Cleveland Sports Forum

RESISTANCE STARTS AT HOME

Melania, Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You

The first lady has shown more pushback against the man child in the Oval Office than the Republican lions of the Senate, his Marine chief of staff, or his Cabinet.

MARGARET CARLSON

08.23.18 4:56 AM ET

What will the first lady do now that the world knows that her husband committed a crime not only against the country but specifically against her?

Whatever else newly “liberated” Michael Cohen divulges going forward, his guilty plea reveals beyond the shadow of a doubt that her husband betrayed Melania. Besides that, she married a fool. As his consorts, Donald chose a Playboy bunny and a porn star, unlikely to put silence at the top of their to-do list, exposing her and their then newborn son to shame and worse. If she didn’t before, she must hate him now, with a fury no prenup can compensate for.

We see people’s outsides and forget that each of them, too, has an inside where love, disappointment, anger, shame, and fear reside. Melania has already shown signs that all is not well in paradise. With the impact of a slap in the face, she brushes her husband’s hand away. In a snarky statement, she declares that she’ll watch whatever TV channel she wants, which isn’t Fox. After fake philanthropist Donald Trump dissed LeBron James, a real one, she praises the NBA star’s charitable foundation. Trump called Africa home to “shithole” countries he can’t pronounce. She announced that her first major solo trip will be to the continent.

That trip falls under her anti-cyberbullying Be Best banner, itself a constant rebuke to her husband. She topped it off the day before Cohen’s plea. After a week where the president broke his own record for calling his foes dogs, rats, hacks, and thugs, the first lady made a rare appearance to call for an end to just that kind of trolling. In case he didn’t get it, Melania detoured in her brief remarks from children taking down other children to warn about adults who have a hard time containing themselves on social media.

Melania was at her most rebellious in the midst of the crisis at the border. While former acting first lady Ivanka stayed home in silent support of her father, Melania took off to visit the children her husband was willing to orphan. Good at issuing statements, she didn’t make one correcting those of us who believed the jacket she wore bearing the legend “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” was a middle finger to her husband, sure to see her in it as he binge-watched cable news.

First ladies traditionally do everything to further the fantasy of perfection but, like Ginger Rogers, backward and in high heels—or stilettos, in Melania’s case. Her shoes, like her squinting eyes, her long stay at Bethesda Naval Hospital, her separate bedroom in the residence, her private suite in hotels, have been dissected along with her curious marriage. Beautiful young women marry un-beautiful old men all the time, but the Slovenian model’s union with Trump, proves, as Mitt Romney once joked, that there are some jobs Americans just won’t take.


When she tied the knot in 2005, Melania had no reason to know that union would lead to life in a fishbowl she would hate. Political wives have usually been warned. Their husbands look in the mirror and see a president, but Melania married a casino boss with a checkered past and saw, at best, a reality TV show looming. What a shock to find herself in the White House, where their dark secrets are chewed over night and day. As her humiliation grows, so do her hits back.

Already, she’s shown more pushback against the man child in the Oval Office than the Republican lions of the Senate, his Marine chief of staff, or his Cabinet. After the Cohen plea, it was “nothing to see here” all around. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn led the way with his quizzical reaction. “How does this implicate the president?” he asked, and then answered: “I don’t think it implicates him at all, especially on the Russia investigation.”

A recently departed aide said on his way out the door that reporters, no matter how plugged in, don’t know the half of it—the incoherence and temper tantrums are too much to imagine. Melania does this, and more. She may sleep down the hall, but she hears the hum of the tanning bed, the cloud of hairspray thick enough to crack the ozone layer on the third floor. There are the cheeseburgers, the TV and phone. He’s not an actively bad father, but he’s hardly an attentive one.

But the balance of power has shifted. The last thing Trump could withstand is for Melania to separate from him more than she already has. She spends as much time at the house of her parents, recent beneficiaries of her husband’s hated chain migration, as she does with her husband.

Melania may use her new leverage to sweeten her financial arrangements with him, ones that Cohen may well have negotiated. Or she may see herself in that other first lady, Hillary Clinton, whom Trump and his base still lash out at.

Even as Trump’s rally base is still chanting “lock her up” about another former first lady, the law appears to be closing in on him.

Melania isn’t one of those chanting, or part of his base, or one of the many Republicans in Congress who know he’s unfit for the office but who support him anyway.

No man is a hero to his valet, and that goes double for some wives. Melania saw what happened to Hillary when she stood by her man against all evidence he wasn’t worth it. She cleared his path to the presidency—and for her trouble, Bill brought Monica into their lives.

Hillary’s bargain has haunted her ever since. Melania should take note that her husband threw Bill’s failings in Hillary’s face throughout their 2016 contest.

Melania could stand by her man or she could help herself and the country by increasing her resistance. Mueller’s power is limited. Congress won’t do it. Someone has to. Wives are often left to clean up their husbands’ messes. It’s the business she chose.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/melania-o ... u?ref=home

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1. ‘STRENGTH OF WILL

John McCain Ends Treatment for Brain Cancer

Sen. John McCain has stopped medical treatment for brain cancer, his family said in a Friday statement. “Last summer, Senator John McCain shared with Americans the news our family already knew: He had been diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma, and the prognosis was serious. In the year since, John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict. With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment,” the statement declared. “Our family is immensely grateful for the support and kindness of all his caregivers over the last year, and for the continuing outpouring of concern and affection from John’s many friends and associates, and the many thousands of people who are keeping him in their prayers. God bless and thank you all.” McCain, 81, has served as a Republican senator from Arizona since 1987, when he replaced Barry Goldwater.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-mcca ... r?ref=home

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4. FUMBLE

OSU Coach Urban Meyer: ‘I Sincerely Apologize to Courtney Smith’

Ohio State University head football coach Urban Meyer apologized Friday for failing to mention the name of former assistant coach Zach Smith's ex-wife and alleged domestic abuse victim, Courtney Smith, at a Wednesday press conference announcing that Meyer would be suspended. “My words and demeanor on Wednesday did not show how seriously I take relationship violence. I sincerely apologize,” Meyer wrote on Twitter. “I sincerely apologize to Courtney Smith and her children for what they have gone through.” The university suspended Meyer for three games without pay, and blocked him from interacting with the team until Sept. 2 after an investigation concluded that he did know about 2015 domestic violence police investigation into his former assistant coach, and failed to report the investigation to the school. Meyer has maintained that he did not know about the text messages Courtney Smith sent to his wife showing injuries.

[OSU Investigation: Urban Meyer Talked About Deleting Text Messages After Brett McMurphy Report]

Upon seeing this report when it first came out (at about 10:17 a.m.), Brian Voltolini, who was on the practice field with Coach Meyer went to speak with him, commenting that this was “a bad article.” The two discussed at that time whether the media could get access to Coach Meyer’s phone, and specifically discussed how to adjust the settings on Meyer’s phone so that text messages older than one year would be deleted.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/osu-coach ... tney-smith

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SLAP ON THE WRIST

The Punishment Urban Meyer Should Have Received

What Meyer needs to see is that domestic abuse is a real thing, but any chance of that was blown by people who can’t see beyond AP rankings and dollar signs.

MICHAEL TOMASKY
08.24.18 9:28 PM ET

The college football season starts next week, and, as has become all too customary of late, most of the chatter is not about the impressive feats we’re going to be seeing on the field, but the bleak events taking place off of it. I refer to the goings on in Columbus, where the people who run the Ohio State University just embarrassed themselves, the program and the school by slapping coach Urban Meyer’s wrist with a wet piece of spaghetti.

If you haven’t followed this blow by blow, here’s a good timeline of events. The long and short of it is that Zach Smith, an assistant to Meyer over the years at both OSU and the University of Florida, is accused of twice physically accosting his ex-wife, Courtney, in 2009 and 2015. In the 2015 incident, which happened while Smith was at OSU, he was arrested on felony charges of domestic violence and felonious assault. Courtney Smith didn’t press charges, but the couple divorced the next year.

At OSU media day in late July, Meyer was asked what he knew about all this and when. He said the 2009 incident as reported “wasn’t actually what happened,” and that the 2015 incident was basically made up (“I don’t know who creates a story like that,” he said to the media, which is not quite up there with “Total Witch Hunt!” but which, you know, ain’t good).

Dogged reporting by Brett McMurphy of Stadium digital sports TV network then revealed that Meyer had known about the 2015 incident at the time. In other words, he lied. The next week, he was placed on administrative leave. A commission was appointed. The general press that I was reading last week suggested most people thought Meyer was going to be fired. Wednesday, his punishment was announced: suspended for the first three games of the season. But hey, without pay! So he’ll lose some chunk of this year’s $7.6 million package.

It’s outrageous. Remember, this is an athletic department already waist-deep in scandal, the one involving allegations of sexual abuse of male wrestlers, whose tentacles have reached out to touch leading U.S. House of Representatives Trump apologist Jim Jordan. You’d think they’d want to look as clean as possible.

But the Buckeyes are ranked fifth in the preseason polls! That, obviously, is what this is about. Glory and money are more important than lying about a few bruises.

