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03/20/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

9/11 Families Sue Saudi Arabia

NEW YORK — In a stunning lawsuit seeking to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for 9/11, the families of 800 victims have filed a lawsuit accusing the Saudis of complicity in the worst terror attacks on American soil.

The legal action, filed in federal court in Manhattan, details a scenario of involvement by Saudi officials who are said to have aided some of the hijackers before the attacks.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals and three of them had previously worked for the kingdom.

The document details how officials from Saudi embassies supported hijackers Salem al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar 18 months before 9/11.

The officials allegedly helped them find apartments, learn English and obtain credit cards and cash. The documents state that the officials helped them learn how to blend into the American landscape.

The suit also produces evidence that officials in the Saudi embassy in Germany supported lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. It claims that a Saudi official was in the same hotel in Virginia with several hijackers the night before the attacks.

Many of the revelations in the lawsuit are culled from findings of an FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks. The suit filed by aviation law firm Kreindler & Kreindler claims some of the hijackers had special markers in their passports, identifying them as al-Qaida sympathizers.

The lawsuit asserts that the Saudi royals, who for years had been trying to curry favor with fundamentalists to avoid losing power, were aware that funds from Saudi charities were being funneled to al-Qaida.

Aviation attorney Jim Kreindler told PIX11 News: “The charities were alter egos of the Saudi government.”

The lawsuit spells out how money was transferred from charities in Saudi Arabia to the terror group.

Charities the lawsuit claims fronted for al-Qaida include the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, an organization that was designated by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism.

Kreindler maintains that there was a direct link between all the charities and Osama bin Laden and that they operated with the full knowledge of Saudi officials.

The legal document claims that the Saudis used a variety of means to conceal the money trail to al-Qaida.

“The Saudis were so duplicitous,” Kreindler said. “They claim to be allies fighting with U.S. against Iran, while at the same time working with the terrorists. There’s no question they had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.”

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had resisted efforts to hold Saudi Arabia accountable. The kingdom is a key ally against Iran, and its oil interests are important to the United States.

Last September, Congress overrode an Obama veto to pass JASTA — Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act — that would allow Americans to take legal action against countries that support terrorism.

Kreindler wouldn’t put a dollar figure on the amount of damages being sought by the 800 families of those who died and 1,500 first responders and others who suffered because of the attacks.

“This lawsuit is a demonstration of the unwavering commitment of the 9/11 families to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its critical role in the 9/11 attacks,” Kreindler said.

EXCLUSIVE: 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia, accuse the U.S. ally of complicity in the terrorist attacks

03/19/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Jerry and Swarzenegger head to D.C. to address Social Issues

California Gov. Jerry Brown doesn’t travel much out of state, but amid intensifying conflict with Washington over health care, climate change, immigration and more, the governor of the nation’s most populous state will head east next week — his first trip to the nation’s capital since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The visit will come less than a week after Trump released a budget proposal that would cut deeply into social service programs and begin an easing of national vehicle emission standards — both anathema to policies in Brown’s heavily Democratic state. The governor called the environmental action “an unconscionable gift to polluters,” and California officials this week filed a motion in federal court to intervene in a lawsuit automakers brought against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Brown’s office included only one specific meeting in its announcement of the four-day trip, which begins Monday: a meeting of the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s board of directors, which Brown joined earlier this year. In a statement Saturday, Brown’s office said “additional meetings with government leaders and others will be added to the schedule.”

It’s unclear with whom Brown will seek meetings — or if they will include any Trump administration officials. The lack of scheduling is typical of the fourth-term Democrat, who eschews public schedules for the flexibility they deny him.

Brown traveled regularly out of state during his previous time as governor, from 1975 to 1983, and as in his three failed bids for president. Since returning to office in 2011, however, the 78-year-old Brown has largely limited his travel to events related to climate change. He skipped a meeting of the nation’s governors in Washington in February.

