[McClatchyDC] Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., has introduced formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, accusing him of obstruction of justice.
Sherman, who first drafted the articles in June, formally introduced H.R. 438 on the House floor on Wednesday.
Other Democrats have expressed concern about Sherman’s effort to impeach Trump over possible ties to Russia, and the resolution had only one cosponsor, Rep. Al Green, D-Tex. A successful vote for impeachment would require a majority in the House, where Republicans have 46 more seats than Democrats.
The articles accuse Trump of violating "his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of president of the United States." Trump "has prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice during a federal investigation," Sherman’s resolution says.
Both chambers of Congress as well as a special prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice are investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
The president has denied any known efforts on behalf of his campaign to work with Russia to defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in last November's election. But the investigations and accusations of wrongdoing have dogged his six-month-old administration, with recent revelations about a meeting taken by his eldest son last June further preventing the White House from successfully putting the story to rest.
Donald Trump Jr. met last year with a Russian lawyer, an encounter set up by an acquaintance who claimed Natalia Veselnitskaya could provide the Trump campaign with damaging information about Clinton. After The New York Times over the weekend reported the meeting, Trump Jr. on Tuesday released a copy of his email exchange with the acquaintance, Rob Goldstone, a music promoter.
In the emails, Goldstone tells Trump Jr. the information is "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. responded, "If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer."
Trump has defended his son as "a quality person" and Trump Jr. said he did nothing wrong in taking the meeting, which he said ultimately yielded no useful information.
The articles of impeachment introduced Wednesday accuse Trump of knowingly trying to shut down the FBI investigation of his campaign activities and firing former director James Comey as part of that effort.
"In all of this, Donald John Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States," the articles read. "Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office." Keep digging your graves guys.
[Free Beacon] The chairman of the House National Security Subcommittee is calling on the Department of Justice to launch a formal investigation into former FBI Director James Comey's alleged leak of classified information, according to an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon in which the lawmaker also called on the Trump administration to purge all former Obama administration holdovers from government.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and chair of its National Security subcommittee, is urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch a full scale investigation into Comey's handling of a series of potentially classified memos that were leaked to the press earlier this year.
Comey admitted in testimony before Congress that he leaked these memos in order to spur an investigation into the Trump administration's alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Reports alleging these memos contained classified information has riled congressional Republicans and spurred new calls for an investigation into Comey.
DeSantis also called on the Trump administration to purge all former Obama administration officials still working in the government, claiming that the holdovers and their allies outside the White House are responsible for an unprecedented series of national security leaks aimed at damaging the Trump administration's national security apparatus.
#1
Ben Rhodes—the former National Security Council official responsible for creating an in-house "echo chamber" meant to mislead reporters and the public about the landmark nuclear deal with Iran—as a primary source of these leaks
They're talking about leaks? It seems like the bigger issue is the Iran deal--selling out our country in a treasonous deal.
[NYPOST] Hundreds of cops once again turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio at a police funeral.
Scores of officers who assembled outside the World Changers Church in The Bronx for assassinated police officer Miosotis Familia on Tuesday protested the mayor by showing the building their backs as speakers broadcast Hizzoner’s eulogy from inside. The move was reminiscent of the funeral for slain officer Wenjian Liu in 2015, who was also executed by a cop-hating madman.
The officers chatted with one another or swiped through their phones during the mayoral snub.
The protest comes after de Blasio skipped town to participate in G-20 Summut protests in Germany on Thursday -- the day after Familia, a 12-year department veteran and mother of three, was killed by maniac gunman Alexander Bonds.
"Mr. Mayor, you didn’t have to travel to Germany for a protest -- all you had to do is speak in front of the men and women of the NYPD," Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins said.
Police promptly turned around when it was announced the police commissioner was next to speak -- but not all resumed paying attention.
A de Blasio front man downplayed the police snub at his boss.
"A couple dozen people showed up to partake in a bogus controversy ginned up by the media and those looking to politicize Detective Familia’s death. That’s unfortunate," rep Austin Finan wrote in an email to The Post.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2017 00:00 ||
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The protest comes after de Blasio skipped town to participate in G-20 Summut protests in Germany
"over 160 police were injured in clashes with protestors" in Hamburg, Germany
[PJ] WASHINGTON ‐ Gen. James L. Jones, Jr., national security advisor to President Obama, said he was "very proud" when President Clinton balanced the federal budget by cutting defense spending and warned about the U.S. debt-to-wealth ratio.