Now, what would the right punishment have been? I don’t think firing him would have accomplished much. Yes, it would have sent a good, strong signal. But consider the practical consequences. Probably, like all rich and powerful men, Meyer has one of those contracts that allows him to exit, even in ignominy, on the soft wings of a several-million dollar golden parachute. So there’s that.

And beyond that, he’d land a new multi-million dollar job in like 10 minutes. So he’d be heading off to a place where they’d be thrilled to have him. Maybe a rung below mighty Ohio State, but still, a big-time program, for tons of money.

So here’s what I think the university should have done, and my solution has a broader application for all such cases.

First, suspend Meyer without pay for a full year, bowl game included (they sometimes let these guys coach the bowl game). That would sting. It would sting the program and the fans, and it would let everyone know that there is a real price to be paid for such behavior.

The second part of my proposed punishment is the interesting part. A college football season lasts 14 weeks (teams typically play 12 games and have two open dates). On each of those 14 Saturdays, Meyer should have been made to sit down with victims of domestic violence for three or four hours—the length of a college football game, in other words—and hear their stories. Listen to them. Look at their photographs. See their tears. Go home and think about what they said. He’d be resistant for the first few weeks, but in time, if he has a heart and a soul, he’d learn that this is serious business. He might even emerge a changed man.

And it does seem pretty clear that he needs to change. At Wednesday’s press conference, when he read a statement accepting the suspension as if he were a hostage, he was asked by a reporter what he had to say to Courtney Smith. His answer was appalling. He rambled on platitudinously for a couple minutes, saying not much of anything, so the reporter tried again. Meyer looked to the side and then downward and finally said: “Well, I have a message for everyone involved in this, I’m sorry that we’re in this situation, and, um…I’m just sorry we’re in this situation.”

And that’s it. He couldn’t say a word to her. But give him 50 or so hours of hearing what it’s like for a woman to be slapped or punched or pushed to the ground by a screaming, and maybe drunk, man who has 60 pounds on her, and somehow I bet some words would come to him.

Punishment should punish (which this punishment doesn’t even begin to do). But where possible, it should also educate. I’ve long thought that the best “punishment” for skinhead thugs who desecrate a synagogue or a mosque would be to make them spend a year working at said synagogue or mosque, and they’d see that the people therein are people just like the rest of us (or many of them would anyway).

What Meyer needs to see is domestic abuse is a real thing. But whatever chance there was to make that happen was blown—by people who can’t see beyond AP rankings and dollar signs.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-punis ... d?ref=home

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Trump gives extended shout out to Jim Jordan at Ohio GOP dinner

BY TAL AXELROD - 08/24/18 06:44 PM EDT

President Trump on Friday praised Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) college wrestling career at Ohio's state Republican Party dinner.

“You know, people don’t know this about Jim, he was one of the best wrestlers ever in college wrestling. And when you see the way he fights, every time he fights I say to my wife, ‘look at that guy, that is tough.’ He lost one match in three years of college,” he said.

Jordan, a loyal Trump supporter, announced his bid to replace retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) late last month. His bid for speaker has been hampered in recent weeks by allegations from former wrestlers at Ohio State University (OSU) claiming that Jordan ignored reports of sexual abuse when he was a coach at OSU.

Multiple former wrestlers have alleged that Jordan was aware of reported sexual abuse by OSU athletic doctor, Richard Strauss, from the mid-1970s to 1990s. Those wrestlers have alleged that there is no way Jordan could not have been aware of such abuse given the frequency with which it was discussed.

“Jordan definitely knew that these things were happening — yes, most definitely. It was there. He knew about it because it was an everyday occurrence,” former wrestler David Range said.

Jordan has denied claims he was aware of any abuse and called the timing of the allegations, which surfaced around the time he announced his speakership bid, “suspect.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/40354 ... gop-dinner

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Senators Are Demanding Information About Giuliani’s History With Opioid Maker Purdue Pharma

Before he represented Trump, Giuliani defended OxyContin.

JULIA LURIEAUG. 24, 2018 12:34 PM

More than a decade ago, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma approached Rudy Giuliani, then fresh off a stint as the lauded mayor of New York City, asking for help: The little-known pharmaceutical company needed a trusted lawyer to help fight growing public relations and legal battles. It was 2002, and Purdue was facing its first lawsuits accusing the company of underplaying the addictive effects of its signature drug. By the time Purdue sought Giuliani’s guidance, he was reportedly helping raise money for a museum dedicated to the Drug Enforcement Administration and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, was consulting the Justice Department on reorganizing its major drug investigations.

Purdue employed Giuliani Partners for years, clad with its founder’s shiny post-9/11 reputation and political connections. When a federal investigation in the mid-2000s threatened company executives with the prospect of felonies and jail time, the firm helped Purdue’s top brass get off with misdemeanor “misbranding” convictions and community service in 2007. Purdue Pharma’s parent company, Purdue Frederick, pleaded guilty to a misbranding felony that cost it $600 million, but Giuliani helped strike a deal that enabled Purdue Pharma to continue selling its blockbuster painkiller OxyContin. “Among Mr. Giuliani’s missions was the job of convincing public officials that they could trust Purdue because they could trust him,” as the New York Times put it that year.

Recent developments cast a new light on the arrangement: Today, Giuliani serves as President Donald Trump’s lawyer, and Purdue Pharma is largely viewed as responsible for helping sow the seeds of the current overdose epidemic, which killed roughly 72,000 Americans last year.

On Wednesday, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sent letters to the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration requesting information on the respective agencies’ contact with Giuliani Partners. The letters, shared with Mother Jones, draw heavily on a recent New York Times investigation finding that federal prosecutors knew about OxyContin’s widespread abuse and originally recommended that Purdue executives be charged with felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. But top Justice Department officials in the George W. Bush administration pushed back—deciding instead to settle the case in 2007 rather than take it to trial. The letters also cite investigations suggesting that Giuliani used his political connections to influence the relatively lenient outcome of the federal suit, as well as the lax approach the Drug Enforcement Administration took in curbing misuse of the drug.

In addition to asking for documentation of communications between the federal agencies and Giuliani Partners, the letters ask pointed questions about Giuliani himself, such as “What steps were taken to ensure that Giuliani’s other relationships with DOJ and its components did not improperly influence plea negotiations?”

In recent years, dozens of states and municipalities have filed lawsuits against opioid makers and distributors including Purdue, alleging that the overdose epidemic has caused a strain on public resources. Last week, Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to bring a separate, “major lawsuit” against opioid companies.

“Given that Mr. Giuliani has emerged as one of the President’s closest advisors, it’s important that we determine whether his past work on behalf of Purdue, a company that misled prescribers and patients alike about the addictive nature of its drug OxyContin, will influence this administration’s actions in terms of holding Purdue accountable for the devastating impact of its aggressive marketing of this drug,” wrote Ricki Eshman, Hassan’s press secretary.

Read the full letters below: (SEE LINK)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -lobbying/

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Republican Senators Advance Trump’s Consumer Watchdog Nominee Despite Her Lack of Finance Experience

And her role in family separations.

HANNAH LEVINTOVAAUG. 23, 2018 5:50 PM

On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee narrowly approved Kathy Kraninger, currently an associate director at the White House Office of Management and Budget, to be the next head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—the Wall Street watchdog agency established after the 2008 financial crisis to keep tabs on big banks.

The vote to approve Kraninger’s contentious nomination fell on party lines: The committee’s 13 Republicans voted for her, while all 12 Democrats opposed her nomination. They had concerns with her lack of experience in consumer finance and banking, and her continued equivocation over her role in overseeing the two federal agencies—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice—that implemented the administration’s now-discontinued family separation policy.

At Kraninger’s July confirmation hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—the original architect of the CFPB, and one of the agency’s major champions in Congress—and other Democratic lawmakers peppered Kraninger with questions about her alleged involvement in family separations. They wanted to know what type of advice she provided for the policy’s roll out during her participation in high-level meetings with officials.

Kraninger gave evasive answers, often repeating that she had no role in “setting” the administration’s family separations policy; Attorney General Jeff Sessions crafted the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to separations at the border. But she also refused to elaborate on any involvement she may have had in the development or implementation of the widely-condemned policy. Her vague statements came after weeks of effort by Sens. Warren and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to get clear answers from Kraninger. In June, the pair sent a joint letter asking OMB and Kraninger asking for documentation detailing her role in the “cruel” administration policy. But given Kraninger’s high-level position at OMB overseeing key homeland security agencies, it’s quite likely she had significant involvement.

“These are innocent children who might be scarred forever because of this policy. It’s fundamentally immoral—and you, you, were a part of it, Ms. Kraninger,” Sen. Warren said at last month’s hearing. “That’s a moral stain that will follow you for the rest of your life. And if the Senate votes to give you a big promotion, then it is a stain on the senators who do so.”

