Republicans May Be Sorry For Rigging The Way Congress Works

In Sunday's Spokesman-Review, the most read newspaper in Washington's 5th district, Lisa Brown published an important OpEd, Divided We Fall. "The situation in America today," she began, "with pipe bombs mailed to political figures, the shootings of Representatives Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise, and the killing of journalists, here and abroad, should be a wake-up call for us to protect our democracy. Leaders of all political parties must denounce violence and threats of violence as ways to address political differences, without qualification, without attempting to justify or rationalize, and without pointing fingers at our political opponents."

We should teach our children and remind each other that free speech, free assembly, and voting are how we resolve political differences in America. Doing that can help rebuild trust and bridge the toxic divides that plague our politics today.

All political leaders should reaffirm our support for the free press. President Trump was wrong to call the media the “enemy of the people,” and wrong to speak approvingly of physical violence against a journalist. A “body slam” could be metaphorical, but in this case, it was real, and nothing to joke about or condone.

...I call on leaders in both political parties to take action to set a different tone. This means not only not succumbing to the rhetoric and obvious attempts to divide us, but resolving important issues like health care, immigration, and budgets, in a bipartisan way. The failure of this Congress and of my opponent to make meaningful progress on these issues that are important to Eastern Washington’s families and economy, is the main reason I left my position as WSU chancellor to run for Congress.

...I believe the root of the toxicity in the current political environment is connected to growing income inequality, and associated economic and social insecurity experienced by many Americans. And these trends are unfortunately exacerbated by policies of this Congress... Above all, to improve trust, and bridge these divides, we need to tell the people the truth-- the truth matters and trust is impossible without it.

Lisa is talking about bi-partisan, even non-partisan, norms of our society, norms that are unrecognized by a profoundly ignorant, self-centered illegitimate "president," who has trampled on them and dragged the rest of his party along for the ride. That ride is likely to get very bumpy very soon. And I don't just mean, bad election results a week from tomorrow. "A GOP rule change," wrote Anthony Adragna for Politico Sunday, "handed unilateral subpoena authority to many House committee chairmen. Democrats cried foul, but now they hope to use it against Trump." Another clear example of the GOP stomping all over the norms. So what happens now? Democrats who are looking forward to investigating the kleptocratic and fascistic Trump Regime will have the Republicans to thank "for one of their most potent tools-- a sweeping subpoena authority that Democratic lawmakers denounced as an abusive power grab three years ago." The shoe is about to change feet-- on 14 of the 21 standing committees where the GOP rules allow chairmen to issue subpoenas without any bipartisan cooperation. When the Republicans were passing the new rules, some of them worried that giving committee chairmen subpoena power would eventually come back to haunt them. It's about to.

House Republicans changed the rules in 2015 to allow many of their committee chairmen to issue subpoenas without consulting the minority party, overriding Democrats objections that likened the tactic to something out of the McCarthy era.

Now the weapon that the GOP wielded dozens of times against Barack Obama’s agencies could allow Democrats to bombard President Donald Trump’s most controversial appointees with demands for information. And many Democrats are itching to use it.

“The Republicans have set the standard and, by God, we’re going to emulate that standard,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told Politico.

Oversight would be one of the few concrete goals that Democrats could accomplish with control of only one chamber of Congress and Trump still in the White House. They have a long list of potential targets, including likely demands for Trump's tax returns and probes into Cabinet members such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

Before the 2015 rule change, most House subpoenas needed at least some bipartisan cover, requiring a majority vote of committee members and consultation with a panel’s ranking member. The change erased those requirements and allowed the chairmen to proceed unilaterally, although the exact rules vary by committee.

Many Democrats argue that Republicans only have themselves to blame for weaponizing the subpoena process, and that their own party should not unilaterally disarm now that the power has been unleashed.

“What goes around comes around,” said former Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI). “Would I expect them to give up the unilateral subpoena power by chairman? No. And I don’t think they should.”

