riversedge
riversedge's JournalDecision to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. sets off a Republican firefight
Source: msn.com
Seung Min Kim, Karoun Demirjian
3 hrs ago
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s decision to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. has ignited an internal Republican firefight over the fate of the committee’s Russia probe, as the panel’s GOP chairman showed no signs of backing down despite fierce criticism from many of his colleagues that it was time to move on.
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Much of the backlash against the decision by Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.) to subpoena President Trump’s eldest son came from GOP senators who are up for reelection next year and from those closely aligned with the president. The outrage was partially fueled by Trump Jr. and his own allies.
“This would not go forward without Republican complicity,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ally of President Trump’s, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “So I think it’s a mistake for Republicans to keep putting the Trump family through this, and I really think they ought to drop it.” ...................................................
“I think the good news is Chairman Burr has already indicated the committee will find no collusion,” McConnell said in a Fox News interview Thursday night. “I think this is going to have a happy ending. … I understand the president’s frustration here, but I think this is just a blip.” ................................................
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/decision-to-subpoena-donald-trump-jr-sets-off-a-republican-firefight/ar-AAB9hZa
Seems the idea is make sure Jr will be clearly found innocent of all things Russia. waiting.
“I think the good news is Chairman Burr has already indicated the committee will find no collusion,” McConnell said ...."
https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AAB9muX.img?h=416&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=1581&y=556
Donald Trump Jr. speaks a rally on Feb. 11, 2019, before President Trump addresses the audience in El Paso.© Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump Jr. speaks a rally on Feb. 11, 2019, before President Trump addresses the audience in El Paso.
Rachel Held Evans, Voice of the Wandering Evangelical, Dies at 37
I wish I had known her. I do not identify with any Religion but She seems to be a kindred spirit.
The entire short article is worth the time to read IMHO.
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1125773554354724867
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/us/rachel-held-evans.html
Rachel Held Evans, Voice of the Wandering Evangelical, Dies at 37
By Elizabeth Dias and Sam Roberts
May 4, 2019
Rachel Held Evans, a best-selling author who challenged conservative Christianity and gave voice to a generation of wandering evangelicals wrestling with their faith, died on Saturday at a hospital in Nashville. She was 37.
Her husband, Daniel Evans, said in a statement on her website that the cause was extensive brain swelling. During treatment for an infection last month, Ms. Evans began experiencing brain seizures and had been placed in a medically induced coma.
“I keep hoping it’s a nightmare from which I’ll awake,” Mr. Evans said in a statement. “Rachel’s presence in this world was a gift to us all, and her work will long survive her.”
An Episcopalian, Ms. Evans left the evangelical church in 2014 because, she said, she was done trying to end the church’s culture wars and wanted to focus instead on building a new community among the church’s “refugees”: women who wanted to become ministers, gay Christians and “those who refuse to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith.”
Ms. Evans’s spiritual journey and unique writing voice fostered a community of believers who yearned to seek God and challenge conservative Christian groups that they felt were often exclusionary.
Her congregation was online, and her Twitter feed became her church, a gathering place for thousands to question, find safety in their doubts and learn to believe in new ways.
Her work became the hub for a diaspora. She brought together once-disparate progressive, post-evangelical groups and hosted conferences to try to include nonwhite and sexual minorities, many of whom felt ostracized by the churches of their youth.
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“Whether you are a Christian or an atheist or an agnostic or a so-called ‘none,’ ” Ms. Evans wrote, “you know this truth deep in your bones: ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.’ ”
“Death is a part of life,” she added. “My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone.”
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A version of this article appears in print on May 5, 2019, on Page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Rachel Held Evans, 37; Challenged Christian Culture. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Hillary Clinton blast Georgia's 'heartbeat bill'
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Hillary Clinton blast Georgia's 'heartbeat bill'https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-hillary-clinton-criticized-heartbeat-bill/1140744001/
Nicholas Wu, USA TODAY Published 12:16 p.m. ET May 8, 2019
Cheers erupted as Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed the "heartbeat" abortion bill. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Progressives heavily criticized the signing of a Georgia bill that would make it illegal to receive an abortion after a heartbeat was detected in the womb, about six weeks into a pregnancy. Georgia lawmakers had passed the bill in April, but it did not become law until Governor Brian Kemp signed it on Monday.
The bill, which does not take effect until Jan. 1, 2020, will one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country. Current Georgia state law allows abortions up until the 20th week of pregnancy.
Progressives slammed the bill on social media.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1125980728976715776
@HillaryClinton
Hillary Clinton Retweeted CBS News
Six-week abortion bans are effectively total bans on abortion, as many women don't know they are pregnant at six weeks.
I stand with everyone in Georgia and around the country fighting these illegal measures that threaten women’s lives and freedoms.
