dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

How a top Republican aims to resist the Democratic climate change agenda

by John Siciliano

| February 09, 2019 12:00 AM

Rep. Rob Bishop has a plan for resisting the Democratic push for climate legislation at the House Natural Resources Committee.

Bishop, the panel's top Republican and a Utahn, argues that his panel does not have jurisdiction over climate change and thus cannot move major climate legislation and that the panel would be better suited for narrower legislation.

“The jurisdiction issue is that the Natural Resources Committee has ZERO jurisdiction over any climate legislation including Clean Air rules, Clean Water Act, etc.,” said Kristina Baum, spokeswoman for Bishop’s side of the committee, in an email.

She explained that all air emissions issues are handled by the Energy and Commerce and Science, Space and Technology Committees. “There is legitimately no reason why we’re discussing climate change in the House Natural Resources

Committee,” she added.

Bishop, instead, says that he wants to focus on issues like wildfire management, which can have a significant impact on air quality, along with a serious parks maintenance backlog — which are squarely under the panel's jurisdiction.

“It is my hope that what we do is come up with ways that we actually help people,” Bishop said in his opening remarks at the panel’s first of six hearings to address climate change last week.

READ MORE: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/how-a-top-republican-aims-to-resist-the-democratic-climate-change-agenda

Disorganized Virginia Republicans scramble to capitalize on Democratic scandals

David M. Drucker

3 hours ago

Top Virginia Republicans are scrambling to capitalize on Democratic disarray in Richmond, eyeing fresh opportunities for President Trump in 2020 but hamstrung by a rudderless state party plagued by turmoil.

Scandal is threatening to fell the top three Democrats in Virginia’s capital, Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, and Attorney General Mark Herring. The tumult could cost Democrats seats in the legislature this November in the off-year elections Virginia holds, while boosting Trump’s prospects across the commonwealth. Virginia has been trending blue for more than a decade, and Republicans had presumed it off the table for 2020.

The Republican Party isn’t immediately positioned to profit from its unexpected good fortune. The GOP’s state affiliate is in shambles, and the Trump campaign, although it has time to ramp up, isn’t entrenched on the ground. That could hinder Republican gains in upcoming elections, even as a Democratic meltdown loosens what appeared to be a liberal vise grip on Virginia voters.

“The state party is in no shape to take advantage of any of this,” said John Fredericks, a conservative talk radio host in southern Virginia who was co-chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign there. “But I’m going to make the case to the president’s 2020 team that Virginia is now a winnable state.”

Virginia politics was turned upside down this month when it was revealed Northam’s page on his mid-1980s medical school yearbook included a racist photograph of two people in costume, one dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member and the other wearing blackface. A few days later, Herring admitted to donning blackface as part of a costume, which also happened decades ago.

Meanwhile, two women have accused Fairfax of sexual assault in incidents they say happened several years ago. He denies the charges.

It was assumed Northam would be forced to resign, with Fairfax, an African American and rising star in Virginia politics, taking over. Now, all three officials could stay put. The scandals could undercut Democrats with two constituencies that have been abandoning the GOP in droves: nonwhite voters and women — both white and nonwhite.

Republicans in Richmond and Washington still assessing the impact of the trio of scandals. To the extent splintered Virginia Republicans have a ringleader, that role has been assumed by Kirk Cox, the speaker of the House of Delegates, and his political team.

Some Republican insiders are privately cautious about a Trump turnaround in Virginia. Hillary Clinton soundly defeated him there in 2016, and more GOP losses ensued in the commonwealth in the two years that followed part of a backlash against the president and demographic trends that favor the Democrats.

But Republicans are newly optimistic about holding their thin General Assembly majorities after beginning the year bracing for more losses. That could increase GOP influence in the next round of federal redistricting that could partially determine how many lawmakers each party sends to Congress. Especially if Northam is wounded, he might cave to demands for friendly district lines, similar to how he acquiesced to the Republicans on a just-passed spending bill.

“Huge” was the word Chris Lacivita, a veteran Republican consultant in Virginia, used to describe the impact the Democratic meltdown could have on 2019 state legislative races. “There will be an impact. It’s not a question of if, but how much,” he said. There's just one caveat: District boundaries for the House of Delegates could get thrown out by a federal court, with any changes imposed benefiting the Democrats.

