National News, Wednesday, Sept. 18th – Corey Lewandowski Grilled On Capitol Hill

U.S. News stories from across America, from RogueValleyMagazine.com

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Corey Lewandowski pauses to speak with his attorney before answering one of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s questions on Capitol Hill yesterday.

In his congressional grilling, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski stonewalled lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee about his conversations with President Trump, a grilling he took for nearly six hours on Tuesday, after the White House sought to impose limits on the scope of his testimony.

Mr. Lewandowski affirmed the accuracy of elements of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and any White House obstruction of justice, including that Mr. Trump sought to have him ask the attorney general to restrict the Mueller probe in 2017.

But, adhering to White House instructions, he declined to answer questions on matters not included in the Mueller report, incensing Democrats on the panel as he did so.

Less than three hours into the hearing, a visibly frustrated House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) told the room: “Article III of the Nixon impeachment was based on this kind of obstruction of Congress by President Nixon.” The hearing was aimed at helping House Democrats determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump.

“Your behavior in this hearing room has been completely unacceptable,” Mr. Nadler told Mr. Lewandowski as he concluded the hearing. He said voting to hold Mr. Lewandowski in contempt of Congress was “certainly under consideration.”

Mr. Lewandowski’s testimony was the latest example of the challenge Democrats face in investigating the Trump administration, which has ranged from unresponsive to combative in its responses to the dozens of subpoenas and document requests the House has sent its way. Holding a hearing with a subject like

Mr. Lewandowski allows Democrats to highlight the White House’s obstruction of its investigations, but also exposes the limits of the panel’s ability to obtain new information.

Mr. Lewandowski’s most revealing comments came near the end of the hearing under questioning from Democratic counsel Barry Berke, during which Mr. Lewandowski broadly affirmed the accuracy of the Mueller report.

“I have stated to the best of my knowledge that most of the information in the Mueller report is accurate,” he said. He also acknowledged not being truthful in media interviews about his interactions with the president regarding Mr. Sessions. “I have no obligation to be honest with the media,” he said.

Mr. Lewandowski’s performance immediately met with praise from Mr. Trump. On his flight to Mountain View, Calif., Mr. Trump wrote: “Such a beautiful Opening Statement by Corey Lewandowski!”

The United Auto Workers strike against General Motors Co. is in full swing. 

It could detract further from the U.S. economy at a time of mounting global uncertainty, but it would take a long strike to really hurt the economy most economists interviewed agreed today.

Factory workers at General Motors went on a nationwide strike early Monday morning in the United Auto Workers’ largest work stoppage in more than a decade.

It will dent auto workers and thousands of other related businesses and their employees, lowering consumer spending, incomes and tax revenues in areas where assembly plants are located.

Auto-industry analysts estimate that the walkout—which began Monday and involves roughly 46,000 full-time workers in more than 30 factories across 10 states—could dent GM’s profit by between $50 million and $100 million daily. Stalled production could slash more than a tenth of GM’s expected third-quarter operating profit of about $3.5 billion by the weekend, though GM could make up some lost production once workers return, analysts say.

The U.S. business is GM’s most profitable, but the strike comes at a delicate time for both the nation’s largest auto maker and the United Auto Workers union.

GM is seeking to recover lost market share in the lucrative pickup-truck category, with the continuing rollout of its most extensively redesigned pickups in two decades. The Detroit company is also confronting eroding profit in China, its largest market in terms of sales, and a stalled stock price.

Elizabeth Warren says she’s waging war against big corporations and Wall Street corruption as the argument for her presidential campaign, telling thousands gathered in Manhattan, New York yesterday that “giant corporations have bought off our government.”

Warren released an anticorruption proposal on the blog site Medium that built on legislation she announced last year. It adds new lobbying restrictions including a federal ban on all fundraising activities hosted by lobbyists.

“Climate change. Gun safety. Health care. On the face of it, these three are totally different issues,” Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said. “But despite our being the strongest and wealthiest country in the history of the world, our democracy is paralyzed. Why? Because giant corporations have bought off our government.”

“I know what’s broken, I’ve got a plan to fix it, and that’s why I’m running for president of the United States,” Ms. Warren said to sustained applause.

About 20,000 people attended Monday night’s event, making it the largest of Ms. Warren’s campaign. It was similar in size to what was previously the only Democratic presidential campaign event in the 2020 race to attract 20,000 people: California Sen. Kamala Harris ’s January launch rally in Oakland, Calif.

Ms. Warren’s anticorruption ideas are unlikely to become law while Republicans control the Senate and the White House.  GOP lawmakers have generally lined up against similar proposals, citing constitutional concerns.

Saudi Arabia will soon restore most of its oil output and fully recover within weeks, the country’s oil ministry said Tuesday, seeking to calm global markets reeling from twin attacks on its largest oil facilities.

Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the kingdom is already supplying oil to its customers at pre-attack levels and that normal production levels will return by the end of September.  It has restored 50% of production lost in Saturday’s attacks, Prince Abdulaziz said.

Saturday’s assault was the largest-ever attack on Saudi oil infrastructure and now poses the biggest geopolitical and economic test for 34-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler. The royal has sought to wean his oil-dependent country off oil by introducing social and economic reforms, and the threat of conflict could upend those plans.

