Sessions to testify in front of Senate Intel committee this week

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee this week to respond to former James Comey’s testimony about him last week.

Sessions was originally supposed to testify in front of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees this week but said in a statement that he will send a deputy to that hearing instead after hearing that lawmakers would question him about the investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump administration.

“In light of reports regarding Mr. Comey’s recent testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, it is important that I have an opportunity to address these matters in the appropriate forum,” he said in a statement.

He will appear in front of the committee on June 13.


http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/337264-sessions-to-testify-in-front-of-senate-intel-committee-this-week

Adam West's Greatest Moments as Batman (VIDEO)

2015: Tulsi Gabbard sponsored legislation prioritizing Christian over Muslim from the Middle East

Gabbard’s hardline stance carried over to the subject of refugees. She was one of forty-seven Democrats to join the House GOP in passing the SAFE Act in 2015, which would have added extra requirements to the already onerous refugee vetting process and effectively ground to a halt the admission of Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the country. In a statement, Gabbard claimed she was voting for the bill to save the refugee program.

Two months before that, however, she had introduced a resolution calling for the United States to prioritize religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East — namely, Christians and Yezidis — when granting refugee status. “These persecuted religious minority groups must be our first priority,” she said. In essence, her position — throwing more roadblocks in front of Syrian refugees, while making an exception for Christians — is the same as that of the Trump administration, whose original refugee ban exempted “religious minorities.”

So it was little surprise that shortly after the election, Trump held talks with Gabbard — a meeting set up by Steve Bannon, a longtime admirer of the Hawaii congresswoman. Sources told the Hill at the time that Bannon “loves her” and “wants to work with her on everything,” and that “she would fit perfectly” in the administration because “she gets the foreign policy stuff, the Islamic terrorism stuff.” (Gabbard’s name was conspicuously missing from the letter 169 House Democrats signed last November calling for Trump to rescind Bannon’s appointment.)


https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party

Adam West has died

Per AP. RIP Batman.

Secret recording reveals GOP lawmaker freaking out about going down with the ship for Trump

Although Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) may be publicly supporting President Donald Trump, in private she seems to have a lot of concerns.

Tucson Weekly has obtained a leaked recording of McSally meeting with the Arizona Bankers Association, in which she said that President Donald Trump’s tweeting habits were making life vastly more difficult for Republican lawmakers — and could spark a massive electoral backlash against the GOP in 2018.

“It’s basically being taken out on me,” she said of Trump’s erratic behavior. “Any Republican member of Congress, you are going down with the ship. And we’re going to hand the gavel to Pelosi in 2018, they only need 28 seats and the path to that gavel being handed over is through my seat. And right now, it doesn’t matter that it’s me, it doesn’t matter what I’ve done. I have an ‘R’ next to my name and right now, this environment would have me not prevail.”

McSally then complained that liberal activists were completely tying her to Trump, thus making it impossible for her to tout her own independent record as a member of Congress.

“The environment has changed and some of it changed on January 20,” she said. “There’s just an element out there that’s just, like, so against the president. Like they just can’t see straight. And all of a sudden on January 20, I’m like his twin sister to them. And I’m, like, responsible for everything he does, and tweets and says. And they want me to be spending my time as a pundit. ‘I disagree with that. I agree with this.’ I have a job in the legislature!”


http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/secret-recording-reveals-gop-lawmaker-freaking-out-about-going-down-with-the-ship-for-trump/

Question re. criticizing Democrats.

What are the guidelines for pointing out shortcomings such as past homophobia, voting for/against key legislation or just being an odious person? Thanks.

Trumps Lawyer Has Russian Ties Too

Washington Post: “The hard-charging New York lawyer President Trump chose to represent him in the Russia investigation has prominent clients with ties to the Kremlin, a striking pick for a president trying to escape the persistent cloud that has trailed his administration.”

“Marc Kasowitz’s clients include Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin and has done business with Trump’s former campaign manager. Kasowitz also represents Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, U.S. court records show.”


https://politicalwire.com/2017/06/09/trumps-lawyer-russian-ties/

If one needs a reminder of how classy Hillary Clinton is.

DEER VALLEY, UTAH — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney revealed on Friday that Hillary Clinton encouraged him to consider serving as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state.

Romney, appearing before a group of major Republican Party donors here, said that he reached out to Clinton last year after getting a phone call from then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence informing him that he was on the shortlist for secretary of state.

The 2012 GOP nominee said he was “shocked” to receive the overture. Throughout the 2016 campaign, he had been one of Trump’s most strident critics.

Romney, who was golfing in Hawaii when he received the call, said he told Pence at first that he would have to think about it. He then turned to former secretaries of state, including the just-defeated Clinton, to ask whether he should consent to the offer.

“In each case, each of them said, ‘Please, please take that job if it’s offered to you. We’d very much like to see you serve in that capacity,’” Romney said.


http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/09/mitt-romney-hillary-clinton-secretary-state-trump-239370

White House social-media director Dan Scavino violated Hatch Act

White House social-media director Dan Scavino Jr. violated a federal law that bars public officials from using their positions for political activity when he urged President Trump's supporters to defeat a GOP congressman, the Office of Special Counsel has concluded.

As a result, Scavino was issued a warning letter and advised that additional violations of the law could result in further action, according to a June 5 letter that the office sent to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which filed a complaint about Scavino's tweet.

Scavino's April 1 message called on the “#TrumpTrain” to take out Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) in an upcoming primary, referring to him as “a big liability.” Amash is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group that Trump had blamed at the time for derailing legislation that would have repealed parts of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Even though Scavino was tweeting from his personal account, his page at the time listed his official White House position and featured a photo of him inside the Oval Office.

The Office of Special Counsel concluded that his tweet violated the Hatch Act, which restricts government employees from attempting to influence an election through their official authority.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/09/white-house-social-media-director-dan-scavino-violated-hatch-act-with-tweet-targeting-gop-congressman/?utm_term=.e885473265c5