Earlier today the House passed a defense themed spending bill which includes $1.6 billion to fund building a wall on the Mexican border. Here is more:
The House approved a national security-themed spending package on Thursday that includes $1.6 billion to start building President Trump’s proposed border wall.
The $827 billion package passed largely along party lines, with a vote of 235-192. Five Republicans voted no, while five Democrats voted yes.
The five Republicans to vote against the package were Reps. Justin Amash(Mich.), John Duncan Jr. (Tenn.), Walter Jones (N.C.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Mark Sanford (S.C.).
Five centrist Democrats voted in favor: Reps. Sanford Bishop (Ga.), Charlie Crist (Fla.), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Tom O’Halleran (Ariz.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).
The bill includes spending bills for defense and veterans programs, legislative branch operations and the Department of Energy.
$1.6 billion seems excessive to me but then again I think almost everything the government does is excessive. (And of course these means that Mexico is not paying for the wall.) But this is a step in the right direction.
I do not see the Senate passing this spending bill, there are too many pro-illegal immigration Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats will be united against it.
Here is what else is included in the bill:
the bill includes a $68 billion increase for the Defense Department, a $3.9 billion top-up for the Department Veterans Affairs and new funds for members of Congress to increase their personal security.
It also includes a $29 million funding increase for the Capitol Police, prompted in the wake of last month’s shooting at the GOP baseball practice that injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and four others.
As the article linked to above states, there is a looming government shutdown on October 1st without a spending agreement so it is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. If the bill fails Republicans will claim the Democrats voted against the veterans while Democrats will claim the Republicans are racists for wanting to control immigration. And of course the Democrats will have the mainstream media on their side so messaging will be a problem as usual.
Stay tuned…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Anthony Scaramucci goes on obscenity laced tirade against Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus
Donald Trump wanted a fighter and he certainly got one when he named Anthony Scaramucci as his new communications director and it did not take us long to find out. He has been on the attack against Reince Priebus but in an interview with the New Yorker he took it to a whole new level, attacking both Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon in an obscenity laced tirade.
I am not going to quote what he said but if you have not heard it you can read more here and here. I appreciate the fact that somebody is finally getting serious about going after the leakers, and if Reince Priebus is one of them he must go immediately, and I like the fact that somebody is finally defending the President, however I fail to see how using this type of language is going to help Donald Trump. There is a certain decorum expected from our officials–we do not want them inciting violence the way the Democrats have been and we do not need them using this type of language, you can make your point in a professional manner.
It is more than clear Anthony Scaramucci is a passionate guy and apparently he sometimes lets his passion get the better of him; I am sure Donald Trump’s hardcore supporters love this but this is only going to alienate the very people Donald Trump needs to pass his agenda and it is not helpful in the long run.
Anthony Scaramucci has promised to stop using this colorful language moving forward and I hope that he will be able to live up to that promise.
Having said that: I think Donald Trump made a big mistake by bringing in Reince Priebus and I am not a fan of Steve Bannon. I would have no problem with Donald Trump firing either one of these two or both, (you can add Jared Kushner to this list as well) I just do not think Anthony Scaramucci needed to stoop to this level.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Obamacare repeal-only bill fails in the Senate
Yesterday, by a razor-thin margin with Mike Pence breaking the stalemate, the Senate voted to advance Obamacare repeal and replace legislation. This opened up the bill for debate and amendments. The first amendment brought to the table was to repeal Obamacare over a two year period without replacement legislation in place. In theory this would give Washington time to introduce a replacement but we all know how Washington works…
Repeal without replacement failed today.
Personally, and I am by no means an expert on this subject, I think that if Obamacare is going to be repealed there must be a replacement bill in place that can be debated and as I understand it that is what is now going to take place. I believe that without a replacement bill in place it would lead to market uncertainty.
Having said that I must call out the hypocrisy of some of the Republican members of the Senate who in 2015 voted and approved a repeal only bill with the same exact wording and sent it to Barack Obama’s desk.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz aide arrested for bank fraud while trying to flee the country
There is one story from the 2016 election which has received no coverage in the mainstream media and that is the story of the Awan brothers. These three brothers were working with the Democrats during the election but fled shortly after the election because they were indicted for hacking government computers to get foreign government information.
The mainstream media does not seem to care about this hacking scandal for some strange reason but there is one person who is very interested in this story and that is Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She is so interested in this story that back in May she issued a veiled threat to the Capitol Police Chief, threatening “consequences” if he did not turn over her laptop which was being held in the investigation of these brothers.
And now she is probably even more interested in this story because at least one of the brothers, Imran Awan, was Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s aide and he was arrested last night on bank fraud charges while trying to flee the country.
