She's bleeped on the YouTube upload, and on Twitter:
I guess this is what people thought I meant when I said I want more than thoughts and prayers. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/G3LQesVkRo
— Selene News Network 💁🏽♀️ (@seleniepanini) June 29, 2018
Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education - from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
I guess this is what people thought I meant when I said I want more than thoughts and prayers. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/G3LQesVkRo
— Selene News Network 💁🏽♀️ (@seleniepanini) June 29, 2018
The stunning primary defeat of New York Rep. Joseph Crowley, a 10-term incumbent once seen as a likely replacement for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is forcing Democrats to again address their inner divisions, including questions about who will lead them if they regain control of the House in 2018.Still more.
Grumbling about whether Pelosi and other long-serving Democratic leaders should step aside has been getting louder in recent years, with a surprising number of new Democratic candidates saying this year that they would not back the San Francisco Democrat for speaker.
The surprise loss by Crowley, the fourth-ranked Democrat in the House, pushes that debate front and center.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina activist running her first campaign, beat Crowley in Tuesday’s primary in New York's 14th Congressional District. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and held strong appeal in a district made up mostly of ethnic minorities.
Election victories by a new generation of progressives like Ocasio-Cortez may increase the pressure on Pelosi and other Democratic leaders, especially if Democrats win control of the House by a small margin.
Among other things, these newcomers want Democratic leaders to more aggressively confront President Trump’s policies and openly embrace liberal priorities, like a single-payer healthcare system. And they are tired of being told to wait patiently — years or even decades --- for their turn at the leadership table.
“You’re going to have a lot of new members that are very independent, and I think they are going to be making good arguments for what kind of leadership they want to see,” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said.
Crowley’s defeat drew comparisons to the surprise 2014 primary loss of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican targeted by tea party advocates as being part of the GOP establishment. Cantor’s ouster triggered deep soul-searching inside the Republican Party and was followed the next year by the toppling of House Speaker John A. Boehner.
“I wouldn’t take anything for granted if I were in leadership now,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said. “I suspect there are going to be challenges to leadership, I don’t think there’s any question.”
Pelosi urged people not to read too much into the loss, saying Ocasio-Cortez was a good fit for a district that had become more progressive.
“Nobody’s district is representative of somebody else’s district," she said, adding that the outcome is “just a sign of [the] vitality of our party.”
Though Pelosi was easily elected as minority leader in 2016, she faced the largest number of defections in her career. It’s unlikely that members will outwardly jockey for position against the powerful leader, who has said she plans to become speaker again. But some would-be rivals are likely to begin lining up support behind the scenes to fill the leadership Crowley will vacate.
House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairwoman Linda T. Sanchez (D-Whittier), who is expected to make a bid to replace Crowley as caucus chair, made waves last fall when she said on C-SPAN that it’s time for new leadership in the party. It was a surprising statement from a member of leadership, especially one from California. Sanchez has been a less visible part of the leadership team since.
“I think that I would be a good caucus chair,” she said. “Having said that, I’m not making any announcements.”
Democrats are shocked and in disbelief about Crowley’s loss, Yarmuth said, and they aren’t quite ready to consider others for his role...
A sickening amount of people rushed to blame Trump for the shooting at the Capital Gazette yesterday despite knowing nothing about the shooter or his motives. We now know the shooter had a personal dispute with this paper. https://t.co/tp38zt1hhY— Amber Athey (@amber_athey) June 29, 2018
The shooting today in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland cannot reasonably be separated from the President's mission to villainize the press as "the enemy of the American people."— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 28, 2018
#JarrodRamos Identified as Shooter in Maryland Newspaper Mass Murder: https://t.co/axkX9CELPA … via @PatriarchTree #Annapolis #CapitalGazette #CapitalGazetteShooting 😢 pic.twitter.com/8hTtr5zvJA
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 29, 2018
WASHINGTON — A deeply divided Supreme Court upheld President Trump's immigration travel ban against predominantly Muslim countries Tuesday as a legitimate exercise of executive branch authority.Keep reading.
