DonViejo
DonViejo's JournalTrump allies gang up on Gowdy
Source: Politico
The GOP lawmaker was once a conservative hero. Now he’s under fire on the right for balking at Trump’s ‘spygate’ theory.
By KYLE CHENEY 06/02/2018 06:45 AM EDT
Rep. Trey Gowdy has been a pitbull investigator for Republicans for years. Now, he’s is in President Donald Trump’s doghouse for daring to challenge the president’s unsupported claim that Democrats and their sympathizers in the FBI embedded a spy in his 2016 campaign.
Trump allies have been pummeling Gowdy in recent days, branding him a gullible or clueless backer of the intelligence community. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, labeled him “uninformed.” Another Trump-tied attorney, Victoria Toensing, said Gowdy “doesn’t know diddly-squat” about the particulars of federal investigations. And Fox News host Lou Dobbs tagged him a “RINO” — a term for a fake Republican.
It’s the latest twist in Gowdy’s enigmatic tenure in Congress. Once a conservative hero for his headline-grabbing inquisitions of the Obama administration — over the “Fast and Furious” gun-running program and alleged IRS targeting of conservatives, as well as his highly charged Benghazi probe — Gowdy has also bedeviled partisans by sometimes refusing to toe a pro-Trump line. At times, Trump himself has seemed perplexed; in the span of two years, the president once hailed Gowdy as a brilliant lawmaker before bashing him as a failure and then embracing him once again.
Now, after years shouldering the House GOP’s weightiest and most politically explosive investigations, he’s again drawn the ire of Trump-world. And this time, he’s virtually alone, getting little support from his House colleagues.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/02/gowdy-trump-spygate-theory-617948
Hannity Echos What an InfoWars Conspiracy Theorist Told Him: 'I'm The Next Target of The Deep State'
by Joseph A. Wulfsohn | 9:54 pm, June 1st, 2018
After months of going after the Deep State, Sean Hannity told his viewers Friday night that they may have found their new target: Sean Hannity. Towards the end of his wide-ranging monologue, Hannity sarcastically said that he personally had some “good news.”
“Remember when Chuck Schumer said ‘Don’t mess with the intel community because they’re gonna get ya six ways to Sunday?'” Hannity asked. “This is great news for me.”
Hannity then explained how the author of Killing the Deep State Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist who also happens to head the Washington D.C. Bureau for Alex Jones‘ website InfoWars, told him that he was the “next target of the Deep State.”
“Wow, isn’t it so great to know that these corrupt officials with their backs against the wall that are desperate, desperate people do desperate things, the people that have the most powerful tools of intelligence… are now going after me, okay? Really?” Hannity said. “So sadly, after all we have learned, you know, now we have Jerome Corsi’s prediction. It doesn’t surprise me. Isn’t that sad? Are we the United States of America? Or are we going are we the former Soviet Union? Or are we going to be Venezuela? I promise you this one thing: I’m never stopping, ever.”
It’s worth noting that Hannity didn’t disclose to his viewers that Corsi currently works for InfoWars.
more + video
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/hannity-echos-what-an-infowars-conspiracy-theorist-told-him-im-the-next-target-of-the-deep-state/
Elizabeth Warren calls on Democrats to 'save this democracy' at state convention
Source: The Boston Globe
By Matt Stout GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JUNE 02, 2018
WORCESTER — US Senator Elizabeth Warren road-tested her populist, anti-Trump message Friday to the party faithful, framing her reelection bid — and potential 2020 preparations — as a revving fight for not just the party’s values but “for democracy itself.”
Headlining the opening night of the Democratic State Convention, Warren used the confab’s platform to hammer home her message of fighting inequality, the Republican-led Congress, and President Trump’s policies. But in calling for help for the next five months, Warren sought to underline a vision beyond the coming election cycle.
“This administration has brought the crisis in our democracy to a breaking point,” Warren said to thousands of delegates inside the DCU Center. “You see it in the way this Republican Congress gives Donald Trump and his cronies a pass for all their incompetence, corruption, and bigotry.”
“We’re in this fight,” she later added, “and we’re ready to show the American people what we’re fighting for. . . . Together, we can save this democracy.”
Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/06/01/warren/bSe2zyBinuhVtwLkT2WOIM/story.html
NATO chief says alliance won't aid Israel if Iran attacks
Source: Associated Press
BERLIN (AP) — NATO’s secretary-general says the alliance wouldn’t come to Israel’s defense in case of attack by arch enemy Iran.
