Powerful House Democrats’ Bloc Linked to International Communist Movement

Ben Sellers
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‘The Congressional Progressive Caucus is by far the largest and most influential coalition in the federal government…’

IMAGE: Congressional Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) via Twitter

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) One may be hard-pressed to find any references on the carefully curated official page of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to its socialist underpinnings, but quick searches of its “dog-whistle” posts on social media and platforms like the blog site Medium begin to show its true colors.

On Medium, an upraised fist sits atop the words “The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance,” evoking the propagandist symbolism of the Soviet Union and other extremist upheaval movements.

As The Epoch Times’ Trevor Loudon noted in a commentary on Monday, “The Congressional Progressive Caucus is by far the largest and most influential coalition in the federal government. It is also the most radical, having extensive ties to several major Marxist organizations.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) co-founded the CPC in 1991, along with former Rep. Ron Dellums (Calif.). New incoming congressmen are likely to increase its ranks to an estimated 95 members, including unabashedly socialist Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.).

Joining Sanders and Waters among its 79 current members are notorious headline-grabbers like Rep. Elijah Cummings (S.C.), Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Rep. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.) and Rep. Joe Kennedy (Mass.)—a veritable who’s who of far-Left demagogues, with many poised to assume powerful leadership positions in the new House majority.

In her bid to become, once again, the speaker of the House and to stave off a potential challenge from the Left, Rep. Nancy Pelosi has bargained with the CPC to offer its membership even more positions of authority in the new Congress.

However, those who aren’t household names are no less worrisome than CPC’s prominent figureheads. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), who is likely to become the next CPC chair, was among 575 protestors arrested during a sit-in on Capitol Hill in June.

As the Epoch Times notes, more than a dozen CPC members in the next Congress have direct affiliations with the Democratic Socialists of America. DSA has garnered its own headlines recently for acts of disruption and uncivil disobedience, some of which were of dubious legality and linked to violent organizations like Antifa.

The article also listed several members, such as the departing Ellison, with ties to the Communist Party USA. The CPUSA even issued a report at a 2012 international gathering of communist organizations that highlighted the connection with the CPC.

The article said many of the current issues on the Democratic agenda—among them: single-payer health care, amnesty for illegal aliens, normalization of relations with communist Cuba, $15 per hour minimum wage—were driven by the CPC into the mainstream discussion, despite being rooted in the international communist platform.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus is effectively part of the world communist movement. And it’s about to become the dominant faction in the Democratic Party,” said the Epoch Times.

Mississippi Sen. Candidate Mike Espy’s Ethical Issues Embarrassing Even for Clintons

Ben Sellers
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‘The resignation is a personal disgrace and a profound setback…’

Mike Espy/IMAGE: MSNBC via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Between them in their respective political careers, Bill and Hillary Clinton have amassed an impressive—and depressive—list of scandals, most of which they have been able to weather largely unscathed.

So, just what would it take for the Clintons to ask one of their top-level staffers to resign over an ethical scandal? Where is the fine red line between “what difference does it make” and indefensibly verboten?

To know, you might have to ask former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, now locked in a contentious bid to become the first black Senator from Mississippi since the post-Civil-War Reconstruction era.

Voters in the Magnolia State will go to the polls Tuesday to choose between the two top finishers in the Nov. 6 special election to replace retired Sen. Thad Cochran. Espy, a Democrat, faces Cindy Hyde-Smith, who has been filling in since Cochran retired in the spring.

The national press zeroing in on the last big race of the current campaign season has devoted much of its coverage to attacking Hyde-Smith over a pair of gaffes in which she joked about attending a public hanging and about making it more difficult for college students to vote.

The Washington Post condescendingly opined that Hyde-Smith’s statements had been a setback for all Mississippians, who desperately yearned to raise their profile in the eyes of the other states.

“Mississippi often finds itself the butt of jokes aiming to make the point that the Magnolia State has not advanced at the same pace as the rest of the United States—or even the South,” said The Post.

