Elizabeth Warren claims the unemployment rate is low because people are working 4 jobs
Elizabeth Warren has this habit of bandwagon jumping; somebody comes up with an idea or a talking point and she tries to make it her own even though she “didn’t build that.”
We saw this with the Occupy Wall Street movement when the Senator from Massachusetts claimed to be the one who provided the “intellectual foundation” for the movement and most recently we saw it when she jumped on the abolish ICE bandwagon after the surprise primary win by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Now Elizabeth Warren is at it again and she must be really enamored with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because she is stealing the Democratic Socialist’s talking points again. This time the issue is the low unemployment numbers and how it really is a bad thing the numbers are so low.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed the reason why the unemployment numbers are low is because everybody is working more than one low paying job.
“We look at these figures and we say, ‘Oh, unemployment is low, everything is fine,’ right?” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Well, unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their kids.”
It did not take long for Elizabeth Warren to parrot this talking point:
There was a time when saying, ‘Hey the unemployment rate has gone down. That’s a great thing.’ But you know, when people are working at minimum wage jobs that won’t support them or they’re working two, three, or four jobs to try to pay the rent and keep food on the table, then simply saying ‘The unemployment rate figures have gone down’ just doesn’t get you there.
Aside from this not being her own thought the empty pantsuit did not even bother to find out if it was true and the problem is, it is not. It turns out that 5% or less of American workers are working more than one job and that number is actually down since Barack Obama left office.
It is actually kind of fun watching these liberals talk themselves around in circles trying to give Barack Obama the credit for the good economy while at the same time trying to discredit the economy.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Ever since the news broke that Robert Mueller was prepared to offer immunity to five people in return for their testimony against Paul Manafort it had been speculated that the Podesta brothers were going to be included in the unnamed five.
It now looks like that speculation was at least half correct because it is being reported here that Tony Podesta has indeed been granted immunity:
Robert Mueller offered Tony Podesta, founder of the now-defunct Podesta Group, immunity in exchange for testimony against Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson announced Thursday evening that two separate sources confirmed to him Mueller offered Tony Podesta immunity.
The Podesta group was working with the same foreign entities as was Paul Manafort and, although not investigated or indicted , basically is guilty of the same allegations:
The Podesta Group, the now defunct lobbying firm ran by John Podesta’s brother, Tony Podesta, was lobbying a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian political front yet was never issued an indictment from Mueller even though they failed to register as a foreign agent.
Trump’s former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, however, was indicted and jailed for the exact same offense.
It gets worse…
John Podesta was working for the Obama administration helping his brother Tony Podesta lobby on behalf of foreign companies a month after Hillary left the State Department.
“Both Manafort and the Podesta Group had to file foreign agent registration act forms disclosing their lobbying activities for groups like the party of the regions and some other fronts associated with Ukraine. ONLY MANAFORT WAS INDICTED for not filing those forms properly and on time when he should have,” Fitton said.
“The Podesta Group, a mega Democrat lobbying firm was not indicted, nor was Mr. Podesta himself,” Fitton continued.
So what we have here is two Hillary Clinton mega-donors, one of whom was her campaign chair, guilty of the same thing as a man who was Donald Trump’s campaign chair for a short while and he is granted immunity while Paul Manafort might spend the rest of his life in jail. Do you still believe this is not a witch hunt? It is basically a crime to be a Republican, and an even bigger crime to be associated with Donald Trump
It pays to be associated with America’s number one crime family…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
House passes $5 billion border wall bill
It is being reported here that the House has passed a Homeland Security appropriations bill for 2019 which includes $5 billion for 200 miles of border wall as well as money for more detention beds and ICE officers. Here is more:
The White House on Wednesday backed a House spending bill that includes $5 billion to build a border wall, saying it will pay for another 200 miles of physical barrier on the border with Mexico.
“This funding is critical to the administration’s top priority, securing the nation’s borders,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
“President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly noted that border security is national security,” said Mrs. Sanders, noting that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks underscored the importance of a secure immigration and visa system.
The $5 billion, included in the House’s Homeland Security funding bill for next year, would be for “physical barriers and associated technology along the U.S. southern border,” including $126 million for border technology, according to Republicans on the committee.
“It further appreciates the commitment of the House Committee on Appropriations to increasing the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention beds, as well as accelerating the hiring of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, although even more of both are needed,” said Mrs. Sanders.
It is now off to the Senate where it is doomed to fail because it will be blocked by the extremist left wing of the Democratic party who want to see ICE abolished. (These are many of the same Democrats who voted “present” yesterday rather than to go on the record either for or against ICE when they had the chance.)