Senators also questioned Kraninger’s lack of experience in the world of consumer finance, should she be given responsibility for regulating the agency that serves as a check on the financial industry. The White House has argued that Kraninger’s management experience in government and homeland security are sufficient qualifications for her to head the CFPB, a line of reasoning that Warren questioned last month as well. She again pointed to family separations and also to Kraninger’s role overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its botched response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Her office issued a staff report outlining the budgeting problems and planning oversights that, under Kraninger’s watch, led to the “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Ms. Kraninger’s purported management experience and ability is the sole basis for her nomination,” noted the report. “Her management failures in these areas undercut any case for her nomination to run a major federal agency.”

But on Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee chairman Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) expressed confidence in Kraninger’s management abilities. He told the Los Angeles Times that “her depth and diversity of public service experience” gave him “confidence she is well prepared to lead the bureau.”

Kraninger’s nomination will now go before the full Senate. If confirmed, she’ll replace her current OMB boss, Mick Mulvaney, and would serve a five-year term. For the last year, Mulvaney has been serving as acting director of the CFPB while also doing his job as OMB director. A longtime foe of the CFPB—as a congressman, Mulvaney cosponsored a bill that proposed shuttering the agency entirely—he’s implemented a number of reforms aimed at diminishing the CFPB’s power. These include dismissing advisory boards, relaxing regulations on predatory lenders, spending down the agency’s reserves, and even changing the agency’s name. Kraninger is widely expected to carry on this deregulatory agenda.

During last month’s confirmation hearing, Kraninger agreed with the assertion Mulvaney has often made that the CFPB’s authority needs to be reined in, because the bureau has too much independence from Congress and the president. “I’m very open to changes in that structure that will make the agency more accountable and transparent,” Kraninger said.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... xperience/

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CONGRESS

'How do you stay married to a guy who does that?'

Hill Republicans are appalled by Rep. Duncan Hunter, who is facing indictment, blaming his wife.

By RACHAEL BADE 08/24/2018 04:25 PM EDT

House Republicans are whispering one word over and over again to describe embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter: Shameless.

The California Republican, indicted this week for using $250,000 in campaign funds to enrich himself and his family, is blaming everyone but himself for his current legal predicament: Prosecutors are “biased” against him because he was an original supporter of then-candidate Donald Trump. The media is just trying to make him look a fool.

And his wife? Well, this whole thing is really her fault.

“She handled my finances throughout my entire military career, and that continued on when I got to Congress,” Hunter told Fox News host Martha MacCallum late Thursday, referring to his spouse Margaret, who was also indicted by the FBI Wednesday: "She was also the campaign manager so whatever she did, that’ll be looked at too, I’m sure, but I didn’t do it.”

Hunter’s brazen attempt to throw his spouse under the bus in particular has more than half a dozen Hill Republican lawmakers and aides shaking their heads. All requested anonymity to speak freely about a House colleague. Asked about the matter, one of his friends in Congress simply replied, exasperated, “I can’t.”

“Ridiculous,” said one California Republican Hill aide. “If you read the indictment, clearly it was both of them… Like, how do you stay married to a guy who does that?”

A senior House Republican predicted the two would be divorcing soon: “You can’t blame your wife and stay married to your wife."

Another House Republican added: "“He’s trying to save himself… and I don’t believe he didn’t know about it.”

At the very least, Hunter’s attacks on his wife have given his Democratic challenger ample fodder to call him a coward. Congress-hopeful Ammar Campa-Najjar said Hunter is refusing to take responsibility and “shifting the blame to everybody and dragging everybody with him.”

“Taking it out on his campaign manager, who happens to be his wife, it’s just another example of that toxic masculinity, that corruption, that infallibility he has about himself that has blinded him and made him unfit to serve,” Campa-Najjar said. “It’s sad… but the buck stops with the boss.”

Blaming his wife is but one defense tactic Hunter appears to be employing. He’s also called the entire probe into his campaign finances a political “witch hunt” against him.

“This is pure politics,” he said on Fox News. “My prosecutor and the acting U.S. attorney that issued the court orders to search my house and my office, they had just attended a Hillary Clinton fundraiser!”

He also accused prosecutors of altering his text messages to set him up: “They’ve edited some of these text messages to make them look different than they are,” he said.

The strategy is also a favorite of Hunter’s political ally, Trump, who has repeatedly attacked special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation as an attempt to discredit his presidency.

But while Trump has at times been successful in turning some Republican voters against Mueller and the Justice Department, it’s unclear that the same tactics will help Hunter. Trump’s battle is mostly being fought on public and political grounds — sitting presidents cannot be indicted, after all. But Hunter is facing serious jail time. And winning over Republican voters over won’t necessarily protect him in a courtroom.

But it’s Hunter choice to go after the mother of his children that has raised some eyebrows. The two, notably, did not show up to court together when they entered not guilty pleas, arriving instead in separate cars — even as their legal cases are linked.

Sources familiar with their relationship say they’re had a rocky marriage for a while because of the campaign finance matter as well as allegations of infidelity. Prosecutors asked witnesses about several women believed to have had relationships with Hunter, POLITICO reported earlier this year, including one that worked in his office.

Hunter’s deflection to his wife is not altogether surprising. When first pressed Hunter on alleged misuse of campaign funds back in February, he suggested it was his wife’s fault as well. She had the campaign credit card, he said, and if you look at the transactions in question, they occurred in California when he was in Washington, he argued at the time.

Attempts to reach Margaret Hunter in San Diego Friday were unsuccessful. When a reporter showed up to their California home to try to speak with Margaret, Hunter’s father, former Rep. Duncan Hunter Senior, would not allow POLITICO to see her or ask if she wanted to comment.

Margaret Hunter and the couple’s children have been living in Hunter, Sr.’s home ever since the younger Hunter sold his house to pay back $60,000 in misused campaign funds. The couple has been struggling financially for years.

To be sure, many of the transactions laid out in the indictment appeared to come from Margaret Hunter, including thousands spent on every-day household items and to pay for airplane tickets for her family members, for example.

But a quick glance at the FBI’s indictment of Hunter shows that he, according to prosecutors, was allegedly just as liberal with the campaign credit card as his wife was. Hunter took multiple unnamed individuals he had a “personal” relationship with, on long weekend trips and treated his friends to fancy parties and long nights of drinking on the campaign account.

For example, he took one person, referred to as “individual 14,” on a ski trip in Lake Tahoe and a long weekend to Virginia Beach, expensing parts of their trip. He also paid for "a personal stay at the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel” with the individual.

At one point, when the campaign staff tried to warn Hunter about his wife’s misuse of the card, or that certain personal outings were not appropriate to expense, Hunter accused them of being disloyal, according to the indictment.

Pressed on one of these transactions on FOX News, Hunter said he didn’t recall purchasing Hawaii shorts at golf store and mislabeling it in FEC reports as golf ball donations for Wounded Warriors, as prosecutors alleged in the indictment.

“I don’t remember that, but I would never do that,” Hunter said. “I’ve never done that.”

Even if Hunter’s wife was responsible for all the transactions, Hunter would still have legal exposure. As the candidate, he was responsible for signing off on the reports.

Even his colleagues are skeptical of his claims of innocence.

“Every month you get a credit card statement, and at some point, liability goes beyond her because they should have cancelled her credit card when they saw things happen,” said one senior House Republican. "So even if she was the one who made all the charges, at some point, there are other problems, right?”

The person added: “It was flagrant… Anyone can make a mistake, but when you get warned repeatedly [and keep doing it], that’s not an ‘innocent mistake’ anymore.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/ ... ans-795710

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GLOBAL

Donald Trump Sorrowfully Cancels Another North Korea Meeting

For the first time since his summit with Kim Jong Un, the president acknowledged that nuclear talks aren’t going well.

URI FRIEDMAN AUG 24, 2018

It was almost like the last time. Preparations were underway for another high-stakes meeting between old adversaries desperately seeking a way out of their nuclear standoff. And then, suddenly, they weren’t.

A day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sunnily announced that he would travel to Pyongyang next week alongside a new U.S. special representative for North Korea to make progress on removing Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons, Pompeo’s boss got on Twitter to call the whole thing off. “I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Donald Trump wrote on Friday. It was the first time that the president, who just a couple months ago boasted that he had eliminated the “Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” has acknowledged so plainly that nuclear negotiations with North Korea aren’t going well.

Trump didn’t blame himself or even North Korea explicitly for the lack of progress. Instead he singled out China, with which the United States is currently engaged in an escalating trade war and with which North Korea conducts most of its trade, for not “helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were,” despite international sanctions against the North remaining in place. “Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved,” Trump added. “In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!”

The decision to abruptly and dramatically walk away from talks, mixed with wistful and conciliatory language about his desire to walk right back into negotiations should circumstances allow, mirrors Trump’s move in May to cancel his summit in Singapore with Kim Jong Un. Trump’s problem at the time was the North Korean government’s fiery rhetoric against the United States and flaky behavior as U.S. officials sought to prepare for the historic meeting. In his letter to North Korea’s leader then, Trump veered from reminding Kim of America’s “massive and powerful” nuclear-weapons arsenal to urging him to “not hesitate to call me or write” if “you change your mind.”

