March 31, 2018

UK-Russia standoff deepens as Moscow cuts UK diplomats

Source: Reuters




MARCH 31, 2018 / 4:13 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow has told Britain it must cut “just over 50” more of its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia in a worsening standoff over the poisoning of a Russian former spy and his daughter in England, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Separately, Moscow also demanded an official explanation for the search of a Russian passenger plane in London on Thursday and said it could reserve the right to take similar action against British airlines in Russia.

More than 100 Russian diplomats have been expelled by various countries, including 23 from Britain itself, to punish the Kremlin over the March 4 attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the historic English city of Salisbury.

London says Moscow was responsible for poisoning the Skripals in the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since World War Two. Russia flatly denies that and has cast the allegations as part of an elaborate Western plot to sabotage East-West relations and isolate Moscow.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia/uk-russia-standoff-deepens-as-moscow-cuts-uk-diplomats-idUSKBN1H707Q?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter

March 31, 2018

Ted Nugent: Parkland's Student-Activists Are 'Soulless' Liars

Classic rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent has attacked Parkland’s teenage school shooting survivors-turned-gun control activists, calling them “mushy brained” and “soulless” liars. In an appearance on The Joe Pags Show late Friday, Nugent apparently forgot about his promise to stop using “hateful rhetoric” after last year’s congressional shooting in Virginia. According to Nugent, the Parkland students pushing for tighter gun laws are “poor mushy brained children who have been fed lies” and are “committing spiritual suicide.” As for David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez—two of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High's most outspoken student survivors—Nugent went so far as to say they are waging a war against ordinary Americans everywhere. “To attack the good law-abiding families of America when well known predictable murderers commit these horrors is deep in the category of soulless. These poor children, I’m afraid to say this and it hurts me to say this, but the evidence is irrefutable, they have no soul,” he said.

READ IT AT MEDIA MATTERS

###

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ted-nugent-parklands-student-activists-are-soulless-liars?ref=home

March 31, 2018

Fox Host Laura Ingraham Announces 'Vacation' Amid Growing Backlash

Source: The Daily Beast


Fox News host Laura Ingraham late Friday announced a one-week “vacation” from her show as advertisers continue to pull out in response to her remarks on a teenage school shooting survivor. The host of “The Ingraham Angle” told viewers her break was pre-planned for the Easter holiday and that a “great lineup of guest hosts” would be filling in for her. Her announcement came after at least 14 companies dropped her show after she publicly mocked David Hogg, a teenage survivor of last month’s deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Ingraham apologized for accusing Hogg of “whining” about being rejected from several colleges but that did little to stop the growing backlash. In response to her vacation from the airwaves, Hogg told the New York Daily News he hopes “she uses this time to reflect not only on how she treated me but so many others like the students at Dartmouth or even people like Lebron James.”

READ IT AT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS


###

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-host-laura-ingraham-announces-vacation-amid-growing-backlash?ref=home

March 31, 2018

The Republicans Are Clinging Frantically to Power - Joy-Ann Reid

The GOP is desperately seeking to build a wall around its power, fearing its imminent erosion as a host of forces—demographic, cultural, and political—come barreling its way.

JOY-ANN REID
03.30.18 5:42 PM ET

The Republican Party is building a wall. Not the one Donald Trump promised his supporters Mexico would pay for (and then American taxpayers would pay and now, apparently, the U.S. military). The GOP is desperately seeking to build a wall around its power, fearing its imminent erosion as a host of forces—demographic, cultural, and political—come barreling its way.