Scandals notwithstanding, Hyde-Smith remained heavily favored to win on Tuesday.

“Democrats’ inability to come close is in large part because they can’t win over white voters in the state,” moaned CNN. “Mississippi voters are highly polarized along racial lines.”

Remarkably, the implication would seem to be that electing Espy is the deep-red state’s only hope for recovering its good name.

Unless, of course, Espy forgets the lessons he learned in 1994. Just prior to the midterms 24 years ago, he was forced out of the Clinton cabinet for accepting freebies from companies, such as tickets to see the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bulls, and using taxpayer revenue to cover his personal Jeep Cherokee, reported the Chicago Tribune.

“But the last straw for the White House was the discovery that Arkansas-based Tyson Foods Inc., the nation’s largest poultry producer, had given a $1,200 scholarship to his girlfriend,” it said.

Clintons, Michelle Obama Planning Rock Star-Like Arena Tours after Midterms 1
Hillary and Bill Clinton/IMAGE: Fox Business via Youtube

With little inkling of what lay ahead for the Clintons, the Tribune wrote, “True, this administration hasn’t suffered from the likes of a Watergate or an Irangate, but, almost from the beginning, it has been plagued by ethical questions … [and] dogged by the perception of being a loosely run, sloppy ship.”

The Tribune did not let Espy off the hook quite so easily, saying that “the resignation is a personal disgrace and a profound setback.”

Indeed, it may have seemed at the time like an indelible blight that would forever mar the otherwise stainless Clinton White House: “For the administration—even though Espy is the only Cabinet member so far to resign because of suspicious conduct … it renews questions about Clinton’s commitment to his campaign promise to change government and operate under a higher standard of conduct.”

Whether a quarter-century  has helped instill such a higher standard in Espy’s personal code, only time may tell. But one thing that is unchanged is his ambition. The Tribune pinned Espy’s downfall, in a way, on his political aspirations.

“Mike Espy’s greatest weaknesses, it appears, were a passion for sports,” said the paper, “an ambition to be a Mississippi senator or governor and an inability to remember that he was no longer a member of Congress, where taking advantage of freebies and perks and hobnobbing with special interests is a way of life.”

Although the Trump administration has dealt with similar situations—notably the forced resignation of former EPA chief Scott Pruitt for his excessive use of travel and workplace perks, one sign of the times is that the ethics scandals by Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a Democrat who narrowly lost the Florida gubernatorial race, caused nary a ripple in today’s legacy media.

Should he fail to become the first black Mississippian in the Senate since Reconstruction, at least Espy will still hold onto one title that is unlikely to fade anytime soon, as one of the few Democrats—if not the only one—ever to be held accountable to the Left’s “higher standard of conduct.”

Left Plotting Ways to Re-‘Steal’ the Judicial Branch

Ben Sellers
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‘To say that Democrats shouldn’t unsteal the courts because we’re worried about the normative context, I think, is to ignore the very normative context that we’re already in…’

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Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., administers the Constitutional Oath to Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh in the Justices’ Conference Room, Supreme Court Building. Mrs. Ashley Kavanaugh holds the Bible.
Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) For decades, Democrats—in the absence of legislative majorities—have relied on the judiciary, not only to check and balance the power of elected officials, but often to perform or override the functions of other branches.

Judges have interpreted new laws where none were passed, used technicalities to overturn voter-driven ballot referenda and now have their sights set on the executive role of commander-in-chief.

But with two new conservative Supreme Court justices and a Republican Senate majority to help streamline future judicial appointments, the Left now faces the likelihood that Trump-appointed jurists will quickly turn the tables on them.

Their best hope? Invalidate the courts.

The Huffington Post on Sunday ran a piece outlining some of the Democrats’ strategies for undermining and challenging the very institution that they themselves have bolstered into the final authority on everything from abortion to gay marriage to health care to election battles.