The 5-4 ruling reverses a series of lower court decisions that had struck down the ban as Illegal or unconstitutional. It hands a major victory to Trump, who initiated the battle to ban travelers a week after assuming office last year. It was a defeat for Hawaii and other states that had challenged the action, as well as immigration rights groups.
Trump hailed the decision as vindicating his controversial immigration policies, after first tweeting seven simple words: "SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow!"
"In this era of worldwide terrorism and extremist movements bent on harming innocent civilians, we must properly vet those coming into our country," the president said. "This ruling is also a moment of profound vindication following months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country."
The president had vowed to ban Muslims during the 2016 presidential campaign and continued his attacks on Twitter after his election. But the high court said those statements did not constitute evidence of religious discrimination.
Chief Justice John Roberts issued the opinion, supported by the court's other four conservatives — a majority that has held through a dozen 5-4 cases this term. He said the ban's restrictions are limited to countries previously designated by Congress or prior administrations as posing national security risks. And he noted that Trump's latest version followed a worldwide review process by several government agencies.
"The proclamation is squarely within the scope of presidential authority," the chief justice said. Claims of religious bias against Muslims do not hold up, he said, against "a sufficient national security justification."
However, Roberts said, "We express no view on the soundness of the policy." And Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a brief concurring opinion, referred obliquely to the potential relevance of Trump's statements about religion.
"There are numerous instances in which the statements and actions of government officials are not subject to judicial scrutiny or intervention," Kennedy wrote. "That does not mean those officials are free to disregard the Constitution and the rights it proclaims and protects."
The court's four liberal justices dissented, and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor read excerpts from the bench, a rare occurrence. Breyer, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, found "evidence of anti-religious bias" that he said was worth a second go-round at the federal district court level.
Sotomayor's dissent was lengthier and more strident, and she spoke in court for some 20 minutes. Quoting extensively Trump's words during and after the 2016 campaign, she wrote: "A reasonable observer would conclude that the proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus." She was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"What began as a policy explicitly 'calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States' has since morphed into a 'proclamation' putatively based on national-security concerns," Sotomayor said. "But this new window dressing cannot conceal an unassailable fact: the words of the president and his advisers create the strong perception that the proclamation is contaminated by impermissible discriminatory animus against Islam and its followers."
Without audio of today’s announcement, there is no way to replicate Sotomayor’s fury in a 20-minute dissent from the bench re: today’s travel ban decision
— Nina Totenberg (@NinaTotenberg) June 26, 2018
Heartbroken over what is happening in our country. What are we becoming as a nation under Trump? We must all fight for our values, and for heavens sake, get everyone you know to the polls!
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) June 26, 2018
Oh, were we having a little chat about civility? Because the Supreme Court upheld the Muslim ban with a seat that was unabashedly stolen by Republicans.
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 26, 2018
Separating black and brown families is the policy of this administration. Whether it be stripping babies from their mothers at their border or implementing travel bans - it all hurts. It’s all despicable. #NoMuslimBanEver #StandWithMuslims #EndFamilySeparation
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) June 26, 2018
Corpus Christi ✌🏻👌🏻 #Smackdown #GodsGreatestCreation 🙋♀️ pic.twitter.com/w6YSwSga1r
— Mandy (@WWE_MandyRose) June 5, 2018
WASHINGTON — For more than two years, Democrats have struggled with how aggressively to confront Donald J. Trump, a political opponent unlike any other: Should they attack him over his hard-line policies; his inflammatory, norm-breaking conduct; or some combination of both?More.
In recent days, as institutional Democrats wring their hands, those deliberations have started to give way to furious liberal activists and citizens who have taken matters into their own hands beyond the corridors of power.
