DELEITURAS

National Security Advisor John Bolton appeared to contradict the White House Sunday when he said that the United States withdrawal from Syria would not be immediate, but the Pentagon announced Thursday that without receiving any new direction, they’re moving forward with the mission.

“Timetables or the timing of the withdrawal occurs as a result of the fulfillment of the conditions and the establishment of the circumstances that we want to see,” Bolton said Sunday, which struck a different tone than the Dec. 19 announcement White House press secretary Sarah Sanders made, in which she said the U.S. had already begun pulling American troops.

Defense officials in the Pentagon told The Wall Street Journal that they haven’t received any new directives, and until they do, will move forward with the original withdrawal plans.

“Nothing has changed,” an anonymous defense official said. “We don’t take orders from Bolton.”

American troops sent to help with the pullout are reportedly already in the region, specifically in Kuwait and the al-Asad air base in Iraq.

President Donald Trump confirmed a Syria withdrawal Sunday, but shifted slightly on the timing, saying “we won’t be finally pulled out until [the Islamic State] is gone.”

The fate of U.S. troops in Syria was further muddled Tuesday when Turkish President Recep Erdogan said Bolton made a “grave mistake” when he demanded Turkey pledge protection of the American supported Kurdish fighters.

“It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel,” Erdogan said in the Turkish Parliament after refusing to meet with Bolton on his visit to Turkey.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back on reports that the administration was contradicting itself Thursday on a trip to Cairo, Egypt, saying “there’s no contradiction whatsoever.”

“This is a story made up by the media. That’s fine, you all write what you like, but the President’s been very clear, and Bolton and I have been very clear about this too, that the threat from radical Islamic terrorism is real,” Pompeo said.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.— A CBP Air and Marine Operations (AMO) P-3 crew assigned to the National Air Security Operations Center-Jacksonville, was conducting maritime patrols when they located and tracked a panga-style vessel in the Eastern Pacific on Sunday, Feb. 17.

The AMO P-3 crew maintained the initial radar contact of the surface target of interest (STOI), a 35-foot long panga with two outboard engines.  The vessel was visibly riding low in the water although only three individuals could be seen onboard.

A Navy alert P-8 was launched to assist the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) with the interdiction the following day.

USCG interdicted the panga and conducted a search for contraband.  Three people claiming Ecuadorian nationality were detained and 719 kgs. of cocaine were seized.

The National Air Security Operations Center-Jacksonville forms half of the P-3 operations wing. With its partner center in Corpus Christi, Texas, Jacksonville operates P-3 aircraft throughout North and South America in defense of the borders of the United States and in active prosecution of attempts to smuggle persons or contraband. The center is an active partner with FEMA, the U.S. Department of Energy and NORAD in times of national crisis such as Hurricane Harvey or post-9/11.

AMO is a federal law enforcement organization dedicated to serving and protecting the American people through advanced aeronautical and maritime capabilities. AMO interdicts unlawful people and cargo approaching U.S. borders, investigates criminal networks and provides domain awareness in the air and maritime environments, and responds to contingencies and national taskings. With approximately 1,800 federal agents and mission support personnel, 240 aircraft and 300 marine vessels operating throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands, AMO serves as the nation’s experts in airborne and maritime law enforcement.

In Fiscal Year 2017, AMO enforcement actions resulted in the approximate seizure or disruption of 269,790 pounds of cocaine, 384,230 pounds of marijuana, 5,721 pounds of methamphetamine, 1,089 weapons, and $26.1 million; 2,573 arrests; and 37,009 apprehensions of illegal aliens.

Desperate looters have all but emptied stores and warehouses across western Venezuela as large parts of the country remain without power more than a week after a mass blackout.

The mobs overwhelmed Venezuela’s security forces, breaking into buildings and stealing cars, trucks and equipment. Hundreds of businesses in the Venezuelan oil capital of Maracaibo were emptied and left in shambles.

Looters broke through the cinder-block walls of a Pepsi plant and took thousands of cases of beer and soda, 160 pallets of food and destroyed or stole 22 trucks and five forklifts, Bloomberg reports.

“If people made enough to make ends meet, we wouldn’t be trying to get by like this,” Enrique Gonzalez, 18-year-old bus conductor, told Bloomberg. “This country has gone to hell.”

Police and other emergency officials have stayed away from the carnage and refused to help businesses and property owners protect their property and assets.