The approach back then, which the nuclear expert Vipin Narang refers to as the “‘call me maybe’ strategy,” actually worked to an extent. North Korea didn’t instantly surrender its nukes and ship them off to Tennessee. But it did adopt a friendlier tone toward the United States and more seriously engage with U.S. negotiators, prompting Trump to declare the summit on again and eventually, in Singapore, to sign a statement with Kim in which North Korea vaguely promised to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

The problem is that since then, North Korea hasn’t done a whole lot in the way of working toward that denuclearization. The North has observed a suspension of nuclear- and long-range-missile tests, begun making good on its pledge in Singapore to return what it claims are remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War, and partially dismantled a missile-engine-test site that Kim told Trump he would destroy. But as commercial satellite images, leaked U.S. intelligence assessments, and most recently a study by the International Atomic Energy Agency have made clear in recent months, North Korea is otherwise proceeding with business as usual on developing its nuclear program. Even its work on taking apart the missile-engine-test site has stalled, according to a report this week by the website 38 North.

The speculation was that Pompeo was headed to North Korea to overcome the stalemate with some big breakthrough—perhaps a vow by North Korea to disclose the various components of its nuclear program in exchange for a vow by the United States to join with the two Koreas in finally declaring an end to the Korean War, which concluded in an armistice in 1953. Trump’s cancellation of the trip suggests that the administration might have gotten cold feet about whether North Korea was ready to deliver the kind of breakthrough the United States had in mind.

It’s unclear, however, whether Trump’s call-me-maybe gambit will prove as potent as it did last time, when Kim was thirsting for a long-sought sit-down with the American president and when the sanctions arrayed against him were firmer than they are today. In the interim, countries such as China and South Korea have begun prioritizing diplomatic engagement over economic pressure. “I’m much more skeptical this time because last time Kim wanted the summit just as badly,” Narang observed on Friday. “This time he’s in a much stronger position.”

Even Trump seemed to recognize that his move might not pay off as swiftly as it did before. After all, he said Pompeo would reschedule his visit “after our Trading relationship with China is resolved”—during a week in which the world’s two largest economies imposed billions of dollars in tariffs on each other in a titanic economic showdown whose resolution doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon.

[IF THIS MORON WOULD LISTEN TO HIS "ADVISORS", HE WOULD KNOW THE NK'S CAN'T BE TRUSTED ]

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... ea/568522/

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Congress still doesn't know what Trump said to Putin in Helsinki

By Zachary Cohen, CNN

Washington (CNN)Congressional lawmakers still know very little about what was said during last month's one-on-one meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a point members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made very clear Tuesday during a hearing on US relations with Moscow.

In his opening remarks, the committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Bob Corker, told witnesses from the State and Treasury departments that the Trump administration has provided few details about the meeting in Helsinki despite repeated requests from Congress.

"We'd like to understand what was agreed to when the leaders of our two countries sat down in Helsinki," Corker said.
"Were there discussions regarding current or future arms control agreements? What other promises or assurances were made? To date we have received no real readout, even in a classified setting, of this meeting," he added.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Bob Menendez, also expressed his frustration over the administration's "lack of transparency" regarding the Helsinki summit saying lawmakers remain "in the dark as to what the two leaders discussed."

"We continue to hear more information -- accurate or not -- from the Russian government than from our own," Menendez said. "This is not only embarrassing, but I believe this lack of transparency has implications for our national security."
"I am not convinced that those who need to know in our own executive branch have a full understanding of what happened," he added.

Demanding details

Pompeo clashed with both Republicans and Democrats on several occasions when he appeared before the Senate committee last month, refusing to provide substantive details about the Trump-Putin sitdown, as well as Trump's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

"We've been asking Secretary Pompeo to come and explain the Trump administration's strategy on North Korea and Russia for a long time and they have failed to provide the necessary briefings or hearings to either the full Senate or the Foreign Relations Committee," Menendez said in a statement to CNN.

"After three hours of testimony from the secretary last month, we still have no clarity on the policies our government is pursuing," he added. "On each of the matters, we expect the Trump administration to brief the full Senate as has been done by previous administrations, and to come before the national security committees in open hearing in front of the American people."

Rather than divulge specifics of that conversation, Pompeo highlighted several policy measures he said indicated the Trump administration is committed to being tough on Russia but also open to dialogue -- a stance that was echoed again on Tuesday by A. Wess Mitchell, the State Department's assistant secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

When pressed for specifics by Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey, Mitchell said that discussions between Trump and Putin were "not deeply substantive."

"The only agreement that came out of Helsinki was for the two national security counsels to meet again, which they are doing this week," Mitchell said, later adding that he has "received the information I need to do my job as it relates to Russia."

National security adviser John Bolton is due to meet this week in Geneva with top Russian counterparts. He said on Sunday, before the latest allegations of Russian interference emerged, that he would raise the issue of election meddling.

"Does that mean that you have been briefed on the INF Treaty? Did the President say to Putin that Russia is in violation a treaty that deals with nuclear weapons threat to the United States?" Markey asked, again probing for details.

"I am not aware of any part of the conversations that was devoted to the subject of INF," Mitchell responded referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, an arms control agreement between Moscow and Washington that has been in force for 30 years.

The latest round of bipartisan criticism related to the Helsinki summit comes as Trump is facing fresh political heat over his relationship with Putin stemming from details of a new Russian hacking strike against the US.

Claims that Russian hackers targeted conservative think tanks critical of Trump and the US Senate emerged hours after the President again cast doubt on Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential race in an interview with Reuters -- again exposing the odd divide between the President and his own national security and intelligence establishment on the issue.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/21/politics ... index.html

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POLITICS

Allen Weisselberg, Trump Organization CFO, Granted Immunity In Cohen Investigation

Federal prosecutors granted immunity to President Donald Trump’s longtime CFO for providing information regarding hush-money payments during the 2016 presidential campaign

By Marina Fang and Paul Blumenthal 08/24/2018

Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has been granted immunity in federal prosecutors’ investigation into President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported Friday.

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to violating campaign finance laws at Trump’s direction, when he made payments to prevent the stories of Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, two women alleging they had extramarital affairs with Trump, from going public during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Weisselberg was subpoenaed in the investigation last month. According to The Wall Street Journal, it is unclear if Weisselberg testified as to whether Trump himself knew about the payments.

On Thursday, David Pecker, the CEO of the company that owns the tabloid the National Enquirer, was also granted immunity in the investigation. In a practice known as “catch and kill,” Pecker allegedly helped Cohen suppress potentially damaging stories about Trump.

No one knows Trump’s finances better than Weisselberg. Aside from Trump himself, Weisselberg is the longest-serving employee of the Trump Organization. He has worked for the company since the 1970s, beginning as an accountant with Fred Trump, the president’s father, and working his way up to chief financial officer.

He is currently one of three executives, alongside the president’s elder sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who run the trust set up to manage the Trump Organization while Trump serves as president. Weisselberg was named by Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis as the executive who approved the Trump Organization’s reimbursement of Cohen for the payments made to Daniels.

Weisselberg handled not just the Trump Organization’s finances but also those of Trump himself. This means Weisselberg is the accountant who filed Trump’s tax returns. He also signed the checks for Trump’s fake university that was fined $25 million for defrauding students. And he was named treasurer of the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which is currently under investigation by the New York attorney general for fraud.

“He plays an integral part in the Trump Organization’s growth and continued financial success,” Ivanka Trump said in an emailed statement to The Wall Street Journal in 2016. “He is deeply passionate, fiercely loyal and has stood alongside my father and our family for over [three] decades.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/al ... 327dfc3fb1

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POLITICAL NEWS

Trump's bad week: President's men turn against the president

By JILL COLVIN and CATHERINE LUCEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — On one of the worst days of his presidency, Donald Trump was chatting aboard Air Force One when the conversation took a detour into gallows humor.

Trump was returning from a rally in West Virginia just hours after two former members of his inner circle were found or pleaded guilty, when one passenger quipped that a news story would surely soon be breaking about the president fuming onboard. Everyone laughed, including the president.

Despite the momentary levity, though, Trump is increasingly frustrated and isolated as the investigations that have long dogged his White House plunge into the personal territory he once declared off-limits.

One by one, the president's men have turned against him.

It was a bruising week for Trump, with a trio of men who are intimately familiar with his secrets and business dealings now cooperating with prosecutors. First, Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, implicated him in testimony about hush money payments to two women who allege affairs with him. On the same day, his former campaign chairman was found guilty on a slew of financial charges. At least Paul Manafort had nothing to say about Trump or his campaign.

But then came revelations that his longtime friend, David Pecker, the CEO of National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc., had been granted immunity from prosecution to provide information, followed by news that Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg, who had once worked for Trump's father, was cooperating as well.

There is no indication their cooperation extends beyond the scope of the Cohen probe. But for Trump — who has long demanded loyalty from those around him — the revelations have only added to long-simmering fury about the investigations that began with questions about Russian election meddling but have broadened from there.

Allies wonder what Trump might do if the pressure continues to increase.

"This is a bridge too far. They are trying to undo this president," said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg.