Among the proposals being floated are to somehow change the lifetime appointments of federal judges, to legally force them to recuse themselves in ethical conflicts of interest, and to find ways of reclaiming the judge-ships that they now have come to regard as ‘stolen.’

“Progressives have felt that they were well taken care of in the judiciary and that we had secured a lot of important rights with this past litigation mid-century and that was going to be the way we would defend our gain,” said Todd Tucker, a legal scholar at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, according to the HuffPo.

Of course, in tampering with the delicate system of protocols and procedures, as they previously did with Congressional process in judicial appointments, Democrats risk setting further precedents that will ultimately backfire on them.

Despite having used similar efforts to thwart conservative appointees under Republican presidents, liberals continue to seethe over the blocking of Obama nominee Merrick Garland to the high court.

Already, some groups have set their sights on the prospect of packing the courts under the next Democratic president.  One group, led by activist Aaron Belkin, has even dubbed itself 1.20.21, in presumptive reference to the next presidential inauguration.

The group’s mission is to add four additional Supreme Court seats, naturally to be filled with liberal judges, in response to the spots held by Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—both of whom, Belkin claims, without evidence, are invalid.

“To say that Democrats shouldn’t unsteal the courts because we’re worried about the normative context, I think, is to ignore the very normative context that we’re already in,” Belkin told the HuffPo.

Even so, 13 seats may not be enough.

Although entrenching the Supreme Court’s conservative wing through the appointments of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to replace the late Antonin Scalia and retired “swing vote” Anthony Kennedy had leftist activists up in arms, there is a good chance that the next seat to be filled will be that of ailing liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Should Republicans face the prospect of a 7-4 court majority, liberals like Belkin undoubtedly are already are formulating ways to pre-emptively declare it stolen.

As the Left works overtime to further politicize the judicial branch, some in the judiciary, such as Chief Justice John Roberts, are reluctantly entering the fray, ostensibly to preserve the courts’ neutrality, but ultimately doing the opposite.

Roberts himself was met with some criticism for hypocrisy after rebuffing President Trump for calling the liberal Ninth Circuit “Obama judges.”

In all likelihood, Roberts—a George W. Bush appointee—who already has been the key swing vote in cases like the one deciding Obamacare, could move farther to the left to provide ideological balance if more conservatives were to arrive.

Partisans, including current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, praised Roberts for stepping into the public ring with Trump and advocating for an “independent” judiciary by serving a leftist agenda.

Former ICE Head Calls Out Kamala Harris for KKK Comparison

Ben Sellers
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‘She failed the American people…’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) When many on the extreme Left were calling for the abolishing of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau in the spring, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., was slow to jump on board.

Her calls to fundamentally reform ICE’s mission drew criticism from her radical base, with some liberals saying it was “not good enough.”

Now, it seems’ the 2020 presidential hopeful is making up for lost time, with a recent rhetorical standoff that found both sides comparing the other side to the Ku Klux Klan.

Many on social media and within the cable news punditry condemned Harris’ remarks during a Capitol Hill hearing for Ronald Vitiello, President Donald Trump’s nominee for ICE director.

Among them was former ICE boss Tom Homan, who called the comments “disgusting” during an appearance Monday on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

“For her, as a U.S. Senator, to make that comparison… she failed the American people. ICE is enforcing the law that Congress enacted,” Homan said.

He called on Harris to apologize to ICE and law enforcement.

“They’re not making this up… Shame on her,” Homan said.

As some observed, both the KKK—which was principally a Democrat-run organization to prevent newly emancipated blacks from voting Republican—and the Left’s current position on ICE—designed to prevent the enforcement of immigration rules in order to entrench Democratic electoral power—found the party on the wrong side of the law.

Homan said recent reports of clashes between Tijuana residents and the migrant caravans set up there while hoping to gain entry into the U.S. were not surprising.