“It’s hard to swallow,” Bernardo Morillo, a 60-year-old mall manager, told Bloomberg. “The national guard stood by as this vandalism happened and the firefighters didn’t even show.”

A mass blackout hit large swaths of the country March 15. Experts blamed poor Venezuela infrastructure. Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro blamed the power outage on a U.S. cyber-attack. Maduro’s chief prosecutor Tarek Saab is pressuring the country’s supreme court to investigate opposition leader Juan Guaido for alleged sabotage, BBC reports.

Maduro is under pressure to step down as president as many world leaders have renounced his regime and recognized Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela. The Trump administration is applying increasing pressure to Maduro through sanctions and has not ruled out using military force to depose the South American leader.

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Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer group, filed the first lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration concerning the southern border Friday night.

The complaint, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the president’s declaration violates separation of powers principles because there is no emergency at the southern border justifying the invocation of extraordinary powers.

“Every halfhearted and palpably fabricated rationale to justify claims of emergency has been thoroughly and embarrassingly debunked,” said Public Citizen president Robert Weissman. “Unauthorized immigration is not surging. Terrorists are not invading from Mexico. Illegal drug traffic is coming primarily through legal ports of entry, not open border areas.”

The plaintiffs are three Texas landowners who were informed that the government will construct border barriers on their property. They are joined by the Frontera Audubon Society, an environmental group that operates a 15-acre nature preserve in the Rio Grande Valley.

The landowners say they will lose the use of their property if wall construction proceeds as planned, and fear damage to their homes during the course of construction. The Frontera Audubon Society warns of lasting damage to a critical animal habitat and claims its members will lose the opportunity to “birdwatch and experience nature along the [Rio Grande].”

The plaintiffs argue that the situation at the southern border does not rise to the level of a national emergency. Since no emergency exists in reality, the complaint says Trump exceeded his authority under the National Emergencies Act and unlawfully repurposed federal funds to erect the border wall.

“Because no national emergency exists with respect to immigration across the southern border, the president’s invocation of emergency powers through the declaration usurps legislative authority conferred by the Constitution on the Congress,” the lawsuit reads.

The president issued several directives Friday to access some $8 billion in federal funds for the border wall: in addition to the $1.4 billion appropriation Congress authorized for border barriers, the administration will reprogram $600 million from the Treasury Department’s forfeiture fund, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counter-narcotics activities, and $3.6 million from military construction projects to build finance construction of the wall.

The government will spend that money sequentially, meaning they will exhaust the congressional appropriation and the Treasury Department forfeiture funds before redirecting Defense Department funds.

The Public Citizen lawsuit seeks an injunction barring acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan from redirecting DOD resources to comply with the Friday directives.

It’s not clear that the plaintiffs can sue at this juncture, however. Since the administration will deplete the congressional appropriation and Treasury Department funds before reprograming Defense Department monies, it may be weeks or even months before DOD funds are reallocated for the border barrier project.

The government has not yet replied to the lawsuit, the first in a deluge of forthcoming legal challenges.

The president also signed a bipartisan spending bill Friday to avoid a second partial government shutdown.

In the wake of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s controversial re-election, the Trump administration is looking to increase pressure on the socialist government with harsher sanctions.

The United States currently employs a mild amount of sanctions against Venezuela for its continued democratic abuses. The White House, for example, has penalized a number of the country’s government leaders; taken a swipe at its gold sector; and has barred investors from renegotiating the country’s defaulted debt. The entire effort is meant to force Venezuela’s left-wing leaders to end their dictorship-like rule and hold fair elections.

However, fearing harm against a citizenry already suffering under a collapsing economy, the White House has refrained from hitting Caracas too hard.

Under the stewardship of Venezuela’s socialist revolution that began with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan economy has witnessed complete devastation. Well over 80 percent of the country’s population lives in poverty and around 64 percent of Venezuelans have reported losing a significant amount of weight since the food crisis began several years ago. The crisis has prompted over two million people to flee the country.

Venezuela’s oil industry — the country’s single largest source of income — has also crumbled. The state of North Dakota, for perspective, is now churning out as much out oil as Venezuela, despite the South American country sitting atop more oil reserves than any other OPEC member.

Despite such devastation already ingrained in the Venezuelan economy, Maduro’s recent re-election victory is forcing U.S. officials to reassess their options. The May election, which the international community widely deemed as fraudulent, gave Maduro another six-year term in office.

The Trump administration is now looking to target Venezuela’s oil exports to the U.S.