As the president exited Washington for a day trip to Ohio on Friday, a White House official said Trump was unhappy with what he perceived as disloyalty but far from melting down. Another person with knowledge of Trump's thinking said the president continues to direct much of his ire at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who infuriated him by recusing himself from the Russia probe. Both people, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private discussions.

Trump tweeted at Sessions on Friday demanding that he investigate a litany of perceived wrongs, declaring insultingly, "Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!"

Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio says the president may be surprised that he can't exert more control from the West Wing over his former friends and employees.

"He's less powerful in these relationships now than he was before he became president. That must just amaze him," said D'Antonio, author of "Never Enough, Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success." ''He's sitting behind the Resolute Desk and he can push a button and get a Coke but he can't control Michael Cohen."

Within the West Wing, aides have grown increasingly numb to the drumbeat of bad news, though the revelation of Cohen's plea and the immunity deals took some by surprise.

Cohen pleaded guilty this week in federal court in Manhattan to campaign finance violations alleging he coordinated with Trump on a hush-money scheme to buy the silence of a porn actress and a Playboy model who alleged affairs. It was later reported that, as part of the probe into Cohen, immunity was granted to Weisselberg and Pecker.

The probe into Cohen was triggered in part by a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who separately is looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, has said Cohen has information "that would be of interest" to the special counsel.

The White House official insisted that West Wing staffers continue to keep their heads down and do their jobs. On Thursday evening, the person said, dozens of staffers gathered on Chief of Staff John Kelly's porch to celebrate the recent birthdays of a trio of staffers: Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow.

While they snacked on homemade cakes and chatted, the staffers welcomed a surprise visit from the president, who delivered a speech and made jokes, acting like nothing was wrong and winning cheers from aides as he left.

Still, the week's developments brought the investigations up to the doorstep of Trump Tower — a place that Trump has warned Mueller is a no-go.

Weisselberg, the 71-year-old Trump Organization CFO, is intimately familiar with Trump's business dealings, having overseen his corporate ledgers through his rise in the New York real estate world and his international dealings in the years before he launched his presidential bid.

The chief financial officer has worked for Trump companies since he joined the president's father, Fred Trump, in the 1970s as an accountant, and is a rich repository of knowledge of the family company. The possibility of him answering questions from investigators poses a new danger for the president as federal prosecutors in Washington and Manhattan dig deeper into Trump's business affairs.

A year ago, Trump told The New York Times that Mueller would be crossing a "red line" if he began to look at Trump's and his family's finances unrelated to Russia.

Asked if he would fire Mueller if that were to happen, Trump responded, "I can't, I can't answer that question because I don't think it's going to happen."

As the negative news mounted throughout the past week, allies also expressed frustration with the lack of a coordinated pushback effort. The White House said it's up to Trump's outside lawyers to deal with much of the news. They argued that the president was not directly implicated, even though Cohen said in court that he and Trump had coordinated.

Some also questioned just how Trump would react if the bad news continued to roll in. Nunberg specifically cautioned against his making any speedy moves.

"The only thing I would say to the president is do not do anything rash because Mueller would love for you to fire him, so that you will be impeached," he said.

https://www.wral.com/trump-rages-sparks ... /17791488/

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R.I.P.

John McCain, American Hero, Dies at 81

The ‘maverick,’ who cemented his place in history as a dealmaker well respected across the political spectrum, has died after a battle with cancer.

John S. McCain III, an American hero who served as a United States Navy captain and a member of Congress for a combined six decades, died on Saturday, his office announced. He was 81.

McCain was a giant of the United States Senate and a lifelong public servant who won respect and admiration from his colleagues on Capitol Hill and from world leaders for his staunch advocacy of democratic principles and his defiant policy positions, particularly on issues relating to the military and national security.

He was a tough and, at times, feisty and brash legislator, but he forged friendships and bonds that cemented his place in history as a dealmaker. His political opponents sometimes branded him a war-monger and a reactionary at worst but never doubted his unwavering adherence to his principles, his tireless support for American troops, and his enduring commitment to public service.

“He was a great fire who burned bright, and we lived in his light and warmth for so very long,” McCain’s daughter, Meghan, wrote on Saturday night. “We know that his flame lives on, in each of us.”

The “maverick,” as he was known, was diagnosed last July with brain cancer after doctors discovered an aggressive tumor known as glioblastoma while performing an operation to remove a blood clot. Last year, McCain was undergoing regular treatment at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington while keeping up with his duties as a senator.

In December, McCain’s office said the senator was being treated at Walter Reed Medical Center for “normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy.” McCain had not returned to the Senate since December, opting instead to continue receiving treatment at home in Arizona.

McCain’s condition had deteriorated during the latter part of last year, and he became increasingly frail. In November, he tore his Achilles’ tendon and was forced to wear a walking boot on his lower leg and use a cane as he traversed the halls of the Capitol. Eventually he was confined to a wheelchair. And in April, McCain had surgery to treat an intestinal infection. Recently, McCain’s family said he had stopped receiving treatment, writing in a statement that “the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict.” Earlier in life, he survived melanoma, a type of skin cancer.
McCain entered the Navy in 1958 at age 22, and two years later he was certified as a naval pilot. In 1967, a missile shot down his Skyhawk dive bomber over North Vietnam. He was held there as a prisoner of war at the so-called Hanoi Hilton prison for more than five years, two of them in solitary confinement.

The North Vietnamese offered to release McCain after his father, John McCain Jr., was appointed as chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific—but he twice refused, demanding that all POWs be released along with him. He believed the effort would play into the hands of the enemy by giving them a propaganda victory. Throughout his captivity, McCain was routinely tortured and tried to commit suicide several times. He was released in 1973 and went on to receive several military honors, including two Purple Hearts.
His personal experiences with torture led him to oppose the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the CIA during the Bush-era war on terror. One of his final speeches on the Senate floor was a blistering rebuke of a Trump administration nominee who devised the legal justification for the use of torture during the George W. Bush administration.

“This is a dark, dark chapter in the history of the United States Senate,” McCain said in the Nov. 14 address. “We are harming the commitment that our forefathers made that we are all created equal. And unfortunately we have now betrayed that sacred trust.”

McCain also urged his colleagues to reject Gina Haspel’s nomination to be CIA director, citing her involvement in the agency’s torture program and her supervision of a CIA “black site” in Thailand in 2002. Haspel was confirmed 54 to 45, but several senators cited McCain’s opposition in justifying their votes against her nomination.

McCain’s first run for political office came in 1982, a year after retiring from the Navy as a captain, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona’s 1st congressional district. He served two two-year terms before running for the U.S. Senate—and winning—in 1986. When he died, McCain was serving in his sixth term. He was re-elected in 2016.

McCain was a perpetual driving force in national politics since the turn of the century. In 2000, he mounted his first presidential bid, losing in the Republican primary to George W. Bush. He would go on to support Bush’s war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

McCain won the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, running a campaign that kept him mostly in line with Bush, whose popularity was waning. He lost to Barack Obama. In a controversial move, McCain chose then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate that year.

In his recently published book, The Restless Wave: Good times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations, McCain wrote that he regretted having chosen Palin. In the early stages of the 2008 campaign, McCain had decided he would choose his close friend, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat-turned-independent. His campaign advisers successfully convinced him to reverse course.

“But my gut told me to ignore [that advice], and I wished I had,” McCain writes. “America's security and standing in the world were my principal concerns and the main reason, other than personal ambition, that I ran for President. Joe and I share those priorities, and on most related issues we agree on how best to serve them. I completely trusted, liked, and worked well with Joe.”

No matter how polarized the political climate had become, McCain never hit his political opponents below the belt—even when doing so might carry great political benefits. McCain won praise when, during a town hall event in 2008, he pushed back against voters who suggested that Obama represented an existential threat to America.

“I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Sen. Obama to be. But I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,” he said to the crowd, which booed in response.

After another voter called Obama an “Arab,” McCain shook his head and took the mic from her.

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about. He’s not. Thank you,” he said.

In a statement Saturday night, Obama praised McCain’s “courage to put the greater good above our own.”

“John McCain and I were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds, and competed at the highest level of politics,” the former president said. “But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher—the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed.”

McCain’s legislative accomplishments include the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which he crafted with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) in 2002. He worked alongside Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)—with whom he had a close personal friendship—on comprehensive immigration reform, but those efforts never made it out of Congress. Earlier this year, he crafted a bipartisan immigration proposal with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) that failed to clear the requisite 60 votes.

McCain was harshly critical of Obama’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, warning that it would create a vacuum soon to be filled by terror groups. He reiterated those criticisms in 2014 when ISIS began taking control of Iraqi cities and regions.

For decades, McCain was arguably the Senate’s most influential defense hawk. In 2015, he became the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a position that allowed him to lead yearly negotiations on the National Defense Authorization Act, the defense appropriations bill. McCain often clashed with Democrats and dovish lawmakers from within his own party who argued that military spending had ballooned to unsustainable levels.

