Mediaboss Marketing

Rep. Elijah Cummings' meeting with President Donald Trump comes at a sensitive time for Democrats. | AP Photo

By Kyle Cheney

02/08/17 03:00 PM EST

Updated 02/08/17 05:39 PM EST

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to press President Donald Trump on voter suppression of minorities in a White House meeting scheduled for next week a response to Trump's false claim that mass voter fraud tainted the 2016 popular vote.

Though the meeting is ostensibly to discuss a potential area of bipartisan cooperation lowering prescription drug prices Cummings said Trump's widely debunked claim compels him to raise his concerns about minorities being denied the right to vote.

Story Continued Below

"I have no choice. It would be malpractice not to," he told reporters Wednesday at a Democratic retreat in Baltimore.

Trump has pledged to launch an investigation into voter fraud in the 2016 election, despite widespread bipartisan agreement that there's no evidence to support Trump's charge that 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast. But he has twice delayed plans to begin that process. Cummings said that if he does spend taxpayer dollars on such an investigation, voter suppression should be part of the analysis.

"It has now become normal, it has become baked in the cake, that we should be able to expect that not everybody is going to be able to vote," he said. "We cannot allow that to be our normal. And I will fight to the death to make sure that doesnt happen."

Cummings said he's received letters from about a dozen state attorneys general affirming that no widespread voter fraud occurred in their states, and he expects letters from all 50 attorneys general by the end of next week.

If Cummings holds his meeting with Trump next week, he would one of the first Democratic House members to huddle with Trump since he was inaugurated. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Republican and Democratic leaders for an introductory meeting last month. And last week, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, joined his Republican counterpart Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) to talk tax reform with Trump.

A group of moderate Democratic senators, central to Trump's legislative agenda, were slated to meet with Trump on Thursday.

Cummings appears to be one of the few House Democrats to have developed a rapport with Trump, who reportedly called him last month and offered condolences shortly after one of the congressman's aides lost six children in a house fire. An aide confirmed that prescription drug prices were among the topics the two discussed on the phone.

Cummings said he's planning to meet Trump one-on-one, though an aide said he's still determining if others will join him. A White House spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment on the meeting.

Cummings is also the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, a top watchdog of government spending. The committee's chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), had a 30-minute meeting with Trump Wednesday but said no oversight business was discussed.

Asked whether he had any concerns about Chaffetz's private meeting at a time he's charged with being a watchdog of the executive branch, Cummings mentioned his own planned meeting with Trump and said, "No, I'm not worried about it."

Cummings' meeting also comes at a sensitive time for Democrats. The party's base, still anguished over Trump's election, has come down sharply against any sort of collaboration with the president. A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll out Wednesday shows just a third of Democrats want their party's leaders to work with Trump.

But the rising price of prescription drugs has emerged, along with infrastructure investments, as one of a handful of possible areas of Democratic collaboration with the Republican president.

Opposition for oppositions sake, even if we think the policies proposed are good for the American people ... I think the public would not think thats our responsibility or duty," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Tuesday.

Trump has repeatedly pledged to lower drug prices and has called for allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies to bring down costs. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer affirmed Trumps commitment Tuesday to letting Medicare negotiate drug prices.

Heather Caygle contributed reporting from Baltimore.

Read the rest here:
Democrat Cummings to discuss voter suppression in meeting with Trump - Politico

The U.S. Senate sent a clear, direct message to one of its most liberal members last night: Follow the rules or sit down.

On Tuesday night, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was speaking on the floor of the Senate when Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) objected to the content of her remarks.

Warrens rant epitomized the derangement and hypocrisy of the democratic oppositionThe Democrats have escalated every policy dispute to the level of crisis.

McConnell said Warren had violated the rules of the Senate by besmirching the reputation a member of the Senate in this case, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who is President Donald Trumpsnominee to be attorney general.

McConnell unleashedRule 19 of the Senate guidelines, showing he intends to restore comity to the troubled legislative body.

The Senate, normally the august and sedate upper chamber of Congress, has recently shown cracks in its reputable stature.

Only the Senate confirms the presidentsnominees for his Cabinet, dozens of lesser administrative posts, and judgeships. Seeing an opportunity to torment the new president and rally their base, Democrats have publicly mounted unprecedented obstruction tostall the nominees and Trumps agenda.

Despite having only 48 seats in the 100-seat chamber, Senate rules allow a slowing down of the process by the minority. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has done just that.

On Tuesday, only hours after Vice President Mike Pence was forced to break a tie on Betsy DeVos, Trumps nominee for secretary of education, McConnell dug through the rules to counter Democratic strategy. He invoked Rule 19 as Warren spoke disparagingly of Sessions nomination.

Warren looked surprised. She should not have been.

Republicans have grown weary of the obstructionist tactics of the Senate Democrats. McConnell launched the Senate rulebook at Warren, and was able to convince the Senate that Warren had violated the rules on attacking the character of a fellow senator. The Senateupheld the rule by a vote of 49-43.