The Senate has its own version of the bill which includes $1.6 billion to build 65 miles of border wall so some version of these two bills will eventually be passed because it is for Homeland Security. However, I would expect it to be much closer to the Senate version once the “party of no” gets through with it and the Republicans cave.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
After initially refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify in front of the Congress about her anti-Trump texts to her co-worker and lover, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page finally testified and it turns out her testimony does not quite match Peter Strzok’s testimony.
Peter Strzok basically said people were misinterpreting his texts and that there was no political bias in texts which read “we’ll stop him” or talked about an “insurance policy” to stop the President. But Lisa Page admitted the texts were pretty clear and actually meant what they said. Here is more:
A Republican lawmaker says the testimony of former FBI attorney Lisa Page before House investigators differed greatly from her lover and bureau special agent Peter Strzok.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) told reporters Monday that Page’s closed-door testimony yielded new leads in its investigation into the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign and handling of Hillary Clinton email probe.
“I think there are significant differences between their testimony about important material facts. She gave us a lot of new information that we didn’t have before. That will lead us to ask for some more people to make some more requests for information we do not yet have,” Ratcliffe said. “On many cases, she admits that the text messages mean exactly what they say as opposed to agent Strzok, who thinks all misinterpreted his own words on any text message that might be negative.”
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) echoed similar statements concerning Page’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, describing the former FBI lawyer as “certainly more cooperative than Peter Strzok.” Page provided new “pieces of information [that] filled in some blanks along the way, but we’ve got a huge jigsaw puzzle to put together,” the congressman said.
Steve King is now calling for more subpoenas:
In a letter to fellow Republican investigators, King is calling on committee leaders to subpoena the personal cell phones of both Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. “I wanna see the names of everyone who interviewed Hillary Clinton on July 2, 2016,” wrote the Iowa lawmaker. “I wanna see their notes. I want to consider bringing each of them forward to testify what went on inside that room and then see if their notes and their testimony matches up to the 302 document that, in the end, was the basis that Peter Strzok briefed James Comey off of.”
It is pretty clear they both cannot be telling the truth, one of them is lying, and if I had to guess I think you can figure out who I think is the liar here. I agree with Representative King here, these two cannot be let off the hook because it is pretty clear members who were investigating for Russian collusion were indeed themselves colluding to stop the election of Donald Trump.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
It is now being reported here that Robert Mueller is asking the judge overseeing the Paul Manafort trial to grant immunity to five people in return for their testimony. Here is more:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller asked a judge to give immunity to five people who may testify at the bank-fraud trial starting next week against Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman.
Mueller didn’t identify the witnesses, who haven’t been charged. The five would invoke their constitutional right against self-incrimination and remain silent unless Judge T.S. Ellis III grants them immunity, prosecutors said Tuesday in a court filing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Their names will be made public only if they are called to testify, according to the filing.
That is all we know right now but things do not look very good for Paul Manafort. Of course it should be remembered that the charges against Paul Manafort stem back to before he was working on the Trump campaign and have nothing to so with the 2016 election. Of course this will not stop the mainstream media or the Democrats from using this as an indictment on Donald Trump, but that is to be expected…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The full court press is on to stop Brett Kavanaugh from becoming a Supreme Court justice, so much so in fact that Rod Rosenstein is looking for nearly 300 Federal prosecutors to scour all the documents related to Donald Trump’s nominee.
For his part, Chuck Schumer has vowed to oppose Brett Kavanaugh with every fiber of his being, calling on the Democrats to be united in opposition and hoping to sway a couple of Republicans over to his side.
So far we have not heard a single Republican come out against Brett Kavanaugh–but that could change–however we are hearing from a few red-state Democrats that they are not going to let Chuck Schumer push them around. Here is more:
Manchin suggested to Politico that Schumer does not have any influence over whether or not he supports Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.
“I’ll be 71 years old in August, you’re going to whip me? Kiss my you know what,” Manchin told Politico, referring to whipping votes among the party caucus.
“My decision won’t have anything to do with Chuck Schumer,” Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) told Politico. Donnelly, in addition to Manchin and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) all voted in support of Neil Gorsuch.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told Politico that Schumer “knows better” than to try to pressure her to vote a certain way.
“He doesn’t come to me and say: ‘You’ve got to vote with us on this.’ He knows I’ll tell him to take a flyin’ leap,” she said. “I’m going to do what I think is right. It has nothing to do with the party.”
