DonViejo
DonViejo's JournalBush administration alums rising in Trump's orbit
Source: ABC News
By KEN THOMAS AND CATHERINE LUCEY, ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Nov 20, 2017, 7:06 AM ET
For all the lingering tensions between President Donald Trump and former President George W. Bush, Trump's White House shares one thing in common with his Republican predecessor's: People.
Trump has installed more than three dozen veterans of the Bush administration, putting them in charge of running agencies, implementing foreign policy and overseeing his schedule. While hiring from the last administration controlled by the same party is common, Trump's staffing moves are notable given his pledges to change politics-as-usual and the frosty relations between the current and former Republican standard-bearers.
The Bush influence has only grown stronger recently, as Trump nominated Alex Azar to lead the Health and Human Services Department, where he served under the Bush administration, and tapped Jerome "Jay" Powell to be chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell served in the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush.
While the White House says this is standard practice, some Trump allies say the hires don't fit with the president's non-traditional style. "If Donald Trump's presidency fails it will be because he has perhaps inadvertently surrounded himself with" Bush associates, said longtime Trump associate Roger Stone.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/bush-administration-alums-rising-trumps-orbit-51270430
The Treasury Secretary's Wife
November 20, 2017 at 9:16 am EST By Taegan Goddard
National Review on the viral photo of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his wife holding a page of uncut dollar bills:
Steven Mnuchin was also in the picture.
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https://politicalwire.com/2017/11/20/treasury-secretarys-wife/
NYT Reporter Glenn Thrush Suspended Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations
By ESME CRIBB Published NOVEMBER 20, 2017 11:15 AM
The New York Times has suspended White House correspondent Glenn Thrush amid allegations of sexual misconduct made in a report Vox published on Monday.
“The behavior attributed to Glenn in this Vox story is very concerning and not in keeping with the standards and values of The New York Times,” Eileen Murphy, the senior vice president of communications for the New York Times, told Vox in a statement. “We intend to fully investigate and while we do, Glenn will be suspended.”
Murphy said the New York Times supports Thrush’s “decision to enter a substance abuse program” and “will not be commenting further” in the meantime.
One 23-year-old woman, who Vox did not name in its report, said Thrush “left her in tears” on a street corner in Washington, D.C., after they shared a few drinks and “she resisted his advances.”
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-reporter-glenn-thrush-suspended-amid-sexual-misconduct-allegations
Jehovah's Witness Elder Jason Morris Gorski Guilty of Sex with Boy
Source: OC Weekly
MATT COKER | NOVEMBER 20, 2017 | 4:06AM
A 44-year-old former teacher and Jehovah’s Witness church elder copped to sexually assaulting one of his 13-year-old boy students.
Police are searching for a man who groped a girl as she was walking home from a Huntington Beach middle school.
Jason Morris Gorski of Fort Mill, South Carolina, pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court last Tuesday to two counts of lewd acts with a minor younger. He met the victim while teaching at the now-shuttered Southwestern Longview Private School in Long Beach, and at the same time he was an elder with the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall congregation in Cypress, where the boy was also a member. Gorski had sex with the teen in Buena Park between June 2007 and June 2008. The minor reported the abuse to the congregation in 2009, and a year later Gorski moved to South Carolina and began attending a nearby Jehovah's Witnesses congregation. The boy told the Buena Park Police Department what had happened, and on June 21, 2016, Gorski was arrested. He could get up to 10 years in state prison at his Jan. 26 sentencing.
A white man who is about 25, stands about 5-foot-8 and weighs 150 pounds is being sought by the Huntington Beach Police Department. That's the identification officers got investigating the inappropriate touching of a girl by a stranger around 3:15 p.m. Nov. 13 near Edwards Street and Edinger Avenue as she was walking home from Spring View Middle School. She managed to break away from the man and run home to safety. The man was further described as having worn a dark turquoise shirt and jeans, and a witness reported seeing him get into a small black car with dark tinted windows and black rims. Anyone with helpful information is asked to call the Huntington Police Department’s crime tip line at 714.375.5066 or 714.960.8811.
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Read more: Link to source
Velshi & Ruhle smack down manic Moore supporter claiming 'godly men' can't fake being innocent
Sources: McMaster Mocked Trump's Intelligence In a Private Dinner
Source: BuzzFeed News
At dinner at a lobbying hotspot with a powerful tech CEO, the national security advisor said the president has the intelligence of a “kindergartner,” according to sources. Oracle, Administration deny comments.
Posted on November 20, 2017, at 12:05 p.m.
Joseph Bernstein
BuzzFeed News Reporter
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster mocked President Trump’s intelligence at a private dinner with a powerful tech CEO, according to five sources with knowledge of the conversation.
Over a July dinner with Oracle CEO Safra Catz — who has been mentioned as a candidate for several potential administration jobs — McMaster bluntly trashed his boss, said the sources, four of whom told BuzzFeed News they heard about the exchange directly from Catz. The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an “idiot” and a “dope” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner,” the sources said.
A sixth source who was not familiar with the details of the dinner told BuzzFeed News that McMaster had made similarly derogatory comments about Trump’s intelligence to him in private, including that the president lacked the necessary brainpower to understand the matters before the National Security Council.
Both Oracle and the Trump administration heatedly denied the comments that Catz later recounted. “Actual participants in the dinner deny that General McMaster made any of the comments attributed to him by anonymous sources. Those false comments represent the diametric opposite of General McMaster's actual views,” said Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/sources-mcmaster-mocked-trumps-intelligence-in-a-private?utm_term=.jd6BOOW8j&bftwnews#.ph9KeeM7R
Tillerson condemns violence against LGBT people on Transgender Day of Remembrance
Source: The Hill
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 11/20/17 11:45 AM EST
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released a statement marking Monday as Transgender Day of Remembrance. Tillerson’s statement condemned the violence against transgender individuals, saying that they “should not be subjected to violence or discrimination.”