“Until now, we have been going around the edges,” a senior White House official said to The Wall Street Journal. “Now it’s a new dynamic. We are no longer going to be tinkering along the edges. Nowadays, everything will be put on the table.”

Such a move would likely hit the beleaguered nation harder than any previous sanction.

Venezuela, which depends almost completely on its crude oil exports, current ships around half of its oil production to U.S. consumers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Because the rest of its crude is used to repay debts with allies, Venezuela’s oil shipments to the U.S. are virtually the country’s only source of cash.

“Ultimately, we have all of the leverage there,” the White House official continued.

A growing number of Democratic presidential candidates are entertaining a push to add seats to the Supreme Court, as Republican success at filling the courts with judicial conservatives has infuriated progressive voters.

Democratic presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, and Kirsten Gillibrand have expressed willingness to consider proposals for expanding the composition of the Supreme Court as of this writing.

The Trump campaign charged that those suggestions, called court-packing, keeps with other structural reforms to the U.S. political system some Democrats have endorsed since the 2016 election.

“This is just what the Democrats always do,” the Trump campaign told TheDCNF. “When they lose, they try to change the rules. This is no different from when they attack the Electoral College every time they lose the White House. Now it’s court-packing. They want to change our institutions to fit their own political desires.”

Another presidential candidate, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, advanced a more modest proposition. Speaking Monday night on MSNBC, the senator said term limits for Supreme Court justices might be appropriate, but he seemed reluctant to endorse expansion of the Court.

Democrats frame the issue as a credibility problem. By their telling, the campaign began when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to fill the vacancy occasioned by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death until after the 2016 election, and continued apace with the abolition of the filibuster for high court nominees.

“We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court,” Harris told Politico. “We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.”

O’Rourke struck a similar note Friday at a Burlington, Iowa coffee shop, telling onlookers that an expanded Court is “an idea that we should explore” to curb partisanship and political dysfunction. The former El Paso congressman floated a proposal to add six justices to the high court. Under that system, Democrats and Republicans would each appoint five justices. Those ten would then unanimously select the remaining five.

Other procedural changes for lower court nominations have inflamed Democratic anger, such that packing the courts — once thought radical — is now a viable political position.

“The GOP has also undermined virtually all of the customs that protected the minority and home state senators in the judicial selection process, such as White House consultation and blue slips, while ramming through circuit nominees with little process,” Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

After President Donald Trump took office, the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee began holding confirmation hearings in which multiple circuit court nominees appear for testimony. Democrats say that’s a break with historical practice.

The committee has also effectively abandoned the minority party’s blue slip veto for appeals court nominations, which allows senators to block nominees tapped for judgeships in their state. Republicans say the blue slip process has not been consistently observed for circuit court confirmations and makes little sense for appellate nominees.

Interest in court-packing has also waxed due to a sustained interest group campaign. Career Democratic operatives, attempting to put liberal interest in the judiciary at parity with conservatives, founded a dark money political group that is urging Democratic candidates to endorse court-expansion ideas.

A Democratic Court-packing bid would likely require a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Given that daunting prospect, a near-term effort to expand the Court is unlikely to succeed. Yet the Democratic flirtation with court-packing might itself bring the justices to heel. Tobias suggested that a threat to the institution’s composition, even if unlikely, could deter the justices from moving the law rightward.

“Discussing that prospect and other proposals like term limits for justices or adding lower court judges may signal to the Court that it should not veer sharply to the right, as Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to be signaling to Trump and the nation with his rebuff of Trump regarding ‘Obama judges,’” Tobias said, referencing an episode in 2018 in which Roberts rebuked Trump for deriding a district court judge who enjoined the administration’s asylum reforms.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, accused Democrats of browbeating the Court’s newly entrenched conservative majority.

“Democrats will try anything to politicize the judicial selection process and the courts,” Severino told TheDCNF. “Now they are trying to bully and intimidate the Supreme Court’s justices into serving as a rubber stamp for a liberal political agenda.”

Popular history holds that a similar tactic animated an important change on the Supreme Court during the 1930s. A conservative coalition on the high court struck down much of President Franklin Roosevelt’s domestic economic program during his first term. Flush with victory after his landslide reelection in 1936, Roosevelt asked Congress for authority to appoint as many as six new justices.

Though the Democratic Congress overwhelmingly repudiated that request, Justice Owen Roberts, then the “swing vote” on the bench, began voting to uphold progressive economic measures, like the constitutionality of minimum wage laws. That shift was widely interpreted as a strategic move to protect the Court from Roosevelt’s scheme. Recent scholarship questions the accuracy of this view, sometimes called “the switch in time that saved nine.”

