White House, Congress inch toward debt, budget deal

By Jordain Carney and Niv Elis - 07/17/19 06:00 AM EDT

Lawmakers and key administration officials say they are getting close to a budget deal that will allow them to avoid defaulting on the debt as they barrel toward a break at the end of the month.

Congress has a matter of days before it’s scheduled to leave for the August recess, raising the stakes for negotiators to clinch an agreement quickly.

The optimism comes as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, viewed as the two key players in the talks, have engaged in a series of phone calls over the past week and were expected to speak again Tuesday.

“They seem to me to be moving closer and closer together,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

The progress marks a U-turn from earlier this month, when discussions between Democrats and the White House derailed.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of leadership and the Appropriations Committee, said there was “cautious optimism” about a deal, while Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) characterized the negotiations as “going quite well right now.”

Helping drive the new burst of momentum is the looming deadline for needing to raise the country’s debt ceiling and avoid a default, which would have catastrophic consequences for the world’s financial markets. The Treasury Department has been using “extraordinary measures” since March to extend the nation’s borrowing limit.

Lawmakers had thought they had until late September or potentially October to raise the debt ceiling. But Mnuchin, in a letter last week to congressional leadership, said the deadline could hit in early September and formally requested that Congress act before they leave for the August recess.

The new debt ceiling deadline also moves up the time frame for getting a deal to raise the defense and nondefense spending caps and avoid deep across-the-board cuts known as sequestration. That pressure has helped push talks forward.

“I know, at least on our side, there’s some optimism we might get there, probably,” said Republican appropriator Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.). “That’s more because of the debt concern. I think both sides legitimately know we can’t afford to have a default.”

READ MORE: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/453422-white-house-congress-inch-toward-debt-budget-deal

Sanders campaign vents frustration with media, polls

By Jonathan Easley and Max Greenwood - 07/17/19 06:00 AM EDT

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) campaign aides are questioning the polls and venting frustration with the news media, arguing that a biased political press is writing him off or blackballing him from coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

Sanders is in second or third place in many national and early-state polls, but his campaign has struggled to overcome the emerging narrative that his moment has passed.

After electrifying the liberal base as the lone serious challenger to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Sanders has at times been overshadowed in his second presidential run by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who have generated buzz and excitement as they’ve risen in the polls.

Sanders campaign aides have taken notice, arguing that public opinion surveys don’t capture their young, enthusiastic base of supporters or the new voters they say they’re bringing into the fold.

And the campaign is turning its allegations of unfair media coverage into a rallying cry, telling supporters that the news media’s inherent bias, obsession with horse-race politics about who is rising and falling, and the propensity to give outsize coverage to new candidates has led to a Sanders blackout that gives a false impression about the state of the race.

“Every time there is a story about how Bernie can’t win, it fans the flame of our base and we get more donations and more volunteers,” said one Sanders campaign aide who is not authorized to speak on the record.

“We’ll never be the favorites in the media. I get it. But when was the last time one of these pundits visited a field office or talked to a state director? The bottom line is we have 2 million [donors] who have bought stock in what we’re trying to do. That’s powerful. If the media doesn’t want to tell that story, that’s fine. It just means we have to out-hustle these other campaigns.”

Sanders’s critics say it’s up to the candidate to reinvent himself in a way that makes him stand out.

Some Democrats say he’s been a one-note candidate, always pivoting off the political debate of the day to return to the same anti-corporate message that he’s honed over decades.

“He’s almost like a greatest hits act,” said one Democratic operative.

Others say that Sanders has failed to broaden his appeal beyond a core bloc of progressive voters.

“The challenge here is getting news editors to see him as newsworthy when he’s not moving in the race,” said one Democratic strategist with close ties to the progressive movement. “The reality is he’s having a hard time expanding. It’s completely OK for the media to point this out. The media is reporting on real movement in a dynamic race. This is not 2016 where he was the only other option.”