Warren had to sit and will not be allowed to speak again during the Sessions nomination debate, which could end Wednesday night.

Warren had read criticism in the past of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), provoking McConnell.

Warren rehashed30-year-old criticisms leveled at Sessions when President Reagan nominated him to be a U.S.judge in Alabama. The Senate killed Sessions chances back then, but 10 years later Sessions was elected to the Senate itself.

When Warren came to criticism of Sessions made by the late Coretta Scott King, suggesting Sessions attacked the rights of black Alabamiansto votes, McConnell objected formally. The rules do not even allow the quotation of others, if the words attack the character of the senator.

Warren and her allies objected. NBC News called the rule arcane. Hollywood liberals also went ballistic, suggesting democracy was at stake.

"I think it's important to recognize that McConnell's censorship of Warren tonight is part of a Republican process to curtail democracy," tweeted Keith Olbermann, the former MSNBC host.

"The GOP suppressing free speech, silencing Warren tonight for reading Coretta Scott King's criticism of Sessions," said George Takei, the actor who played Sulu from "Star Trek."

"We need to shut down D.C.," said Takei, a longtime Democrat.

While the "silencing" of Warren seemed to rally the Democratic base at first, it also appears to have rallied the GOP side too. Republicans are growing increasingly tired of the Democratic sniping in the upper chamber.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the upper chamber was drifting toward incivility and chaos.

"Turn on the news and watch these parliaments around the world where people throw chairs at each other," said Rubio. "I'm not arguing that we're anywhere near that here, but we're flirting with it."

Other observers said Democrats were going too far.

"Warren's rant epitomized the derangement and hypocrisy of the democratic opposition," said Robert Kaufman, a professor of public policy at Pepperdine University. "The Democrats have escalated every policy dispute to the level of crisis. After years of flaunting constitutional procedure ... the Left finds its incomprehensible and infuriating to be in the minority."

Warren, a liberal firebrand who may have ambitions to take on Trump in 2020, clearly crossed a line, said one former Senate staffer.

"The rules of the U.S. Senate are taken extremely seriously by U.S. senators," said Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak, host of the "Mack on Politics" podcast and a former press secretary to two U.S. senators. "I worked there for four years. Sen. Warren can certainly criticize the policy record of any Cabinet nominee, or even any other senator, but no senator can impugn the integrity of a colleague. That violates Rule 19, which has been in place for 100 years."

Republican punditssaid it is all part of the anti-Trump frenzy the Democrats are in.

"The far Left is in full revolt," said Mackowiak.

On Tuesday, McConnell made clear they have to revolt within Senate rules.

Excerpt from:
McConnell Takes Action to Stop Destructive Democrat Antics - LifeZette

Kansas City Star (blog)

John Kass: Democrat establishment is making the GOP's mistakes Kansas City Star (blog) Emanuel, famous for taking that steakhouse knife and stabbing the table while shouting the names of Democratic enemies, is probably the last person you'd think would tell angry Democrats to take a chill pill. But that's what Emanuel is doing because, ... Democrat Rahm Emanuel says the Democratic Party won't be back in power anytime soonTheBlaze.com Rahm Emanuel tells Democrats: 'It ain't gonna happen in 2018'Washington Times all 40 news articles »

See the article here:
John Kass: Democrat establishment is making the GOP's mistakes - Kansas City Star (blog)

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

The White House dismissed Democrats calling impeachment for President Donald Trump even as he has just begun his presidential term.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

I think whether its the Democrats in the Senate who are trying to stall these nominees or these little political stunts on the House side, the bottom line is I think by and large you see the support that the presidents receiving for his policies throughout the country, replied White House press secretary Sean Spicer during the White House press briefing in response to a question from Breitbart News.

Spicer said that the American people could realize that business as usual is over in Washington and that Donald Trump would work to keep his promises that he made to voters.

Democratic Representative Maxine Waters suggested that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the election, which she called an impeachable offense.

I think that is something that would put the question squarely on the table whether or not he should be impeached, she said during an MSNBC interview.

My greatest desire is to lead him right into impeachment, Waters later said during an interview with Cheddar.

But Spicer was ultimately dismissive of Waters remarks.

I think when you see stuff like that, I think it really just shows that they really missed the message that voters sent this past November, he said.

Visit link:
White House Shuts Down Democrat Calls for Impeachment - Breitbart News

When Marisol Alcantara first ran for an open State Senate seat in Manhattan last year, her campaign looked like an extension of the Bernie Sanders revolution.

A delegate for the Vermont socialist, Alcantara was a union organizer with unabashedly progressive views. She sought to become the only Latina in the upper chamber, a voice for immigrants and the disenfranchised. She also openly aligned herself with the Independent Democratic Conference, a breakaway bloc of Democrats who have backed liberal legislation while propping up a conservative Republican majority.

Now, like State Senator Jose Peralta in Queens, she may begin to face the furious wrath of her constituents for joining the IDC.