“Mexico’s finally saying enough’s enough, and the reason this is coming to a head is because President Trump has taken power—so you know what, our border’s closed for illegal business,” Homan said. “What he’s done is force this caravan to be stuck in Tijuana.

“He’s put this issue on the front burner…. He’s been right on everything he’s done on this border.”

Several Anti-Pelosi Dems Already Backpedaling on Campaign Promises

Ben Sellers
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‘No one gives you power. You have to take it from them…’

Pelosi Tells Calif. Republicans to Leave State if They Support Tax Bill
Nancy Pelosi/IMAGE: C-SPAN via YouTube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) In a fawning profile of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., The New York Times Magazine on Monday quoted the former (and likely future) speaker of the House as saying, “No one gives you power. You have to take it from them.”

Whether this is inspiring or terrifying depends on the vantage point. Pelosi—who last year passed her three-decade mark as a member of Congress—has certainly made her share of alarming gaffes, such as the menacing pre-election remark that those opposing Democrats could expect “collateral damage.”

But ironically, one of the biggest fights the San Francisco congresswoman now faces comes from defending against the challengers within her own ranks who seek to take her seat of power from her.

As the Left works through an identity crisis pitting well-funded establishment politicians against grassroots, anti-capitalist radicals, the speakership will be a test of just how much pull Pelosi has within the Democratic Party.

The answer seems to be quite a lot.

Despite many having campaigned on promises to help oust the polarizing Pelosi from her leadership post, few in the House Democratic caucus have put forth serious challenges to her.

According to Roll Call, at least three of those who came out decisively against her before the Nov. 6 election are now getting cold feet after meeting with Pelosi. The article names New Jersey Reps.-elect Mike Sherrill and Andy Kim, as well as Michigan’s Haley Stevens, all of whom ran on platforms of change and throwing out the old.

Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, who had indicated an intention to challenge Pelosi, seemed also to hedge on that possibility after meeting with her.

Fudge told reporters that she could be persuaded to drop her bid if the incentives were right. “There is a point, yes, but it’s going to take some,” she said.

Fudge’s name was absent from a letter signed by 16 next-gen Dems calling for Pelosi’s ouster, despite her having signed a draft copy, reported the Washington Examiner. However, the article noted that Fudge’s omission gave no clear indication whether she was backing down from a challenge or whether it meant, conversely, that a speaker bid was imminent.

Conservative political action committee America Rising noted the names of several other upstart anti-Pelosi campaigners missing from the recent Gang of 16: Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), Jared Golden (Maine), Abigail Spanberger (Va.) and Jason Crow (Colo.).

“The divide in the party over Pelosi shows that Democrats are in in complete disarray heading into the new Congressional term,” the PAC wrote in a statement.

Interestingly, Pelosi’s bid has gained her some unlikely allies.

President Donald Trump has stated that she “deserves” to be speaker and has even offered to help her in her efforts to secure the votes.

Some Republicans in the House have also said they would be willing to support her if she implements bipartisan rules changes that would do more to empower individual members over their respective caucuses.

Mississippi Sen. Runoff Is Dems’ Last Chance for Election Antics Till 2020

Ben Sellers
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‘From where I’m standing today, knowing what I know, they’re both philosophically very much alike…’

Trump Won't Endorse Chosen GOP Candidate for Miss. Senate
Cindy Hyde-Smith/IMAGE: YouTube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) If Democrats manage to flip another seat in the U.S. Senate—narrowing Republicans’ majority, and their midterm net gain, to a single vote—the GOP may have Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to thank.

As the dust settles on the many recount crises of the 2018 election, the GOP has emerged largely victorious from hard-fought legal battles in Georgia and Florida.

However, with a concession in Arizona having whittled away at the projected Senate majority by officially giving to Democrats the seat of retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, all eyes now fall on whether the Left can orchestrate a flip in the Mississippi runoff election scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 27.

