Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has addressed a series of recent death threats she said she has received, telling would-be threateners to "shoot straight" during an immigration rally on Saturday.

"I know that there are those who are talking about censuring me, talking about kicking me out of Congress, talking about shooting me, talking about hanging me," Waters told the crowd in Los Angeles.

"All I have to say is this, if you shoot me you better shoot straight, there's nothing like a wounded animal," she added to cheers.

Waters was forced to cancel a pair of events in Alabama and Texas this week after a "very serious death threat."

https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/homenews/house/395016-maxine-waters-responds-to-serious-death-threats-you-better-shoot-straight%3famp

the interminable 17 months that Donald Trump has been president, the administration has struggled mightily to find and keep a communications director. Sean Spicer held the job for about 45 days before he was replaced by Mike Dubke who resigned after just three months. Spicer was then brought in as acting director, only to quit in protest when Anthony Scaramucci was hired. The Mooch lasted a grand total of 10 days, until an on-the-record obscenity-fueled rant to a New Yorker reporter went viral and he was canned. His successor, Hope Hicks, stuck it out the longest—225 days—until she quit and hightailed it back to Connecticut. Since March 29, 2018, the role has been vacant, considering the fact that it’s a thankless job in which one will ultimately be blamed by the president for being unable to curtail stories about what a train wreck the administration is. But praise the gods of right-wing cable news, Trump has finally found someone willing to run his press shop.

ABC News reports that Bill Shine, a former Fox News co-president, has been offered, and has accepted, the role of deputy chief of staff for communications, with a formal announcement from the White House expected by the end of the week. In tapping Shine, Trump is effectively solidifying the idea that Fox News is state-run TV—a political sandbox where Trump floats his dumbest ideas in the morning, tweeting back and forth with the hosts of Fox & Friends, and then gets to hear his moronic ramblings echoed back to him at night as received wisdom. The ex-executive is still tight with primetime star Sean Hannity, who’s well known to be the president’s most trusted unofficial adviser, and favorite pre-bedtime phone call. “He’s already outsourced a lot of his communications stuff to Fox News,” a Republican close to the White House told Politico of Trump. “He has a tremendously close relationship with Hannity, so he’s going to put Hannity’s guy in there.”

But while Shine may bring more experience to a comms job than, say, the Mooch—not to mention the millions of devoted Fox viewers who are likely to get behind the pick—he does potentially come with one teeny-tiny problem:

. . . some of the president’s allies fear that he’s bringing in a target of the “Me Too” movement who will focus more attention on the president’s own problems with women.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/bill-shine-white-house-fox-news/amp

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A federal grand jury indicted the suspect behind last summer’s deadly vehicle incident in Charlottesville, Virginia, on federal hate crime charges Wednesday.

James Alex Fields, Jr., who was arrested in Charlottesville last August, was indicted on 30 counts, including a hate crime resulting in death and bodily injury, and racially motivated violent interference with “federally protected activity.”

The indictment adds a new federal civil rights dimension to the case that captured the nation’s attention when supremacist groups descended on the Virginia city and violent clashes erupted.

Prosecutors say Fields killed Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old Charlottesville paralegal, and injured others who were demonstrating against the “Unite the Right” rally. The event drew self-described “white nationalists” and other organizations who opposed the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park.

https://wtvr.com/2018/06/27/james-fields-hate-crime/

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is expected to receive Secret Service protection as soon as Wednesday, two sources familiar with the decision tell CNN, but they did not specify how long it will last.

The Secret Service declined to comment, telling CNN: "For operational security purposes the Secret Service does not comment on its protective operations."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/06/26/politics/sarah-sanders-secret-service-protection/index.html

Mar-a-Lago restaurants slapped with 15 health code violations

Unsafe seafood. Insufficiently refrigerated meats. Rusty shelving. Cooks without hairnets.

Reports show Florida health inspectors cited President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort with 15 violations in late January, days before the U.S. leader hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a diplomatic visit.

Still, the state inspectors allowed the luxury resort's main restaurant and beach club grill to remain open as staff scrambled to make several immediate corrections.

Among the "high priority" problems described as "potentially hazardous" were faulty fridges with meats stored well above the required 41 degrees Fahrenheit. For example, in the restaurant's walk-in cooler the duck and beef were measured at 50 degrees, while a ham was at 57.

http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2017/04/13/mar-lago-restaurants-slapped-with-15-health-code-violations.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1011218033216512005


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I have tried to stay uninvolved with the Department of Justice and FBI (although I do not legally have to), because of the now totally discredited and very expensive Witch Hunt currently going on. But you do have to ask why the DOJ & FBI aren’t giving over requested documents?

7:02 AM - Jun 25, 2018

I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People
Our disagreement is not merely political, but a fundamental divide on what it means to live in a society.

Like many Americans, I’m having politics fatigue. Or, to be more specific, arguing-about-politics fatigue.

I haven’t run out of salient points or evidence for my political perspective, but there is a particular stumbling block I keep running into when trying to reach across the proverbial aisle and have those “difficult conversations” so smugly suggested by think piece after think piece:

I don’t know how to explain to someone why they should care about other people

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59519811e4b0f078efd98440/amp?__twitter_impression=true

A United Nations report condemning entrenched poverty in the United States is a "misleading and politically motivated" document about "the wealthiest and freest country in the world," the Trump administration's top U.N. official said.

U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the report for critiquing the United States' treatment of its poor, arguing that the United Nations should instead focus on poverty in developing countries such as Burundi and Congo Republic. The U.N. report also faulted the Trump administration for pursuing policies it said would exacerbate U.S. poverty.

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In May, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston released a report saying the United States has the highest rates of youth poverty, infant mortality, incarceration, income inequality and obesity among all countries in the developed world, as well as 40 million people living in poverty. Alston accused President Trump and the Republican Congress of deepening poverty and inequality in the country, citing the Republican tax law passed last fall.

"The policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege," Alston wrote in the report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/21/nikki-haley-it-is-patently-ridiculous-for-the-united-nations-to-examine-poverty-in-america/?__twitter_impression=true