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DonViejo

DonViejo's Journal
DonViejo's Journal
June 2, 2019

Trump says he will award NBA great Jerry West with Presidential Medal of Freedom


BY KYLE BALLUCK - 06/02/19 07:34 AM EDT

President Trump said late Saturday that he will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to NBA great Jerry West.

“The Great Jerry West will be receiving our Nation’s highest civilian honor, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his outstanding career, both on and off the court," Trump tweeted. "Happy Birthday Jerry!" he added.

The president also shared a West Virginia University basketball post wishing West, who played at WVU, a happy birthday.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1135010309381533701

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/446506-trump-says-he-will-award-nba-great-jerry-west-with-presidential-medal
June 2, 2019

'I'm not a Bernie Bro': Sanders' base splinters in California


Other progressive candidates and a home state-senator are showing why Sanders may have a tough time winning in this liberal-leaning, delegate-rich state.

By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO and CARLA MARINUCCI 06/02/2019 07:06 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO — Bernie Sanders put down roots in California during the last presidential race — and he never really left. Now, he is making the delegate-rich, early voting state, where progressives are ascendant, a central part of his 2020 campaign.

But as the Vermont senator sets up camp here again, he finds himself in a different and perhaps less favorable environment, without Hillary Clinton to play off, surging energy behind a progressive rival in Elizabeth Warren and a popular home-state senator, Kamala Harris.

A crush of events this weekend centered around the state Democratic Party convention here — from ballroom speeches to intimate meals to a liberal forum organized by the influential group MoveOn — laid bare the emerging scramble to cut into Sanders’ progressive base.

“Last time, Sanders was able to run as the only progressive against an establishment candidate,” said Doug Herman, a California-based Democratic strategist. “There are multiple options for a progressive candidate at this point—if that’s who you want to elect. And polling is showing that Warren is taking the biggest bite out of Bernie’s base.”

California’s Super Tuesday primary — and the liberal-leaning state’s glut of delegates — has heightened its importance next year. The convention served as a kind of curtain-raiser for its millions of voters, but also a chance to chip away at Sanders’ standing in front of plugged-in activists. Public and private polls of the state, which largely mirror national figures at the top, show former Vice President Joe Biden running in the lead, followed by Sanders, Harris and Warren.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/02/bernie-sanders-moveon-california-1349552
June 2, 2019

Commanding Biden lead puts pressure on Democrats to endorse


BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 06/02/19 08:00 AM EDT

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s commanding lead in the polls is putting pressure on Democratic lawmakers to endorse him, even though the first primary contest is eight months away.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), one of Biden’s surrogates on Capitol Hill, has touched base with colleagues about endorsing Biden, who is certain to come under attack from more liberal rivals in the run-up to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who has also endorsed Biden, is arguing that the former Delaware senator can win the pivotal battleground of neighboring Pennsylvania, highlighting what many Democrats see as his greatest asset: electability.

But many lawmakers are holding back, especially in the Senate, where Democrats are worried about offending colleagues who are also seeking the party’s nomination. Right now there are seven senators competing with Biden for the nomination, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/446440-commanding-biden-lead-puts-pressure-on-democrats-to-endorse
June 2, 2019

Trump calls Mexico an 'abuser' of US: 'America has had enough!'

Source: The Hill



BY KYLE BALLUCK - 06/02/19 08:01 AM EDT

President Trump in early morning tweets on Sunday called Mexico an “abuser” of the United States, warning that threatened tariffs would force companies to move back to the U.S. if nothing is done to stop illegal immigration.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1135150117252673536

Trump last week announced that Mexico would face gradually steeper tariffs until the flow of migrants to the southern U.S. border stopped or was significantly reduced.