While many around the nation will have their attention directed elsewhere, emerging from their Thanksgiving tryptophan comas and tending to their Black Friday battle scars, the racially charged campaign between Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy in one of the Deep South’s most reliably red states is a prime candidate for Democrat shenanigans. 

“There’s never been an election on Nov. 27—a couple days after Thanksgiving—before,” Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist overseeing the Espy campaign, told the Daily Beast. “We don’t know if [turnout is] going to be 300,000 or a million.”

To top it all off, like last year’s special election in Alabama to replace former Sen. Jeff Sessions, the GOP may again be forced to reconcile the greater good (in padding its majority) with the embrace of a candidate who has a knack for generating controversy.

It was at McConnell’s behest that Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryan in April appointed Smith, previously the state’s commissioner of agriculture and commerce, to take over for longtime senator Thad Cochran when the octogenarian resigned citing health reasons.

McConnell hoped to ensure a reliable moderate would replace Cochran, who had narrowly staved off a challenge on the Right from conservative Chris McDaniel, and to give Smith an incumbency advantage leading into the midterm election.

However, Smith’s appointment was immediately met with some reluctance within the party because she had previously served in state offices as a Democrat, and had voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary election, before switching to Republican in 2010.

With no primary to secure the GOP nomination this year, McDaniel ran against Smith in the Nov. 6 special election, drawing 16.5 percent of the vote to Smith’s 41.5 percent. Espy finished with 40.6 percent, just under 8,000 votes shy of Smith’s lead. Since no candidate finished above 50 percent, the state’s laws required a runoff election between the two leading candidates.

Trump Won't Endorse Chosen GOP Candidate for Miss. Senate 1
Chris McDaniel/IMAGE: YouTube

Under normal circumstances, victory for Smith would be a lock, as she would likely draw most of the nearly 150,ooo votes McDaniel had garnered. But with so much at stake, nothing can be taken for granted—and Smith, for her part, has done little to help ease the worries in her recently adopted party.

In the span of a week following the Nov. 6 election, she drew negative headlines, first for joking that if one of her supporters invited her to a public hanging, she would be in the front row. Supporters of Espy, who is black, were quick to link the comments to Mississippi’s troubled racial past and history of Jim Crow-era lynchings.

The Left then attacked her for joking about making it “more difficult” for liberal college students to vote—amid much heated discussion on both ends of the political spectrum about issues of election fraud and disfranchisement following recent recounts.

Smith is scheduled to debate Espy on Tuesday, Nov. 20 in what could produce some uncomfortable moments.

The controversies—and the increased national media scrutiny on the midterms’ final race—may well help to mobilize Democrats.

Espy’s fundraising during the regular election was paltry compared with that of many battleground campaigns—in a year where Democrats’ funding, driven by billionaire plutocrats and special interests taking advantage of looser spending restrictions, far outpaced their Republican counterparts.

But liberals with leftover campaign cash burning a hole in their warchests could set their sights on the Mississippi race if victory appears within reach—particularly as a way to validate the tight losing campaigns of black gubernatorial candidates Andrew Gillum (Fla.) and Stacey Abrams (Ga.).

Moreover, as of September, McDaniel had declined to endorse Smith in a possible runoff scenario, despite heaping his criticism mainly on Espy.

“From where I’m standing today, knowing what I know, they’re both philosophically very much alike,” McDaniel told Mississippi Today. “But because of Mr. Espy’s past indictments [for accepting illegal gifts] and his past direct work with the Clinton administration, that causes me grave concern.” 

Should Republicans encounter an enthusiasm gap—either in protest of Smith, due to general election fatigue, or because an unexpected influx of voters in the liberal base, particularly the black vote—it could spell trouble.

Like the special Alabama election, in which Democrat Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore to replace Sessions—thereby delivering a symbolic victory to stem the Trumpian momentum of 2016 and shift the media narrative—the Left may see Mississippi as its last stand before the 2020 race to defeat Trump ensues.