One Republican who revealed Friday that he was running for the Virginia House of Delegates is using the Democratic unraveling in Richmond as the basis for his candidacy.

READ MORE: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/disorganized-virginia-republicans-scramble-to-capitalize-on-democratic-scandals

House Republicans are gearing up for a sustained push to expose leftist Democrats in the House Democrat majority on their increasingly extreme views on abortion, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.

Specifically, Republicans–as they have demonstrated for three consecutive legislative days–intend to push for a floor vote against Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s wishes on a piece of legislation from Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) that would ensure babies who are born alive following an abortion attempt are given the same medical treatment and care any other newborn baby would receive.

“Protecting innocent life shouldn’t be a partisan issue and it shouldn’t be difficult. Infanticide is barbaric and the growing trend of Democrats advocating it is frightening,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, told Breitbart News. “Republicans are united in seeing that a bill protecting babies who survived an attempted abortion urgently receives a vote on the House Floor. It already passed the House with Democratic support last Congress. But so far the new Democrat majority refuse to even consider the bill. But we will ask again. And again. And again, until this body speaks up for life.”

The House Minority Whip, Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, added in an emailed statement to Breitbart News that the Democrats’ extremism has been exposed and will continue to be shown to the public by the GOP’s sustained effort. Scalise said:

It’s absolutely barbaric that in this country it would be allowed to kill a baby after it’s born alive during an abortion, but that’s exactly what some elected Democrat leaders have advocated in recent weeks. Yesterday, the moral indifference of the House Democrat majority was on full display when they refused my motion to even give the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act a vote on the House Floor. Every American deserves to know if their representative stands against infanticide or not, and that’s why this week I began the discharge petition process that would force a vote on our bill. Now Democrats will have to make a choice: stand with the most radical elements of their base, or with the vast majority of Americans who are appalled at the murder of innocent life.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, added in an emailed statement to Breitbart News that Republicans are fighting “pure evil” on the part of those who would kill babies after being born.

Cheney told Breitbart News:

This is about killing babies after they are born and it is the face of pure evil. We’ve seen the leadership of the Democrat Party on the Hill remain silent while elected leaders, including the Governor of Virginia, describe in very cold, clinical terms how he would facilitate the murder of a baby that has already been born. I want to say personally, as a mother of five kids, the idea that we have to describe what the Democrats are doing, is really horrific. I want to ask mothers across this country to join with us to make sure that we don’t see our maternity wards turn into killing fields, which is what the Democrats would do if we don’t stop this. House Republicans are absolutely dedicated to stopping this, and dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable among us, which is the unborn. The notion that we’re having the debate about whether or not you should be able to kill babies is absolutely horrific and evil, and we will stand up against that.

Earlier this week, at a press conference, McCarthy and GOP leaders rolled out their push on the anti-infanticide bill from Wagner, recommitting their efforts to it. Last Congress, the bill was pushed in the House of Representatives by then-Congresswoman and now Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and it passed with bipartisan support. Six Democrats crossed the aisle to join all the Republicans in the then-GOP-led-majority in January 2018 to pass the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The bill did not make it in the Senate.

READ MORE;

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/08/exclusive-house-gop-plans-sustained-effort-to-expose-leftist-democrats-on-abortion/

Virginia Delegate Patrick Hope (D) warned Friday evening that he will introduce articles of impeachment against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) unless he resigns by Monday as a second allegation of sexual assault surfaced.

“On Monday, I will be introducing articles of impeachment for Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax if he has not resigned before then.,” Hope said in a statement shared to social media.

A second woman, Meredith Watson, has come forward to accuse Fairfax of sexual assault, alleging in a statement Friday that the attack took place when she and Fairfax were Duke University classmates in 2000. The allegation comes after California college professor Dr. Vanessa Tyson accused Fairfax on Wednesday of forcing her to perform oral sex on him in 2004 during the Democrat National Convention.Contenders for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination have begun to issue calls for the lieutenant governor of Virginia to resign. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) were first among the expanding field to call for Fairfax’s resignation. Booker posted on Twitter that “the multiple detailed allegations against the Lt. Gov. of Virginia are deeply troubling” and called on Fairfax to leave office.