That’s not the uniform viewpoint of everyone in the party. Rep. Bill Foster (New Dem-IL) led a group of 38 Democrats in an October 2016 letter urging GOP leaders to abandon the power during the next Congress. He told Politico he still thinks chairmen should not have it.

“I would continue to oppose unilateral subpoena power,” Foster said in a statement. “During my time in Congress, I have seen the majority party use this power to compel individuals to testify who differ from the committee chairs on policy matters. Committees should be expected to hold a vote on a subpoena to determine if the committee issues a subpoena.”

Most House Democrats think Foster is a pompous, self-serving, spoiled asshole and don't pay any attention to his constant whining. Two of the biggest abusers of the subpoena power were House Financial Services chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and House Science chair Lamar Smith, bother of whom saw what was coming and announced their retirements. Devin Nunes, the poster child for the abuses, will-- if he gets reelected-- be the poster boy for the retribution.

Trump Was High Of Adderall, Suffering From Amphetamine Psychosis, When He Made Up "Spy-Gate"

The idea of of South Carolina pinhead is being used as the arbiter of FBI fairness is pretty scary, but with Trey Gowdy, still chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, getting ready for his last few months in Congress, it appears he's been gradually shedding his extreme partisan coat. After the Nunes' circus at the Justice Department over Trump's manufactured ridiculous Spy-Gate "scandal," Gowdy left the briefing to declare that the FBI acted properly by deploying an informant to gather information from the Kremlin operatives-- Carter Page and George Papadopoulos-- inside Señor Trumpanzee’s campaign.

He went on Fox and said exactly what Trump wouldn't want him to say, not that it will influence any of the low-IQ Trump-bots who still support him: "I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got." Gowdy reminded the Fox audience that "It looks to me like the FBI was doing what President Trump said: 'I want you to do, find it out.'" In the now infamous Comey memo Trump has tried a little gaslighting: "If anyone connected with my campaign was working with Russia, I want you to investigate it," causing Gowdy to say, "Sounds to me like that was exactly what the FBI did."

Very different from Trump's bleating at his Nashville rally about Democrats in the FBI infiltrating his campaign, part of his effort to undercut law enforcement in the eyes of the morons who still haven't figured out what Trump is.

Even crackpot wing nut Andrew Napolitano, Trump-promoted Fox New "expert" said late Tuesday there is “no evidence” to support Señor Trumpanzee’s “Spygate” malarkey that the FBI planted spies during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Napolitano, the news network's senior judicial analyst, said on "The Story With Martha MacCallum" that Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is making a “baseless” claim.

“The allegations by Mayor Giuliani over the weekend, which would lead to us believe that the Trump people think that the FBI had an undercover agent who inveigled his way into the campaign and was there as a spy on the campaign, seem to be baseless,” Napolitano said.

There is no evidence for that whatsoever, he added.

Giuliani suggested on Sunday that former President Obama and his top intelligence officials “knew” that the FBI had used a top-secret informant to allegedly spy on Trump’s campaign.

The FBI did use an informant, identified in media reports as American professor Stefan Halper, who met with three Trump campaign advisers in 2016-- George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Sam Clovis.

No evidence has emerged, however, that the informant was used to spy on the campaign for political purposes.

Napolitano said Tuesday that the use of an informant is “standard operating procedure” in intelligence gathering and during criminal investigations.

The only one buying Trump's Spy-Gate tactic is, of course, Nunes, who has taken up residence up Trump's ass, something that the intelligence community should be looking into.

How Vulnerable Are The Republicans On The Intelligence Committee Who Voted To Destroy The FBI For Trump?

