ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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The House will Vote on Obamacare Replacement Thursday!

House Republicans will vote Thursday on Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare replacement bill, two senior GOP sources told POLITICO.

The move shows that GOP leaders are confident they have the 216 votes needed to pass the bill, even as as the far-right and centrist Republicans continue to press for changes.

GOP leaders and President Donald Trump spent much of Friday morning talking to critics of the plan. Trump called a number of lawmakers concerned about the bill to the White House, where Majority Whip Steve Scalise and his chief deputy whip Patrick McHenry also huddled with wary members.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/house-to-vote-thursday-on-gop-obamacare-replacement-236168

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Secret Service are keeping an Eye out for Rapper Snoop Dogg

Watch out, Snoop Dogg — the feds have their eye on you.

A representative for the U.S. Secret Service told TheWrap on Tuesday that the agency, which is responsible for the safety of President Trump, is “aware of” the video “Lavender,” which features Snoop Dogg shooting a clown-faced Trump stand-in with a toy gun.

It is unclear whether the agency is investigating or planning to investigate the video, as the Secret Service spokesman said that the agency had no further public comment on the matter at this time.

In the video, directors Jesse Wellens and James DeFina depict an America where everyone’s a clown, including president “Ronald Klump.”

After Klump holds a press conference to announce the deportation of all dogs, Snoop chains up the Clown-in-Chief and shoots him with a toy gun.

Since the video was released, it has drawn criticism from U.S. senator and hip-hop fan Marco Rubio, who said that the rapper should be “very careful” about such depictions.

“Snoop shouldn’t have done that … You know, we’ve had presidents assassinated before in this country, so anything like that is really something that you should be very careful about,” Rubio told TMZ.

The senator continued, “I think people can disagree … [but] you’ve got to be very careful about that kind of thing, because the wrong person sees that and gets the wrong idea, you can have a real problem. So I’m not sure what Snoop was thinking, he should think about that a little bit.”

Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, also registered his displeasure with the “Lavender” video, telling TMZ, “It’s totally disgraceful, Snoop owes the president an apology. There’s absolutely nothing funny about an assassination attempt on a president.”

“I’m really shocked at him, because I thought he was better than that. I’m not really sure I understand the artistic value to having somebody dressed up as Trump and firing a weapon at him,” Cohen continued. “In all fairness, it’s not funny. It’s not artistic. If you have a protest, that’s fine. Make your point.”

http://www.thewrap.com/snoop-dogg-video-featuring-mock-trump-execution-is-on-the-secret-services-radar/

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James Comey will Speak Publicly of the Russia Investigation Next Week

FBI Director James Comey has agreed to appear at a public House Intelligence Committee hearing next Monday on the investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election, Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters Wednesday.

Separately, Comey will brief the two top senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee later Wednesday.

Nunes said he still had seen no evidence to support President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, but added he was concerned about the possible incidental collection of the communications of Trump aides.

“I don’t think there was an actual tap,” the California Republican said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the panel’s top Democrat, separately said on Wednesday morning that they would be getting a briefing on Russia on Wednesday afternoon. A committee aide confirmed Comey would be briefing the senators, although other administration officials may be on hand.

Bipartisan pressure has been growing from members of the Senate panel, which oversees the Department of Justice, for more answers on the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Grassley said earlier this week that he would not schedule a committee vote for Rod Rosenstein — Trump’s pick for deputy attorney general — until the committee was briefed by Comey.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/comey-will-testify-publicly-on-russia-investigation-next-week-236081

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Sex Assault Reports at Navy, Army Academies

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press has learned that reports of sexual assaults increased at two of the three military academies last year, and an anonymous survey suggests sexual misconduct rose across the board at the schools.

The new data underscore the challenge in stemming bad behavior by young people at the military college campuses. That’s despite a slew of programs designed to prevent assaults, help victims and encourage them to come forward. The difficulties in some ways mirror those the larger military is struggling with amid revelations about Marines and other service members sharing nude photos on websites.