The similarities between the two special elections weren’t lost on Trippi.

“If you overlaid the Alabama result on the Mississippi electorate, Doug Jones would have won Mississippi by 8 points,” Trippi told Vice News. “I’m not saying that there aren’t things to get over. I’m saying if you thought Alabama wasn’t possible and you look at the data and the real facts and you look at who is registered—then if a Democrat can win in Alabama, a Democrat can win in Mississippi.”

Although President Trump was initially hesitant to endorse Smith, he eventually threw his support behind her.

On Monday, he announced his plan to stump for her with a rally in Biloxi the day before the runoff.

Court Says Hillary Must Answer More Questions About Missing Emails

Ben Sellers
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‘It is shameful that Judicial Watch attorneys must continue to battle the State and Justice Departments, which still defend Hillary Clinton…’

Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton/IMAGE: Bloomberg News via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) In the same week that speculation over on-again, off-again potential 2020 presidential contender Hillary Clinton again turned toward the likelihood of another run, it looks as if questions over her notorious missing emails, like Clinton herself, aren’t going anywhere.

Government accountability watchdog Judicial Watch announced Thursday that a federal court ruled Clinton would be required to submit responses to two questions related to the creation of the e-mails server and her unverified claims that it was, essentially, a backup of what was on the State Department server.

While Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the break was good news, he expressed frustration with the protracted legal battle.

“It is shameful that Judicial Watch attorneys must continue to battle the State and Justice Departments, which still defend Hillary Clinton, for basic answers to our questions about Clinton’s email misconduct,” Fitton said.

The questions were an addendum to 25 previous deposition questions for which Clinton was required to submit sworn responses in August 2016 as the result of Judicial Watch’s legal filings under the Freedom of Information Act. Clinton and her attorneys have 30 days to comply with the new ruling.

However, the majority of Clinton’s earlier responses simply objected to the line of questioning as being outside the scope of discovery, with several stating that Clinton could not recall any direct information about the subject. It is unlikely that Clinton’s new answers will help to elucidate anything regarding the estimated 30,000 missing emails.

In addition to the mishandling of classified materials and obstruction issues, more serious concerns have sprung up that Clinton’s server may have been hacked by Chinese spies to receive copies of all her emails, and that the FBI may have been complicit in covering up the security breach.

Although supporters of President Donald Trump—who promised during the 2016 debates to pursue a criminal case against Clinton—have continued to make “Lock her up” a rallying cry symbolizing the brazenness and dearth of accountability for corrupt public officials, Trump faced a roadblock in former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who investigated but never followed up.

New interim Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has signaled that he is more in line than Sessions with Trump’s prosecutorial priorities, and Trump is also likely to seek a permanent replacement who will be more responsive to executive input on Clinton and on the Mueller investigation into Trump’s contact with Russia during the campaign.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whose leverage as a swing voter in the narrowly split chamber with a miniscule GOP majority will likely add to his outsized influence within the party, said recently that he supports both investigations being fully explored if he is appointed chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Blatant Double-Standard on Display in Coverage of Alleged Abuser Avenatti

Ben Sellers
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‘He wouldn’t hit anybody. Especially a woman. He’s got two daughters…’

(Ben Sellers) Let us take a moment to remember the “Believe all women” movement.

Lawyer Michael Avenatti, while representing Brett Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick in her salacious—and now largely debunked, potentially perjurious—claims against the Supreme Court nominee, would certainly have wanted us to, no matter the credibility.

But as Avenatti, who was arrested Wednesday following an apparent incident of domestic violence against a female companion, now faces his own scandal, the circumstances are, uh, different.

As the story broke Wednesday, with celebrity gossip site TMZ leading the charge, it was widely reported in the media—including by Liberty Headlines, which culled its information from the Tribune News Service’s subscription-based wire content—that the victim was Avenatti’s estranged ex-wife.