Gillibrand called details of the second woman’s claims “sickening and horrendous” and also called on Fairfax to step down, continuing:

This new allegation from Meredith Watson that Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax raped her, corroborated by at least two named individuals in interviews and emails, is sickening and horrendous. I believe Meredith Watson and Dr. Tyson, and it was extremely brave for them to come forward. Mr. Fairfax should resign and no longer serve the Commonwealth of Virginia

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) also called on Fairfax to step aside, urging for the embattled Virginia Democrat to do so right away.

Fairfax has vehemently denied the allegations and has called for an investigation into the claims. “The allegations against Justin Fairfax are serious and credible,” said McAuliffe. “It is clear to me that he can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia as Lieutenant Governor. I call for his immediate resignation.”

The new accusation further clouds the fate of Virginia’s government. Fairfax would take over if Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) were to resign over the racist photo that appeared on his medical school yearbook page. Northam told his top staff Friday that he would not resign. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D), who is second in line of succession, admitted to putting on blackface in college.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/08/virginia-democrat-delegate-readies-impeachment-articles-against-justin-fairfax/

At least 15 congressional Democrats have dodged questions as to whether they believe the woman accusing Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault and what should happen to him.

The responses occured before a second accuser came forward Friday, alleging that Fairfax raped her in college. Fairfax has denied the second allegation declaring, “I will not resign.”

Dr. Vanessa Tyson revealed herself Wednesday as the woman accusing Fairfax of forcing her to give him oral sex in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. Tyson alerted Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia of her allegations a year ago, according to a Scott aide cited in an ABC News report.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) faked a phone call this week in attempting to avoid questions from the Daily Caller on the issue.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (NC) questioned why a 15-year-old allegation was coming out now. He did not reveal in his statement to the Washington Post whether or not he believed Fairfax’s accuser. He said there should be an investigation and Fairfax “should be afforded the presumption of innocence.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (IL) excused himself from an opinion on the basis that he’s from Illinois, has a lot he is working on, and that it is not one of those things: “I’m just not getting into it.” He said he didn’t know Tyson and only knows what he has read in the paper.

Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia initially told the Post she believed Fairfax accuser Tyson, but later evaded question of what should happen to Fairfax.

Rep. Don Beyer, also of Virginia, said he is inclined to believe Tyson, but would not call on Fairfax to resign. He told the Post, “I’m also taking a look at people that deal closely with him, in that community, especially in the African American community, for first steps.”

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia claimed he was not being hypocritical on the basis that he waited to pass judgement on an accuser against then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until after public testimony and reading FBI transcripts. He emphasized the accusation is “compelling” and a “unequivocal denial…from somebody we know real well” has been made.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) said, “I’ll leave that up to them,” according to the report.

Seven Democrats evaded commenting or providing a yes or no when America Rising Squared asked whether they believed the woman accusing Lt. Gov. Fairfax of sexual assault, according to a video posted Thursday.

“I haven’t looked into that yet,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA) responded to questions as to whether she believed the first accuser of Fairfax.

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (NY) ignored questions, saying only she was trying to figure out where she was going while an aide said they were headed to the floor for a vote. She eventually responded, “I look forward to looking into the scenario, but I haven’t heard anything about this quite yet.”

Rep. Ted Deutch (FL) ignored a Fairfax inquiry, heading away from the questioner.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD) also dodged the question.

“I don’t know enough about it,” was Rep. Ted Lieu’s (CA) response.

Rep. Lucy McBath (GA) ignored the question as she walked away.

Rep. Cedric Richmond (LA) ignored the question before ducking into a restricted door labeled Committee on the Judiciary.

Democrats are facing problems with “blackface” scandals surrounding Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and the second in line to ascend the gubernatorial position, Attorney General Mark Herring. Fairfax, first in line to replace Northam, now faces two sexual assault allegations. Third in line is a Republican, Virginia House Speaker Kirk Cox. Northam has been public in his determination to retain his position as governor of Virginia.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/08/15-democrats-who-dodged-justin-fairfax-sexual-assault-accusation/

Rich Saudi Students Vanishing Across US After Kingdom Makes Bail On Rape, Manslaughter Charges

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden

by Tyler Durden

Wealthy Saudi Arabian students living in the United States have been vanishing while facing criminal charges, including rape, manslaughter and other felonies, reports Oregon Live, which has conducted an investigation into the disappearances.