Assault reports rose at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, while dropping at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MILITARY_SEXUAL_ASSAULT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-15-13-17-55

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Byron York Writes why he Feels Trump hasn’t been led by Congress Effectively

 

What is the most popular thing Donald Trump has done as president? It actually came before entering the White House when, last December, President-elect Trump announced he had persuaded the Carrier Corporation to keep in Indiana hundreds of jobs that had been slated to move to Mexico. A short time later, Politico ran a story headlined, “Trump’s Carrier deal is wildly popular.” Imagine a headline like that about anything else the president has done.

Compared to the big economic picture, the Carrier matter involved a tiny number of jobs. And there was quibbling about Carrier’s intent. But Trump’s involvement sent a clear message: I was elected to fix the economy, to bring more and better jobs to Americans, and that is going to be my first priority as president.

Now, however, in the middle of his first 100 days in office, Trump has gotten bogged down in a complex, time-consuming, and unpopular fight over another issue — repealing and replacing Obamacare — that, while a key Republican priority and a Trump campaign promise, is not at the very top of the public’s concerns.

 New to Washington and with no experience in public office, Trump has become a prisoner to the House Republican leadership — or more precisely, to the complicated procedural requirements of the House and Senate, and the judgment of the GOP leadership that must operate within those boundaries.

All across the capital, politicos are arguing about what House Republicans should do next in the Obamacare fight. Can they prevail in the Budget Committee? How much damage has the CBO report done? Can the Freedom Caucus be brought aboard? What about the moderates? And reconciliation? The three-step process?

Speaker Paul Ryan has made clear that Obamacare had to come first on the legislative calendar because of the requirements of reconciliation in the Senate, and because the Obamacare replacement’s changes to the tax code have to be taken up before the larger budget and tax reform. And, of course, Hill Republicans have promised to repeal and replace Obamacare for years. So the House has dived in.

“They found themselves stuck in this legislative quagmire in terms of the sequence of what has to happen,” notes a well-connected GOP strategist. “Since they have to do this through reconciliation, they have to do it before the budget, and have to do it before tax reform.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s jobs agenda will have to wait. Can anyone imagine candidate Donald Trump roaring to a raucous campaign rally that, ‘We’re going to bring your jobs back — big beautiful jobs” but then going on to explain, “Of course, we’ll have to accommodate the House schedule…”

Trump will sell tax reform as a jobs-creating measure. He will do the same for trade, and for an infrastructure measure, if one ever comes. But even though Republicans have long described Obamacare as a “job-killing” law, the fact is that voters do not see fixing the Democrats’ troubled health care scheme as a first-tier job creator.

“[Fixing Obamacare] can have a positive impact on cost of living for people, but it is still not jobs and the economy,” says the GOP politico. “People want it addressed, but the number-one thing is still the number-one thing.”

Every poll during the campaign, and then the election day exit polls, showed jobs and the economy to be the voters’ chief concern. Polls today say the same thing. And to the degree that voters place hope in Trump’s presidency, it is because they believe he can make the economy better.

The most recent Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, like others, found that Trump’s job approval rating is historically low for a new president. But the pollsters also found that many Americans are optimistic about the years ahead. Fully 60 percent said they are hopeful and optimistic about the future, versus 40 percent who said they are fearful and pessimistic.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed told the Journal-NBC pollsters they believe the economy will improve in the coming year. That might not seem like a huge number, but — along with the 42 percent who said the same thing last month — it’s the highest in four years.

Among those who see the economy improving, a large majority believe it will be as a result of Trump’s economic policies.

Yes, Trump pledged to repeal Obamacare, although he went long stretches in the campaign without paying much attention to it. (Last August, after watching a week of Trump speeches in which he barely mentioned Obamacare, I wrote a story headlined, “Obamacare is failing. Why isn’t Donald Trump talking about it?”) But there is no doubt that during the campaign Trump’s first priority, and his most popular priority, was jobs and the economy.

There’s no doubt Trump has taken some important jobs-related actions. He got rid of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, approved pipeline projects, and has signed into law multiple bills that Hill Republicans have passed cutting Obama-era regulations.

But now, the CEO who promised to bring better jobs and higher wages is trying to tiptoe his way through House rules that most people outside the beltway — and many inside, too — don’t even understand.