However, CNN national political correspondent MJ Lee later tweeted that she had spoken with ex-wife Lisa Storie-Avenatti by phone and that the latter strongly denied involvement. Interestingly, she explained that Avenatti, as a family man, could never have done such a thing.

It’s easy to imagine what the reaction on CNN would have been to such a statement had it come during the Kavanaugh hearing.

Rather, when Kavanaugh became emotional before the Senate Judiciary Committee while discussing his two daughters and the difficulty he and his wife had faced explaining the situation to them, he was mocked and scorned.

Kavanaugh even had his temperament questioned by politicians like Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and soon-to-be-former-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., as well as left-wing media commentators.

While Avenatti’s ordeal has helped the Left to suddenly recover its empathy, it also has helped liberals to regain another virtue, recognizing the importance of concepts like “due process” and “innocent until proven guilty.”

TMZ reported that Avenatti’s most famous client, Trump accuser Stormy Daniels, issued a statement urging people not to jump to conclusions. “We should all reserve judgement until the investigation—an investigation Michael has said he welcomes—is complete, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Daniels said.

However, it seems unlikely that Avenatti, who had declared himself a 2020 presidential challenger to Trump but was already seen by some on the Left as harmful to the cause, will be able to regain his standing.

While conservative Fox News pundit Sean Hannity said on his show Wednesday that he intended to reserve judgment now that the tables have turned on Avenatti, actress and #MeToo activist Alyssa Milano was less forgiving.

Milano, the former child star of sitcom “Who’s the Boss” and films like “Poison Ivy II,” has become one of the Hollywood-driven feminist movement’s leading voices. At the invitation of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, she was seated prominently in the gallery during the Kavanaugh hearings.

On Wednesday, she tweeted her condemnation of Avenatti following the “totally disgusting” allegations.

The “#Basta” hashtag—Italian for “enough”—had been used by Avenatti in his own tweets advocating women’s causes. Others Twitter users also have begun repurposing it, now with an added layer of irony.

HIM TOO: Avenatti Arrested for Domestic Violence against Female Companion

Ben Sellers
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‘She hit me first…’

Correction: Initial wire reports indicated that Avenatti’s estranged ex-wife was the domestic-abuse victim. The New York Daily News now reports that his ex-wife denies any involvement and defended him. The story and headline have been updated to reflect the change.

Avenatti Exposed: Stormy's Lawyer May Face Legal Action & Disbarment
Michael Avenatti (screen shot: MSNBC/Youtube)

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Michael Avenatti, the Trump-trolling attorney most famous for representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her lawsuits against the president, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly assaulting a female acquaintance, according to a report originally broken by celebrity gossip site TMZ.

Law enforcement sources told TMZ that Avenatti was charged with felony domestic assault after allegedly beating up the woman at a ritzy apartment building in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to New York Daily News.

TMZ said the incident happened as Avenatti attempted to evict the woman from the apartment. While filing the domestic violence report, the article noted, her face appeared “swollen and bruised” with “red marks.”

A second confrontation occurred on Wednesday, TMZ reports, after the woman attempted to gather her things with help from the building security. Avenatti showed up shortly thereafter screaming profanities and claiming, “She hit me first.”

Avenatti was reportedly still in custody Wednesday afternoon and could not immediately be reached for comment, said New York Daily News.

Once the darling of nearly every CNN and MSNBC talk show, who declared himself a potential 2020 presidential challenger for Trump, Avenatti already had fallen into a degree of disrepute after a failed gambit to grab headlines during the contentious and highly watched confirmation saga of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Following the accusations of Christine Blasey Ford and another accuser, Avenatti used his media clout to dramatically trot out a third accuser, Julie Swetnick. However, Swetnick’s outlandish claims of having witnessed the conservative jurist participating in orgies were quickly dispatched.

Many of the Left resented Avenatti’s forsaking the more credible witnesses in the interest of his own profit and showmanship.