Deep State by Nancy Ohanian

The House initiated the impeachment process against Bill Clinton in the lame duck session in December, 1998. Two months late the Republican majority Senate found him not guilt of both charges. The 13 House managers from the Judiciary Committee who waddled over the the Senate to act as prosecutors were Henry Hyde (R-IL), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Bill McCollum (R-FL), George Gekas (R-PA), Charles Canady (R-FL), Steve Buyer (R-IN), Ed Bryant (R-TN), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Bob Barr (R-CA), Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), Chris Cannon (R-UT), Jim Rogan (R-CA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Democrats were very eager for revenge against these 13 cloens but most were in safe red districts. Most but not all. Rogan's Pasadena/Glendale/Burbank district had been gradually turner blue and in the next election, 2000, a conservative state Senator from Burbank, Adam Schiff, beat Rogan. It was, until then, the most expensive House race in history, Schiff spending $4,650,104 to Rogan's $6,889,947. Schiff beat him 52.7% to 43.9%. But it was the only pure win the Dems had against the impeachment managers that year although when Bill McCollum (FL) tried replacing Connie Mack in the Senate he was beaten by Bill Nelson, in part because of his role in the impeachment. Charles Canady retired that year as well. Two years later George Gekas loathes seat to a Democrat and Bob Barr was beaten in a primary.

History lesson over. What about the 13 GOP shitheads who voted to release the distorted Nunes memo Trump its trying to use in his campaign to eviscerate the FBI over Putin-Gate. These are the 13 Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

• Devin Nunes (CA-22)
• Mike Conaway (TX-11)

• Peter King (NY-02)

• Frank LoBiondo (NJ-02)

• Tom Rooney (FL-17)

• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27)

• Michael Turner (OH-10)

• Brad Wenstrup (OH-02)

• Chris Stewart (UT-02)

• Rick Crawford (AR-01)
• Trey Gowdy (SC-04)
• Elise Stefanik (NY-21)
• Will Hurd (TX-23)

Three of 'em have already announced retirement: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Trey Gowdy and Frank LoBiondo. The safest culprits are Conaway (R+32 in West Texas), Rick Crawford (R+17 in all of eastern and half of northern Arkansas), Tom Rooney (R+13 in south central Florida), Chris Stewart (R+16 in western Utah), and Brad Wenstrup (R+9 in southern Ohio). That leaves Peter King (Long Island), Elise Stefanik (northeast New York), Will Hurd (south Texas), Michael Turner (Dayton) and, primarily because of anger at his role, Nunes (northern and eastern Fresno, Visalia and Tulare) are vulnerable and worth pursing.

DuWayne Gregory, the presiding office of the Suffolk County legislature is running for the Nassau/Suffolk seat that has grown increasingly wobbly for incumbent Peter King, a dedicated Trumpist. "The Republicans on the House Intel Committee, if not before, have now cemented their loyalty to the Trump obstruction of justice train," DuWay told us today. "How a group of presumably intelligent individuals could all come to the same conclusion without reading the underlying intelligence document to verify the validity of the memo is beyond comprehension. Trump’s own DOJ and FBI officials were against the release of the document for national security concerns, but that did not persuade them. The country should not and cannot forget this betrayal of our country for partisan reasons. The Democrats need 24 seats to take back the house and the pathway to have a Democratic Speaker should start with taking down every Republican member who betrayed their country for partisan reasons."

And Ricardo Franco, the progressive in the race for the Democratic nomination to take on Nunes, said that "The perfect storm is aligning to help us unseat Devin Nunes.  Nunes isn't working in our best interest or according to our nation's principles. We have to build a government that works for us and that starts by electing a progressive candidate in his place. The nation is seeing him as a threat to democracy and his local constituents see him as someone who doesn't care about improving their lives. We have a solid vision and platform to make Medicare-for-All a reality, build a research-based medical school in the area to create jobs and research health concerns for our residents and veterans, protect the immigrants that put food on our tables and roofs over our heads, and work for a comprehensive water solution to get potable water into every home and agriculture area so we can drink safely and have food to eat. These are the basic needs we're calling for in our district. For Nunes, they're not even on his radar."

Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the next chair of the House Judiciary Committee, put together a memo of his own for every House Democrat with all the facts Nunes, or whomever in the White House wrote his memo for him, distorted or left out. You can read it even below... if you're not a House Democrat:

On Friday, House Republicans released the so-called “Nunes memo,” a set of deeply misleading talking points drafted by the Republican staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. House Republicans did so over the objections of the Department of Justice, the Director of the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence, and several Senate Republicans, among others.