Trump early Sunday also knocked Democrats, urging them to vote with Republicans “to fix the loopholes” without providing specifics.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1135141467062771713

###

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/446507-trump-calls-mexico-an-abuser-of-us-america-has-had-enough

June 2, 2019

Trump Retweets a Dozen Posts About Franklin Graham Calling Americans to Pray for Him

Trump Retweets a Dozen Posts About Franklin Graham Calling Americans to Pray for Him

By Connor MannionJun 1st, 2019, 8:00 pm

President Donald Trump put out a slew of retweets Saturday night, many of them focused on evangelist Franklin Graham’s recent call for Americans to pray for the president.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1134961396171640832

Graham said he plans to name Sunday, June 2 as a “special day of prayer” to protect Trump from his “enemies.”

“We’re on the edge of a precipice,” Graham told CNN. “Time is short. We need to pray for God to intervene. We need to ask God to protect, strengthen, encourage, and guide the President.”

https://twitter.com/financialissues/status/1134441484906876928

https://twitter.com/Franklin_Graham/status/1134218625852870656

https://twitter.com/Franklin_Graham/status/1134218368028958722

https://twitter.com/jackngraham/status/1134212384170631175

more
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-retweets-a-dozen-posts-about-franklin-graham-calling-americans-to-pray-for-him/

June 1, 2019

Joe Biden Has Been Saying 'It's Not Your Father's Republican Party' For Years


The history of the former vice president’s favorite line.
headshot

By Paul Blumenthal

“Folks, this is not your father’s Republican Party,” 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden likes to say when he’s actually on the campaign trail these days.

It’s a familiar line ― paraphrased from your father’s ad industry ― that the former vice president and longtime senator has repeatedly deployed over the years to convince swing voters that the GOP isn’t for them anymore.

“This is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said campaigning for a Senate candidate in 2018. “They are not who we are. They are not who America is.” Not with their “phony populism” or “fake nationalism.”

“This is not your father’s Republican Party,” he said in 2011. “This is a different breed of cat.”

“Today’s Republican Party is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said in 2010. “It’s the party of the tea party. … I’m not questioning their integrity. I’m questioning their judgment.”

more
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-not-your-fathers-republican-party_n_5cefedd5e4b00cfa19677923
June 1, 2019

William Barr vs. Robert Mueller, explained


Disputes over the handling of the Trump obstruction investigation have spilled into public view.

By Andrew [email protected] Jun 1, 2019, 8:30am EDT

Major disagreements between Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr have spilled out into public this week, with the dispute focusing on the handling of the investigation of President Trump for potential obstruction of justice.

On Wednesday, Mueller announced his resignation and made his first-ever public statement on the investigation, giving a summary of his conclusions that was conspicuously different from Barr’s. After that, Barr responded, defending his own decisions in an hour-long interview with CBS This Morning.

Discrepancies between Barr and Mueller have simmered for some time. Barr’s initial letter describing Mueller’s findings gave a starkly incomplete picture that seemed much rosier for Trump than the full report. And he has since adopted Trump’s line that the investigation found “there was in fact no collusion.” (Mueller says there was “insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.”)

But the heart of the current dispute relates to the highly unusual way the obstruction investigation wrapped up — with Mueller deciding not to reach a conclusion on whether Trump broke the law, and with Barr then deciding to reach the conclusion that he didn’t.

Barr is now taking aim at several of Mueller’s choices. He says Mueller “could’ve reached a decision” on whether Trump committed crimes. He says he disagrees with Mueller’s application of obstruction statutes to certain of Trump’s acts. And he says that even if you accept Mueller’s interpretation of obstruction law, the evidence against Trump was “deficient” in every single episode.

more
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/1/18647362/mueller-barr-trump-obstruction-law
June 1, 2019

Dowd Blasts Mueller After Release Of His Obstruction-y Voicemail To Flynn Lawyer


By Tierney Sneed
May 31, 2019 6:07 pm

President Trump’s former personal lawyer John Dowd accused special counsel Robert Mueller of seeking to “smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people” in how he characterized an infamous Dowd voicemail and other conduct in the special counsel report.