Firewall with Bill Whittle: ‘The Republic of Emotion’
Here is the latest the latest Firewall video by Bill Whittle entitled “The Republic of Emotion.” Enjoy:
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump continues to attack Jeff Sessions
Okay, I am going to vent some of my frustrations over Donald Trump’s continued attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Donald Trump has taken to Twitter several times now to go after Jeff Sessions for not investigating the scandals surrounding Hillary Clinton–those include the email scandal, the alleged Clinton Foundation pay to play scheme, and the possible collusion between the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign, and Ukraine.
The problem for the President is that after the election was over Donald Trump said he “didn’t want to hurt the Clintons” because she “went through a lot and suffered greatly.” He went on to say he was looking forward not backwards after a campaign that “was vicious.”
Without question the big news of the day is Jared Kushner’s meeting with the Congress over the Russia collusion scandal. He flatly denied any collusion by him or any other member of the Trump campaign. From what I understand Mr. Kushner was not under oath but it is still a crime to lie or mislead the Congress.
As we all know, Jared Kushner failed to disclose his meeting with the Russian ambassador, and it turns out many other meetings with foreign officials, before he was given his security clearance. He is now blaming this on an aide who he claims prematurely sent in his disclosure form. Here is more:
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner is putting blame on an assistant for issues with his security clearance form, saying there was a miscommunication when it was originally submitted.
The form initially did not list any contacts with foreign government officials, he said.
Kushner said in the week before inauguration that people at his New York office were helping him find information for his security and financial disclosure forms.
“They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed,” he said in the statement.
“At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known).”
He claims he contacted the FBI as soon as he found out about the error and has since amended his disclosure form. As most of you probably know I am not a fan of Jared Kushner and I have trouble with this story.
Although I do find it hard to believe Mr. Kushner could have possibly thought he could get away with purposely not disclosing meeting with foreign officials it still leads me to believe he and his aide exhibited gross incompetence at best. At worst this was a delaying tactic: I do not believe he was colluding with Russia however maybe he wanted to hide these contacts in the interest of expediting his security clearance.
Personally I have no confidence in Jared Kushner and he has become a liability to the President.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, July 23rd open thread: ‘Shoots and Ladders’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, July 23rd. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 10 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. I understand that all of you are busy and cannot always find the time to check the blog for updates so why not subscribe to America’s Watchtower and receive email updates whenever I write a new post? That is the easiest way to follow the blog to ensure you never miss another post.
In addition to subscribing you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. But you will get more than that for I often post links to articles probably will not be writing about so it is a great way to keep up with what is happening.
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Here is a little ditty by the band Korn called “Shoots and Ladders” which has bagpipes, nursery rhymes, and ends with a portion of Metallica’s “One” as performed live last year.
frui diem
Washington Post report: Jeff Sessions’ meeting with the Russians included campaign talk
It has been a horrific week for Attorney General Jeff Sessions: First Donald Trump inexplicably decided to throw him under the bus in an interview with the New York Times and now the Washington Post is reporting here that during the meeting he had with the Russian ambassador, which led him to recuse himself from the Russian investigation, he did discuss campaign related issues.
Here is more:
Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.
One U.S. official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.
Once again we have a report with unnamed sources from the Washington Post. We do not know if this is true or not but it is sure to cause a firestorm on the Sunday shows and most likely all of next week. The left will claim the report alone means Jeff Sessions should resign, regardless of the truth of the matter. If indeed there were intercepted communications they must be released to the investigation, failure to do so will cast the whole story into doubt.
I am not sure Jeff Sessions, especially after how quickly he recused himself from the investigation because of Democratic pressure, is going to survive the upcoming tsunami of Democratic fervor in the coming week.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Susan Rice ‘meets with’ the Senate Intelligence Committee today in the Russia hacking scandal
According to CNN Susan Rice had a closed door “meeting” with the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier today. I use scare quotes around the word meeting because we do not know if she was testifying in front of the Committee or just meeting with the Committee. Was she under oath or was she not under oath? The article makes it sound as if she was not under oath, which I find interesting…
Anyway, here is more:
Susan Rice, who served as former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, quietly met behind closed doors Friday with Senate intelligence committee investigators probing Russian meddling in the elections, according to an official familiar with the matter.
Rice, one of three former Obama officials who met with the panel this week, has come under sharp scrutiny from some House Republicans because they believe she improperly “unmasked” — or revealed the identities collected in intelligence gathering — of Trump associates in US intelligence reports. She has vigorously denied any wrongdoing.“Ambassador Rice met voluntarily with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence today as part of the committee’s bipartisan investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election,” said Erin Pelton, a spokesperson for Rice, who also served as Obama’s US ambassador to the United Nations. “Ambassador Rice appreciates the Committee’s efforts to examine Russia’s efforts to interfere, which violated one of the core foundations of American democracy.”
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