Last week’s historic March for Our Lives was a watershed moment. For more than four hours on a Saturday afternoon, the nation’s gaze was fixed on a group of teenaged heroes and heroines, led by the iconic girl from Parkland, Florida: 18-year-old, Cuban-American, bisexual, head-shaven and powerful Emma Gonzales, who literally stunned a nation with 6 minutes and 20 seconds of remembrance and tear-stained silence. The Parkland students are becoming household names. Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, Delaney Tarr, Ryan Deitsch, Jaclyn Corin, Sarah Chadwick, Aalayah Eastmond and their classmates have entered the public consciousness in incredibly personal ways. They have shown great skill in snatching wigs, careers, and advertisers when attacked. And as they have fearlessly swept aside the tired American stasis on gun reform they have brought with them an army of fellow young activists from around the country: Zion Kelly, who spoke so movingly of losing his twin brother Zaire to gun violence right there in the nation’s capital; Naomi Wadler, the tiny girl with the fierce, curly mane who spoke for women of color whose tragedies rarely make the front pages, and Yolanda Renee King, the 9-year-old sole grandchild of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke of her dream of a gun-free world and proved that there is still magic and charisma in that epic surname.

By taking the power of their suffering, and frankly of their young, affluent, articulate whiteness, and metastasizing it to youth of color from urban centers and to the oldest of the Sandy Hook kids, some now in high school and three of whom spoke at the rally, and to Black Lives Matter (who amazingly, are now their elders), the Parkland kids are doing what white college students in the 1960s did for SNCC when they answered Bob Moses’ call and forced the media and the world to refocus its attention on civil rights by getting on those buses to face firebombing and murder with black students and local activists; and what white ministers did when they answered Dr. King and John Lewis’ call to face the dogs and batons of white sheriffs alongside black marchers on the Edmund Pettus bridge. In so doing, these young activists are shaking the foundations of America’s gun culture, sending the right wing into a full-fledged panic, and bringing the NRA to its knees.

The day after millions of Americans, mostly young but also middle aged and old marched against gun violence, Remington, the company that manufactures the AR-15 death machine preferred by mass shooters, filed for bankruptcy, fleeing to the rescue of banks, many of whom are too shamefaced to publicly comment on their association with the gun-maker.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-republicans-are-clinging-frantically-to-power?ref=home

March 31, 2018

Brothers ran 1,000 miles from Florida to DC for March for Our Lives

BY JOSH DELK - 03/31/18 09:36 AM EDT

Two brothers ran all the way from Parkland, Fla., to Washington, D.C., this month in support of the survivors of a deadly shooting at the school, who organized a massive march on the capital to push for increased gun control laws.

Isaiah and Jeremiah Godby wanted to lend their support to the movement after reports of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, according to Runners World.

“We had watched some videos of the survivors and the parents, and I just got so emotional,” Isaiah Godby told the magazine. “Something that we both do every day is try to walk in the shoes of others, and so we just felt their pain.”

The Godbys, natives of Sacramento, Calif., bought a plane ticket to the south Florida town, and ran 1,060 miles to Washington, D.C., just in time for the march last week. The rally drew hundreds of thousands of students and parents to the Capitol in solidarity with the Parkland students who lost 17 of their classmates and faculty.

more
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/381094-brothers-ran-1000-miles-from-florida-to-dc-for-march-for-our-lives

March 31, 2018

Trump: Amazon 'scam' costing Postal Service 'billions'

Source: The Hill




BY MAX GREENWOOD - 03/31/18 09:23 AM EDT

President Trump lashed out at Amazon on Saturday, accusing the retail giant of scamming the U.S. Postal Service over shipping costs and evading taxes.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980063581592047617
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980065419632566272

The president has ramped up his attacks on the retail giant in recent days, repeating concerns he voiced on the campaign trail about the company's business practices, particularly as they relate to the U.S. Postal Service.

He has called on the agency to raise shipping rates for Amazon. Parcel delivery has become an increasingly important business for the Postal Service amid long-running declines in its first class mail service.

Despite the gains in its parcel delivery service, the agency has not been able to make up the losses from declines in its mail delivery business. Last year, the Postal Service reported a loss of $2.7 billion and revenue of $69.6 billion.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/381092-trump-amazon-scam-costing-postal-service-billions

---

Trump claims Washington Post is 'lobbyist' for Amazon

BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 03/31/18 09:09 AM EDT

President Trump on Saturday claimed that The Washington Post is a “lobbyist” for Amazon.

Trump made the claim during a pair of tweets railing against Amazon, whose owner Jeff Bezos the president has repeatedly criticized. Earlier this week, Trump also hit Amazon for "putting many thousands of retailers out of business."