But Trump’s first months in office have expanded the range of issues with which California and Washington stand in conflict. On Twitter, Brown described a proposal by Republicans to repeal former President Barack Obama’s landmark health care overhaul as a “harebrained scheme” and “a really dumb idea” that he said would result in widespread suffering.

The state budget relies on more than $105 billion in federal funding. Following Trump’s budget release this week, Brown’s finance director, Michael Cohen, said in a prepared statement that “it’s hard to know where to begin.”

“The President’s Budget proposes a complete withdrawal of the federal government’s commitment to working with states to solve the critical issues of the country – from environmental protection and emergency preparedness to transportation and other infrastructure,” he said.

While Brown prepared to travel to Washington, his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was expected to follow soon after, angered by proposed cuts to after-school programs, a cause of Schwarzenegger’s since before he was governor.

“It looks like I’ll be making another trip to Washington,” Schwarzenegger, who appeared on Capitol Hill in 2013 to lobby against proposed cuts to after-school programs, said on Twitter. “We’ve fought this fight over & over, and we’re undefeated.”

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney on Thursday defended reductions to after-school programs, saying there is no evidence that they are effective.

While Brown has promised to confront Trump on issues ranging from immigration to health care and the environment, he has held out hope that Trump could prove helpful on infrastructure spending.

Brown is seeking to build a high-speed rail system and a $15.5 billion Delta water conveyance. Of Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure proposal, Brown said in his State of the State address in January, “I say, amen to that, man!

http://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2017/03/jerry-brown-heads-to-dc-with-schwarzenegger-right-behind-him-110484

03/19/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Al Franklen Crowned best Senator for the Trump Era

Sen. Al Franken works with staff in his office on Capitol Hill. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

It was a half-hour before one of the sparsely attended committee hearings that take place almost every day on Capitol Hill — in this case, a session on energy infrastructure so dry it would not merit even the presence of a C-SPAN camera.

But in Al Franken’s suite of offices in the Hart Senate Office Building, the man still known best as one of the early stars of “Saturday Night Live” was going through an intense rehearsal with four aides.

How much, Franken wanted to know, are the Chinese spending on clean technology research? Where do things stand on the University of Minnesota’s study of torrefaction, a roasting process that produces better fuel for biomass energy production? And might there be a chance to ask a question about one of his favorite causes, loan guarantees for Native American reservations?

“I just want to keep bringing it up, so they keep hearing it,” Franken said, with a trace of a sigh.

Everyone is hearing a lot more from Minnesota’s junior senator these days.

At the dawn of a presidency that stretches the limits of late-night parody, and at a moment when an out-of-power Democratic Party is trying to find its voice, the former comedian and satirist may be having a breakout moment as a political star.

He is also finding it safe to be funny again.

Franken, now 65, barely made it to the Senate, taking his oath in July 2009 after a ballot recount that took eight months to resolve. So he spent his first term trying to prove he was not a joke — buttoning up his wit, buckling down on esoteric issues and sidestepping all but his home-state media.

“I won by 312 votes, right?” he said in an interview. “I had to show people that I was taking the job seriously, and I had come here for serious purposes, and I am still here for serious purposes. So I think I just felt like I was on probation.”

That diligence paid off in 2014, a disastrous year for Democrats nationally, when Franken was reelected with a double-digit margin.

In between, he developed a reputation on Capitol Hill for policy chops and penetrating questions — skills that have been on display during confirmation hearings of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Franken “had an instinct for the legislative process, but the one talent that surprised me a little bit beyond that was his talent for cross-examination,” said political scientist Norman Ornstein, a close friend. “He has that Perry Mason quality.”

An exchange with Franken tripped up Jeff Sessions, then a fellow senator and now the attorney general, during his appearance before the Judiciary Committee.

Franken inquired what Sessions would do if he learned that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign had communicated with the Russian government in 2016.

