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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who went from tending bar to the halls of the Capitol, slammed former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz after he dismissed her proposal for a tax on the nation’s wealthiest, asking why billionaire candidates are not told they have to “work their way up.” “Why don’t people ever tell billionaires who want to run for President that they need to ‘work their way up’ or that ‘maybe they should start with city council first?'” she wrote on her Twitter page Wednesday. Ocasio-Cortez, at 29 the youngest member of Congress, fired back at Schultz after he said he couldn’t...

Over the past week, it’s fair to say Democrats have seemed, well, overly-caffeinated. Howard Schultz, the billionaire former CEO of Starbucks, has the left apoplectic since floating the idea that he is seriously considering running for President — as an independent. Since embarking on his media tour, Democrats from all corners have come out to torpedo the political newcomer, and self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat. With visions of Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and Jill Stein dancing maniacally in their heads, no doubt, the fear that Schultz will take votes away from their party nominee in 2020 aren’t unfounded. That’s usually the way...

Billionaire former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he can’t run for president as a Democrat because he doesn’t like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to slap a 70-percent marginal tax rate on income above $10 million. Schultz revealed Sunday that he’s “seriously considering” running for president as an independent. In an interview with CNBC Monday night, he shed some light on why he feels he would not run as a Democrat: Because he could end up having to argue for massive taxes on the super-rich like himself. “I respect the Democratic Party. I no longer feel affiliated because I don't know...

An adviser to Howard Schultz on Tuesday slammed President Trum over a tweet Trump sent this week attacking the former Starbucks CEO. Bill Burton, during an interview on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront," called the tweet "childish games" and said Schultz's main priority is defeating Trump. Schultz has said he is seriously considering running for president as an independent in 2020. Trump in a tweet Monday said Schultz "doesn't have the 'guts' to run" for president." "You have a president who is setting an awful tone on Twitter. It's taking everybody else down in the gutter with him," Burton said when...

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said that he wasn’t listening to those who said that a potential presidential bid as a “centrist independent” could boost President Donald Trump’s re-election chances. “Nobody wants to see Donald Trump removed from office more than me, ” Schultz said Monday night during an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York City that was interrupted by sporadic outbursts from protesters. Sorkin asked Schultz what he would do if it appeared in the polls that his presidential bid, if he launched one, would assist Trump’s electoral odds. “If I decide to run for president...

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday an independent 2020 White House bid by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz could siphon off enough votes from Democrats to help re-elect President Trump. Bloomberg in a statement pointed to his consideration of an independent presidential bid in 2016 and said there is "no way" a third party candidate could win. Bloomberg, who served as New York City mayor as a Republican and independent, said an independent bid by Schultz would likely benefit Trump. "Now I have never been a partisan guy — and it’s no secret that I looked at...

Before there was Jill Stein, there was Ralph Nader. Before there was Nader, there was Ross Perot. None won. All argued that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party were basically the same, and the only way to make real change was to ditch them both. Each was blamed for siphoning off enough votes to throw the presidential elections. These days, the difference between the parties is starker than it’s ever been in modern times. Yet here comes Howard Schultz, a billionaire who feels that he might be the answer to American politics, and that he’d run for president as...

In a scathing condemnation of Roger Stone following his Friday indictment, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-F.L.) accused the longtime ally of President Donald Trump of illegally securing his election. In an interview with CNN on Saturday, the congresswoman, who resigned from her post as the head of the Democratic National Committee after the hacking and subsequent WikiLeaks dump of the organization’s emails, said Trump’s campaign had been “infected with contact with Russia.” “In this case with Roger Stone, he literally weaponized information stolen by Vladimir Putin to help elect Donald Trump president,” she asserted. “He worked with high-level campaign officials...

**SNIP** The cover-up has been so effective that this isn't happening. Imran Awan, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)'s I.T. aide, got off without jail time or restitution on only bank fraud charges. Congress got off without paying the price for possible corruption and for allowing a spy ring to run free in Congress. We can't even be sure that Congress has made the necessary reforms to stop another spy ring from infiltrating and spying on Congress and thereby using stolen data to blackmail a congressman, influence a vote, or just know where members of Congress stand on various pieces of...