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980063581592047617
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980065419632566272

The Post is owned by Bezos. However, the Post and Amazon are two separate entities.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has accused the Post of lobbying on behalf of Amazon — he called the newspaper a “lobbyist weapon” for the company in July.

Trump has often criticized the newspaper and other media outlets over their coverage of his administration, referring to them as “fake news.”

###

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/381089-trump-claims-washington-post-is-lobbyist-for-amazon

March 31, 2018

Trump slams CA governor over immigration: 'Is this really what the great people of California want?'

Source: The Hill



BY ALICIA COHN - 03/31/18 09:10 AM EDT

President Trump on Saturday called out California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) over immigration policy, marking further escalation in the dispute between the Trump administration and the Golden State.

Brown signed "sanctuary state" legislation last October in a rebuke of Trump’s increased immigration restrictions. Trump has repeatedly blasted the state as hosting undocumented immigrants who commit crimes against American citizens, a charge he repeated on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980065427375128576

The Trump administration is suing California in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that aims to block the state's sanctuary laws. The Justice Department charges that the laws are designed to intentionally obstruct and discriminate against the enforcement of federal immigration law. Brown has called the lawsuit a "political stunt" by the Trump administration.

“This is basically going to war against the state of California, the engine of the American economy. It’s not wise, it’s not right, and it will not stand,” Brown said earlier this month.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/381090-trump-slams-california-governor-over-immigration

March 30, 2018

Trump declares April sexual assault prevention month

Source: The Hill




BY JOSH DELK - 03/30/18 06:01 PM EDT

President Trump on Friday issued an official proclamation observing April as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

In a statement, Trump encouraged the nation to "remain steadfast" in working to prevent sexual crimes and reaffirmed his administration's commitment to empowering individuals to speak out in their communities and workplaces against perpetrators.

"Sexual assault crimes remain tragically common in our society, and offenders too often evade accountability. These heinous crimes are committed indiscriminately: in intimate relationships, in public spaces, and in the workplace," Trump said.

The longstanding observation of the month, which often sees outreach by public health organizations and community crisis centers nationwide, comes this year following a wave of newly-empowered women leveling allegations of sexual misconduct and assault against high-profile men in media, entertainment and politics in recent months.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/381059-trump-declares-april-sexual-assault-prevention-month

March 30, 2018

Conservatives fume after Sessions declines to appoint new special counsel

BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 03/30/18 05:04 PM EDT

Conservative are boiling with anger at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for declining to appoint a second special counsel to investigate alleged abuses at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ).

In a Thursday letter to senior GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate, Sessions explained that he had appointed John Huber, a U.S. attorney from Utah who was first appointed by former President Obama, to work with DOJ’s inspector general to determine whether a second special counsel is necessary.

While Sessions says he will accept Huber’s recommendation on whether to appoint a second special counsel, the attorney general set a high bar for an independent investigation, saying it would require “extraordinary circumstances.”

Conservatives are apoplectic, believing there is more than enough evidence of wrongdoing at the FBI and widespread conflicts of interest within the DOJ to justify an outside prosecutor. “If he’s not going to appoint a second special counsel then he should step down,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Sessions’s letter of explanation satisfied a trio of GOP leaders — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) — who had sent letters to the attorney general requesting a second special counsel.

more
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/381053-conservatives-fume-after-sessions-declines-to-appoint-new-special

March 30, 2018

Parkland student to McCain: 'Why do you take so much money from the NRA?'

Source: The Hill




BY JOSH DELK - 03/30/18 05:26 PM EDT

David Hogg, the Parkland, Fla., high school student who has become a gun control activist, called out Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Friday for accepting contributions from the National Rifle Association (NRA).

https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/979720811123761158

McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee for president and a Vietnam War veteran, is the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the gun rights group, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The NRA has been repeatedly criticized by Hogg and other students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School since a shooter killed 17 people at the school. The students have pushed for tougher gun control laws and decried the NRA's influence over politicians.

McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer last year and has not been seen in Washington in 2018.

###

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/381054-parkland-student-to-mccain-why-do-you-take-so-much-money-from-the-nra