More recently, McCain often used his perch as chairman of the Armed Services Committee to wield influence over the Trump administration. When the Pentagon did not sufficiently explain the ambush attack in Niger that resulted in the deaths of four American troops last October, McCain threatened to block the administration’s nominees to key defense and national security positions until the committee received greater cooperation.

The senator also gained a reputation over the years as a Russia hawk, especially in recent months amid investigations into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. He joined forces with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to demand answers from the administration on why it was slow-walking the implementation of new sanctions against Russia. And he slammed President Donald Trump for having congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election, saying in a statement that Trump “insulted every Russian citizen.”

Even in his final days, McCain was pushing hard to ensure that the military would be adequately funded—a crusade that, over time, became a hallmark of his career. When Congress was recently approving a string of short-term stopgap measures to fund the government instead of coming together on a bipartisan longer-term spending package, McCain lamented that Congress was abdicating its duty to American troops.

“We have cut and cut and cut to the point where we have accidents where our service members are killed and wounded because we refuse to give them what they need to defend the nation. It’s a crime,” a frustrated McCain told The Daily Beast in November.

Earlier this month, McCain’s push for increases in defense spending was successful when the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense appropriations bill, was signed into law. In May, the House and Senate armed services committees named the legislation after McCain.

It was always clear to McCain’s colleagues and to the general public what his priorities were. But he rarely publicized his thinking on key Senate votes ahead of time, leaving everyone wondering what he would end up deciding.

McCain again made history in July when he cast the deciding vote, in dramatic fashion, against Senate Republicans’ bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The vote occurred the week McCain returned to Washington following his brain cancer diagnosis, and after he delivered a blistering floor speech criticizing his colleagues for not using the Senate’s regular procedures in crafting health care legislation—that is, trying to push it over the finish line using only the votes of one party, and rushing the process rather than holding hearings to craft a bipartisan product.

“What have we to lose by trying to work together to find those solutions? We’re not getting much done apart. I don’t think any of us feels very proud of our incapacity. Merely preventing your political opponents from doing what they want isn’t the most inspiring work,” McCain said to applause from his colleagues. “There’s greater satisfaction in respecting our differences but not letting them prevent agreements that don’t require abandonment of core principles, agreements made in good faith that help improve lives and protect the American people.”

In his book, The Restless Wave, McCain revealed that Obama called him to thank him for voting against the bill that would have repealed his signature legislative achievement.

“I appreciated his call, but, as I said, my purpose hadn't been to preserve his signature accomplishment but to insist on a better alternative, and to give the Senate an opportunity to work together to find one,” McCain wrote.

In recent months, McCain won over the admiration of Democrats and liberals in part for his harsh criticisms of Trump, who once said that McCain was “not a war hero.” During a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in October, McCain delivered a thinly veiled rebuke of Trump, decrying “crackpot conspiracy theories,” “protectionism,” “nativism,” and “ethnic grievances.”

In a separate speech in October, McCain condemned “half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems,” calling it “as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”

In The Restless Wave, he confronted the president’s convictions more directly, writing that Trump’s “lack of empathy for refugees, innocent, persecuted, desperate men, women, and children, is disturbing.” To Trump, McCain writes, “the appearance of toughness, or a reality show facsimile of toughness, seems to matter more than any of our values.”

McCain also penned a Washington Post op-ed in which he criticized the president for his continuous war on the news media, arguing that his attempts to discredit journalists embolden dictators worldwide.

“While administration officials often condemn violence against reporters abroad, Trump continues his unrelenting attacks on the integrity of American journalists and news outlets,” McCain wrote in the January op-ed. “This has provided cover for repressive regimes to follow suit.”

Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter, decided to move up her wedding—which took place last November—as a result of her father’s cancer diagnosis. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015, appeared on ABC’s The View and consoled McCain, a co-host of the show.

“One of the things that gave Beau courage—my word—was John. You may remember when you were a little kid, your dad took care of my Beau,” Biden said in an emotional moment. “Your dad... became friends with Beau. And Beau talked about your dad’s courage—not about illness—but about his courage.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-mcca ... 1?ref=home

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[ SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY !! WHAT CAN WE EXPECT NEXT ?? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE ?? ]

1. CLASSLESS

GOP Senate Candidate Under Fire for McCain Comments

Hours before Sen. John McCain passed away Saturday following a battle with brain cancer, a Republican Senate candidate in Arizona reportedly claimed on Facebook that the legendary “maverick” had tried to harm her campaign by releasing a statement announcing his decision to end medical treatment. “I think they wanted to have a particular narrative that they hope is negative to me,” Kelli Ward wrote. Her comments came in response to a post from a supporter who questioned whether it was “just a coincidence” that the McCain family released a statement about the senator’s deteriorating health just as Ward began her campaign, or meant to “take media attention” away from Ward. The posts were deleted after McCain’s death was announced late Saturday, but several screenshots were still circulating on social media. Ward later issued a statement on Facebook offering condolences to the McCain family and blasting the “media, the left, and the Establishment” for “attacking me over fake stories.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-senat ... s?ref=home

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U.S.

GOP SENATE CANDIDATE KELLI WARD COMPLAINED MCCAIN CANCER ANNOUNCEMENT WAS TIMED TO HURT HER CAMPAIGN

BY TOM PORTER ON 8/26/18 AT 6:30 AM

U.S.

Arizona Senate candidate Kelli Ward suggested that the announcement Friday that the treatment of Senator John McCain’s cancer was being discontinued was timed to hurt her campaign.

Hours after Ward made the accusation, McCain died, aged 81.

A former state senator, Ward is one of three candidates vying to replace retiring Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, and is a longtime critic of McCain

Following the Friday announcement by McCain’s family that the senator's treatment for brain cancer would not continue, Ward commented on Facebook that "I think they wanted to have a particular narrative that they hope is negative to me."

The Arizona Republic reported that Ward made the comments in response to a Facebook posting by one of her campaign staffers, who questioned whether the timing of the announcement was “just coincidence” or was designed to detract attention from the start of Ward’s campaign bus tour.

The newspaper reported that Ward’s comment has since been removed.

On Friday, Ward had continued to attack McCain after the announcement of his treatment ending was announced, Politico reported.

“We have a choice. Are we going to elect another senator cut from the same cloth as Jeff Flake and John McCain?” Ward said during two campaign stops Friday afternoon, reported the outlet.

Both times, the crowd responded “No.”

On a campaign bus Friday, Ward had described McCain’s illness as a “sad thing” but refused to let up in criticism of his policies.

"I'm sorry that he's sick. It's a horrible thing. But that doesn't mean that his policies suddenly became good. They didn't," she old reporters.

While McCain was a staunch critic of President Donald Trump, Ward has focussed on her ties to and support for the president and his anti-immigrant policies. In a bid to woo anti-establishment conservatives, controversial 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theorist and troll Mike Cernovich is scheduled to appear alongside her on her bus tour.

Ward challenged McCain for his senate seat in 2016, and was defeated.

In a statement to the Republic on Ward’s Facebook comment, Aaron Borders, former second-vice chairman of a Maricopa County Republican Party group, condemned Ward’s comments.

"It's wildly inappropriate," said Borders. "It's classless. It's not decent ... it's very narcissistic. It's a narcissist comment to sit there and think that the McCain family made this decision to interfere with your bus tour."

Kelli Ward’s campaign has not responded to a request for comment.

https://www.newsweek.com/gop-senate-can ... as-1090921

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Before he died, McCain asked that Trump not attend funeral

Aug 25, 2018
By Jared Leone, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

As Sen. John McCain’s battled an aggressive form of brain cancer, he decided months ago he did not want the president attending his funeral.

Instead, family asked the White House in May that Vice President Mike Pence attend the service that will be held at Washington’s National Cathedral, The New York Times reported.

Although arrangements are not yet set after McCain’s death Saturday, former President George W. Bush and Barack Obama are expected to deliver eulogies, NBC News reported.

McCain had a contentious relationship with President Donald Trump who had belittled the Vietnam veteran’s war record, blasted him for a critical vote that ended a repeal measure of “Obamacare” and snubbed him when he signed a bill named for the senator without mentioning his name.
https://www.ajc.com/news/national/befor ... gEz5lnvlN/

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1. STUNNING

One of John McCain’s Former Captors Sends Condolences From Vietnam

Col. Trần Trọng Duyệt, the man who was in charge of the North Vietnamese prison where John McCain was held as a POW for six years during the Vietnam War, has offered his condolences upon learning of the “maverick” senator’s passing. In an interview with Việt Nam News on Saturday, the colonel said he’d spent a great deal of time getting to know McCain while he was held in the prison, which is now a museum. “At that time I liked him personally for his toughness and strong stance. Later on, when he became a U.S. Senator, he and Senator John Kerry greatly contributed to promote Việtnam-U.S. relations so I was very fond of him,” Duyệt said. “When I learnt [sic] about his death early this morning, I feel very sad. I would like to send condolences to his family. I think it’s the same feeling for all Vietnamese people as he has greatly contributed to the development of Việtnam-U.S. relations,” he was quoted as saying. McCain famously visited the prison-turned-museum in 2009 and called for closer ties with Vietnam.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/one-of-jo ... m?ref=home


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By Peter Wehner

Mr. Wehner served in the previous three Republican administrations and is a contributing opinion writer.