"I was a fairly senior military officer, and a large part of that budget-balancing act came at the expense of the Defense Department ‐ but as an American, I was very proud of that," Jones said at the Global Forum 2017 in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday. "I was very proud of the fact that we had a government that balanced the budget, but it hasn’t happened since then."
Jones said one of the "real threats" to the U.S. economy is the "debt-to-wealth ratio" that "nobody" seems to be discussing publicly.
"That worries me a great deal because I think it affects everything we do," said Jones. "I think trade and business is absolutely essential to our security, but if you don’t come to the party with your house in order you can’t achieve these lofty aspirations no matter who are you. And on that score, I think the United States still has a big problem."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday he wanted to be shown at least one fact proving Moscow's meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
"I don't know anything about this fact. It's amazing that serious people are making a mountain out of a molehill," Lavrov told a news conference during a visit to Belgium. His comments were broadcast live by Russian state Rossiya 24 TV channel.
Lavrov was reacting to reports that US President Donald Trump's eldest son was blamed for meeting a Russian lawyer that emails show might have had damaging information about Hillary Clinton last year.
#1
I watched the Senate confirmation hearings for Christopher Wray today. A Democrat Senator (it was either Chris Coons or Al Franken) was asking Wray about the Russian scandal. He stuttered and stammered around and couldn't really say what the scandal was but he seemed certain there was one.
#2
He [Coons or Franken] stuttered and stammered around and couldn't really say what the scandal was but he seemed certain there was one. Christopher Wray did a good job.
The Dems can't point to any wrongdoing; there are just innuendos, slurs, and ill-defined accusations of impropriety--when asked what Trump or his team did, they can't come up with anything.
The Beltway Party and the elites chose the candidate and it was Hillary. Trump comes along, runs and wins and the left all go bonkers and are still going bonkers six months later. Trump was the one the Dems wanted most to run against because they figured he was the most beatable as an outsider. The fix was in and it didn't work out. The spoiled babies didn't get their trophy for just showing up.
[Al Jazeera] A free-speech group on Tuesday sued US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... for blocking Twitter users from his @realDonaldTrump account, arguing the practice violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The lawsuit, brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York and joined by seven individual Twitter users, claims Trump blocked a number of accounts whose owners replied to his tweets with comments that criticised, mocked or disagreed with the president.
Trump's blocking of the accounts amounted to an unconstitutional effort to suppress dissent, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York.
Because Trump frequently turns to Twitter to make policy statements, his account qualifies as a public forum from which the government cannot exclude people on the basis of their views, according to the lawsuit.
Twitter users are unable to see or respond to tweets from accounts that block them.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month White House front man Sean Spicer said Trump's tweets were considered "official statements by the president of the United States".
The suit names Spicer and Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, as defendants in addition to Trump. It asks for the blocking to be deemed unconstitutional and seeks an injunction to require the president to unblock users.
Federal agencies and courts treat Trump's tweets as official statements, and The National Archives and Records Administration has advised the White House that the tweets must be preserved under the Presidential Records Act, the lawsuit said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2017 00:00 ||
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I hope these losers have to pay solid four figure sums for court costs on a clearly frivolous suit.
#2
Twitter is the organization who set up the rules for blocking Twitter users. Trump just used the system. If I defriended or blocked someone on Facebook, would I get sued for doing so? Another frivolous lawsuit junking up the courts.
#6
Because some liberals realize Trump has been making the rest of the liberals look like clowns using Twitter so they are hoping to take away his weapon.
[NYPOST] The Republican leader says the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of the month.
In a statement Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the delay is necessary to complete work on legislation and deal with Trump administration nominees. McConnell complained about the lack of cooperation from Democrats on the nominations.
The Senate had been scheduled to begin its five-week recess on July 31. The delay would push it to the week of Aug. 14.
McConnell said that once the Senate "completes its work on health care reform," it would deal with the defense policy bill and nominations.
It’s possible the Senate could recess earlier.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2017 00:00 ||
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When you do not do your job nobody in congress should get paid, including staffers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/12/2017 9:27 Comments ||
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[Hot Air] The Post Office lost $5.6B dollars in fiscal year 2016. (To be fair, they actually showed a small profit, but the federal government forced them to pony up $5.8B to fund future retiree pension costs. That’s a story for another day, however.) But they might have made up a bit of that cash if they weren’t paying overtime costs to cover workers in battleground states who took unpaid leave to go campaign for Hillary Clinton. If that sounds like the sort of thing which would never happen where you work, well... you’re probably right. But once again we need to look no further than the involvement of the union which represents your letter carriers. (Government Executive) Supervisors must approve gov't overtime. Should be pretty easy to find the responsible party(s).
