The National Popular Vote movement is not a new movement but it has seemingly picked up steam since the sore losers in the Democratic party lost the 2016 election. Just last week the Nevada legislature passed National Popular Vote legislation and it was expected that the Democratic Governor, Steve Sisolak, would sign the bill into law thus taking away the voice of his people.
However, it was announced today the the Governor has vetoed the legislation. Here is more:
Gov. Steve Sisolak has issued his first veto out of the 2019 legislative session, rejecting a proposal that would have pledged Nevada’s six electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote for the presidency.
“Once effective, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose,” Sisolak said in a statement. “I recognize that many of my fellow Nevadans may disagree on this point and I appreciate the legislature’s thoughtful consideration of this important issue. As Nevada’s governor, I am obligated to make such decisions according to my own conscience. In cases like this, where Nevada’s interests could diverge from the interests of large states, I will always stand up for Nevada.”
We finally have a Democratic Governor who is not so short-sighted and angry about the 2016 election that he is willing to throw away the votes of his constituents and make them beholden to the wishes of other states. We finally have a Governor who understands state’s rights and this certainly is refreshing for a change.
The article I linked to above only says the vote in the legislature was close, it does not say whether it is likely or not that this veto can be overridden so we will have to watch to see what happens next.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
William Barr is now investigating the origins of the Russia investigation to determine if the Obama administration was justified on spying on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
As we all now know, the Russia dossier was used as evidence by the FBI to gain the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign even though it was unconfirmed and this is where all the questions about the justification of the probe lie. Because of this naturally William Barr would like the man who created the fake dossier to testify.
It is also equally natural that the man who created the fake dossier might be a little leery about testifying, and that is why the news that Christopher Steele is refusing to testify in the investigation is not really surprising at all.
Here is more:
The former British spy who produced a dossier describing alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia will not cooperate with a prosecutor assigned by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review how the investigations of Trump and his 2016 election campaign began, a source with knowledge of the situation said.
Christopher Steele, a former Russia expert for the British spy agency MI6, will not answer questions from prosecutor John Durham, named by Barr to examine the origins of the investigations into Trump and his campaign team, said the source close to Steele’s London-based private investigation firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.
Christopher Steele did cooperate with Robert Mueller’s investigation and has said he will cooperate with another currently ongoing investigation which is not directly related to his dossier, but of course he has a lot more on the line in this investigation and a lot more to hide. Allegedly…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
It is being reported that on Friday Donald Trump nominated Chuck Canterbury, head of the National Fraternal Order of Police, to become the next director of the ATF. I do not know anything about this man other than what I have just read and this is what the Washington Times had to say:
President Trump on Friday announced his intention to nominate Kenneth “Chuck” Canterbury Jr., president of the National Fraternal Order of Police and an opponent of disclosing “trace” data on firearms, to head the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He also has been an outspoken opponent of efforts by gun-control advocates such as Michael Bloomberg to gain access to confidential law-enforcement data on firearms traces, for use in lawsuits against the firearms industry and for research. The ATF compiles the records when tracing firearms in response to requests from other law-enforcement agencies.
That sounds good, however the National Association For Gun Rights paints quite a different picture of the man:
Unfortunately, Canterbury has a long history of publicly supporting and endorsing anti-gun policies, anti-gun Supreme Court nominees, and anti-gun high ranking government officials.
In his official capacity as President of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Canterbury has:
Supported radical anti-gun Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Supported former Attorney General Eric Holder – Obama’s head honcho who ran the deadly Fast and Furious gun running program.
Supported expanding the federal government’s gun registration schemes.
Even more troubling, Canterbury’s FOP is currently lobbying AGAINST Constitutional Carry, even though the vast majority of law enforcement officers support the right to carry.
Again, I do not know anything about this man but if the National Association For Gun Rights is correct it goes without saying this is a very troubling choice and I will be watching closely to see how this plays out. I already have concerns about Donald Trump’s second amendment credibility and this does not help.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, May 26th open thread: ‘You Know I’m No Good’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. 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.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
Here is Amy Winehouse performing “You Know I’m No Good” live:
Judge partially blocks border wall funding
When the Congress failed to fully fund the Mexican border wall Donald Trump ordered the Defense Department to come up with additional monies which could be reallocated to pick up where the Congress left off.
To date the Pentagon has found about $2.5 billion it said could be reallocated to the border wall and border wall construction continued. However, it should surprise nobody that a liberal judge has determined that the President of the United States cannot oversee Pentagon spending and has partially halted the reallocation of some of these funds.
Here is more:
A federal judge has partially blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to fund construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The preliminary injunction issued Friday immediately halts a $1 billion transfer of Pentagon counterdrug funding to cover expansions and enhancement of border barriers.
The court order also appears to jeopardize another $1.5 billion of the $8.1 billion the administration planned to use for border construction.
However, Oakland, Calif.-based U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam’s order only limits construction in specific border areas in Texas and Arizona and does not prevent the administration from tapping other funding sources to advance those projects.
It seems odd to me that a judge can determine where the wall can be built and where it cannot be built with which funding and make the determination that the wall can be built in a certain location with different money. It sure looks like a game of semantics here.