Still, Roosevelt’s plot is widely seen as notorious and misguided, and may explain why no candidate has yet given a court-packing alternative their unqualified endorsement. Instead, the Democratic 2020 contenders urge further discussions or decline to rule out the possibility.

Democratic New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez told pro-Trump teen pundit CJ Pearson that “you’re right to be afraid of us” Tuesday after he referred to her as “the woman next to” Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a tweet about the State of the Union address.

“Hi CJ Pearson, I’m not ‘the woman sitting next to her,’” Velazquez wrote on Twitter Tuesday night.  “[Ocasio-Cortez] and I — and millions like us — are the future of this country. And you’re right to be afraid of us. But you should learn my name.”

Pearson, 16, had joked on Twitter that “[Ocasio-Cortez] has been talking this entire speech and the woman next to her keeps trying to look the other way” during the State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Pearson responded to Velazquez’s remarks Wednesday.

“I’m sorry, Congresswoman, but as [President] Donald Trump said — socialism will NOT be the future of this country. And Nydia, nothing about you nor [Ocasio-Cortez] scares me. It’s your policies — that jeopardize the stability of our nation and the future of my generation — that scare me,” he wrote on Twitter.

Others weighed in on the interaction between the congresswoman and the high schooler.

“This is a sitting Democratic member of Congress, [Nydia Velazquez], threatening a kid, [CJ Pearson], and telling him that Americans should fear members of Congress. This after [Rep. Eric] Swalwell threatened to nuke gun owners, and other Dems threaten to jail for exercising freedom of speech,” Newsmax host John Cardillo wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

“Why is a congresswoman telling a high school student to be afraid? Are threats from politicians to minors cool, Twitter? Or just code related stuff is bad?” talk show host Dave Rubin wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

Velazquez, 65, made news when she said “a room of men have no business undermining a woman’s unconditional right to choose” but added “that room of men is not referring to our governor” during a press conference with Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in July.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Velazquez’s office for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

• Ro Khanna is a liberal Democrat representing California’s 17th congressional district, an area that encompasses much of Silicon Valley. 
• Khanna has devoted much of his career to helping bring high-paying tech jobs to rural communities across Middle America, touting the mutual benefit to both parties. 
• The California congressman, now in his second term in office, has sponsored legislation that has earned widespread bipartisan support and President Donald Trump’s signatures.  

Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from Silicon Valley, has made it his life’s work to bring well-paying, high-tech jobs to small towns across America.

“I think it’s so important that we integrate rural communities into technology,” Khanna told The Daily Caller News Foundation, explaining why the small towns that dot Middle America are a better landing place for the high-tech jobs that emanate from the San Francisco Bay Area. “There’s no reason that we should be offshoring 210,000 tech jobs, which are basic jobs.”

After winning election to Congress in 2016, Khanna has heavily focused on helping communities far outside his own district.

“We don’t all have to be rockstar tech leaders that are creating billion-dollar companies. We want to focus on what middle-class jobs in technology are going to look like,” Khanna said.

The California Democrat believes both sides have something to gain when companies like Google or Facebook open up shop in Middle America: Residents enjoy the benefits that come with more high-skilled work, and employers aren’t forced to pay the sky-high salaries required in big cities such as San Francisco.

While he may identify as a liberal Democrat, Khanna’s work on tech development has attracted widespread support across the political spectrum.

The congressman’s Valor Act, which streamlines the process companies must go through to offer apprenticeships to our nation’s veterans, was passed by a GOP-conrtolled House and Senate, and promptly signed into law by President Donald Trump in November 2017. Another piece of legislation spearheaded by Khanna, the IDEA Act, also earned the Republican president’s signature in December 2018. That bill mandated federal agencies update their websites in order to bring them on par with the private sector.

“If you want to make sure we have a unified country then do some basic things. First of all, make sure everyone is participating in the benefits of technology, not that all the wealth is just going to very, very few individuals,” Khanna said during an interview Friday with Tucker Carlson. Both Khanna and the conservative Fox News host agreed certain Silicon Valley tech firms would face a populist backlash if they continued to rip off American taxpayers with labor costs.

California’s 17th congressional district, which Khanna has represented since January 2017, is quite different from your typical Midwest town. The district boasts a median income of $121,000 and is home to a number of famous corporate headquarters: Google, Apple, Tesla and numerous others.