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” NBC anchor Chuck Todd confronted Sanders with criticism that his 2020 campaign sounds exactly like his 2016 campaign.

Sanders responded that he will change what he’s saying, “when the poor get richer and the rich get poorer, when all of our people have health care as a right, when we are leading the world in the fight against climate change.”

The Sanders campaign is taking its grievances with the media directly to supporters.

In a recent video uploaded to YouTube, top campaign aides unloaded on what they described as media bias against them.

Ari Rabin-Havt, the chief of staff for the Sanders campaign, said “there’s an institutional bias in the media for something new” and the press is no longer interested in covering the proposals Sanders brought to the forefront in the 2016 campaign that have since become mainstream in the Democratic Party.

Rabin-Havt highlighted the “insidious” instances in which the media wrote up polls that showed Sanders firmly in second place but the headlines and leads of the stories focused instead on Harris and Warren rising into third or fourth place.

And he suggested that the top levels of the political press don’t understand Sanders’s appeal because they’re disconnected from ordinary Americans.

“The elite media, the media that’s at the top, the cable nets, the lead editors, the reporters, they tend to live in Washington, D.C., or New York,” Rabin-Havt said. “They tend to be upper-middle class or wealthy. They work for companies worth billions of dollars. So on TV you have millionaires paid by billionaires to present information.”

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/453402-sanders-campaign-vents-frustration-with-media-polls

New Trump rules prompt Planned Parenthood to forgo federal funds

By Jessie Hellmann - 07/17/19 06:00 AM EDT

Planned Parenthood on Tuesday said it will forgo federal family planning funds rather than comply with new Trump administration rules that prohibit the organization from referring women for abortions.

The group announced it will no longer participate in the only federally funded program dedicated to providing contraception and other reproductive health services to low-income women, marking a victory for Trump’s conservative base.

Planned Parenthood will continue to offer services at hundreds of its sites across the country, saying it will draw on “emergency funds.” And by eschewing the federal funds, known as Title X, the group can still refer women for abortions.

“While we are incredibly concerned by this harmful rule, our doors are still open,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement.

The organization was joined by a family planning provider in Maine that said it also would go without federal funding.

“We announced today that, after nearly 50 years as Maine’s Title X grantee, we will withdraw from the program rather than comply with the Trump-Pence #GagRule,” Maine Family Planning, a Title X provider, tweeted. “We won’t compromise on care or medical ethics. Our clinics are open and we are providing services just as we always have.”

The Trump administration told Title X grantees Monday evening it would enforce a ban on abortion referrals amid litigation challenging the rules. That means hundreds of grantees will have to decide in the coming days whether they will follow the rules or exit the program.

The loss of millions of dollars in grant funding could be challenging for cash-strapped clinics that offer health services at little or no cost to patients.

“Other clinics may not have the fundraising ability that Planned Parenthood has and will either have to take the funding or will have to cut services or hours,” said Alina Salganicoff, senior vice president and director of women’s health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Some grantees might feel compelled to refuse the money because the rules banning abortion referrals compromise their missions to be honest with patients and provide them with all options, Salganicoff said.

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/453412-new-trump-rules-prompt-planned-parenthood-to-forgo-federal-funds

>>14223

That's another reason we've moved to QRB. Everything is being restored for now here, and the research is picking up thanks to notables back on top.

22 MS-13 Members Charged In Murders Of Seven People Hacked With Machetes

The Justice Department charged 22 alleged members of MS-13 in connection with seven murders in the Los Angeles area, including one in which a rival gang member was dismembered with a machete.

The indictment, which was unsealed Monday, focused on members of a Los Angeles-area subset of MS-13 known as the Fulton clique. Prosecutors called the San Fernando Valley-based gang a “particularly violent subset” of MS-13 that “has recently seen an influx of young immigrants from Central America.”