The Oregonian/OregonLive uncovered five examples in Oregon and began searching other states in late January. We’ve found similar cases in Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

We also found two cases in Nova Scotia: Saudi students in two separate incidents skipped bail and disappeared after being accused of sexual assault. -Oregon Live

The Oregon cases involved Saudi nationals who never appeared to face trial, or disappeared before completing a jail sentence; "two accused rapists, a pair of suspected hit-and-run drivers and one man accused of having a trove of child pornography on his computer," reads the report

Each of the suspects in Oregon were young men studying at public colleges or universities, and each had assistance from the Saudi Kingdom at the time of their arrest.

In at least four of those cases, the Saudi government paid the defendant’s bail and legal fees. Three surrendered their passports. Some have been tracked back to Saudi Arabia. -Oregon Live

The disappearances have caught the attention of Oregon Democratic congressmen Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, who have introduced a pair of bills which aim to target foreign consulates that help their citizens escape criminal prosecution in the US.

Oregon Live/The Oregonian has compiled a list of suspects who have escaped justice:

Via OregonLive:

Mohammed Zuraibi Al-Zoabi

Nova Scotia, Canada

Disappeared: December 2018

Mohammed Zuraibi Al-Zoabi was a student at Cape Breton University when he faced numerous charges of sexual assault, assault and forcible confinement of a woman, with the alleged incidents occurring between 2015 and 2017, according to The Chronicle Herald newspaper in Halifax. According to the Star Halifax newspaper, Al-Zoabi last year received $37,500 of his bail from the Saudi Embassy in Ottowa. In early December, a Canadian sheriff tried to find Al-Zoabi, then 28, the newspaper reported, but he was nowhere to be found. His attorney, David Ianetti, told authorities the Saudi man had “fled the country some time ago,” according to court documents. Police had previously seized his passport.

Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah

Multnomah County, Oregon

Disappeared: June 2017

Portland police arrested Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, then 20, in the fatal hit-and-run of Fallon Smart, 15, in August 2016. He faced charges of first-degree manslaughter and felony-hit-and run. After his arrest, the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles retained private defense attorneys Ginger Mooney and David McDonald to work on Noorah’s case and paid his bail, set at $1 million, according to court records and prosecutors. He turned over his passport to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a condition of his release. He was placed under house arrest, required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle and allowed to take classes at Portland Community College. Two weeks before his June 2017 trial, Noorah disappeared. Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service now believe he left his Southeast Portland neighborhood in a black SUV, cut his ankle monitor and later used an illicit passport and private plane — likely provided by the Saudi government — to flee the country. In July 2018, more than 13 months after he first disappeared, the Saudis contacted Homeland Security to inform the agency that Noorah was back home.

Sami Suliman Almezaini

Gallatin County, Montana

Disappeared: July 2017

Sami Suliman Almezaini is accused of raping his roommate after the pair returned home from a downtown Bozeman music festival in July 2017, court documents show. After the woman reported the assault, detectives tried to interview him. He agreed to meet them at the police station but did not show up. A Montana State classmate told police he was trying to flee the country with the help of two friends. Detectives believe all three flew from Seattle to Ciudad Juarez Mexico, then Saudi Arabia. Almezaini was formally charged with sexual intercourse without consent in March 2018, when a judge signed a warrant for his arrest. Almezaini had lived in Bozeman for 2 ½ years, according to a Facebook page bearing his name.

READ MORE:https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-08/rich-saudi-students-vanishing-across-us-after-kingdom-makes-bail-rape-manslaughter

In Rare Interview, Ivanka Trump Says She's "Not Worried" About Mueller Indictments

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 22:45

Despite serving as a senior advisor to her father (alongside her husband, Jared Kushner), Ivanka Trump has managed to avoid the media spotlight since the early days of her father's administration, when a flurry of leaks focused on the battle for influence between Ivanka, Jared and former Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn and the nationalist contingent led by Steve Bannon.

But in a rare interview with ABC's "The View" that comes just days after President Trump committed to passing paid family leave during his State of the Union address - and after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff intimated that her brother, Don Jr., may have perjured himself during closed-door testimony to the Intelligence Committee - Ivanka told her interviewer that she's "not worried" about Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicting her, or any members of her family, being indicted by Mueller.

Asked "The View" co-host Abby Huntsman whether she's worried about "anyone in your life that you love being involved" in the probe, Ivanka replied that she has "zero concern" about any future indictments.

"Are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love being involved?" Huntsman asked.