You may have heard President Trump describe the allegations in the Nunes memo as a “disgrace.” He thinks “a lot of people should be ashamed.” President Trump is right, in his way. This embarrassingly flawed memo is a disgrace. House Republicans should be ashamed.

Although I have had the benefit of reading the materials that form the basis for the Nunes memo, most members have not-- including, reportedly, Chairman Nunes. Accordingly, I am forwarding the legal analysis below for use by your office based on my review the Nunes memo and on outside sources.

I. The FISA court found probable cause to believe that Carter Page is an agent of a foreign power. Nothing in the Nunes memo rules out the possibility that considerable evidence beyond the Steele dossier helped the court reach that conclusion.

We should not lose sight of a critical and undisputed fact: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found probable cause to believe that Carter Page-- a member of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team-- was an agent of the Russian government.

The Nunes memo states that, “[o]n October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order... authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page.” To obtain an order to conduct surveillance under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government must provide “a statement of the facts and circumstances” demonstrating probable cause that “the target of the electronic surveillance is... an agent of a foreign power.”

The central allegation of the Nunes memo is that the government committed a fraud when it obtained an order to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, a member of President Trump’s foreign policy team during the campaign. The memo claims that “[t]he ‘dossier’ compiled by Christopher Steele... formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application,” but that the government failed to disclose “the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts.”

If not for this misrepresentation to the court, the story goes, there never would have been a Russia investigation. This claim is deliberately misleading and deeply wrong on the law.

First, the Nunes memo appears to concede that the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to the Russian government was well underway before the government applied for an order to conduct surveillance of Carter Page. In its final paragraph, the Nunes memo states: “[t]he Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016.” The statement refers to George Papadopoulos, another member of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team. There is no reason to dispute the Nunes memo’s assertion that the FBI was actively investigating the Trump campaign months before they approached the court about Carter Page.

Second, there is already a well-established body of law dealing with allegations that “material and relevant information was omitted” from the application to the court-- and, in the case of Carter Page, that law appears to fall almost entirely on the side of the government. In Franks v. Delaware (1978), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a court may only void a search warrant if the government “knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth,” included false information or excluded true information that was or would have been critical to the court’s determination of probable cause. The Nunes memo alleges nothing that would even come close to meeting this standard. Indeed, we have every indication that the government made its application to the court in good faith.

So, to be clear: Carter Page was, more likely than not, an agent of a foreign power. The Department of Justice thought so. A federal judge agreed. That consensus, supported by the facts, forms the basis for the warrant issued by the FISA court. The Russian government waged a massive campaign to discredit our election. Carter Page appears to have played a role in that effort. The FBI has a responsibility to follow these facts where they lead. The Nunes memo would have us sweep this all under the rug. And for what, exactly?

II. Christopher Steele is a recognized expert on Russia and organized crime.

Through several acts of willful omission, the Nunes memo alleges the FISA application is tainted because Christopher Steele “was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and the Clinton campaign... to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.” The Nunes memo would have us believe the Russia investigation was a Democratic plot from the outset. That is simply ridiculous.

The Nunes memo does not show that the government relied solely, or even substantially, on the information provided to the FBI by Christopher Steele when it made its application to the court. It does not show that Steele’s work was compromised by the source of funding. It does not show that Fusion GPS-- the firm that hired Steele to do this work-- was any more or less diligent when it worked for Democratic clients than when it worked for Republicans. And, amazingly, the Nunes memo does not provide a single shred of evidence that any aspect of the Steele dossier is false or inaccurate in any way.

We have no idea if Christopher Steele even knew the source of his funding when Fusion GPS first hired him to research Donald Trump’s connections to the Russian government. In fact, Fusion GPS initiated the project on behalf of the conservative Washington Free Beacon, not the DNC. The firm’s task was to provide credible research, and they hired an expert for the job-- a retired British intelligence officer, experienced in Russian affairs and well-known to the FBI as a useful source of valuable intelligence in earlier investigations.