The Trump administration has made MS-13 a major focus of his crackdown on illegal immigration and drug trafficking. The notoriously violent gang originated in El Salvador, but has strongholds in numerous American cities. (RELATED: Trump Asks Crowd How They Should Refer To MS-13 — They Shout Back ‘Animals!’)

Nick Hanna, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said that the Fulton clique was responsible for 24 murders overall in the Los Angeles area over the past two years. Thirty-four members of the gang were indicted in 2017 in connection with three slayings.

READ MORE:

https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/16/ms-13-los-angeles-machete-seven-murders/

>>14234

MS 13 Members Arrested. Delightful looking bunch. Pelosi pickers

>>14231

Kek

Well they have stolen everything else...

>>14239

Here's your rocket

>>14246

np looks cool

Appeals Court Backs Trump Bid To Get Tough On Government Unions

7/16/2019

READ MORE:

https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/16/trump-government-unions-ruling/

A watchdog group filed a complaint Tuesday with Maryland Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh to investigate whether the wife of House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings used her charity for her personal benefit.

The complaint, filed by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), is the second action filed against Maya Rockeymoore Cummings’s Maryland-based charity, the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPC), by watchdog groups since May.

Rockeymoore Cummings is the principal officer and sole staffer of her Charity, which between 2013 and 2015 paid $250,000 in “management fees” to Global Policy Solutions LLC, a for-profit venture in which she holds 100% ownership, according to audited financial statements first reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

FACT’s complaint notes that Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity and consulting firm are involved in similar projects and share the same address and phone number. (RELATED: Elijah Cummings’s Wife Used Her Charity To Pay Her For-Profit Company, Documents Show)

Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity receives funding from by companies with interests before her husband’s congressional committee, according to the audited financial statements.

“The overlap between the non-profit and for-profit organizations, along with the potential improper financial benefit to Ms. Cummings and her husband, Representative Cummings, is serious and demands an investigation,” said FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold in a statement Tuesday.

READ MORE:

https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/16/maryland-ag-investigate-cummings-wife/

Voice Of America Ignored Multiple Warnings On Anti-Trump Facebook Posts By Its Editor

7/16/2019 7pm

Voice of America (VOA) was directed to a Facebook page believed to be run by an editor at the news agency which contained anti-Trump rhetoric.

Days after being made aware, VOA has not yet condemned the social media posts or announced any action taken.

VOA was made aware of this Facebook multiple times in the past, as well as other potential instances which may violate their social media policies.

Voice of America (VOA) has ignored previous warnings on the alleged violations and remained silent on condemning the anti-Trump posts posted on a Facebook page likely run by an editor at their news agency.

The Facebook page likely belongs to be Doug Bernard Johnson, who is the editor for VOA’s Press Freedom. The page contains anti-Trump messages dating back years. VOA has a social media policy which requires employees to be impartial in public spaces, to “adhere to a high standard of independence and objectivity” and more.

The Facebook page was brought to Bridget Serchak, VOA’s Director of Public Relations and VOA Director Amanda Bennett’s attention Sunday by the Daily Caller News Foundation. VOA had been made aware of Johnson’s anti-Trump posts multiple times in the past, a former VOA program manager told the DCNF.

Bennett and the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) CEO John F. Lansing ignored the warnings. USAGM is a government global media agency that operates above VOA, which is the largest U.S. international broadcaster. VOA is government-owned and paid for by taxpayers.

The DCNF asked for an update Tuesday on whether or not Johnson violated VOA policy, and what, if any, repercussions there would be

READ MORE:

.https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/16/voice-of-america-trump-facebook/

>>14262

One beautful story being played out and told in those graphics.

Right Side Broadcasting is broadcasting ((LIVE)) the pre rally events in Greenville, NC before President Trump's arrival. The crowd is building...enjoy the pre show, they're always a blast.