And while this only halted a portion of the wall there are plenty of other judges out there, this is only the beginning.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Elijah Cummings, a Democrat by the way, is the Chairman of the Oversight Committee and now it is being reported that he might have used that position to the benefit of his wife. If this is true it appears as if Elijah Cummings’ wife’s charity received millions of dollars from businesses and special interests which had business before the Oversight Committee.
Here is more:
A charity run by the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings received millions from special interest groups and corporations that had business before her husband’s committee and could have been used illegally, according to an IRS complaint filed by an ethics watchdog group.
Cummings, 68, a Maryland Democrat, is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His wife, Maya Rockeymoore, 48, is the chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and briefly ran in the state’s gubernatorial race last year. The couple married in 2008. Cummings was once heavily in debt — in part due to hefty child support payments to his first wife and two other women he had children with — but his financial situation has improved considerably over the past decade.
Rockeymoore runs two entities, a nonprofit group called the Center for Global Policy Solutions and a for-profit consulting firm called Global Policy Solutions, LLC, whose operations appear to have overlapped, according to the IRS complaint filed by watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center on Monday. The complaint states that the arrangement may have been used to derive “illegal private benefit.”
Global Policy Solutions received more than $6.2 million in grants between 2013 and 2016, according to tax records. Several of the nonprofit group’s financial backers — which included Google, J.P Morgan, and Prudential — have business interests before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Cummings has served as Democratic chairman of the committee since January and previously served as ranking member.
“When a powerful chairman of a committee of the House of Representatives has a wife that is bringing in money from entities with interests before his Committee and she is not providing the transparency mandated by the IRS, there’s a serious problem,” said Anderson. “The potential for corruption in this situation is simply off the charts and can’t be understated. We hope Chairman Cummings works with his wife to end the stonewalling and provide the public with what’s legally mandated all charities provide.”
It looks like Mrs. Cummings got advice on how to run her charity from the Clinton’s…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
While all the hullabaloo in the media and with the Democrats today has focused on the meeting Donald Trump cancelled with the Democrats on infrastructure another story slid under the radar. Donald Trump signed a memorandum today which will crack down on legal immigrants collecting welfare.
Here is more:
President Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday cracking down on welfare-dependent legal immigration to the United States in an effort to protect American taxpayers.
The first function of the order mandates that a family member or business sponsor of a legal immigrant looking to permanently resettle in the U.S. is responsible for paying back the welfare costs previously used by that immigrant.
For example, if a visa holder has used $10,000 in food stamp benefits while living in the U.S., when a family member sponsors them for a green card, that family member will be notified of the legal immigrant’s welfare costs to taxpayers and obligated to pay back the amount.
If the sponsor of a legal immigrant does not pay the welfare cost, the Treasury Offset Program will take the money out of the sponsor’s taxes for that year. Federal officials said implementation of this order would begin in September.
“This is a historic, transformative action to restore the foundational principle of U.S. immigration law: that those seeking to join our society must support themselves financially,” the official said.
“This executive action will dramatically curb ‘welfare tourism’ and protect U.S. benefits for U.S. families,” the official continued. “It will also ensure that immigrant sponsors cannot continue the practice of bringing in large numbers of welfare-dependent immigrants: because they will be financially liable. Congress passed these laws – but they were effectively never used. Now they will be.”
The second function of the order ensures that the income a sponsor to a legal immigrant is taken into consideration when a legal immigrant is applying for federal welfare.
Currently, only the income of legal immigrants is considered by federal agencies when the national is applying for public benefits.
When the Democrats stop this latest round of whining over the 2016 election you can rest assured they are not going to be happy. The usual cries of racism and heartlessness are sure to come but the interesting part of this order is that it is simply calling for the laws Bill Clinton signed to be enforced.
The order signed by Trump will enforce existing 1996 laws known as the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act” and “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act” which were signed by then-President Bill Clinton. The order ensures that federal agencies will enforce the existing 1996 laws which seek to save American taxpayers by having their public welfare funding benefits reimbursed when they are used by a legal immigrant.
But of course the Democrats are going to conveniently forget about that while they are blasting the President and the mainstream media will not bother to call the Democrats out on it.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Nevada passes National Popular Vote legislation
The move to get rid of the Electoral College is not a new effort, the National Popular Vote movement has been underway for years, but it seems to have picked up momentum since the Democrats began their hissy fit just over two years ago after losing the 2016 election.
The biggest effort to eliminate the Electoral College is a sneaky little effort called the National Popular Vote movement which seeks to do so without properly changing the Constitution by passing legislation in individual states which would bind that particular state to give its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote instead of the candidate who won the election in that particular state. When enough states have signed on to this compact the Electoral College will be null and void even though technically it will still be around.
Nevada has become the latest state to pass National Popular Vote legislation and it is headed to the governor’s desk for a signature. Here is more:
The Nevada Senate approved Tuesday a National Popular Vote bill on a party-line vote, sending the legislation aimed at upending the Electoral College to the governor.
Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote.
Nevada will be the 16th state to pass this legislation and Washington DC has already passed it as well. Of course it takes 270 Electoral Votes to win the Presidency and with Nevada on board the National Popular Vote movement now has secured 195 of those votes.
The movement still has a way to go before it undermines the Constitution, and it probably will not accomplish the goal before 2020, but it is getting closer all the time and it is only a matter of time before it happens.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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