Jens Stoltenberg told the magazine Der Spiegel in comments published Saturday that Israel is a partner, but not a member and that NATO’s “security guarantee” doesn’t apply to Israel. Stoltenberg says NATO isn’t involved in Mideast peace efforts or in conflicts in the region.
He spoke at a time of rising Israel-Iran tensions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently intensified his criticism of a 2015 agreement between world powers and Iran that offered Tehran sanctions relief for curbs on its nuclear program. The U.S. withdrew from the deal last month.
Israel and Iran have also clashed militarily over Iran’s military presence in Syria.
###
Read more: https://apnews.com/f6379586733c49eba15ed39c48b4bfe5/NATO-chief-says-alliance-won't-aid-Israel-if-Iran-attacks
Construction begins on San Diego border wall with 'anti-climbing plate'
Source: The Hill
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 06/02/18 09:52 AM EDT
Construction on a section of President Trump's planned border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border began Friday in San Diego, according to local media.
Local news affiliate Fox 8 reported that a section of border wall segments that features an "anti-climbing plate" will replace about 14 miles of improvised border fencing created from scrap metal. The section of the wall will begin about a half a mile from the Pacific Ocean, Fox reports, and will stand between 18-30 feet tall.
Rodney Scott, chief of Customs and Border Patrol for the San Diego area, told Fox 8 that the construction will improve public safety in the area. “The construction of this new substantial wall will improve overall border security, the safety and effectiveness of Border Patrol agents, the safety of the public, and will enhance the atmosphere for business and commerce in the area,” Scott said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Acting Deputy Commissioner Ronald Vitiello added to the news station that Friday's launch of construction efforts represents an "important milestone" in Trump's plan to secure the U.S.'s border with Mexico.
Read more: http://thehill.com/latino/390380-construction-begins-on-san-diego-border-wall-with-anti-climbing-plate
McConnell Warns Trump Could Be 'Snookered' By North Korea
Cody Fenwick
June 2, 2018 7:44 am
President Donald Trump is clearly eager to achieve a major deal in negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but a top GOP senator is warning that his eagerness may give Kim the upper hand. If Trump is too quick to deal, the United States could end up giving away the store.
“If you fall in love with a deal, and it’s too important for you to get it, and the details become less significant, you could get snookered,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Friday.
McConnell is not the first to warn that Trump may agree too quickly to a deal with North Korea and that the United States and others may find themselves much worse off because of it.
In his statement about the meeting, though, Trump signaled that he’s willing to take his time with the negotiations, suggesting he views the summit as the beginning of a much longer process, rather than a quick win. This may give Trump and his advisers more time to work out the crucial details of the plan without giving too much away.
“We are going to start a process,” Trump said. “And I told them today: take your time. We can go fast, we can go slowly.”
https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1002643925738446850
###
http://www.nationalmemo.com/mcconnell-warns-trump-could-be-snookered-by-north-korea/
Trump Boasts He Ignored Human Rights In Meeting With North Korea
Oliver Willis
June 2, 2018 7:43 am
Trump proudly proclaimed that he did not bring up the topic of North Korea’s rampant human rights abuses during his unusual Oval Office meeting with Kim Yong-chol.
Trump hosted the envoy and former North Korean spy chief at the White House in the first such meeting in nearly two decades.
Speaking to the press after the discussion, a reporter asked Trump whether the two discussed human rights. “We did not talk about human rights,” Trump said. Asked if the topic would come up at the rescheduled summit, he answered vaguely, “Could be, yeah, could be.”
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1002623536190586882
Trump did express a desire to rescind sanctions against the rogue regime in exchange for denuclearization (a goal that experts have said is unlikely).
Many of those sanctions are directly tied in to abuses. In 2016, President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on North Korea, citing grave human rights abuses and repression.
more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/trump-boasts-he-ignored-human-rights-in-meeting-with-north-korea/
The Housewives of White Supremacy
By Annie Kelly
Ms. Kelly is a Ph.D. student researching the impact of digital cultures on anti-feminism and the far right.
June 1, 2018
In a podcast interview posted last spring, Nicole Jorgenson, a singer and former schoolteacher in North Dakota, explains to her host that she has never been happier since marrying and having children. And yet between cute pastoral anecdotes of growing her own vegetables and making banana bread, it soon becomes clear that Ms. Jorgenson is advocating something sinister — not just a return to agrarian motherhood.