Republican Immigrant from Jamaica Is Challenging Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2020

7/17/2019

Scherie Murray, a New York businesswoman who immigrated from Jamaica as a child and is active in state Republican politics, is launching a campaign Wednesday for the congressional seat held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

‘There is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC,’ Scherie Murray told Fox News in a phone interview. “And instead of focusing on us, she’s focusing on being famous. Mainly rolling back progress and authoring the job-killing Green New Deal and killing the Amazon New York deal.”

“Your representative in Washington chooses self-promotion over service, conflict over constituents, resistance over assistance,” Murray said in the video. “Queens and the Bronx needs someone who will create jobs instead of turning them away.”

https://saraacarter.com/republican-immigrant-from-jamaica-is-challenging-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-in-2020/

>>14302

EU opens antitrust probe into Amazon

By John Bowden - 07/17/19 07:53 AM EDT

Amazon is the target of a new antitrust probe from European Union (EU) regulators over the online retail giant's practices relating to data collected from third-party sellers on its platform.

Reuters and The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the EU will examine whether the company's dual function as a platform and as a supplier of goods presents an unfair advantage against competition.

“E-commerce has boosted retail competition and brought more choice and better prices. We need to ensure that large online platforms don’t eliminate these benefits through anti-competitive behavior,” commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is leading the probe, told Reuters.

“Amazon appears to use competitively sensitive information - about marketplace sellers, their products and transactions on the marketplace," she added to the AP, stating that the probe will examine "Amazon’s business practices and its dual role as marketplace and retailer, to assess its compliance with EU competition rules.”

The dual-pronged probe will reportedly look at Amazon's business practices overall as well as specifically at the site's "buy box," which allows users to shop and add items to virtual shopping carts from specific merchants or retailers.

An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the company will fully comply with the EU probe.

Criticisms about Amazon's business practices are shared by President Trump and some lawmakers in the U.S.

Trump himself tweeted last year that Amazon was responsible for "putting many thousands of retailers out of business."

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/453447-eu-opens-antitrust-probe-into-amazon

Trump angry more Republicans haven't defended his tweets: report

By Jessica Campisi - 07/17/19 07:53 AM EDT

President Trump is reportedly dissatisfied with Republican lawmakers for their lack of defense of his weekend tweets, which targeted a group of minority progressive lawmakers.

Multiple sources told Politico that has informed at least two GOP members of Congress that his is not satisfied.

The news outlet notes that Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are preparing for tough reelection races and face a difficult decision — standing by the president and risking support of needed voters, or condemning the president for his remarks and “facing his wrath.”

“I wouldn’t have done it. That’s not what we ought to focus on in this country,” Gardner said of the president's tweets, in which he suggested that the four freshman lawmakers known as “The Squad” — Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) — “go back” to their home countries.

The remarks have since garnered widespread backlash, with Democrats swiftly denouncing them as racist. GOP leadership, however, has denied claims that either Trump or his tweets were racist.

Gardner, whose reelection bid takes place in a largely blue state, has endorsed Trump’s 2020 campaign but disagrees with his rhetoric, telling Politico “we should focus on ways to bring people together.”

Cornyn, who is seeking the vote from minority populations in his reelection campaign, said while “we are consumed by this here … it doesn’t consume my constituents when I go back home.”

Other Republican lawmakers, including Arizona Sen. Martha McSally have continued to support the president but shied away from commenting on the tweets, Politico notes.

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/453444-trump-angry-more-republicans-havent-defended-his-tweets-report

US offers to help reduce tensions between South Korea, Japan

By John Bowden - 07/17/19 08:13 AM EDT

The top State Department diplomat in eastern Asia said Wednesday that the U.S. stands ready to assist South Korea and Japan in resolving disputes over exports and compensation for the World War II-era occupation of South Korea by Japanese forces.

The Associated Press and Reuters reported Wednesday that David Stilwell, who is in charge of U.S. relations in that region, told reporters that Washington "will do what it can do to support their efforts to resolve" the disputes.