THE TOP BUDGET KILLERS THAT CAUSE US TO OVERSPEND _ Sticking to a budget can be tough. According to a new poll, Americans admit to spending $7,429.24 over their budget every year. Our biggest budget killers

  1. Online shopping
  2. Grocery shopping
  3. Subscription services
  4. Technology products
  5. Buying lunch everyday
  6. Household essentials
  7. Coffee
  8. Food delivery
  9. Gym memberships
  10. 10. Entertainment (movies, concerts, etc.)

MERRIAM-WEBSTER ADDS WORDS 

Merriam-Webster has added more than 530 new words to its dictionary, including:

  • Dad joke: a wholesome joke of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny.
  • Vacay: a shortening of vacation.
  • Pickleball: a court sport played with short-handled paddles and a perforated plastic ball.
  • Deep state: an alleged secret network of especially nonelected government officials and sometimes private entities (as in the financial services and defense industries) operating extralegally to influence and enact government policy.

Everyone in the US who read the newspaper funny pages from 1980-1995 will likely remember the witty comic The Far Side by Gary Larson.

Well, good news: According to the official Far Side website, more Far Side comics are on the way. The website posted a Far Side comic illustration with the sentence “Uncommon, unreal, and (soon-to-be) unfrozen. A new online era of The Far Side is coming!” The website didn’t provide any additional information on when or how Larson’s comic will return.

Don’t make big decisions when you’re hungry.

Most people know that going grocery shopping on an empty stomach can only lead to heartache, when you realize you have nothing to show for your grocery run but potato chips and Ding Dongs. But according to a new study (University of Dundee), making any kind of decision while hungry can lead to poorer choices for the long-term.

Medical researchers have been steadily building evidence that prolonged sitting is awful for your health.

One major problem is that blood can pool in the legs of a seated person, causing arteries to start losing their ability to control the rate of blood flow. A new experimental study has discovered it’s quite easy to negate these detrimental health effects: all you need to do is take a leisurely 5-minute walk for every hour you sit.

Storm Area 51 events have been cancelled.  Unpack your car.  

If you’re packing for a road trip to Nevada for any of the Area 51 events I have a reminder: all of them have been cancelled. Matty Roberts, the creator of the “Storm Area 51” Facebook page, has disassociated himself from the event and “canceled” it. Earlier this year, Roberts jokingly created a Facebook event inviting people to join him and storm Area 51 on September 20 — this Friday. However, that joke quickly got out of hand. The event went viral and more than two million people claimed that they would be attending, with a further 1.6 million declaring their interest in rocking up alongside them.

… Roberts has since admitted to a number of media outlets that he never intended for things to get this out of hand. Some weeks ago he tried to turn the hoax event into a real music festival — called Alienstock — but that turned out to be too messy and complicated.

… On Friday Roberts will be in downtown Las Vegas. That’s because he has partnered up with the Bud Light Area 51 Celebration.

A guy climbed a 30-foot electricity pole before accidentally shocking himself and plummeting to the ground.

Tyler Uher had been drinking before performing the high-risk stunt in front of a crowd of student outside a house party near Ohio University, Athens. Students cheered as they saw Tyler perched at the top of an electricity pole. Suddenly, he grips one of the power cables and sets his hand alight as he is electrocuted. Cheers quickly turn to screams as he is left paralyzed by the shock as he loses his footing and falls.  Sparks fly for a second time as he flips over in mid-air before crashing to the ground.

… He later tweeted: “I broke three bones in my left leg and one broke through the skin. I have a slight fracture in my right hand and four minor breaks in my back. I also got a lot of burns from this. I will be out of work for at least eight weeks or more so anything helps. God bless.” His sister set up a GoFundMe.

Social media sensation Mikayla Saravia has an abnormally long tongue — and brings in more than $100,000 a year flaunting it on Instagram. The 21-year-old Florida woman’s tongue is 6½ inches long, which has helped her gain 2 million Instagram followers.

Smokers work one month less a year that nonsmokers because of smoke breaks. The average smoker take four 10-minute breaks a day — that adds up to one month less work annually.

… RELATED: Life expectancy lost due to various causes:

• Cigarette smoking – 2,250 days
• Heart Disease – 2,100 days
• Being an unmarried male – 3,500 days
• Being an unmarried female – 1,600 days
• Being 30% overweight – 1,300 days
• Cancer – 980 days
• Only having an 8th grade education – 850 days
• Alcohol use – 130

Ric Ocasek, lead singer of The Cars, has died at 70 years old.

Speaking of smoking, The popular music group frontman of  The Cars, Ric Ocasek died over the weekend of heart disease. According to NYC’s Chief Medical Examiner he had heart disease caused by high blood pressure. He was 75. … His wife, Paulina, says she discovered he had passed when she went to bring him his Sunday morning coffee.

A look at the Calendar Ahead….

• September 21: Octoberfest begins in Munich, Germany
• September 22: Emmy Awards (Fox)
• September 23: First day of Fall
• September 28: SNL Season 45 begins
• October 1: Major League Baseball playoffs start
• October 3: NHL regular season starts
• October 11: Nobel Peace Prize winner announced
• October 11: National League Championship Series starts
• October 12: American League Championship Series starts
• October 13: Chicago Marathon
• October 27: Diwali
• October 31: Halloween (a Thursday)

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