Nothing about the source of Steele’s funding or his later opinions about Donald Trump speak to the credibility of his work, or its inclusion in the FISA application. The Nunes memo gives us no reason to doubt the court’s determination of probable cause to believe that Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government-- particularly given Page’s later admissions to the press about his interactions with Russian officials.

And nothing about the payment from the DNC is unethical or improper. Christopher Steele is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian organized crime. His job was to uncover the facts. Many feared during the election that the Trump campaign had been compromised by the Russian government. Two guilty pleas and two indictments later, those fears seem well justified.

III. The Nunes memo provides no credible basis whatsoever for removing Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General.

The Nunes memo makes a point of stating that a number of officials, including Deputy Attorney General, “signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.” Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions is recused from any investigation related to the 2016 campaigns, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein directly oversees the Special Counsel’s investigation. The Deputy Attorney General has become a target for those attempting to interfere with that investigation. President Trump has refused to rule out using the Nunes Memo as pretext for dismissing the DAG. “You figure that one out,” he said when asked about the Deputy Attorney General on Friday.

Whatever one thinks of the merits of the Nunes memo-- and it is clearly not a serious document-- the memo provides no basis whatsoever to justify the removal of Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General from his critical and trusted position. The Nunes memo focuses largely on process that transpired before the Deputy Attorney General took office. There is no reason to believe that he reviewed or approved any FISA application for submission to the court except according to normal process and procedures.

The Nunes memo leaves out a critical point in this area as well. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, when seeking a renewal of a surveillance order, the government is required to provide the court “a statement of the facts concerning all previous applications... involving any of the persons, facilities, or places specified in the application.” That requirement includes a description of the intelligence received so far and its value to the underlying case. Although he was not involved in the initial application, the Deputy Attorney General could not have signed an application to renew surveillance on Carter Page if the government was unable to show that it had already gathered valuable evidence under existing orders and expected that collection to continue. Under these circumstances, any decision not to approve the renewal would have appeared to have been politically motivated.

If the President is looking to fire Mr. Rosenstein, he will have to look outside the Nunes memo for his pretext.

IV. The Nunes memo shows that House Republicans are now part and parcel to an organized effort to obstruct the Special Counsel’s investigation.

On January 24, 2018, the Department of Justice wrote to warn the House Intelligence Committee that releasing the memo would be “extraordinarily reckless.” On January 29, the FBI issued a statement citing “grave concerns” with inaccuracies and omissions in that document.


On January 30, the Majority twice blocked our request to move the House Judiciary Committee into closed session, where we would have been free to discuss our own concerns with the plan to make this information public without context, without meaningful input from the FBI, and without providing Members with access to the source materials. On February 1, I wrote to Chairman Goodlatte asking for him to call the FBI Director and other officials from the Department of Justice to brief us on an emergency basis-- before the Nunes memo was made public-- but my request was again ignored.

House Republicans do not speak up when President Trump attacks the press, smears career investigators by name, or demands loyalty from the leadership of the Department of Justice and the FBI. They have taken no significant steps to understand how the Russian government worked to undermine our last election. They show little interest in protecting our next election from foreign attack-- even though President Trump’s hand-picked intelligence chiefs warn us that the threat is very real.

Until now, we could only really accuse House Republicans of ignoring the President’s open attempts to block the Russia investigation.

But with the release of the Nunes memo-- a backhanded attempt to cast doubt on the origins of the Special Counsel’s investigation-- we can only conclude that House Republicans are complicit in the effort to help the President avoid accountability for his actions and for the actions of his campaign.

In the end, who could possibly benefit from the release of this shoddy work?

Only Donald Trump, who will use these half-truths to further interfere with the Special Counsel, and Vladimir Putin, who now has a clear view of how our intelligence community attempted to interrupt his operations in the United States.