Dowd issued the statement Friday after prosecutors filed the full transcript of a voicemail Dowd left for Michael Flynn’s lawyer — a filing made at the request of the judge in Flynn’s case. A partial transcript of the voicemail was previously made public in Mueller’s report, which described it as part of a “sequence of events could have had the potential to affect Flynn’s decision to cooperate, as well as the extent of that cooperation.”

The fuller version makes clear that Dowd was the Trump personal attorney who left the voice mail, though that had already been reported. It was left on Nov. 22, 2017, days before Flynn formally entered his plea deal with Mueller and after Flynn’s lawyers informed the President’s legal team they could no longer have confidential conversations due to Flynn’s cooperation.



Dowd, in his statement Friday, called the obstruction section of Mueller’s report “a baseless, political document designed to smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people.” He claimed that Mueller “knows and his March 2019 report reflects there was no conflict of interest between counsel for the President and LtGen Flynn involving the matters under investigation as reflected in the unprecedented cooperation by the President with all Special Counsel requests including materials and testimony describing LtGen Flynn and his resignation from office.”

(The President, in fact, did not cooperate with several Mueller requests that he sit down for an interview or answer certain questions in writing.)

more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/john-dowd-voicemail-mueller-report-response
June 1, 2019

Hilda Solis, first Latina Cabinet secretary, endorses Biden for president

BY BO ERICKSON, ED O'KEEFE

UPDATED ON: JUNE 1, 2019 / 9:37 AM / CBS NEWS

As many of the 2020 Democratic candidates descended on San Francisco for the state's party convention, former Vice President Joe Biden — who skipped the convention — picked up a new endorsement, former Labor secretary and current Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis.

"I have seen firsthand what true leadership requires," Solis, who was the first Latina Cabinet member when she served in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013, said in a statement to CBS News. "At this moment in American history, it is clear that Joe Biden has all the qualities that the American people need in the White House."

California is a new battleground for Democrats since the delegate-rich state will vote on Super Tuesday, earlier than in previous year's primary process. This weekend's convention is the largest gathering of Democratic presidential candidates so far this year with at least 14 slated to appear. Biden, however, is planning to speak at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Columbus, Ohio.

Sen. Kamala Harris, flexing her home state popularity, announced Friday that 33 Democrats in California's Assembly — a majority of Democrats — are supporting her. But Harris' California colleague, longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has already stated her support for Biden.

more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hilda-solis-first-latina-cabinet-secretary-endorses-joe-biden-for-president-2019-06-01/

June 1, 2019

Labor anger over Green New Deal greets 2020 contenders in California


By CARLA MARINUCCI and DEBRA KAHN 06/01/2019 09:00 AM EDT

LOS ANGELES — Blue-collar union workers in solidly Democratic California are rejecting "Green New Deal" politics, a possible preview of troubles for 2020 presidential hopefuls in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti launched his "Green New Deal LA" plan last month amid cheers from environmentalists, hundreds of jeans-wearing, tattooed union members outside the event chanted “Garcetti’s gotta go” and denounced the move as a betrayal. The Garcetti protest was followed by disputes in the state capital this month over a large buffer zone that would block new oil and gas wells, as well as a massive hydro project near Joshua Tree.

Robbie Hunter, president of the state Building and Construction Trades Council — which represents more than 400,000 workers — says that dozens of his members plan a major “Blue Collar Revolution” demonstration Saturday morning at the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco, which will be attended by 14 of the Democratic presidential contenders and 5,000 delegates and guests.

The effort aims to send a message that the party is in danger of eroding a critical base if it continues to back the Green New Deal resolution being pushed in Washington, D.C. by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and her allies. Hunter argues the measure's goals could endanger thousands of jobs in the Southern California oil industry alone.

more
https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2019/06/01/labor-anger-over-green-new-deal-greets-2020-contenders-in-california-1027570

Profile Information

Name: Don
Gender: Male
Hometown: Massachusetts
Home country: United States
Member since: Sat Sep 1, 2012, 03:28 PM
Number of posts: 60,536
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