Aug. 25, 2018

The Full-Spectrum Corruption of Donald Trump

Everyone and everything he touches rots.

There’s never been any confusion about the character defects of Donald Trump. The question has always been just how far he would go and whether other individuals and institutions would stand up to him or become complicit in his corruption.

When I first took to these pages three summers ago to write about Mr. Trump, I warned my fellow Republicans to just say no both to him and his candidacy. One of my concerns was that if Mr. Trump were to succeed, he would redefine the Republican Party in his image. That’s already happened in areas like free trade, free markets and the size of government; in attitudes toward ethnic nationalism and white identity politics; in America’s commitment to its traditional allies, in how Republicans view Russia and in their willingness to call out leaders of evil governments like North Korea rather than lavish praise on them. But in no area has Mr. Trump more fundamentally changed the Republican Party than in its attitude toward ethics and political leadership.

For decades, Republicans, and especially conservative Republicans, insisted that character counted in public life. They were particularly vocal about this during the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, arguing against “compartmentalization” — by which they meant overlooking moral turpitude in the Oval Office because you agree with the president’s policy agenda or because the economy is strong.

Senator Lindsey Graham, then in the House, went so far as to argue that “impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

All that has changed with Mr. Trump as president. For Republicans, honor and integrity are now passé. We saw it again last week when the president’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen — standing in court before a judge, under oath — implicated Mr. Trump in criminal activity, while his former campaign chairman was convicted in another courtroom on financial fraud charges. Most Republicans in Congress were either silent or came to Mr. Trump’s defense, which is how this tiresome drama now plays itself out.

It is a stunning turnabout. A party that once spoke with urgency and apparent conviction about the importance of ethical leadership — fidelity, honesty, honor, decency, good manners, setting a good example — has hitched its wagon to the most thoroughly and comprehensively corrupt individual who has ever been elected president. Some of the men who have been elected president have been unscrupulous in certain areas — infidelity, lying, dirty tricks, financial misdeeds — but we’ve never before had the full-spectrum corruption we see in the life of Donald Trump.

For many Republicans, this reality still hasn’t broken through. But facts that don’t penetrate the walls of an ideological silo are facts nonetheless. And the moral indictment against Mr. Trump is obvious and overwhelming. Corruption has been evident in Mr. Trump’s private and public life, in how he has treated his wives, in his business dealings and scams, in his pathological lying and cruelty, in his bullying and shamelessness, in his conspiracy-mongering and appeals to the darkest impulses of Americans. (Senator Bob Corker, a Republican, refers to the president’s race-based comments as a “base stimulator.”) Mr. Trump’s corruptions are ingrained, the result of a lifetime of habits. It was delusional to think he would change for the better once he became president.

Some of us who have been lifelong Republicans and previously served in Republican administrations held out a faint hope that our party would at some point say “Enough!”; that there would be some line Mr. Trump would cross, some boundary he would transgress, some norm he would shatter, some civic guardrail he would uproot, some action he would take, some scheme or scandal he would be involved in that would cause large numbers of Republicans to break with the president. No such luck. Mr. Trump’s corruptions have therefore become theirs. So far there’s been no bottom, and there may never be. It’s quite possible this should have been obvious to me much sooner than it was, that I was blinded to certain realities I should have recognized.

In any case, the Republican Party’s as-yet unbreakable attachment to Mr. Trump is coming at quite a cost. There is the rank hypocrisy, the squandered ability to venerate public character or criticize Democrats who lack it, and the damage to the white Evangelical movement, which has for the most part enthusiastically rallied to Mr. Trump and as a result has been largely discredited. There is also likely to be an electoral price to pay in November.

But the greatest damage is being done to our civic culture and our politics. Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are right now the chief emblem of corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right. Dehumanizing others is fashionable and truth is relative. (“Truth isn’t truth,” in the infamous words of Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.) They are stripping politics of its high purpose and nobility.

That’s not all politics is; self-interest is always a factor. But if politics is only about power unbounded by morality — if it’s simply about rulers governing by the law of the jungle, about a prince acting like a beast, in the words of Machiavelli — then the whole enterprise will collapse. We have to distinguish between imperfect leaders and corrupt ones, and we need the vocabulary to do so.

A warning to my Republican friends: The worst is yet to come. Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller — a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a “group of Angry Democrat Thugs” — we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump’s corruption. When we do, I expect Mr. Trump will unravel further as he feels more cornered, more desperate, more enraged; his behavior will become ever more erratic, disordered and crazed.

Most Republicans, having thrown their MAGA hats over the Trump wall, will stay with him until the end.

Was a tax cut, deregulation and court appointments really worth all this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/opin ... trump.html

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4. SOME FRIEND YOU ARE

GOP Sen. Inhofe: McCain ‘Partially to Blame’ for Flag Ordeal Because He Was Mean to Trump

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Monday reportedly told media that the late Sen. John McCain was “partially to blame” for the ongoing ordeal in which President Trump’s White House briefly lowered its flag to half-staff to honor the late senator before raising it before eventually lowering it again. According to reporters, Sen. Inhofe assigned partial blame to McCain for the sickening spectacle because he was “very outspoken that he disagreed with the president in certain areas and wasn’t too courteous about it.”

[ NOW THAT'S FUNNY SOUNDS QUITE "PRESIDENTIAL" ]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-inhof ... n-to-trump

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1. TRAGIC

Toddler Died After Getting Sick in ICE Custody: Report

An 18-month-old child died after becoming sick while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Vice News reports. Yazmin Juárez said her daughter, Mariee, was healthy before she was detained in early March, but developed a cough, congestion, and a fever of over 104 degrees at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Juárez eventually passed a credible fear interview that showed she was seeking asylum from violence in her native Guatemala, and was released from detention with her daughter. Six weeks later, Mariee died. Juárez intends to take legal action against ICE, and her lawyers said the facility “failed inexcusably” to care for Juárez and her daughter. “ICE detained Yazmin and her baby in a place with unsafe conditions, neglectful medical care, and inadequate supervision,” said attorney R. Stanton Jones. “While there, Mariee contracted a respiratory infection that went woefully undertreated for nearly a month. After it became clear that Mariee was gravely ill, ICE simply discharged mother and daughter. Yazmin immediately sought medical care for her baby, but it was too late.”

Doctors contracted by the Department of Homeland Security investigated the facility in July and found several problems. They called family detention “an exploitation and an assault on the dignity and health of children and families.” ICE declined to comment on Mariee’s case, but told Vice the agency is “committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/toddler-d ... t?ref=home

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1. PARTING WORDS

McCain Takes Veiled Shots at Trump in Farewell Letter

John McCain, the longtime Republican senator who died Saturday evening, penned a farewell message that seemed to take a few shots at President Donald Trump. “I’ve made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them,” said the letter, which was read by McCain’s campaign director, Rick Davis, on Monday. “I lived and died a proud American... We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all corners of the globe.” “Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here,” the letter continued. “Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.” A McCain spokesperson also announced that Trump will not be attending the former Arizona congressman’s funeral.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mccains-f ... s?ref=home

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2. AT LAST

Trump Finally Praises McCain’s ‘Service’ as He Orders Flag Lowered

After sending condolences to Sen. John McCain’s family but failing to recognize the late senator’s service and accomplishments, President Trump has finally offered some kind words. “Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country,” Trump said in an official statement. Following criticism that the flag had returned to full-staff after McCain’s death, Trump signed a proclamation to bring it to half-staff until McCain’s internment, as is tradition. He also announced that Vice President Mike Pence would give an address at the ceremony honoring McCain Friday. McCain’s remains will be transported by the military to Washington, D.C., at the request of McCain’s family, according to the statement. John Kelly, James Mattis, and John Bolton will represent the Trump administration at the late senator’s funeral. Trump has famously sparred with McCain. In 2015, the president said of McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.”

[ DOLLARS TO DONUTS THAT TRUMP DID NOT DRAFT THAT STATEMENT

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-fin ... ag-lowered

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Veteran groups tell Trump to lower flag to half-staff to honor McCain

Veterans groups are calling on President Trump to lower the White House flag to half-staff to honor Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died on Saturday night of brain cancer.

“It’s outrageous that the White House would mark American hero John McCain’s death with a two-sentence tweet, making no mention of his heroic and inspiring life,” Joe Chenelly, the executive director of veterans advocacy group AMVETS, said in a statement.

"And by lowering flags for not one second more than the bare minimum required by law, despite a long-standing tradition of lowering flags until the funeral, the White House is openly showcasing its blatant disrespect for Senator McCain’s many decades of service and sacrifice to our country as well as the service of all his fellow veterans," Chenelly added.

The American Legion, the country's largest wartime veterans service organization, joined in condemning Trump for his muted response to McCain's death. McCain was a member of the American Legion and retired from the U.S. Navy at the rank of captain.