Meanwhile, Washington is rife with intrigue over the Obamacare fight. It has brought back talk of the old tensions between Trump and the GOP establishment, especially Speaker Ryan. Every player in Republican politics or conservative media has some advice for the leadership. Trump loyalists worry that it is harming his brand. And House Republicans push ahead. “Failure is not an option,” GOP whip Rep. Steve Scalise told Sean Hannity Tuesday.

 It’s been enough to get many Republicans all worked up, ready to do battle for as long as it takes. The only problem for the newly-elected president is: It’s the wrong fight. The headline to this story is “Congress leads Trump down wrong path.” To pursue his own agenda on his own schedule, Trump will have to do the leading.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-congress-leads-trump-down-wrong-path/article/2617398

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Obama Returns to Community Organizing?!

As President Donald Trump plans a slew of policies that could dismantle key parts of Barack Obama’s presidential legacy, the former president seems to be returning to his roots as a Saul Alinsky-style radical community organizer.

This time Obama and his associates’ objective is to stop Trump’s domestic and foreign policy agendas on virtually all fronts – immigration reform, border security, the roll back of the controversial Obamacare system and more.  According to some accounts, Obama and his associates may be seeking no less than Trump’s impeachment.

The strategies for disruption seem to include everything from nonprofit front-group activism and the filing of legal motions to support for protest movements targeting Trump and top administration officials.

This as Trump works to secure America’s porous borders, fix the faltering economy, replace Obama’s largely failed healthcare law, combat the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism, contend with the threat of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and address the issue of illegal immigration that was put on steroids during Obama’s two terms in office.

The latest sign of Obama’s fingerprints on Trump disruption plots comes from reports on Monday that former Obama administration staffers have formed a group to closely monitor the Trump administration.

 Known as American Oversight, the group will search for anything that seems amiss, whether it touches on ethics or fraud, among other potential problems, the group’s executive director, Austin Evers, told Fox News.

“We are conducting oversight because Congress won’t,” said Evers, who was a State Department lawyer in the Obama administration. “We are using tools available to American citizens to investigate instances of fraud, corruption, violation of ethics rules, you name it. If there’s something that Congress should be investigating, we will be.”

Earlier this month, the Daily Mail reported that Obama’s top adviser, Valerie Jarrett, has moved into Obama’s multi-million dollar rental home in the nation’s capital. The newspaper claimed Obama is turning his home “into the nerve center of the mounting insurgency against” Trump.

“Obama’s goal, according to a close family friend, is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment,” reported the Daily Mail.

Evidence of Obama’s close associations with efforts to oppose Trump emerged two weeks ago when a group of former top lawyers for the Obama administration formed their own organization aimed at utilizing legal advocacy methods to target Trump’s policies.

That organization is calling itself United to Protect Democracy, drawing on the theme of Obama’s farewell speech last month.

The legal activist group is already partnered with an organization heavily financed by billionaire George Soros and is led by a former Obama lawyer who previously worked at a Soros-financed global activist outfit, this reporter documented.

Then there is also evidence of Obama-connected support for protests targeting Trump.

Last month, it was reported that Organizing for Action, the activist group that emerged from Obama’s first presidential campaign, has partnered with the newly-formed Indivisible Project for “online trainings” on how to protest Trump’s agenda. One week earlier, Breitbart News extensively reported that Indivisible leaders are openly associated with groups financed by billionaire George Soros.

Organizing for Action (OFA) is a so-called community organizing project that sprung from Obama’s 2012 campaign organization, Organizing for America, becoming a nonprofit described by the Washington Post as “advocat[ing] for the president’s policies.”

Last month, NBC News reported on OFA’s new actions and its partnership with Indivisible:

OFA has hired 14 field organizers in states home to key senators as part of its campaign to defend Obama’s signature healthcare law. To run that campaign, the group hired Saumya Narechania – the former national field director at Enroll America, which worked to sign people up for Obamacare – and a deputy campaign manager. …

OFA says more than 1,800 people have applied to its Spring Community Engagement Fellowship, a six-week training program, two-thirds of whom have not previously been involved with OFA.

And the group has teamed up with Indivisible, a buzzy newcomer to the progressive movement, to offer organizing training that began Thursday night with a video conference. A combined 25,000 people have registered to participate in those trainings, OFA said.