That is some pretty tough talk from Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill, and they did vote to confirm Neil Gorsuch, but we will see what happens when the time comes. While they did vote for Neil Gorsuch the balance of the Supreme Court was not an issue whereas this time it could be. In light of this I would expect the Democratic leadership to fight even harder this time to keep its members in line and we will see if the crack.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, July 15th open thread: ‘Lips Like Sugar’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, July 15th. 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 7 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates. You can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive. This widget updates my tweets in real time and allows you to respond or retweet my tweets right from the blog.
Here is Echo and the Bunneymen performing “Lips Like Sugar” live, but I do not know the date.
frui diem
Last week I wrote a post about the Democrats preparing legislation which would abolish ICE and how I thought they were overplaying their hand by trying to placate the extreme left wing of the party while alienating the more moderate Democrats. Polls show that while people might be in favor of reforming the agency most are not willing to go so far as to support dismantling ICE.
The Democrats were overreacting to a local election and now it turns out, according to this story, they are going to vote against the abolish ICE legislation they wrote when it comes up for a vote on the House floor. It turns out Republicans agreed to let a vote take place on this legislation and that caught the Democrats off-guard. Here is more:
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he will bring up a vote on Democrats’ newly released “Abolish ICE” bill, the Hill’s Juliegrace Brufke first reported. The bill, proposed by three House progressives in light of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border, which separated more than 2,000 immigration children from their parents, would abolish ICE within a year.
“We know Speaker Ryan is not serious about passing our ‘Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act,’ so members of Congress, advocacy groups, and impacted communities will not engage in this political stunt,” the three said in a statement. “If Speaker Ryan puts our bill on the floor, we plan to vote no and will instead use the opportunity to force an urgently needed and long-overdue conversation on the House floor.”
Kevin McCarthy called their bluff and they are not happy because they planned on using what they would term as “Republican obstructionism” on abolishing ICE as an election year issue to motive the extreme left; they only wrote the legislation because they thought it would never make it to a vote but now that the Democrats learned it would be voted on they have decided to put their mouths where their money was. They would rather talk about the problem.
When push comes to shove the Democrats decided they would rather talk about Donald Trump’s immigration policy than to take action to do anything about it when they had the chance. The Democrats–much like the Republicans when it came to repealing Obamacare–have made the political determination that it is better for them electorally to keep this issue alive during the election rather than solve a problem they pretend to care so much about.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
It is being reported here that House Republicans are preparing to impeach Rod Rosenstein and it could happen as early as Monday. Here is more:
House conservatives are preparing a new push to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to three conservative Capitol Hill sources — putting the finishing touches on an impeachment filing even as Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 election.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, in fact, had the impeachment document on the floor of the House at the very moment that Rosenstein spoke to reporters and TV cameras Friday.
Conservative GOP lawmakers have been plotting to remove Rosenstein for weeks, accusing him of slow-walking their probe of FBI agents they’ve accused of bias against President Donald Trump.
Conservative sources say they could file the impeachment document as soon as Monday, as Meadows and Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) look to build Republican support in the House. One source cautioned, however, that the timing was still fluid.
I have to say this is an exercise in futility: even if the House does vote to impeach Rod Rosenstein there is no way the Senate is going to convict him and remove him from the Mueller investigation.
This is no different than when they held Eric Holder in contempt of the Congress or when they repealed Obamacare 1,000 or so times while they knew it would not be repealed in the Senate, this is nothing but for show.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Democrats prepare legislation to abolish ICE
Ever since the self-avowed Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an unlikely primary bid in New York, partly on a platform of abolishing ICE, we have seen more and more Democrats in Washington move to the extreme left and they have come out calling for the dismantling of ICE.
Now, according to this story, the Democrats are in the final stages of introducing legislation which will do just that. Here is more:
A Democratic proposal to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement would shutter the agency, probe whether its agents had flouted international law, and create a special commission to rethink how the federal government handles asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants.
The text of Rep. Mark Pocan’s “Abolish ICE” bill, obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post, was sent to House Democrats as they returned from the Fourth of July recess. The legislation, still being tweaked before release, is co-sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), both of whom are immigrants.
I have to give the Democrats credit because they have finally found a government agency they would like to do away with. Seriously though, I think the Democrats are overplaying their hand based on a local election in liberal New York by trying to apply the feelings of the Empire State Democratic primary voters to the voters nationally and I think this is going to backfire.
To be fair, the legislation does not change any immigration laws and it allows for a committee to create a replacement for ICE but I think we know where this committee will end up once ICE is abolished and as for changing the immigration laws well, that is next.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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