"On behalf of the American Legion's two million wartime veterans, I strongly urge you to make an appropriate presidential proclamation noting Senator McCain's death and legacy of service to our nation, and that our nation's flag be half-staffed throughout his internment," Denise Rohan, the national commander of the American Legion, said in a statement.

Flags at the White House returned to full-staff on Monday, less than 48 hours after they were lowered.

Trump had an adversarial relationship with McCain and continued to mock him as his condition debilitated in the final months of his life. The president reportedly nixed putting out a statement praising McCain, according to The Washington Post.

He instead reportedly told his aides he preferred to tweet his condolence, posting a pared-down statement in which he did not offer praise for the Arizona Republican.

"Traditionally, the death of a sitting United States senator would be met with a presidential proclamation and flags flying at half-staff throughout the country until the funeral of the deceased," AMVETS said in a statement. "This follows national tradition, as shown after the deaths of Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd."

"But John McCain was not just a sitting senator," the statement said. "He was a war hero, twice a presidential contender, and a national treasure who devoted his entire adult life to protecting and improving the American way of life."

McCain was held captive as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years, and spoke out on behalf of the military and veterans throughout his life.

Trump will not attend McCain's funeral, a spokesperson for the late senator confirmed to the Post on Monday.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/40382 ... nor-mccain

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‘ATROCIOUS’

Trump Vetoed Statement Calling Sen. John McCain a ‘Hero’: Report

President Trump vetoed a tribute drafted by White House officials that praised the late Sen. John McCain for his military service and labeled him a “hero,” instead opting for his perfunctory “deepest sympathies” tweet, according to a Sunday report from The Washington Post. The tweet, posted after McCain passed away Saturday night, did not say anything positive about the late senator—a move that even Fox News commentator Brit Hume called out on Twitter. Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for Trump’s legal team and a longtime Republican strategist, called Trump’s tweet “atrocious.” He told the Post that “at a time like this, you would expect more of an American president when you’re talking about the passing of a true American hero.” The Post added that this marked a substantial break from precedent, and that many White House officials instead released tributes on their own behalf.

This isn’t the first time Trump has publicly slighted McCain: In 2015, he infamously argued that McCain—a decorated veteran and POW—wasn’t a war hero because his plane was shot down. When McCain was first diagnosed with brain cancer in July 2017, Trump reportedly declined aides’ request that he stop in Arizona to offer condolences. The Post noted, however, that McCain may not have been particularly upset by Trump’s most recent rebuff: “It certainly doesn’t bother me or the people I know close to John,” McCain’s former aide and friend told the Post. “If we heard something today or tomorrow from Trump, we know it’d mean less than a degree from Trump University.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-vet ... ero-report

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CRACKDOWN

Putin Foe Aleksei Navalny Detained in Moscow

Outspoken Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was reportedly detained outside his home in Moscow on Saturday and injured while in police custody. Spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh announced the news on Twitter, saying he’d suffered a fractured finger after being detained by five riot police officers. He is expected to remain in detention until a court hearing on Monday over an anti-Putin protest in January. The 42-year-old has repeatedly been detained and arrested for organizing widespread protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin. His arrest comes ahead of a planned protest against the government’s controversial pension reform on Sept. 9. Navalny had urged residents in more than 90 towns and cities to take part in the demonstration under the slogan, “Putin is not our tsar.” Yarmysh said she believes his detention is meant to prevent him from taking part in that protest.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-foe ... -in-moscow

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Politics

Americans Are Making Less Money Despite Trump’s Promises

By Toluse Olorunnipa and Sho Chandra

August 28, 2018, 3:00 AM CDT Updated on August 28, 2018, 9:08 AM CDT

President Donald Trump heads into a midterm referendum on his presidency showing no real progress on a core promise: to raise the wages of America’s “forgotten man and woman.”

Once the impact of inflation is included, ordinary Americans’ hourly earnings are lower than they were a year ago.

Real wages have remained mostly stagnant despite an expanding economy, record stock prices, soaring corporate profits and a giant deficit-fueled stimulus from Trump’s tax cuts that took effect Jan. 1. The Trump administration claimed its policies would immediately boost wages, with its tax overhaul ultimately increasing average pay by $4,000 to $9,000.

That hasn’t happened. And though Trump regularly boasts of the economy’s performance, many Americans don’t feel they’re sharing in the gains -- a risk for Republicans as they seek to defend their House and Senate majorities in November elections.

A majority of voters believes their personal financial situation has remained the same or gotten worse over the past two years, said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll.

“When you look at that backbone of the country -- the middle class -- people think that there’s stagnancy and not much has happened for them,” although “things might be marginally better nationwide,” he said. “That could be a problem in the midterms for a lot of people. At least some people believe that promises were not fulfilled.”

Inflation-adjusted hourly wages dropped 0.2 percent in July from a year earlier, their worst reading since 2012, according to the Labor Department, amid faster price gains. They’ve grown at an average 0.3 percent annual pace under Trump overall, compared with 1.1 percent during Barack Obama’s second term. Trump’s escalating tariff disputes risk eroding buying power further by driving up prices.

At the same time, many Americans received a boost in take-home pay from the tax cuts, though some ended up paying more in taxes. About 65 percent of taxpayers will receive a tax cut in 2018, averaging $2,200 from the new law’s individual provisions, while 6 percent will receive an increase of about $2,800, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center in March.
As a candidate, Trump excoriated his predecessor for slow growth in American workers’ incomes.

“Household incomes are over $4,000 less today than they were 16 years ago,” he said during a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida, in September 2016. “We’ll get your salaries and your wages up, up, up.”

Workers are still waiting. By a margin of 58 percent to 38 percent, U.S. voters believe the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to help middle-class Americans, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Aug. 14.

The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment. But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that slow wage growth was attributable to new workers entering the labor force.

“Wages are going up,” he said in an interview on CNBC. “I know that some people comment that the numbers don’t show that but let me just say, with new people coming into the work force at lower wages, that’s going to show on a gross level some different things -- but wages are going up on same people.”

Before the tax bill passed, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett said he expected reducing corporate taxes would spark “an immediate jump in wage growth.”

Speaking to Fox Business Network this month, Hassett said those higher wages will come with time, citing the low unemployment rate, growth in capital spending and rising productivity.

“That stuff, historically, helps blue-collar workers,” he said.

President’s Claims

Trump has been telling voters that wages already are rising at historic rates, though economic data don’t show it. In various recent speeches, he has falsely claimed that wages are going up for the first time in 18 years, 19 years, 20 years, 21 years and 22 years.

“We have so many jobs now coming in, but they’re raising wages,” Trump said last month at a roundtable event in Iowa. “The first time that’s happened in 19 years, where wages are going up.”

Average hourly earnings -- not accounting for inflation -- rose 2.7 percent in July from a year earlier, the same pace as the 12-month period before Trump’s election. They’ve been rising at an average 2.2 percent pace since the recession ended in mid-2009.

Trump’s claim is also belied by other measures of wages often used by economists, including the employment cost index and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s wage-growth tracker.

Tepid wage growth throughout the current economic expansion also bedeviled the Obama administration and remains one of the biggest challenges even with unemployment near the lowest level since 1969. On top of that, workers are failing to reap benefits of legislation cutting corporate taxes, an outcome predicted by some economists before Congress passed the law in December.

“It was our expectation that the major elements of the tax plan likely wouldn’t trickle down into stronger wages for the average worker,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Plc. “It was more likely to go as returns to shareholders.”
Companies in the S&P 500 index are set to authorize $1 trillion in stock buybacks in 2018, a record and a 46 percent jump from last year, according to an estimate this month from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Only 37 percent of Americans approve of the tax package, compared to 45 percent who disapprove, according to a Monmouth University poll released Aug. 20. Such unpopularity is hampering Republicans who had hoped the law would give them a boost in midterm elections.

One in four Americans don’t think they’re “at least doing OK” financially, and more than one in five respondents said they were unable to pay the current month’s bills in full, according to the results of a late 2017 Fed survey released in May.

“People that depend on wages -- and that’s essentially almost everyone except higher-income or higher-wealth individuals -- are not seeing as much benefit from this economy,” said Gregory Daco, head of U.S. macroeconomics at Oxford Economics in New York. “People at the lower end of the income spectrum are actually more constrained.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... stagnation

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Stumbled in here yesterday. Is this where Joe dwells? I thought this was a place for discussion of differing viewpoints?

So, Joe, do you agrr with Maxine Waters?

What do you think of the Libertarian running for senator in NM.

What's your stand on illegal immigration?

I voted for Johnson in 2016. I thought he was the best option for our country. Hower, I think he can make even more difference in the Senate. The way I see it, we need people who can actually attack our problems. Actually lay out ideas.

I think illegal immigration needs to enforced until congress can come up with a better system. The fault lies with Congress.

If people would stop resisting, maybe we could work together for solutions.

And I used to enjoy football until I realized the concussion issues. A comedian did a video that said the anthem protests and such were to cover up the concussion problem. As far as the protests go, I think it is more that players can't be bothered. Laws and rules don't apply to them.