“Fundamentally [South Korea] and Japan must resolve the sensitive matters and we hope that the resolution happens soon,” Stilwell said, according to the AP. “[The] United States is a close friend and ally to both. We will do what we can to support their efforts to resolve this.”

In recent weeks, Japanese officials have tightened exports to South Korea after reports indicated that some high-tech products made their way across the border to secluded North Korea. South Korea has denied those reports.

Disputes over reparations for the 30-plus year colonial occupation of South Korea by Japanese forces also have flared up recently, according to news reports.

READ MORE:

https://thehill.com/policy/international/453449-us-offers-to-help-reduce-tensions-between-south-korea-japan

Sandy Hook victim's brother running for Connecticut Senate

By Jessica Campisi - 07/17/19 08:14 AM EDT

The brother of one of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting is running for a seat in the Connecticut State Senate.

JT Lewis, 19 — whose brother, Jesse, was a first-grader when he and 19 other classmates and six staff members were killed after a gunman opened fire in the Newtown, Conn., school — tweeted a video on Monday announcing his candidacy challenging incumbent GOP state Sen. Tony Hwang.

In the video, Lewis, a Republican, shared how his 6-year-old brother shouted for his classmates to run while the gunman paused to reload, saving his friends’ lives at the expense of his own.

“I believe that inside every single one of us is that same sense of innate courage that we never knew we had to do something extraordinary,” Lewis said in the video. “And to honor Jesse, I’ve decided to be courageous enough to run for state Senate in my home state of Connecticut.”

Lewis alleges his mother called Hwang, then a state representative, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting “to help prevent future tragedies,” but never received a response.

“I’m entering the fray because it is only with real leadership that Connecticut will see change that it is so desperate for,” he said in the video.

Lewis, a supporter of President Trump, met with him in December for a roundtable on school safety, NBC News reports.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/453446-sandy-hook-victims-brother-running-for-connecticut-senate

>>14327

Pic from the Sandy Hook article above

https://twitter.com/Barnes_Law/status/1151331623327027200

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/16/michael-flynn-trial-turkey-1417977

>>14338

It's purpose is to take down soveriegn country's and their people. Simple enough?

FOX Business with Maria Bartilomo

Wilbur Ross says House contempt vote is 'political theater'

Chad Prather

How To Invade Area 51

>>14369

Son of a bitch.. they actually posted this. Love these guys.

>>14382

I found it ... and for someone who can't find their key, glasses, and where I left my coffee cup last ... I with you.

>>14388

Looks good...great job!

>>14401

To stupid to click on the vid and find out it was satire idiot child?

FOX Business with Maria

Mark Morgan: US is less safe because the border crisis

What Could Go Wrong

Elon Musk plans to implant devices into brains as early as next year

By Chris Mills Rodrigo - 07/17/19 09:38 AM EDT

Elon Musk announced Tuesday that his new startup, Neuralink, hopes to begin implanting devices into human brains as early as next year.

"We hope to have this aspirationally in a human patient before the end of next year," he said at a press conference. "So this is not far."

According to Musk, the Neuralink system would include a tiny chip that would allow humans to achieve a "symbiosis with artificial intelligence."

He explained that it would be able to treat disorders like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, and ultimately could "preserve and enhance" brain function.

The tech entrepreneur, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, admitted that the system would take time to gain Food and Drug Administration approval.

Neuralink president, Max Hodak, told the press conference that the system would be completely wireless and would last "years to decades."

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/453464-elon-musk-plans-to-implant-devices-into-brains-as-early-as-next-year

>>14472

You can also do that sitting in a calibrated magnetic field. So much easier then drilling holes in ones head.

They are called Lifestream machines

Live

((Live)): Facebook Libra exec talks cryptocurrency before Congress

>>14506

Sorry for the iffy spacing ... the cat picked that moment to step on the return key.

KEK

Jericho calls them the broad squad ...

Trump vs The Broad Squad