He was trying to nudge Sessions into recusing himself, and he was startled when the Alabama senator offered information he had not asked for.

“I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians,” Sessions said.

After The Washington Post revealed that Sessions had met with the Russian ambassador twice last year, the attorney general did indeed have to promise to step aside from any Justice Department investigations of the 2016 presidential campaign.

In his grilling of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Franken revealed her lack of familiarity with one of the big debates in the education field, which is whether student achievement should be measured by proficiency or growth.

Franken later declared it “one the most embarrassing performances by a nominee in the history of the United States Senate.”

“We wouldn’t accept a secretary of defense who couldn’t name the branches of the military,” he argued as the Senate prepared to vote. “We wouldn’t accept a secretary of state who couldn’t find Europe on a map. We wouldn’t accept a treasury secretary who doesn’t understand multiplication.”

Although one had to withdraw (Andrew Puzder, Trump’s first nominee for labor secretary), all of Trump’s other nominees have been approved by the Senate, a reflection of two realities: Republicans have 52 votes, and Democrats, when they had the majority in 2013, did away with the power to filibuster Cabinet picks, a procedure that requires 60 votes to surmount.

But Franken’s questions have left a mark. He will be at it again starting Monday, when Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch goes before the Judiciary Committee.

When he met privately with Gorsuch, Franken said, the nominee “seemed evasive, on pretty much everything I asked him.”

So given the chance to grill Gorsuch publicly, “I’m really going to be going to certain areas that serve what I consider his pro-corporate bias, which I think has been the bias of the court, the Roberts court,” Franken said.

The Minnesota senator spent the last eight years proving that he’s good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like him. (Don’t groan. Reporters who write about him should be allowed the indulgence of using at least one of his signature lines from SNL.)

Nearing the halfway mark of his second term, Franken said, he feels “a little freer to be myself, and so every once in awhile, something comes out.”

At the end of May, Franken has a book coming out — part memoir, part policy prescriptive — that he has wryly titled: “Al Franken, Giant of the Senate.”

Franken has a laugh that bursts like a Tommy gun, and it does not take much to get it going. His staff keeps track of him on the Senate floor by listening for eruptions on their office televisions.

But the best stage to see Franken-style legislative improv is the hearing room. One recent exchange went viral.

“Governor, thank you so much for coming into my office. Did you enjoy meeting me?” he asked former Texas governor Rick Perry, who was up for confirmation as energy secretary.

“I hope you are as much fun on that dais as you were on your couch,” Perry replied. In the awkward laughter that followed, Perry added: “May I rephrase that?”

“Please,” Franken said, shuddering. “Oh my lord.”

Those moments aside, and with Donald Trump in the White House, “I don’t think my role to play here has anything to do with humor,” Franken said. “I don’t think humor is the tool I’m supposed to be using.”

By one measure, Franken’s career has come full circle. In a 1991 “Saturday Night Live” skit, he played a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A week ago, on an episode of SNL’s “Weekend Update,” cast member Alex Moffat portrayed Franken in what is now a real-life role on that panel.

He has many sides. During slow periods in committee hearings, Franken sometimes sketches elaborate portraits on a notepad. If he does not take them when he leaves, Senate staffers scoop up the Franken doodles as collector’s items.

But celebrity is a tricky thing in the Senate chamber, a place already well stocked with ego and ambition.

Franken said he found an early mentor in Tamera Luzzatto, who was Hillary Clinton’s Senate chief of staff at the time. Luzzatto had previously worked for Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), another famous name.

Luzzatto advised Franken to keep a low profile, take care of his state and always show up well prepared.

“What we really talked about is, there is still an opportunity in the Senate to get to know each other, and impress one another with your work ethic,” Luzzatto recalled. “The way one handles fame as an elected official — senators in particular — can help or harm you.”

When Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), then the minority leader, made a speech on the Senate floor in 2010 opposing the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, he noticed Franken rolling his eyes. The impropriety was made worse by the fact that Franken was presiding over the Senate at the time.

