Luis Gutierrez Quitting Congress …

The Democrats’ leading pro-amnesty legislator, Chicago Rep. Luis Gutierrez, is quitting Congress, according to a Chicago TV station, NBC 5.

The station reported Monday evening:

NBC 5 has learned congressman Luis Gutierrez will announce Tuesday he is not running for re-election after 24 years on Capitol Hill, sources say. Guitterez telephoned key democratic leaders late this afternoon to let them know of his plans. Calls to Guitterez tonight have not been returned.

Gutierrez’s departure comes as his allies recognize the sinking prospects in 2017 for a no-strings “clean Dream Act” for 3 million illegals, including the 690,000 ‘DACA’ beneficiaries

In 2013 and 2014, Gutierrez was the leading Democratic pushing for House approval of the unpopular “Gang of Eight” amnesty-and-cheap-labor act.

For example, he worked closely with Rep. Paul Ryan to fashion a secret amnesty- bill — even though the amnesty push was so unpopular that it cost Chuck Schumer nine Democratic seats plus the Senate majority in November 2014.

But Gutierrez’s 2017 push for a December amnesty- is being blocked by hostile polls, Donald Trump’s immigration principles, top-level GOP opposition and tepid backroom support from Democrats.

For example, an aamnesty for young illegals is a “top priority” for only 23 percent of American voters who identify as Independents, says a November poll by Morning Consult and Politico. The no-strings amnesty was strongly opposed by 16 percent in the November survey, and likely by many of the 23 percent of people who say they have no comment or don’t know.

Also, a November 27 report by the McClatchy news service included an admission by an amnesty proponent that the push for a December amnesty is losing ground:

“Two months have now passed, and I’m sad to report that we’re arguably further away from a solution today than we were then,” said Neil Bradley, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s chief policy officer.

Bradley is a former top policy staffer who worked for GOP leaders, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Eric Cantor. Bradley lost power when the 2013 “Gang of Eight” push backfired and prompted Cantor’s shock primary defeat.

Amnesty advocates mourned Gutirrez’s departure.

Washington to Black America: Stop Blaming the Prison System

Veteran actor Denzel Washington says his latest role as a dogged defense attorney in Roman J. Israel, Esq. reinforced his belief that black men “can’t blame the system” because we make it “easy work” when it comes to filling America’s prisons.

Veteran actor Denzel Washington says his latest role as a dogged defense attorney in Roman J. Israel, Esq. reinforced his belief that black men “can’t blame the system” because we make it “easy work” when it comes to filling America’s prisons.

“It starts at the home. It starts at home. It starts with how you raise your children. If a young man doesn’t have a father figure, he’ll go find a father figure,” the Academy Award-winner told reporters at the Dan Gilroy-directed film’s New York premiere, the New York Daily News reports.

“So you know I can’t blame the system. It’s unfortunate that we make such easy work for them,” Washington said.

The 62-year-old Hollywood heavyweight told reporters that the subject of how fatherless young men fall into a life of crime and incarceration is a personal one.

“I grew up with guys who did decades (in prison), and it had as much to do with their fathers not being in their lives as it did to do with any system,” said Washington, whose character finds himself working in the overburdened Los Angeles criminal court system. “Now I was doing just as much as they were, but they went further.”

“I just didn’t get caught, but they kept going down that road and then they were in the hands of the system,” the actor added. “But it’s about the formative years. You’re not born a criminal.”

Roman J. Israel, Esq. co-stars Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, and Carmen Amanda Warren and opened in theaters everywhere on Nov. 22.

Donald Trump dismisses report claiming Melania wanted him to lose presidential election

A Vanity Fair report quoted friends of Ms Melania Trump saying she didn’t want to be First Lady ‘come hell or high water’

Donald Trump has dismissed a report that claimed First Lady Melania Trump did not want him to win the 2016 election.

The President took to Twitter this morning to write that Ms Trump “always thought that ‘if you run, you will win,'” in response to a Vanity Fair story that asserted she did not want or expect to be in the White House.

He referred to Ms Trump as a “great and very hard working First Lady”.

Mr Trump tweeted that his wife “truly loves what she is doing,” despite the magazine story citing a “longtime friend” of the family saying Ms Trump “didn’t want this come hell or high water.”

He then retweeted Ms Trump’s official First Lady Twitter account twice in the span of a few minutes – tweets that contained pictures of a smiling Ms Trump with children at the White House and one tweet of a video of her joyfully preparing decorations for the Christmas holiday with staff.

The magazine’s report said the family friend said: “This isn’t something she wanted and it isn’t something he ever thought he’d win.”

However, Mr Trump has asserted in the past and in his tweet today that he felt he would beat Hillary Clinton, which was the reason he entered the race.

Whether she wanted her husband to become leader of the free world or not, the magazine reported that “permanent staff of the White House adore the First Lady. Part of the affection may be due to the fact that, unlike the Obamas, Melania is accustomed to dealing with a staff.”

Of course, Mr Trump has not been a fan of most media coverage of his presidency, less so of his family; he frequently uses the term “fake news” in tweets and speeches.

And Ms Trump launched a fierce rebuttal of the Vanity Fair report on Monday night. A statement to CNN from a spokesperson for the First Lady said the story was “riddled with unnamed sources and false assertions”.

“As a magazine tailored to women it is shameful that they continue to write salacious and false stories meant to demean Ms Trump, rather than focus on her positive work as First Lady as a supportive wife and mother,” it added.

The First Lady has been surrounded by her own share of controversy since Mr Trump began his presidential bid.

She stood by her husband when the now-infamous “Entertainment Tonight” audio leaked of Mr Trumpbragging about sexually assaulting women and saying “when you’re a celebrity they let you do anything” during the campaign.

There were also nude images of Ms Trump that splashed the cover of the New York Post at the height of the campaign, remnants of her former modelling career.

Family friends have said that now the First Lady’s focus is shielding their young son Barron from any further “unfriendly” media coverage of his parents.

Source : independent