Jose Garcia
Jose Garcia's JournalDuckworth 'confident' she can work with Mattis
Source: The Hill
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said she is “confident” she can work with Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis if he is confirmed as Defense secretary.
“While we disagree on some policies, I respect his distinguished career and, if he is confirmed, I am confident we can work together to protect our troops and keep our nation secure,” she said in a statement.
Duckworth, who met with Mattis on Tuesday, has voiced concern over a waiver that would allow Mattis to serve, due to a law requiring Defense secretaries to be out of uniform for seven years so as not to erode the American principle of civilian leadership of the military.
“Though I've made my concerns clear about eroding the civilian leadership or our military, I had a candid and thoughtful conversation about military strategy, personnel, and procurement reform with General Mattis,” said Duckworth, a 23-year combat veteran.
Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/313717-duckworth-confident-she-can-work-with-mattis
Senate Intel chair: 'No reason' to doubt Russia's election hacks
Source: Politico
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr said on Tuesday he has “no reason” to question the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia launched a cyber assault on the 2016 presidential election.
Intelligence agencies last week released a report accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering a digital campaign to interfere with the U.S. election. The operation eventually aimed to help install President-elect Donald Trump in the White House, the report said.
During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the subject, Burr said his briefings on the evidence behind the report “give me no reason to doubt the findings contained within the product.”
That said, the North Carolina Republican added that the panel would launch its own bipartisan investigation to assess “the sourcing behind the report.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/russia-election-hack-senate-hearing-233420
MTV host deletes tweets mocking Asian-American granddaughter of AG-nominee Jeff Sessions
Source: Alabama.com
An MTV host has deleted a tweet making fun of Sen. Jeff Sessions' Asian-American granddaughter.
The tweet from Ira Madison III, a host and writer for the music network, was posted this morning just as confirmation hearings for Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Attorney General, were getting underway.
"Sessions, sir, kindly return this Asian baby to the Toys R' Us you stole her from," Madison said as television cameras captured images of a young girl sitting on Sessions' lap. He later added "There is no reason for that child to be in his lap in a hearing other than to send an 'I'm not racist message."
"In fact, Americans have long used Asian-Americans as "model minorities" since the rise of the civil rights act," he said.
Read more: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/01/mtv_host_deletes_tweets_making.html
U2 delays album release after Trump win
Source: The Hill
The band U2 is delaying the release of its new album in the aftermath of the unexpected victory of President-elect Donald Trump.
The band is reconsidering some aspects of "Songs of Experience," a follow-up to its 2014 album, "Songs of Innocence."
The band's guitarist, The Edge, told Rolling Stone the album was "pretty much complete," and then the election happened and "suddenly the world changed."
“We just went, ‘Hold on a second — we’ve got to give ourselves a moment to think about this record and about how it relates to what’s going on in the world,'" the guitarist said.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/313456-u2-delays-album-release-after-trump-win
Trump meets with vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr.
Source: USA Today
Donald Trump met Tuesday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the president-elect and longtime environmental activist discussed what many regard as a public health conspiracy theory: vaccines.
Like Trump, Kennedy has questioned whether vaccines cause autism, a claim consistently debunked by medical professionals across the board.
In March 2014 — before he became a presidential candidate — Trump said on Twitter: "Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!"
Kennedy, the son of former 1960s-era attorney general, U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has promoted a documentary film linking autism to the vaccine preservative thimerosal and criticizing public health officials who dispute that claim.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/01/10/donald-trump-robert-kennedy-vaccines-autism/96391920/
Trump calls Ohio Republicans in effort to oust state GOP chairman
Source: Politico
Donald Trump called roughly a dozen Ohio Republicans Thursday in an attempt to oust the state GOP chairman, a highly unusual exercise in political score-settling against a party leader who’s been accused of being disloyal to the president-elect.
According to multiple sources familiar with the calls, Trump urged Ohio Republican Party Central Committee members to unseat Matt Borges, the state’s current GOP leader, in Friday’s election for the party post and conveyed his support for Jane Timken, a prominent Ohio Republican who raised money for his campaign.
The president’s personal intervention — which came on a day in which Trump spent several hours sitting for a sworn, videotaped deposition in Trump Tower — has roiled the low-profile party contest, will be decided by Ohio’s 66 central committee members.
A Trump transition aide said the president-elect had phoned around a dozen committee members.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-ohio-republicans-233261
Texas Democrat: I'm 'very likely' to run against Cruz
Source: The Hill
Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke expects to challenge Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for his Senate seat in 2018, the Texas Tribune reported.
"It's very likely that I will run for Senate in 2018," the 44-year-old El Paso representative told the outlet.
O'Rourke added that he feels "encouraged" by the feedback he's received as he considers a bid.
While Cruz has enjoyed conservative darling status since he joined the Senate after the 2012 election, rumblings about a potential Senate challenge have grown louder on both the left and the right since Cruz dropped out of the 2016 presidential race.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312990-texas-democrat-im-very-likely-to-run-against-cruz
Warren announces shes running for re-election
Source: The Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Warren announced this morning that she is running for reelection in 2018, seeking a second term as US Senator from Massachusetts.
“I am running for re-election in Massachusetts in 2018,” she wrote in an email to her network of supporters.
She began the note saying that “nobody expected 2017 to start this way,” and that “this isn’t the fight we were expecting to fight.”
“The people of Massachusetts didn’t send me to Washington to roll over and play dead while Donald Trump and his team of billionaires, bigots, and Wall Street bankers crush the working people of our Commonwealth and this country,” she wrote. “This is no time to quit.”
Read more: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/06/elizabeth-warren-announces-she-running-for-election-massachusetts/e7916Kf6ncAFajK7JD7SMO/story.html
New Senator from California can't explain why she didn't prosecute Trump's Treasury pick
Source: Boing Boing
New Senator from California can't explain why she didn't prosecute Trump's Treasury pick when she was AG
Kamala Harris was just sworn in as a senator from California, but her last gig was as California's Attorney General, and in that role, she decided not to prosecute Trump Treasury Secretary pick Steve Mnuchin, whom her office had identified as presiding over "widespread misconduct" in foreclosing on Californians -- that is, stealing their houses.
Harris's campaign received large donations from Mnuchin and from shareholders in Onewest, the crooked bank that Mnuchin ran.
After a leaked memo from Harris's office showed that her staff believed there was "widespread misconduct," The Hill asked Harris why she didn't take action. She had no explanation, apart from, "It’s a decision my office made" and "We pursued it just like any other case. We go and we take a case wherever the facts lead us."
Mnuchin's bank ordered its contractors not to comply with California subpoenas about its foreclosure mills.
Read more: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/06/new-senator-from-california-ca.html
Arrest Made in Murder of Testers Nephew
Source: Roll Call
A suspect has been arrested in the murder of Robert Tester, the nephew of Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., in Washington state.
According to the Great Falls Tribune, Spokane County Sheriff's Major Crimes detectives arrested 22-year old John A. Radavich in Spokane Valley with the assistance of U.S. marshals on Thursday.
On Sept. 6, Robert Tester, 35, was found dead and lying in a pool of blood 18 miles south of Spokane, Wash. Deputies found his daughter uninjured.
An wood-splitting ax stained with blood was found nearby and bags of marijuana were found near the body. Robert Tester's mother said her son grew marijuana for dispensaries.
Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/arrest-made-in-murder-of-testers-nephew?utm_content=buffer314e2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Profile Information
Member since: Fri Dec 2, 2016, 01:17 PMNumber of posts: 2,595