“This isn’t ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Al,” McConnell said.

Franken apologized.

As it happens, Franken’s arrival in Washington marked the very moment that Democratic power reached a pinnacle.

His belated arrival in 2009 gave the party its 60th vote in the Senate, the one that made their agenda filibuster-proof and opened, among other things, the possibility of passing President Obama’s health-care law on Democratic support alone.

But that dominance did not last long. The following January, Republicans picked up a Massachusetts Senate seat and began a long march back to the majority, which they won in 2014, the year Franken was reelected.

And with Trump’s election, the party is shut out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Franken brings a set of skills for navigating the wilderness they are in, Ornstein said. “It’s clear they need focused champions who can use the tools available to the minority to make points and frame issues and put people on the defensive and unmask things that need to be unmasked.”

Where it took Franken nearly six years to agree to his first Sunday show appearance as a senator, he now shows up on them frequently. There has even been talk of his potential as a presidential candidate.

“No. No,” he said. “I like this job. I really like this job. I like representing the people of Minnesota. I feel like I’m really beginning to know this job.”

Voters in Minnesota — a traditionally Democratic state that Trump lost by only a point and a half — also are paying attention to Franken’s emergence.

With another celebrity in the White House, “the context has completely changed,” said Kathryn L. Pearson, a political-science professor at the University of Minnesota. “There’s no question that his Democratic constituents are enthusiastic about his high-level role at the national level, but it certainly is riskier [with] Republicans in Minnesota, and even independents.”

The night before a hearing, Franken takes the prepared testimony of witnesses home and pores over it for weaknesses and inaccuracies. If a study is cited in a footnote, he will read that too, he said.

“Very often, when I think someone isn’t being truthful, that gets my ire up,” Franken said. He cited a skirmish in the Sessions confirmation hearing over a questionnaire in which the Alabama senator claimed to have “personally” litigated several important civil rights cases when he was a U.S. attorney. Other lawyers involved said Sessions’ role had actually been minimal.

Pressing Sessions on the discrepancy, Franken got him to admit that his role in some of the cases had consisted of “assistance and guidance” and that he “had been supportive of them.”

Republican senators objected to such rough treatment of one of their own. “It is unfortunate to see members of this body impugn the integrity of a fellow senator with whom we have served for years,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said.

But for Franken, the moment was sweet: “That was fun for me.”

But he is also part of the club. When the bells rang for a vote on a recent afternoon, Franken and four colleagues crowded onto a Senate subway car.

“We have Franken here to make us laugh!” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) announced.

Which they all did.

“The first time Franken presided,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told them, “I was sitting and looking at his profile, and all I could think was ‘Saturday Night Live.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/al-franken-has-found-a-new-role-in-the-trump-era/2017/03/18/247737bc-0b54-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.cb6ec6d9f3fc

03/19/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Are Republicans Trump’s Worst Enemy?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans have a lot to say about their new president.

Donald Trump’s proposed budget is “draconian, careless and counterproductive.” The health care plan is a bailout that won’t pass. And his administration’s suggestion that former President Barack Obama used London’s spy agency for surveillance is simply “inexplicable.”

With friends like these, who needs Democrats.

Less than two months in, Republicans have emerged as one of the biggest obstacles to Trump’s young administration, imperiling his early efforts to pass his agenda and make good on some of his biggest campaign promises.

Trump’s embrace of a House GOP plan to overhaul the country’s health system faces deep opposition from across the party, as does his push to get U.S. taxpayers to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Republicans largely rejected his thin, 53-page first budget, joking that there’s a “fat chance for skinny budget” on Capitol Hill. And his tax reform and infrastructure plans have yet to gain any real traction in Congress.

Trump insisted on Friday that he is leading a party that is coalescing behind him.