#1
I thought the USPS moved towards privatization under George H.W. Bush and was operated like a private business. Are the taxpayers on the hook for these OT costs or not? If the PO operated at a loss because of bad policies and management, the OT costs would have to be made up somehow (probably by the taxpayers). If operating costs increased, eventually, these costs would have to be passed on to users via higher costs for mail services and postage--thus the taxpayers would foot the bill.
#2
Semi-private. Whether you like it or not, the Constitution calls for the operation of the post office by Congress.
Section 8 - The Text
The Congress shall have Power...
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Just another reason to abolish Civil Service and go back to patronage. One, its there already in practice. Two, then you can hold your Congresscritters directly responsible for stuff like this.
#3
Rather than abolish Civil Service, abolish government employee unions.
Yes I realize they there isn't a snowball's chance in he'll of that ever happening. The unions RUN the government. They would shut it down at the first sign of any threat to their power.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/12/2017 8:59 Comments ||
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The day of the First Class letter is dead and gone. The USPS exists today to deliver junk mail. A sideline is packages.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
07/12/2017 9:36 Comments ||
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Oh, I'm sure the various tax collection and complicity bodies have a different view.
[NYPOST] Sarah Mama Grizzly Palin ... the babe libs love to hate ... 's defamation lawsuit against The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... should be tossed because the paper made 'an honest mistake' when it said she incited a 2011 shooting that severely maimed Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six people, a lawyer for the Gray Lady said on Friday.
'There was an honest mistake in posting the editorial,' lawyer David Schultz told Manhattan federal Judge Jed Rakoff.
Last week, Palin sued the Times over a June 14th editorial that stated there was a 'direct' link between one of Palin's PAC ads and the shooting by Jared Lee Loughner. But there's no evidence he ever saw the ad, which placed Gifford's district in stylized crosshairs. The Times issued a correction.
On Friday, Palin's lawyers argued that the Times knew the story was false. 'It was literally acknowledged the same day in another story in their paper,' said Kenneth Turkel.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2017 00:00 ||
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"we're not crooked, we're stupid" That's an excuse which works once, tops. But to keep telling us they're stupid risks us believing them.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
07/12/2017 0:06 Comments ||
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Oh, they knew full well it was fake news. It just made them feel good to spew hate like this. Who cares if it's fake? It satisfied the writer's emotional needs.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
07/12/2017 0:44 Comments ||
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Programs! Gitcher programs. Can't tell the lying assholes without a program.
Personally, they're a bag of cats to me since they are all running the same playbook. Notice next time when some meme pops up - "Trump is dark", for example. Suddenly it's everywhere. Not just the story but the exact same phrase. Anyone remember JournoList? A pox on all their houses.
#18
Speaking of fake news, it is reported that at AF, the water distillation equipment has broken down, and that there is a severe shortage of drinking water---pass it on.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/12/2017 14:47 Comments ||
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I see what you did there, Paul.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/12/2017 15:32 Comments ||
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Using "NY Slimes" and "honest" in the same sentence?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Riiight.
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/12/2017 15:45 Comments ||
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Good one, AP!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
07/12/2017 15:50 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[McClatchyDC] Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., has introduced formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, accusing him of obstruction of justice.
[Free Beacon] The chairman of the House National Security Subcommittee is calling on the Department of Justice to launch a formal investigation into former FBI Director James Comey's alleged leak of classified information, according to an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon in which the lawmaker also called on the Trump administration to purge all former Obama administration holdovers from government.
[Al Jazeera] A free-speech group on Tuesday sued US President 
[Hot Air] The Post Office lost $5.6B dollars in fiscal year 2016. (To be fair, they actually showed a small profit, but the federal government forced them to pony up $5.8B to fund future retiree pension costs. That’s a story for another day, however.) But they might have made up a bit of that cash if they weren’t paying overtime costs to cover workers in battleground states who took unpaid leave to go campaign for Hillary Clinton. If that sounds like the sort of thing which would never happen where you work, well... you’re probably right. But once again we need to look no further than the involvement of the union which represents your letter carriers. (Government Executive)
Sarah 