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1126140966224707584
Michelle Zink @MichelleZink
May 8
Replying to @HillaryClinton
These bills should go hand in hand with child support laws demanding support at the time pregnancy is confirmed. If the GOP cares so much about the fetus, the father should be mandated to help provide medical care, food, etc. for it while in utero.
25 replies 30 retweets 232 likes
Carol Vernon
☮
💙
? @CarolVernon7
May 8
.@GOP is not pro-fetus. If they were, every pregnant woman would have excellent pre-natal care & our maternal mortality rate would not be shockingly high. No. GOP is pro-forced birth as a way to control women by limiting our economic independence & competitiveness in workplace.
A top official in the IRS used to advise Trump on his taxes and the IRS (and maybe this
official) are now REFUSING to turn over trumps tax forms! Maddow just reported on this.
She said something about the IRS was asked if this official was working on the refusal to
give Congress the documents and they did not respond. This is brief cause kids in house
and rather noisy. Anyone watching that can fill in??
Donald Trump Jr. seen resisting Senate committee subpoena: sources
Source: Reuters
May 9, 2019 / 11:51 AM / Updated 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. is unlikely to comply with a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena to testify about his contacts with Russia, two congressional sources said on Thursday as the president publicly defended his eldest son.
The sources said Trump Jr is expected to cite his Fifth Amendment constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination, a day after reports that the Republican-led panel had issued what is the first publicly known subpoena for a member of the president’s family.
Trump, who has blasted the investigations into him and Russia, defended his son, who runs the Trump Organization - a private business that the Republican president still owns.
“I was very surprised,” Trump said at a White House event intended to highlight healthcare. “My son’s a very good person. Works very hard.” ......................................
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-junior-surprise/donald-trump-jr-seen-resisting-senate-committee-subpoena-sources-idUSKCN1SF22Q
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1126571797820968961
https://twitter.com/svbspin/status/1126575912416358403
Richard Frankel
? @frankelrichard1
2h2 hours ago
Replying to @thehill
Oh, Fredo. Poor, poor Fredo. Don’t you know? No matter what you do your father will _never_ love you.
0 replies 4 retweets 75 likes
Andrew Schroeder ? @simulacrandrew
2h2 hours ago
Replying to @thehill
Huh. I really didn’t know that Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas were an optional thing. Show up if you feel like it?
2 replies 1 retweet 40 likes
Giulio Coppi @GiulioWolfe
1h1 hour ago
Yeaaaaah... Sorry I'd really love to be there, but I have yoga at that time
No officer and gentleman would write such obscenities, appellate court agrees
Source: stars and stripes
Judges on the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces unanimously affirmed the conviction and sentence of Lt. Col. Scott Meakin for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
By NANCY MONTGOMERY | STARS AND STRIPES Published: May 9, 2019
A former Air Force officer’s online conversations about sexually abusing young children were not constitutionally protected, the military’s highest court has ruled, as it affirmed his conviction for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces Tuesday rejected the legal argument that Lt. Col. Scott Meakin’s graphic online discussions were protected by free speech and privacy guarantees. The five-judge panel unanimously upheld the former combat systems officer’s conviction and sentence to nearly 20 months’ confinement, pay and allowance forfeiture and dismissal from the service.
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Using the pseudonym “John Jones,” he had engaged in a series of online conversations through email, chat rooms, and instant messaging with some 17 anonymous individuals in which he described “in lurid detail the abuse, molestation, and rape of children,” court documents say. One of the unnamed users, posing as a sexually abusive father willing to exploit his young daughter, was a detective in the Internet Child Exploitation Unit of the Holton Regional Police Service in Ontario, Canada.
Meakin had argued that his chats, although “repugnant sexual fantasies involving children,” were anonymous, private, consensual communications protected by the First and Fourteenth amendments, as set out by the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision Stanley v. Georgia. That decision helped establish a “right to privacy” in possessing pornography in one’s home.
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“[Meakin’s] obscenity was not contained within his home for consideration within his own mind,” the court said. “Instead, he produced, preserved, and transmitted his written obscenities to seventeen separate individuals.”.................................................
Read more: https://www.stripes.com/news/no-officer-and-gentleman-would-write-such-obscenities-appellate-court-agrees-1.580282
I doubt Trump will pardon this vile man.
Polls show public losing confidence in GOP on healthcare
Source: The Hill
5/9/2019
Public confidence in Republicans' ability to handle health care and several other issues has declined in recent weeks, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll released Thursday.
The survey of registered voters found that respondents' willingness to trust the GOP over Democrats on the topic of health care declined by 6 points when compared with an April 5-6 poll.
Thirty-one percent of participants in the May 5-6 survey said they had confidence in Republicans to handle the issue of health care, down from 37 percent who said the same previously.