"I'm not. I'm really not," Ivanka replied.

She also said she knew little about talks between the Trump Organization and Russia back in 2015 about the possibility of building a Trump Tower Moscow. She also backed up her father's characterization of the Moscow deal as something that was merely "floating around" and that it was not "an advanced project."

"Literally almost nothing," she said when asked about her knowledge of the deal. "We were an active business."

"There was never a binding contract. I never talked to the - with a third party outside of the organization about it. It was one of - I mean we could have had 40 or 50 deals like that, that were floating around, that somebody was looking at. Nobody visited it to see if it was worth our time. So this was not exactly like an advanced project."

Reports that Mueller's probe may soon be ending have stoked speculation that the special counsel might be closing in on indicting more members of Trump's inner circle, with Don Jr. and Jared frequently speculated as potential subjects of indictments.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-08/rare-interview-ivanka-trump-says-shes-not-worried-about-mueller-indictments

Venezuela: America's 68th Regime-Change Disaster

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 20:25

Authored by by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies via AntiWar.com,

In his masterpiece, Killing Hope: US Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, William Blum, who died in December 2018, wrote chapter-length accounts of 55 US regime change operations against countries around the world, from China (1945-1960s) to Haiti (1986-1994). Noam Chomsky’s blurb on the back of the latest edition says simply, “Far and away the best book on the topic.” We agree. If you have not read it, please do. It will give you a clearer context for what is happening in Venezuela today, and a better understanding of the world you are living in.

Since Killing Hope was published in 1995, the US has conducted at least 13 more regime change operations, several of which are still active: Yugoslavia; Afghanistan; Iraq; the 3rd US invasion of Haiti since WWII; Somalia; Honduras; Libya; Syria; Ukraine; Yemen; Iran; Nicaragua; and now Venezuela.

William Blum noted that the US generally prefers what its planners call “low intensity conflict” over full-scale wars. Only in periods of supreme overconfidence has it launched its most devastating and disastrous wars, from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. After its war of mass destruction in Iraq, the US reverted to “low intensity conflict” under Obama’s doctrine of covert and proxy war.

Obama conducted even heavier bombing than Bush II, and deployed US special operations forces to 150 countries all over the world, but he made sure that nearly all the bleeding and dying was done by Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Somalis, Libyans, Ukrainians, Yemenis and others, not by Americans. What US planners mean by “low intensity conflict” is that it is less intense for Americans.

President Ghani of Afghanistan recently revealed that a staggering 45,000 Afghan security forces have been killed since he took office in 2014, compared with only 72 US and NATO troops. “It shows who has been doing the fighting,” Ghani caustically remarked. This disparity is common to every current US war.

This does not mean that the US is any less committed to trying to overthrowing governments that reject and resist US imperial sovereignty, especially if those countries contain vast oil reserves. It’s no coincidence that two of the main targets of current US regime change operations are Iran and Venezuela, two of the four countries with the largest liquid oil reserves in the world (the others being Saudi Arabia and Iraq).

In practice, “low intensity conflict” involves four tools of regime change: sanctions or economic warfare; propaganda or “information warfare”; covert and proxy war; and aerial bombardment. In Venezuela, the US has used the first and second, with the third and fourth now “on the table” since the first two have created chaos but so far not toppled the government.

The US government has been opposed to Venezuela’s socialist revolution since the time Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. Unbeknownst to most Americans, Chavez was well loved by poor and working class Venezuelans for his extraordinary array of social programs that lifted millions out of poverty. Between 1996 and 2010, the level of extreme poverty plummeted from 40% to 7%. The government also substantially improved healthcare and education, cutting infant mortality by half, reducing the malnutrition rate from 21% to 5% of the population and eliminating illiteracy. These changes gave Venezuela the lowest level of inequality in the region, based on its Gini coefficient.

Since Chavez’ death in 2013, Venezuela has descended into an economic crisis stemming from a combination of government mismanagement, corruption, sabotage and the precipitous fall in the price of oil. The oil industry provides 95% of Venezuela’s exports, so the first thing Venezuela needed when prices crashed in 2014 was international financing to cover huge shortfalls in the budgets of both the government and the national oil company. The strategic objective of US sanctions is to exacerbate the economic crisis by denying Venezuela access to the US-dominated international financial system to roll over existing debt and obtain new financing.