“I think we have a very unified party. I think actually more unified than even the election,” he said at a White House news conference with German leader Angela Merkel. “You see when they talk about me, I seem to be very popular, at least this week within the party.”

Long a divisive political figure, Trump entered office with historically low approval ratings and a popular vote loss of nearly 3 million. Still, he claimed a sweeping mandate when he arrived in Washington, fiercely pushing back on any suggestion that he won with less than a historic margin and moving quickly on a series of controversial executive orders.

Now, his administration has reached the limits of what it can achieve without Congress, leaving Trump struggling to lead his party on Capitol Hill — starting with the health care bill.

After years of campaign promises to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” the bill presents the first major test of whether Trump and Republican leaders can marshal a fractious GOP caucus behind a major legislative initiative. GOP leaders fear that failure could chip away at Trump’s already thin political capital, dooming future efforts on tax reform and infrastructure.

Trump’s early missteps have overshadowed one of the administration’s smoothest-sailing moves — the nomination of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. Confirmation hearings begin Monday.

“A president only has so much political capital to expend and so much moral authority as well, and so any time your credibility takes a hit I think in many ways it weakens the officeholder,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who had described the surveillance claims as “inexplicable.”

The furor over Trump’s unproven claim that Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper prompted Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma to suggest Trump owes his predecessor an apology.

Republicans almost immediately balked at Trump’s budget, with Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers uttering the “draconian” complaint and others questioning why Trump’s core supporters took a hit.

“Rural America stepped up to the plate behind the president in his last election, and we’re wholeheartedly behind him. We need to make sure that rural America at least gets its fair share,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala.

Trump is hardly the first president to clash with members of his own party. Few congressional Democrats felt a personal connection to Obama, who came under criticism for his hands-off approach to Congress, and his lack of interest in schmoozing with lawmakers or using the trappings of his office to woo them.

While Trump has hosted Republicans for bowling, pizza and other White House events, he’s been hampered by his inexperience with governing and his distance from establishment GOP politics. A businessman, Trump has never lined up lawmakers behind a bill, crafted a political coalition or passed a budget — nor have many of his closest aides.

During his campaign, he embraced a populist platform, rejecting traditional conservative positions on issues like trade and cutting costly mandatory programs like Social Security.

Many congressional Republicans, from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on down, were slow to embrace Trump’s candidacy, and some of those concerns linger.

His series of false claims since the election haven’t helped the relationship, distracting from his agenda on Capitol Hill and forcing Republicans to answer near-daily questions about his accusations.

But Trump also seems eager to keep some wiggle room between his presidency and a bill some friends and allies believe is a political trap. They fear the legislation — they’ve dubbed it Ryancare — could violate some of Trump’s populist campaign promises, like providing health insurance for all Americans and preserving Medicaid, for a conservative Republican agenda led by Ryan.

“Speaker Paul Ryan and the establishment GOP have pulled a fast one on President Trump,” wrote Eric Bolling, a Fox News host with close ties to Trump, in an op-ed.

AP Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner contributed to this report.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/324327b3b6464025a234ab5b68d894f8/friends-these-trump-struggles-win-over-gop

03/19/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

30 Countries Listed as Rejecting Illegals

(Dumb-Asses) Protesters march on East Seventh Street in St. Paul toward the Minnesota Capitol on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017, as part of the national Day Without Immigrants event. (Pioneer Press: Richard Chin)

Approximately 30 countries are refusing to accept the deportations of illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes in the U.S., according to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar.

While these countries are refusing to accept the deportations of these criminals, the U.S. government is still issuing visas and student visas to citizens of those countries, according to the Texan congressman. There is already a law on the books which allows the U.S. to hold visas from a country that is not taking back its criminals, but according to Cuellar, the U.S. is not enforcing it.

“We’re not enforcing it, which is amazing. So now my intent is to go back to our committee on appropriations and affect their funding until they do that,” Cuellar told Sharyl Attkisson, host of Full Measure, in an interview.