“Transgender individuals and their advocates, along with lesbian, gay, bisexual and intersex persons, are facing increasing physical attacks and arbitrary arrests in many parts of the world,” Tillerson wrote. “Often these attacks are perpetrated by government officials, undermining the rule of law.”
Transgender Day of Remembrance has been commemorated on Nov. 20 for nearly 20 years, and the White House began participating in 2012, according to GLAAD.
“On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, the United States remains committed to advancing the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons,” Tillerson’s statement read. “These principles are inherent in our own Constitution and drive the diplomacy of the United States.”
The Trump administration has been criticized for its treatment of transgender rights.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/361200-tillerson-condemns-violence-against-lgbt-community-on-transgender-day
Trump will declare North Korea a state sponsor of terror
Source: The Hill
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 11/20/17 11:53 AM EST
President Trump said Monday he will designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, a move designed to further isolate the rouge nation for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Trump’s announcement comes days after his return from a five-nation tour of Asia, which focused on curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. White House officials telegraphed the move before Trump’s departure.
North Korea was taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror in 2008 during nuclear negotiations with the George W. Bush administration.
--This breaking news report will be updated.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/361203-trump-declares-north-korea-a-state-sponsor-of-terror
Trump puts North Korea back on state sponsors of terrorism list to escalate pressure over nuclear weapons
By David Nakamura November 20 at 12:06 PM
President Trump on Monday announced that he has re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terror, a move aimed at increasing pressure on Pyongyang a decade after the George W. Bush administration removed the rogue nation from the list.
Trump made his decision public during a brief photo op at a Cabinet meeting, calling it "a very critical step" that "should've happened a long time ago." The president cited assassinations by dictator Kim Jong Un's regime carried out on foreign soil, as well as the treatment of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died in June days after he was released in a coma by the North after spending 17 months in captivity.
Trump vowed that Pyongyang will face further sanctions in the near future and that this will be the “highest level of sanctions by the time it’s finished.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders amplified the message on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/932652254821343232
The White House had signaled during Trump's recent Asia trip that the president was likely to make the designation. During the trip, Trump told reporters that he plans to decide “very soon” whether to put the North back on the state sponsor of terrorism list. The North spent 10 years on that list before being removed in 2008 by the Bush administration for meeting nuclear inspection requirements. Pyongyang later violated the agreement.
Iran, Sudan and Syria also are on the list.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/20/trump-puts-north-korea-back-on-state-sponsors-of-terrorism-list-to-escalate-pressure-over-nuclear-weapons
Donald Trump, bold defender of white masculinity
Trump and sports promoter LaVar Ball are more alike than different, but their Twitter war has a long, ugly history
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
11.20.2017•5:00 AM
If Mike Judge writes a sequel to his great 2006 film "Idiocracy" (which now feels like a very prescient documentary and not a satire), he could easily cast president Donald Trump and sports promoter-manager LaVar Ball as the main characters. Both men are obnoxious, loud masters of self-promotion who play on the worst parts of American culture in order to make money. Trump is the champion of this debased culture; Ball is no more than a low-ranked challenger. Nevertheless, in many ways their public personas are more similar than different. Together, they are doppelgängers of crudeness. This fact is lost on Donald Trump, a person who lacks the capacity for critical self-reflection.
In his Sunday Twitter outburst, Trump went after Ball this way:
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
In another example of how Trump has soiled the White House, this idiotic temper tantrum came on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Alas, the American presidency has fallen from the heights and gravitas of Lincoln's oratory and leadership to the 280 characters of Twitter and a petit-fascist who demands constant praise and attention because his life is modeled on a reality TV show. Trump's behavior, of course, is part of a much larger pattern.
Trump appears to view himself as a monarch who must be shown acts of loyalty and fealty at all times and by all people. In his mind, he is a Leviathan, the physical embodiment of the State, who must be treated accordingly.
more
https://www.salon.com/2017/11/20/donald-trump-bold-defender-of-white-masculinity/
Palm Springs elects an all-LGBTQ City Council, showing the power of gay politics
Javier Panzar
With its tolerant culture, Midcentury architectural style and lively arts scene, Palm Springs has for decades been a mecca for the LGBTQ community. The city is ranked first in the state and third in the nation among cities with the most same-sex couples per 1,000 households, according to an analysis of U.S. census data by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
But now, the city is marking a new milestone in gay politics as well. When the two new members of the Palm Springs City Council are sworn in next month, every person on the panel will be a member of the LGBTQ community.
Lisa Middleton, a transgender woman, and Christy Holstege, a woman who identifies as bisexual, each won about 30% of the citywide vote to beat four other candidates and fill two vacant seats on the council. The pair will join three gay men on the five-person body.
It is a historic feat — decades in the making — for the town of 47,000 in the Coachella Valley that has slowly shed its conservative political identity that developed in the Rat Pack era and continued in the 1990s.
Ron Oden became the first gay person elected to the council in 1995. He made international headlines eight years later when he became the city’s first gay mayor and ushered in the council’s first gay majority.
more
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-palm-springs-lgbt-council-20171115-story.html
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Name: DonGender: Male
Hometown: Massachusetts
Home country: United States
Member since: Sat Sep 1, 2012, 03:28 PM
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