She lived in Germany temporarily, she says, but left just before “an influx of refugees took over the country.” She just had a child and thinks the new baby is beautiful — but maybe not quite in the same way all mothers do: “I always wanted children that looked like me,” she says, “blond-haired, blue-eyed babies, but I kind of had to say it under my breath.”
By the time the interviewer begins to gush about how wonderful it is that Ms. Jorgenson and her husband are both of Norwegian heritage — “you guys come from the same blood” — it’s clear what political demographic both women are catering to. Ms. Jorgenson is being interviewed on Radio 3Fourteen, a white supremacist talk radio program; it is interviewing her because she considers herself a tradwife.
The digital far right, frequently called the alt-right, is largely regarded as a men-only space. The photographs from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., were striking for the lack of female faces in a sea of button-down-wearing snarls. The movement shares DNA with so-called incels, a network of men who feel women have unfairly denied them sexual relationships. And it is defined in part by its misogyny and its anti-feminist, anti-woman language.
more
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/opinion/sunday/tradwives-women-alt-right.html
Arc of Bill Clinton's political career will be on display during his RFK commemoration
By Annie Linskey GLOBE STAFF JUNE 01, 2018
WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton sounded hopeful back in 1993 when, less than six months into his presidency, he delivered an address at Arlington National Cemetery commemorating the 25th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination.
It was years before Monica Lewinsky and her blue dress, before Clinton allies coined the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy,’’ and before independent counsel Ken Starr became a household name. At the cemetery that June day, Clinton’s presidency still held the promise of sweeping social progress.
“The legacy of Robert Kennedy is a stern rebuke to the cynicism, to the trivialization, that grips so much of our public life today,” said a fresh-faced Clinton to an audience of 16,000 who came to witness the event. “Let us believe again. We can do better.”
Twenty-five years later, Clinton, now 71, is set to speak at a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of RFK’s death. Again, it will be held at Arlington National Cemetery, and several thousand are expected to attend. But the optimism embodied by Clinton’s 1993 speech, for Democrats, has been replaced by deep dismay over Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the hands of Donald Trump as well as newly revived questions about Bill Clinton’s sexual improprieties.
more
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/06/01/arc-bill-clinton-political-career-will-display-during-his-rfk-commemoration/JfBS1LkXvm0tN3sc9A2dlJ/story.html
Republicans Brace for a Brutal House Leadership Race
By PHILIP ELLIOTT Updated: June 1, 2018 6:52 PM ET
Top Republicans in Washington are increasingly skittish that heir apparent Kevin McCarthy lacks the support to succeed Speaker Paul Ryan atop the House Republican conference, paving the way for an ugly leadership fight that yields a dark horse candidate or a strident ideologue.
McCarthy is already working to line up support behind the scenes. But his ascension is unlikely to be smooth, according to interviews with 15 senior Republicans on Capitol Hill and their allies. These Republicans expect a challenger to emerge from the right-wing Freedom Caucus. More intriguingly, they believe that divisions among the GOP’s Establishment bloc may create an opening for a compromise candidate such as Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, or Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
McCarthy’s office says repeatedly that there is no Leadership race to discuss because Ryan is still in the job. Ryan has backed McCarthy, the House Majority Leader, as his successor in what the Speaker called “a seamless transition.” The White House also seems to support him. McCarthy is close with President Donald Trump, whose daughter, White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, will join the six-term California congressman at events in Los Angeles and Fresno, Calif., on June 18. McCarthy, already a respectable fundraiser, is making the rounds to assure deep-pocketed patrons that he can bankroll the party machine. McCarthy is well-liked and has plenty of support among rank-and-file Republicans. He carefully tends to younger members, in part by helping to ensure that every GOP newcomer successfully passes a piece of legislation, and spends untold hours replying to messages from members up and down the political ladder.
Yet there are nagging doubts about his candidacy. Some colleagues worry about the sincerity of McCarthy’s conservatism. McCarthy has amassed a staunchly conservative voting record, but he seldom criticizes Trump. Some Republicans aren’t sure that McCarthy is willing to buck a President who has trampled traditional conservative values. “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is taking nap somewhere,” former House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday as he met with conservatives on Mackinac Island, Mich. A McCarthy Speakership, some Republicans fear, could further cement the President’s takeover of the GOP.
more
http://time.com/5298465/house-republican-leadership-race-mccarthy/
Profile Information
Name: DonGender: Male
Hometown: Massachusetts
Home country: United States
Member since: Sat Sep 1, 2012, 03:28 PM
Number of posts: 60,536
