demmiblue
demmiblue's JournalPolicy and Politics of Contraception Rule Fiercely Debated Within White House
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The policy was wrong, the two Catholic men, Biden and Daley, argued, saying that the Obama administration couldn't force religious charities to pay for something they think is a sin. Sources say that Biden and Daley in these internal debates emphasized the political fallout more so than the policy issue. Catholics are the ultimate swing voters, they argued. President Obama won the Catholic vote 54-46% in 2008, but he lost among white Catholics 47-53%, according to exit polls.
But Biden and Daley faced a strong group making the case for the rule within the administration - including Catholics such as senior adviser David Plouffe and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, senior White House advisers Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, and then-domestic policy council director Melody Barnes. Others outside the White House also pushed hard for the rule, including former White House communications director Anita Dunn, Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards. (Some of the details of this internal division were first reported yesterday by Bloomberg's Mike Dorning and Margaret Talev.)
For these advocates, this issue was logical and based on science: birth control saves women's lives, reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, and is a fundamental issue of a woman controlling her own health care. And the politics were in the long term good, they said. Even with the current controversy raging, many Democrats maintain that the voters they need to vote for Obama in November - young voters nationwide, women voters in battleground states such as Colorado, Virginia, and Pennsylvania - support the president's decision.
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/policy-and-politics-of-contraception-rule-fiercely-debated-within-white-house/#.TzR5kgDpy50.twitter
I didn't know this was going on at the time. Trust women.
Listen To The Voicemail Trump's Lawyer Left For Michael Flynn's Lawyer After Flynn Cut A Deal
Source: Buzz Feed News
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of a voicemail that one of President Donald Trump's lawyers left for former national security adviser Michael Flynn's lawyer in November 2017 after learning Flynn was pulling out of a joint defense agreement with the president.
The voicemail was left by John Dowd, who served as one of Trump's personal lawyers in the Mueller investigation until Dowd resigned in March 2018. According to Mueller's report, on Nov. 22, 2017, Flynn's counsel alerted Trump's lawyers that Flynn was withdrawing from the joint defense agreement and could no longer share confidential information.
That evening, Dowd called Flynn's lawyer Robert Kelner and left a message. Flynn publicly entered a guilty plea the following week and revealed he was cooperating with investigators, but from Dowd's message, it appeared the president's lawyers were still trying to understand at the time why Flynn had withdrawn. If Flynn had made a deal with prosecutors, Dowd said, "remember what we've always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains."
Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/trump-lawyer-voicemail-michael-flynn-cooperation
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1136738351346851844
Flynn told investigators Russia asked for Trump-Putin video call day after inauguration
Source: The Hill
Prosecutors have released a less-redacted version of an FBI memo describing the interview agents had with President Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn in January 2017.
The document shows that Flynn told investigators that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak asked him during a December 28, 2016, phone call to set up a “VTC,” an apparent reference to a video teleconference, between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Flynn told investigators that Kislyak requested that the video conference occur on January 21, the day after Trump was inaugurated as president, according to the memo.
Flynn has since pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Kislyak, particularly by denying that the two discussed sanctions on Moscow imposed by the Obama administration in response to Russian interference in the election. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as part of a deal to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in December 2017.
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/447357-flynn-told-investigators-russia-asked-for-trump-putin-video-call-day
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1136731500827828224
27th horse death is reported since Santa Anita meet opened Dec. 26
River Derby, an unraced 2-year-old bought in March for $50,000 at a sale in Florida, fractured a shoulder while galloping, according to his trainer, Ruben Gomez.
The horse was euthanized at a clinic in Chino so it was unclear whether the death would technically be called a Santa Anita fatality. However, Mike Marten, California Horse Racing Board spokesman, said “in the interest of full transparency, we will be treating it as an on-track training death and do a full necropsy and count it in the statistics.”
Gomez was obviously still pained by the incident when contacted on Thursday.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/more/la-sp-santa-anita-horse-death-27-20190606-story.html
Spectacular U.K. island seeks rugged gardener
The island lies about a third of a mile off the U.K. coast, a jagged jewel of stone rising from the sea — and crowned not only with a medieval monastery but a castle fit for a fairytale princess.
But if you want to live on St. Michael's Mount, you may have to be as fit as a mountain goat.
Because the only way you could join the community of about 30 people living there would be as its head gardener. The good news is, according the St. Michael's Mount website, they're hiring. The bad news is that even the job listing warns that this kind of work has its ups and downs.
"Gardening on a rock in the middle of the sea isn't for the faint-hearted, nor is abseiling from the battlements of a castle," the listing reads. "But the Garden Team on St Michael's Mount take all this in their stride as well as the general terrain which would challenge the most agile mountain goat."
https://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/gardener-job-st-michaels-mount-island
A wealthy Iraqi sheikh who urges a hard-line U.S. approach to Iran spent 26 nights at Trump's D.C. h
Source: WaPo
In July, a wealthy Iraqi sheikh named Nahro al-Kasnazan wrote letters to national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging them to forge closer ties with those seeking to overthrow the government of Iran.
Kasnazan wrote of his desire “to achieve our mutual interest to weaken the Iranian Mullahs regime and end its hegemony.”
Four months later, he checked into the Trump International Hotel in Washington and spent 26 nights in a suite on the eighth floor — a visit estimated to have cost tens of thousands of dollars.
It was an unusually long stay at the expensive hotel. The Washington Post obtained the establishment’s “VIP Arrivals” lists for dozens of days last year, including more than 1,200 individual guests. Kasnazan’s visit was the longest listed.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-wealthy-iraqi-sheikh-who-urges-a-hard-line-us-approach-to-iran-spent-26-nights-at-trumps-dc-hotel/2019/06/06/3ea74c5e-7bf9-11e9-a66c-d36e482aa873_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.d6894a562914
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/1136632481870991360
Adorable 4-year-old boy calls out woman for her poor plane etiquette
A 4-year-old boy called out a woman for placing her bare foot on the side his chair during his flight home to Houston, Texas.
https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/1136690465925869568
Floats for the Straight Pride Parade...
- Giant AXE body spray
- Bag of Doritos
- Big Mountain Dew
- Tomi Lahren riding a Swastika
- Jacob Wohl waving on a Twinkie
- Charlie Kirk in a diaper
- The curly hair gun girl in a beige leotard riding an AR-15
- Giant Parent’s basement
https://twitter.com/tonyposnanski/status/1135983328224583681
https://twitter.com/AXE/status/1136260381645639680
They Live (featuring jarvanka):
https://twitter.com/skolanach/status/1136381035745169409
Trump to speak at Lincoln Memorial during Fourth of July celebration
Source: WaPo
President Trump plans to address the nation from the Lincoln Memorial on July 4 as part of an overhauled celebration of the nation’s Independence Day, D.C. city officials and U.S. Park Police said Wednesday.
The president had previously floated the idea of speaking at the nationally televised event, but his participation had not been confirmed. Trump’s appearance is likely to bring with it a host of new security and logistical challenges and reshape a decades-old, nonpartisan celebration that annually draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city’s monumental core.
Sgt. Eduardo Delgado, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, confirmed the agency has been notified that Trump definitely plans to speak at the memorial. He said the agency was working with the White House to determine how the president’s movements would affect security surrounding the event and the Park Police was awaiting details from the Secret Service about the timing and duration of the speech.
“It’s still kind of an evolving event,” Delgado said.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/trump-to-speak-at-lincoln-memorial-during-fourth-of-july-celebration/2019/06/05/1575588e-87b2-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html
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