared her for her current job as a congresswoman.

“Nothing will give you the ferocity of advocacy like having that kind of experience,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“No one can tell me about things like sexual harassment. No one can tell me things like working for tips on a wage that is less than the minimum wage. No one can tell me about taking the subway at 3 o’clock in the morning home from a night shift,” she said, claiming that “no one else has those experiences on the other side of the aisle.”

“Very few people have those experiences, and by the way, when they do, like John Boehner, they’re lauded for it. They’re like, ‘That’s a guy I could have a beer with,’ but with me, it’s like, so–” she continued with a gesture.

The freshman lawmaker added that the Republican Party is “scared” of the “Squad.”

“It’s because they’re scared because sometimes I think that the Republican Party recognizes our power more than we do sometimes,” she said.

Read more

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House Judiciary Committee Passes Resolution on Impeachment Inquiry Rules

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 27: House Judiciary Ranking Member Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) is pictured on Capitol Hill June 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

By Joshua Caplan

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a resolution which defines the scope of a potential impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

The party-line 24-17 vote occurred after two hours of debate between Democrats and Republicans about the so-called inquiry’s parameters.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) tried to clear up any misconceptions as the committee approved guidelines for impeachment hearings on President Trump. Some of Nadler’s fellow Democrats — including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) — have stumbled over how to explain what they’re doing.

“Some call this process an impeachment inquiry. Some call it an impeachment investigation. There is no legal difference between these terms, and I no longer care to argue about the nomenclature,” Nadler said as he opened the meeting. “But let me clear up any remaining doubt: The conduct under investigation poses a threat to our democracy. We have an obligation to respond to this threat. And we are doing so.”

Republicans disagree with Nadler and they argue that the House has never voted to open an official inquiry. Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), the top Republican on the committee, said the committee “has become a giant Instagram filter … it’s put in there to look like something, but it’s really not.”

Collins said Democrats are trying to have it both ways.

“My colleagues know very well they don’t have the votes to authorize impeachment proceedings on the House floor, but they want to impeach the president anyway,” Collins said. “So, they are pretending to initiate impeachment.”

Impeachment has divided Democrats who control the House. Democrats on Nadler’s committee, including some of the most liberal members of the House, have been eager to move forward with the process. But moderates, mostly first-term lawmakers who handed their party the majority in the 2018 election, are concerned about the committee’s drumbeat on impeachment and the attention that comes with that continued action.

With regard to impeachment, the biggest elephant in the room is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has long opposed Congress taking the lead on ousting the president. Instead, Pelosi has insisted that committees continue their investigations into President Trump and his associates in search of possible wrongdoings. Earlier this week, the speaker dismissed concerns that Nadler’s recent maneuvers exhibit how she’s losing control over her caucus. “I think you should characterize it [the resolution] for what it is,” Pelosi told Fox News. “It’s a continuation of what we have been doing. You know, we all work together on these things”

Not only is Pelosi unwilling to move the ball forward on impeachment, but the speaker also believes the American people do not want to see lawmakers take up the matter at this time.

“The public isn’t there on impeachment. It’s your voice and constituency, but give me the leverage I need to make sure that we’re ready and it is as strong as it can be,” Pelosi said during a caucus-wide conference call last month.

“The equities we have to weigh are our responsibility to protect and defend the Constitution and to be unifying and not dividing. But if and when we act, people will know he gave us no choice,” she added.

Meanwhile, President Trump took to Twitter following the vote to seemingly underline the political motivations behind an impeachment inquiry and quoted Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who introduced articles of impeachment in June.

““We can’t beat him, so lets impeach him!” Democrat Rep. Al Green,” the president recounted the lawmaker proposing earlier this year.

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