Trust in Democrats to handle health care increased over the same time period by 3 points, from 42 percent to 45 percent.
Republican voters' willingness to trust GOP elected officials on health care was part of the decline. The new survey found that 72 percent of party loyalists said they preferred Republicans on the issue, down from 78 percent who said this in April..................
Independent voters appear to have become even less trusting of Republican policymakers on the issue. In the new poll, 21 percent of independent respondents said they believed the GOP was best on healthcare, down from 34 percent who said the same previously.
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Read more: https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/442952-polls-public-losing-confidence-in-gop-to-handle-health-care
A bit of good news--
State Department Continues Fight to Strip Gay Couple's Two-Year-Old Son of Birthright Citizenship
https://twitter.com/ACLUNorthDakota/status/1126194333605138432
OUTRAGEOUS
State Department Continues Fight to Strip Gay Couple’s Two-Year-Old Son of Birthright Citizenship
https://www.thedailybeast.com/state-department-continues-fight-to-strip-gay-couples-two-year-old-son-of-birthright-citizenship
The State Department demanded that one of the couple’s twin sons have a DNA test to prove he’s the biological son of a U.S. citizen.
Scott Bixby
05.07.19 1:31 PM ET
Photos of Life by Ashli Shapiro via Immigration Equality
Ever since twins Aiden and Ethan Dvash-Banks were born in Toronto in September 2016, they have shared everything—the same button nose, the same swoopy haircut, the same pug/terrier mix London. But for years, the U.S. State Department has fought an escalating legal battle to ensure that they don’t share one important thing: American citizenship.
Although Aiden and Ethan’s fathers, Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks, have been married since 2010, only Andrew is an American citizen. While that would be enough for children in a heterosexual marriage to qualify for U.S. citizenship while born abroad, the State Department has held the Dvash-Bankses to a different standard, requiring the family to undergo DNA testing to establish that Aiden—but not Ethan—was the biological son of a U.S. citizen.
The boys’ parents sued, arguing in federal court that proving a biological connection between a child and a U.S. citizen parent isn’t required to extend birthright citizenship from a married parent to a child, and in February, the judge ruled in their favor.
“The basis for the State Department’s imposition of a biological requirement is its strained interpretation” of existing immigration law, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter wrote in a decision issued in February, dismissing the department’s attempts to institute a biological testing standard for the children of binational married couples “unilateral.”
But on Monday, the State Department appealed that decision, continuing a years-long bid to strip Ethan of his citizenship.......................
Alabama abortion ban vote delayed after shouting breaks out
Source: wash Post
May 9 at 2:46 PM
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama lawmakers on Thursday postponed a vote on a proposed abortion ban after anger erupted in the state Senate when some Republicans stripped an exception for rape and incest from the bill.
Shouting broke among senators when the exemption for rape and incest was removed without a roll call vote. Democrats and some Republicans objected to the change to the bill, which would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony, being gaveled through quickly.
“You’ve got 27 men over on the other side ready to tell women what they can do with their bodies,” Democratic Sen. Bobby Singleton said. “You don’t have to procedurally just try to railroad us.”
Republican Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth said legislative procedures were properly followed
Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh suggested lawmakers go home for the weekend to cool off and resume debate on the bill Tuesday. Marsh said he supports an exemption for rape and wants a roll call vote on the matter next week. He said the bill still has a favorable outlook in the GOP-dominated chamber.
The anger over the procedural dispute underscored tensions over the proposal that would become the most stringent abortion restriction in the country if approved.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/alabamas-proposed-abortion-ban-nears-final-vote/2019/05/09/300d0480-7218-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html?utm_term=.e18731b29315
I think women and families are in deep trouble right now.
ALSO SEE:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10082445
https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1126528680279330818
https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1126530048666808321
FILE - In this Wednesday April 17, 2019 file photo, Bianca Cameron-Schwiesow, from left, Kari Crowe and Margeaux Hardline, dressed as handmaids, take part in a protest against HB314, the abortion ban bill, at the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Ala. An attempt to outlaw abortion in Alabama is headed to a committee vote in the Alabama Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote Wednesday morning, May 8, 2019, on the bill following a public hearing. (Mickey Welsh/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP, File) (Associated Press)
By Kim Chandler?|?AP
More than 60% of Democrats in the poll say they prize electability over whether they agree with the
This sucks IMHO
More than 60% of Democrats in the poll say they prize electability over whether they agree with the candidates.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1126519363220041729
THEN THERE IS THIS
Guy DeMarco
?Verified account @GDemo
46m46 minutes ago
Replying to @daveweigel
67% of those polled are over the age of 50. 96% are white. 245 of the 376 polled earn more than $50K per year. It's not surprising Biden did well in this poll.
0 replies 1 retweet 4 likes
https://twitter.com/GDemo/status/1126521610486239233
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