Dems Need To Learn From The Failures The Bad Policies The Corporate Wing Of The Party Have Saddled Them With-- CA-22 Mea Culpa

Ricardo Franco (D)

You may recall that a few days ago we looked at the race for the Democratic nomination for the Central Valley district (CA-22) occupied by increasingly despised Trump crony Devin Nunes. The DCCC has never contested this district before. At the time, we promised to get you more information about the two most recent candidates, Ricardo Franco and Bobby Bliatout. We're just starting discussions with the latter but we've been talking with Franco since then.

When I asked Franco if it is OK to campaign specifically on Medicare-for-All he responded-- too late for Sunday's post, that he's "been using the the phrases 'Universal Healthcare' and 'single-payer' system, but I think 'Medicare-for-all' is a much better phrase. I believe in it, it's a clear policy position to solve an important issue and I think voters are intelligent enough to know what it means. I'm going to start using it now!" He added that he's "not convinced that being a moderate in a district like mine will win swing voters, but rather being upfront and honest about your progressive values will show a genuineness that's attractive to moderate voters (I spoke with other voters over the weekend that said they would have voted for Bernie if it was him versus Trump!) You must also develop a plan. I believe voters are tired of talking points and want to see a concrete plan from candidates to spur discussion. No more wishy-washy statements generalized for broad appeal, but rather concrete plans of actions based upon your morals." So I asked him to pen a guest post for us. This is it:

I Voted For Hillary Over Bernie. I Was Wrong.
-by Ricardo Franco,
congressional candidate, CA-22
www.ricofranco.com

Back in November I cast my vote for Secretary Clinton with enthusiasm. She was the most experienced candidate in history. She would be the first female president. I had campaigned, donated and phone banked for her more than anyone else in my life. Love would surely Trump hate.

And then we lost.

It was inconceivable. I had gone to my parent's house so I could share Hillary's historic win with my family--  a day they thought they'd never live to see. We have hosted funeral receptions in their house that didn't feel as bad as that night. Somehow I muttered the words, "I was wrong."

In 2006 the house I had been living in at the time burnt down to the ground. I broke my foot and suffered burns jumping from a second story window. Eight hours later as I was getting discharged from the hospital with a cast on my foot I muttered to myself, "well, looks like I'm homeless."

Being wrong in 2016 felt worse than being homeless in 2006.

When reality bites, you have to admit you've been bitten. For me that meant admitting that Bernie could have beaten Trump, that moderate Democrats continue to lose swing territory elections and that all the polling experts know nothing about which they speak. It's time to stop listening to other people and listen to your neighbors and your gut.

I have met so many conservatives in my district that have told me they would have gladly voted for Bernie over Trump, but the Democratic party didn't give them that chance. "Bernie was a cool guy! I would have voted for him. Trump's an asshole, but there's no way I'd ever vote for Hillary," they tell me. Now, as a businessman, when clients and customers tell you exactly what they are willing to pay for I will tell you that you better listen. It's time for the Democratic party to do the same.

The more progressive platform that Senator Sanders is proposing is one that almost all Democrats would love to have enacted as well as being appealing to other non-traditionally Democratic voters. It's time we accept this bite from reality and find candidates that message it from the heart. Why have we not evolved as a party with the changing electorate and world around us? Why do we not discuss underemployment rather than unemployment? Why do we not emphasize the global  economy is going green whether we like it or not and economic success for America means understanding this trend? The electorate is not falling for any false tricks nor promises from career politicians or newcomers with no spine nor honesty. If you truly want Medicare-for-all, then say it.

I want Medicare-for-all!

Now, help me make it a reality!

The establishment favors a very conservative Republican-lite candidate, Andrew Janz, whose message in primarily, "I'm not Trump, I'm not Nunes." That's proven a bad gamble for the DCCC but it's who they are and what they are all about. Ricardo Franco isn't Trump or Nunes either, but he's offering a real alternative to their conservatism, while Janz says he'll be just like his hero, Jim Costa down the road.