However, the West Coast lawmaker has spent countless hours traveling to rural towns that can be hard to find on a map. His quest to bring tech jobs to Middle America eventually earned him the nickname “ambassador of Silicon Valley.”

Khanna, for example, traveled with a bipartisan delegation to Paintsville, Kentucky in March 2017 in order to support an initiative that trains locals in the fields of coding and computer technology. He participated in a roundtable discussion with Silicon Valley venture capitalists in Youngstown, Ohio in an effort to bring their investment money to communities depressed with a declining manufacturing industry.

In one of his more recent trips, Khanna visited Jefferson, Iowa in December 2018 to lead a local program that seeks to attract tech jobs to rural communities. The small town of around 4,000 hosted executives from big-name companies such as LinkedIn and Microsoft, and toured an empty building that would soon house a new tech facility. The program aims to revitalize small Iowa towns that have been long plagued with underdevelopment.

It appeared the Californian’s visit to Jefferson was well received. In an op-ed from the town’s local paper, Khanna was referred to as “Jefferson’s real congressman.”

“It’s possible Ro Khanna did more for Greene County, Iowa, in 16 hours this past weekend than Steve King has in 16 years,” read an opening paragraph from The Jefferson Herald. “Yes, Khanna represents Silicon Valley, but if you were one of the Iowans [participating in the tech event], you know this, and know it well: Ro Khanna is representing Greene County, Iowa, too.”

The Navy will commission its newest Independence-variant littoral combat ship, the future USS Tulsa (LCS 16), during a 10 a.m. PST ceremony Saturday, Feb. 16, at Pier 30/32 in San Francisco.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma will deliver the commissioning ceremony’s principal address. Kathy Taylor, former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the ship’s sponsor. The ceremony will be highlighted by a time-honored Navy tradition when Taylor gives the first order to “man our ship and bring her to life!”

“This ship is named in honor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but represents more than one city,” said Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer. “USS Tulsa represents an investment in readiness and lethality, and is a testament to the increased capabilities made possible by a true partnership between the Department of the Navy and our industrial base.”

The future USS Tulsa is the second naval vessel to honor Oklahoma’s third largest city. The first USS Tulsa was an Asheville-class gunboat designated as PG-22 that served from 1923 to 1944 before being renamed Tacloban. She earned two battle stars for World War II service. A cruiser to be named USS Tulsa was also authorized for construction during World War II, but the contract was canceled before it was built.

 

GULF OF MEXICO (March 8, 2018) The future USS Tulsa (LCS 16) was underway for acceptance trials, which are the last significant milestone before delivery of the Independence-variant littoral combat ship to the Navy. During trials, the Navy conducted comprehensive tests of the future USS Tulsa, intended to demonstrate the performance of the propulsion plant, ship handling abilities and auxiliary systems. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Austal USA/Released)

LCS is a highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable ship designed to support focused mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare missions. The ship integrates new technology and capability to affordably support current and future mission capability from deep water to the littorals. 

The LCS class consists of two variants, the Freedom variant and the Independence variant, designed and built by two industry teams. The Independence variant team is led by Austal USA, Mobile, Alabama, (for LCS 6 and the subsequent even-numbered hulls). The Freedom variant team is led by Lockheed Martin, Marinette, Wisconsin, (for the odd-numbered hulls).

USS Tulsa will join USS Freedom (LCS 1), USS Independence (LCS 2), USS Fort Worth (LCS 3), USS Coronado (LCS 4), USS Jackson (LCS 6), USS Montgomery (LCS 8), USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10), USS Omaha (LCS 12) and USS Manchester (LCS 14) in their homeport of San Diego.

Source: Department of Defense

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed state senators Thursday for frightening Amazon as the tech giant sought to create a campus in the Empire State.

“A small group of politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community — which poll after poll showed overwhelming supported bringing Amazon to Long Island,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The New York State Senate has done tremendous damage.” Democrats control the New York Senate.

Amazon backed out of a planned deal after local politicians and critics panned the idea. The multi-billion company is still planning to construct another center in Arlington, Virginia, near the nation’s capital. The project in New York was expected to create 25,000 jobs. A smaller project in Nashville, Tennessee, is expected to create 5,000 new jobs.

“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” Amazon spokeswoman Jodi Seth said in a statement.

Cuomo, a Democrat, made his comment shortly after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cheered Amazon’s decision to vacate New York.

“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” Ocasio-Cortez told her Twitter followers.