Progressives have heckled the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, and the White House aide Stephen Miller at Washington restaurants. They have ejected the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, from a Lexington, Va., eatery. And they have screamed at one of Mr. Trump’s leading cable news surrogates, Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, at a Tampa movie theater.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, said Saturday at a rally in Los Angeles. “And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
The attempts at shaming have delighted many on the left, particularly following Mr. Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents, and many progressives feel that the president’s incendiary messaging and actions must be met with something far stronger than another round of news releases from politicians.
But the social media-fueled confrontations have opened a rift in the party over whether stoking anti-Trump outrage is helping or undermining its prospects in the midterm elections. Many younger Democrats believe that conventional politics are insufficient to the threat posed by a would-be authoritarian — and that their millennial and nonwhite base must be assured that the party is doing all it can to halt Mr. Trump.
Older and more establishment-aligned party officials fear the attempts at public humiliation are a political gift to Republicans eager to portray the opposition as inflaming rather than cooling passions in the nation’s capital.
“Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said Monday, rebuking Ms. Waters, a veteran flamethrower who is enjoying something of a renaissance in the Trump era...
— Bella Hadid (@bellahadid) June 25, 2018
Few disagree that Democrats are marching, protesting and confronting rank-and-file Republicans with more intensity during the midterm election than at any time in decades https://t.co/nXPyDoKjRW
— POLITICO (@politico) June 25, 2018
Two senior Trump administration officials were heckled at restaurants. A third was denied service. Florida GOP Attorney General Pam Bondi required a police escort away from a movie about Mister Rogers after activists yelled at her in Tampa — where two other Republican lawmakers say they were also politically harassed last week, one of them with her kids in tow.More.
In the Donald Trump era, the left is as aggressively confrontational as anyone can remember.
What it means for 2018 — whether it portends a blue wave of populist revolt for Democrats or a red wall of silent majority resistance from Republicans — largely depends on one’s political persuasion. But there’s a bipartisan sense that this election season marks another inflection point in the collapse of civil political discourse.
Few disagree that Democrats are marching, protesting and confronting Republican officials with more intensity during the midterm election than at any time in decades. The progressive fervor recalls conservative opposition to the last president in his first midterm, when Democratic members of Congress were left running from disruptive town halls and ended up being crushed at the polls in November.
"If you see anybody from that Cabinet — in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station — you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” implored California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters at a Saturday rally, prompting an immediate conservative backlash on social media...
If you think being asked to leave a fucking restaurant is bad just wait https://t.co/b8OZBXjgLG
— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) June 25, 2018
ANKARA, Turkey — With his victory in Sunday’s elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken his place among the world’s emerging class of strongman rulers, nailing down the sweeping powers he has insisted he needs to address Turkey’s numerous challenges, at home and abroad.Keep reading.
Now, all he needs to do is deliver.
“He won on a knife-edge,” said Ugur Gurses, a former banker who writes for the daily newspaper Hurriyet. “But now he has in his lap all the problems.”
Mr. Erdogan is contending with an array of economic troubles, an increasingly disgruntled populace and deteriorating relations with Turkey’s Western allies. Among the many problems Mr. Erdogan faces is one fundamental roadblock: His foreign policy is fighting with his economic needs.
His increasingly authoritarian, nationalist and anti-Western bent is alienating foreign investors, which is hurting the Turkish lira. As the currency plunges, domestic capital flees. And he is newly reliant on a nationalist party that enabled him to maintain his majority in Parliament but promises to reinforce all those tendencies, as well as his hard line against the Kurdish minority.
The lira briefly rose with the news of Mr. Erdogan’s re-election, and his most senior economic adviser posted a message on Twitter on Sunday night: “This sets the stage for speeding up #reforms.”
The economy is Mr. Erdogan’s most pressing problem, but analysts express doubt that he will be able to perform the necessary surgery and introduce needed austerity measures with municipal elections looming in March 2019.
“Now the first challenge is the deterioration of the economy, and he has no means, no perspective to change the course of events,” said Kadri Gursel, a columnist for the newspaper Cumhuriyet, who was imprisoned by Mr. Erdogan for 11 months...
"Stand by Me. "
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