An attorney filed a sentencing memo on behalf of former House IT aide Imran Awan, claiming that President Donald Trump, other Republicans, and “conspiratorial media” attacks serve as a sufficient substitute for jail time for his client’s bank fraud conviction. Attorney Chris Gowen, a former aide to Hillary Clinton, argued to Judge Tanya Chutkan, a President Barack Obama-appointee, that Imran should be spared jail, in part because of Trump, who engaged in “incoherent rambling” about the former IT aide. “Considering … the conduct of several government officials, including the president of the United States, Imran Awan respectfully requests this court...

Justice Department prosecutors and congressional investigators both cannot be right about the House IT scandal by Mark Tapscott | Updated 05 Jul 2018 at 7:47 AM When Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors announced Tuesday they won’t press charges against House IT scandal kingpin Imran Awan, they violated one of the most fundamental rules of logic, the law of non-contradiction: That which is A cannot simultaneously also be non-A. Either Awan, his wife, two of his brothers and an unrelated friend — all of whom at one time or another since 2005 worked as IT aides for more than 40 House...

A secret memo marked “URGENT” detailed how the House Democratic Caucus’s server went “missing” soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. The secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.” In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems ... shortly after an IG report came...

Rep. Yvette Clarke’s deputy chief of staff came into the office on a Saturday in December 2015 and caught the New York Democrat’s part-time IT aide, Abid Awan, rummaging through the congresswoman’s work area with new iPods and other equipment strewn around the room, according to a House document and interviews with Hill staff. Wendy Anderson told Abid to get out of the office, the document said. She told Capitol Hill investigators that she soon suspected Clarke’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, was working with Abid on a theft scheme, multiple House staffers with knowledge of the situation told The...

**SNIP** Awan was a congressional IT staffer. Numerous members of his family joined him on the congressional payroll. Now he is awaiting trial for bank fraud. What started in 2016 as an investigation into equipment and data theft has evolved into a case about falsely obtaining home equity loans and sending money to Pakistan. As the probe evolves, there have been dozens of shocking reports about the family’s activities and access. The plot twists have spawned numerous conspiracy theories. Awan’s lawyer Christopher Gowen says that all these reports are complicating the trial. “Every time we think it’s done, Johnny-on-the-spot over...

Former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz subverted our democracy and interfered in the 2016 election in ways Moscow could only dream of, yet while Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to chase Russian phantoms, the case against Wasserman Schultz and Imran Awan, the IT director she and other Congressional Democrats employed, continues to drag on despite overwhelming evidence of criminality and clear national security implications. Schultz was forced to step down after hacked emails revealed that she and the DNC had their finger on the scales and actively worked to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries in favor of...

Shortebed title. Full title: KEY EVIDENCE GOES MISSING: Server Belonging to Wasserman Shultz IT Worker Imran Awan Is Physically Stolen from Congress Imran Awan worked for Debbie Wasserman Schultz for thirteen years since she came into office in 2004 as a Florida representative. Imran and his two Pakistani brothers managed the IT affairs for several Democratic government officials. They were relieved of their duties in February 2017 on suspicion that they accessed specific computer networks without permission, also known as hacking. Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives in February 2017.

Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz is preparing to step away from the coffee chain he built into a global behemoth – and stoking speculation about a possible 2020 presidential run. Yet, in the era of real estate magnate-turned-President Donald Trump, Schultz is just one of several business titans whose possible political aspirations might influence the next campaign for the White House. For more than two centuries, most candidates for U.S. president had some public or military service on their resume before mounting a successful bid for the White House. But Trump's election in 2016 has opened the door for an...

<p>Wasserman Schultz cornered House Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko and called him a “fucking Islamophobe,” saying “you will not so much as take away their parking spots,” the two House employees said Kiko told them.</p>

Howard Schultz is leaving Starbucks after becoming more active in politics in recent years. While Schultz has previously denied plans to run for president, he said Monday he wants to see if he can play a role in "giving back." He was a vocal Hillary Clinton supporter and has heavily criticized some policies pursued by President Donald Trump. In the years before he confirmed his plans to leave Starbucks on Monday, Howard Schultz took an active role in politics through both his words and money. Schultz has previously denied speculation that he could run for president. Still, he indicated Monday...

Former House IT aide Imran Awan remains in a “High Intensity Supervision Program” as he awaits trial on charges of bank fraud. Official Washington, with the exception of President Donald Trump, seems oblivious to the man’s existence despite the fact that he was hired by former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and enjoyed access to the digital records and emails of an alarming and still unspecified number of Democratic members of Congress No major media organizations are asking obvious questions about his role in the Trump investigation and his possible ties to the alleged hacking of Democratic National Committee...