Peraltas defection to the IDC a couple of weeks ago was a remarkable event. The insular political machinations of Albany rarely interest anyone beyond journalists, political operatives, lobbyists, good government groups, and the occasional close watchers of the political scene, usually former members of one of the aforementioned cabals. This has been to the IDCs benefit: most liberal Democratic voters, particularly in the five boroughs, have been too wrapped up in the national scene to care about their own backyard, and peculiar alliances between beleaguered Republicans and rogue Democrats go unnoticed.

Something has changed. Hundreds packed a town hall in Jackson Heights on Friday to heckle Peralta and promise to throw him out of office. Terrified by Donald Trumps new and already ludicrous presidency, they finally turned their attention to the eight Democrats in Albany who have remained in a power-sharing agreement with the GOP, even as the Republican majority leader praises Trump and celebrates his disastrous new education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

Trumps election has reinvigorated and unified many on the left, forcing them to pay heed to the institutions they once took for granted. Like voters in the 1960s who decided local elections on which Democrats supported the Vietnam War and which marched in the streets, accommodation of Trump and his allies has become the new litmus test: youre either with the resistance, or you arent.

Peralta, sitting in a very liberal central Queens district, is playing with fire, but he is not the most vulnerable of the eight IDC members. As a longtime incumbent with a record in his district, the odds are still in his favor.

Alcantara is a different story.

Triumphing in a four-way Democratic primary last September, Alcantara captured about 33 percent of the vote. Her top two challengers, Micah Lasher and Robert Jackson, each cleared 30 percent. The district, formerly represented by now-Congressman Adriano Espaillat, snakes up Manhattans West Side, taking in a sliver of Chelsea, a much larger chunk of the Upper West Side, and the predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill.

The racial and ethnic divisions that played to Alcantaras advantage in a crowded Democratic primary could be her undoing. Excluding the possibility of an anti-Trump surge, Alcantaras re-election was never going to be easy. She relied heavily on turnout from the districts Dominican-American community (like Espaillat, she is from the Dominican Republic) and pulled far less from the areas sizable white and black constituencies. Democratic insiders believe a single candidate unifying Lasher and Jacksons votes could make Alcantara a one-term senator.

Jackson, a former city councilman who has ran for the seat twice before, said through a spokesman he is considering a third campaign. Lasher and Jackson, who both oppose the IDC, have already agreed that only one of them should challenge the incumbent next year.

Alcantara, who relied on six-figure expenditures from the IDCs campaign committee to win her primary, has been a useful weapon for the breakaway conference so far. The Senates only Latina, and one of three nonwhites in the IDC, she has accused Peraltas critics of being racist for attacking a minority lawmaker. (By joining the majority, Peralta will be entitled to a larger staff budget and the possibility of chairing a committee in the futurealong with the stipend that comes with such a perk.)

Too often when legislators of color make decisions based on helping their constituents, they are demonized and accused of having a financial motivation, Alcantara said in a statement to the Voice. Thats whats happening here, and its racist.

Alcantaras critique is self-serving and disingenuous, and its possible Democrats in her own district will see through it. Primary challenges to IDC members arent new, and the two that successfully faced them down are white:State Senator Jeff Klein of the Bronx and Tony Avella of Queens each fended off primaries in 2014.

The Democrats who challenged them had a reason to be furious. A year earlier, there were enough Democrats to form a clear majority to ram through much of the legislation the IDC has enacted or supports, like a robust minimum wage hike, statewide paid family leave and the DREAM Act. But the IDCs leader, Jeff Klein, chose an alliance with the GOP instead, which served the aims of New Yorks centrist governor, Andrew Cuomo.

A vast majority of State Senate Republicans represent districts outside of New York City. They are, with few exceptions, hostile to the citys interests, which means they have little incentive to help the working class and poor of the five boroughs, many of them black and Latino like Alcantaras constituents.

Senate Republicans, thanks to millions in donations from the real estate industry and hedge funders, support eviscerating rent regulations and tenant protections. They do not want to tax the rich; they want the rich to take whatever they can, and hope the hoi polloi are happy with scraps. They mostly drive cars, so dont expect any help with a state-controlled subway system they know little about. Their constituents are white, so discriminatory policing means nothing to them.

For all the progressive accomplishments Kleins conference touts, these fundamental facts are inescapable. The Republican Party controls every branch of the federal government, and has maintained a virtually uninterrupted stranglehold on New Yorks Senate for a half century, thanks to gerrymandering and Democratic collusion. Now that Trump is the partys leader, New Yorkers are discovering a reality theyve ignored for too long.

For the leading liberal politicians who have tolerated or even boosted IDC candidates Public Advocate Letitia James, Councilman Ritchie Torres and even Mayor Bill de Blasio come to mind they will be forced to answer new questions from people finally learning to ask them. Local democracy may, at last, live up to its promise.

Follow this link:
Meet the Most Vulnerable Fence-Sitting Democrat in Albany - Village Voice