A comprehensive review of all of the claims, released last month by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, thoroughly debunked the uncorroborated accounts and recommended both Swetnick and Avenatti be investigated by the Department of Justice for potential perjury due to the use of a sworn affidavit.

Around the same time, Avenatti faced a setback in the Stormy Daniels case as a judge threw out a defamation lawsuit she had pressed and ruled that Daniels was obligated to pay Trump’s considerable legal expenses for the frivolous claim.

In May, Avenatti was sued by his former legal partner, Jason Frank, for breach of contract after missing the deadline in a settlement agreement to pay Frank $4.85 million.

“The suit is completely bogus. Who cares?” Avenatti told left-wing blog Talking Points Memo.

First Caravan Arrivals Begin Crossing at Tijuana–San Diego Border

Ben Sellers
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‘Failing to take immediate action … would only encourage additional mass unlawful migration and further overwhelming of the system.’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Derided by Democrats like Joe Biden during campaign season as being thousands of miles away and reduced to a fearmongering tactic, the caravan of predominantly Central American migrants, as promised, is now at the doorstep of the United States.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that a group of 356 arrived by bus in Tijuana, near the California border, on Tuesday and that dozens of others were starting to arrive at other checkpoints.

San Diego’s Fox 5 showed a live-stream video on its Facebook account of some approaching the rusted coastline border fence at the city’s Friendship Park.

Other images from the local media showed border officials scrambling to fortify sections of the fence with barbed wire to deter crossing.

The Union Tribune reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection planned to close three lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and one at the Otay Mesa Port while it installed “port hardening infrastructure equipment” in preparation for the arrivals.

By many estimates, the caravan had swollen to a total of around 14,000 presumed refugee-seekers by late October. No recent estimates were available to determine whether it had shrunken along the way or continued to grow in the past two weeks.

Although Mexican officials had attempted to forestall the trek, offering temporary residency, many reportedly scoffed at the proposal.

As President Donald Trump continued his efforts to make good on a promise to deploy troops to the border, he faced unprecedented resistance from court orders and from the Pentagon, which initially balked at the idea before agreeing to send 5,200 to support border patrols prior to last week’s midterm election.

Counting the national guardsmen already dispatched, more than 7,000 active-duty troops are now set to guard the border through Dec. 15, with the possibility that as many as 15,000 may be sent.

Even as the caravan members arrived, Trump adversaries like retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., continued to criticize the deployment as a political stunt, saying it was unfortunate that the troops—some of whom he said were deployed in Tucson, at least 60 miles from the nearest point of entry, would have to miss their Thanksgiving holiday in order to protect the border.

While efforts to prevent the rock-throwing rabble-rousers from setting foot on U.S. soil were underway, questions also lingered on how to accommodate those who crossed—thus entitling them at minimum to an interrogation and asylum hearing—in the already overstretched tent cities established by Customs and Border Protection.

Migrants would need to wait several weeks before even being admitted for processing, The Union-Tribune reported. Already, the waiting list for asylum-seekers is about 2,500 long.

“If they really cared about addressing this, they wouldn’t be deploying military, they’d be deploying asylum officers to the border,” Erika Pinheiro, an attorney with the group Al Otro Lado, told The Union-Tribune.

Trump has bemoaned what he said is billions of dollars spent annually on the broken asylum process and has dangled the possibility several executive orders to act as deterrents—including the reinstatement of a controversial “zero-tolerance” policy that would permit family separations during processing and a challenge to the 14th Amendment’s “birthright citizenship” entitlements.

Last week, he issued a formal proclamation addressing the mass migration, saying he would suspend asylum eligibility for those who attempt to enter the U.S. unlawfully or without proper documentation.

“Failing to take immediate action to stem the mass migration the United States is currently experiencing and anticipating would only encourage additional mass unlawful migration and further overwhelming of the system,” Trump said.

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