Writing at the New York Post, researcher and reporter Paul Sperry charged that Obama “is intimately involved in OFA operations and even tweets from the group’s account. In fact, he gave marching orders to OFA foot soldiers following Trump’s upset victory.”

Sperry was referring to comments Obama reportedly made in a November conference call with so-called grassroots supporters, telling them “Now is the time for some organizing.”

Obama hinted he will return to community organizing, stating: “I promise you that next year Michelle and I are going to be right there with you, and the clouds are going to start parting and the sun is going to come back out, and we’re going to be busy, involved in the amazing stuff that we’ve been doing all these years before.”

Perry further reported on OFA:

In what’s shaping up to be a highly unusual post-presidency, Obama isn’t just staying behind in Washington. He’s working behind the scenes to set up what will effectively be a shadow government to not only protect his threatened legacy, but to sabotage the incoming administration and its popular “America First” agenda.

He’s doing it through a network of leftist nonprofits led by Organizing for Action. Normally you’d expect an organization set up to support a politician and his agenda to close up shop after that candidate leaves office, but not Obama’s OFA. Rather, it’s gearing up for battle, with a growing war chest and more than 250 offices across the country.

Meanwhile, Politico recently profiled the OFA-affiliated Indivisible, reporting the group has been aided by MoveOn.org and the ACLU.

The associations between the OFA-affiliated Indivisible and the Soros-financed MoveOn.org and ACLU may be telling since the latter two groups have been central to recent efforts to stop Trump.

Two weeks ago, within hours of reports surfacing that Attorney General Jeff Sessions held two conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. while he was Alabama’s senator and served on the Armed Services Committee, MoveOn.org was already outside the U.S. Department of Justice building calling for Sessions’ resignation.

Sessions maintains that the conversations did not concern the 2016 presidential campaign.  He served as an informal adviser to Trump during the presidential race.

MoveOn.org and Indivisible are also planning what the groups claim will be a massive anti-Trump Tax March in Washington and at least 60 other locations on April 15.

Meanwhile, lawyers from the ACLU and other groups financed by Soros were signatories to a lawsuit filed to block Trump’s original refugee order. In response to the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly issued an emergency order that temporarily blocked U.S. authorities from deporting travelers from the nations listed in Trump’s executive order.

Obama’s newfound activism seems to bring him back to his early days in the 1980s as an Alinsky-inspired community organizer working in the South Side of Chicago.

As a reporter at WND.com, this journalist previously extensively documented Obama’s ties to Alinsky ideology.

Here are a few samples:

The executive director of an activist organization that taught Alinsky’s tactics of direct action, confrontation and intimidation was part of the team that developed volunteers for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Jackie Kendall, executive director of the Midwest Academy, was on the team that developed Camp Obama, a two-to-four day intensive course run in conjunction with Obama’s campaign. It trained volunteers to become activists to help Obama win the presidential election.

WND also reported the Woods Fund, a nonprofit for which Obama served as a paid board director from 1999 to December 2002, provided capital to the Midwest Academy.

Obama sat on the Woods Fund board alongside William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization.

Also, in 1998, Obama participated in a panel discussion praising Alinsky alongside Midwest Academy’s founder Heather Booth, an organizer and dedicated disciple of Alinsky.

The panel discussion following the opening performance in Chicago of the play “The Love Song of Saul Alinsky,” a work described by the Chicago Sun-Times as “bringing to life one of America’s greatest community organizers.”

Obama participated in the discussion alongside other Alinskyites, including Booth, political analyst Aaron Freeman, Don Turner of the Chicago Federation of Labor and Northwestern University history professor Charles Paine.

Perhaps tellingly, Alinsky’s son, L. David Alinsky, praised Obama in August 2008 for his showing at the Democratic National Convention, which had the “elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style,” according to the son.

David Alinsky wrote:

Barack Obama’s training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.

David Horowitz, founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a former 1960’s radical, considers Alinsky to be the “communist/Marxist fellow-traveler who helped establish the dual political tactics of confrontation and infiltration that characterized the 1960s and have remained central to all subsequent revolutionary movements in the United States.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/14/obama-vs-trump-ex-president-returns-to-radical-community-organizing-to-save-his-tattering-legacy/