Cuellar, a Democratic member of the House Committee on Appropriations, told Attkisson that the Supreme Court has ruled that illegal immigrants arrested for criminal activity can only be held for a certain period of time before they must be released.

“That means you’re releasing criminals into our streets because those countries refuse to take back those criminal aliens,” said Cuellar. “That’s wrong. And especially I think it’s even worse that this is already on the books, and we’re still issuing business tourist visas and student visas to countries that refuse to take back their criminal aliens. That’s wrong, and we’re hoping to change that.”

Cuellar has not been afraid to break with some of his party leadership on immigration issues in the past. He was known as one of former President Barack Obama’s fiercest critics on illegal immigration. Cuellar teamed up with Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn in 2014 to help pass a bill that would speed up the deportation of unaccompanied minors. His stance disappointed his fellow Democrats, including Sen. Harry Reid.

There are many foreign countries that refuse to retake illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, according to the congressman, including Vietnam, Cuba and China. Cuellar said that diplomacy plays a factor in the government’s refusal to enforce the law, as the Department of State and other federal agencies do not want to upset foreign partners.

But, for Cuellar, diplomacy is no excuse to put American lives in danger.

“But my response is, but we can upset our constituents, we can upset our way of life that we have here by allowing those criminals to be released?” said Cuellar. “And basically the response from the State Department is because you have to work with the State Department and Homeland Security. And the State Department, with all due respect, was focused on diplomacy.”

Cuellar noted that he understands the importance of diplomacy in these situations, but that it also important to prevent convicted criminals from returning to American neighborhoods. He told Attkisson that he plans to push for the U.S. government to withhold visas from countries that refuse to take back their convicted criminals.

You can watch Cuellar’s entire interview with Attkisson at Full Measure’s website Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

03/18/2017 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Where have you been Hilary?

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Hillary Clinton said Friday she’s “ready to come out of the woods” and help Americans find common ground.

Clinton’s gradual return to the public spotlight following her presidential election loss continued with a St. Patrick’s Day speech in her late father’s Pennsylvania hometown of Scranton.

“I’m like a lot of my friends right now, I have a hard time watching the news,” Clinton told an Irish women’s group.

But she urged a divided country to work together to solve problems, recalling how, as first lady, she met with female leaders working to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

“I do not believe that we can let political divides harden into personal divides. And we can’t just ignore, or turn a cold shoulder to someone because they disagree with us politically,” she said.

Friday night’s speech was one of several she is to deliver in the coming months, including a May 26 commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College in Massachusetts. The Democrat also is working on a book of personal essays that will include some reflections on her loss to Donald Trump.

Clinton, who was spotted taking a walk in the woods around her hometown of Chappaqua, New York, two days after losing the election to Donald Trump, quipped she had wanted to stay in the woods, “but you can only do so much of that.”

She told the Society of Irish Women that it’ll be up to citizens, not a deeply polarized Washington, to bridge the political divide.

“I am ready to come out of the woods and to help shine a light on what is already happening around kitchen tables, at dinners like this, to help draw strength that will enable everybody to keep going,” said Clinton.

Clinton was received warmly in Scranton, where her grandfather worked in a lace mill. Her father left Scranton for Chicago in search of work during the Great Depression, but returned often. Hillary Clinton spent summers at the family’s cottage on nearby Lake Winola.

She fondly recalled watching movies stretched across a bedsheet in a neighbor’s yard, and told of how the cottage had a toilet but no shower or tub.

“Don’t tell anybody this, but we’d go down to the lake,” she said.

https://apnews.com/ed32f63ccea44f07bb3dee5e843f4cab/Hillary-Clinton-says-she’s-‘ready-to-come-out-of-the-woods

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NEW YORK — In a stunning lawsuit seeking to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for 9/11, the families of 800 victims have filed a lawsuit accusing the Saudis of complicity in the worst terror attacks on American soil.

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