A local Democrat introduced Beto O’Rourke as a “blank slate” at a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday.
“Beto is here because he wants to hear what rural Iowa and rural America is standing for. He is going from city to city. He wants to hear what we want. He is a blank slate that is waiting to be filled by our hopes and dreams for the United States,” the woman said, introducing O’Rourke to the crowd.
O’Rourke was joined by his wife Amy at the town hall meeting at Peace Tree Brewing in Knoxville.
The 2020 Democratic presidential contender is polling ahead of most other Democrats in the running, but is significantly behind the primary leaders. O’Rourke is polling at 3.8%, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.
That puts the former Texas congressman in sixth place in a crowded field of 23 Democrats, far behind former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner at 33.5%. O’Rourke is several points down from South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is in fifth at 6.8%.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and California Sen. Kamala Harris round out second, third, and fourth place, respectively.
But there remains deep skepticism among some American officials — and even Mr. Trump himself — about whether the Mexicans have agreed to do enough, whether they will follow through on their promises, and whether, even if they do, that will reduce the flow of migrants at the southwestern border.
In addition, the Migrant Protection Protocols already face legal challenges by immigrant rights groups who say they violate the migrants’ right to lawyers. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing the plan, but an appeals court later said it could move forward while the legal challenge proceeds.
During a phone call Friday evening when he was briefed on the agreement, Mr. Trump quizzed his lawyers, diplomats and immigration officials about whether they thought the deal would work. His aides said yes, but admitted that they were also realistic that the surge of immigration might continue.
“We’ll see if it works,” the president told them, approving the deal before sending out his tweet announcing it.
Mr. Trump’s decision to use trade as a bludgeon against Mexico was driven in part by his obsession with stopping what he falsely calls an invasion of the country and in part by a desire to satisfy his core supporters, many of who have grown angry at his inability to build his promised border wall.
Many of his top advisers, including those who oversee his political and economic agendas, were opposed to the tariff threat. But the president’s ire is regularly stoked by the daily reports he receives on how many migrants have crossed the border in the previous 24 hours.
Some students say activism should take priority over classwork; reaction on ‘Outnumbered’
Oberlin College in Ohio will have to pay a nearby bakery more than $11 million in damages because it libeled the store, tagging it as racist, and interfered with its business, a jury said on Friday.
Gibson’s Bakery came under fire after Allyn Gibson, the owners’ son, got into a physical altercation with a black student who reportedly tried shoplifting and using a fake ID at the store, The Chronicle-Telegram said. Two other black students got involved, appearing to prompt accusations of racial profiling.
The three students eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and read statements defending Allyn Gibson’s right to detain them. They also read statements claiming that his actions weren’t racially motivated, but within days of the incident, students were turning out for protests fueled by accusations of racist intent.
The jury found the school and Oberlin’s vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, guilty of libel after Raimondo allegedly helped pass out flyers claiming that the bakery was “racist” and had a history of “racial profiling and discrimination.”
The jury also found that the college (not Raimondo) was guilty of intentional infliction of emotional distress for the owner, David Gibson, as well as libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress on his son.
Donica Thomas Varner, the college’s general counsel, said he was disappointed with the verdict and denied the college had defamed the bakery or its owners.
“Neither Oberlin College nor Dean Meredith Raimondo defamed a local business or its owners, and they never endorsed statements made by others,” Varner reportedly said.
“Rather, the college and Dr. Raimondo worked to ensure that students’ freedom of speech was protected and that the student demonstrations were safe and lawful, and they attempted to help the plaintiffs repair any harm caused by the student protests.”
According to one of the bakery’s attorneys, the verdict sends a clear message to other educational institutions.
“I think part of what we did here today is answer the question as to, ‘What are we going to tolerate in our society?’” attorney Owen Rarric said. “We’re hopeful that this is a sign that not only Oberlin College, but in the future, powerful institutions, will hesitate before trying to crush the little guy.”
In a letter, Varner said that his team would review the ruling, which, according to the New York Post, could result in triple the damages in a hearing next week on punitive damages.
The lawsuit was yet another flashpoint in the nationwide controversy surrounding universities and political correctness. Oberlin, in particular, has provoked conservatives’ ire for its apparent deference to politically correct ideas.
Back in 2016, for example, actress and Oberlin alumnus Lena Dunham drew attention to an incident in which students complained that the college had engaged in cultural appropriation by serving sushi and other food.
Other colleges, like the University of Illinois, faced lawsuits as they imposed what some considered to be politically correct speech codes and chilled students’ First Amendment rights through regimes known as “Bias Response Teams.”
President Trump seemed to address bias on college campuses when he issued an executive order in March that threatened to withhold funding from universities if they refused to protect students’ rights.
“Under the guise of speech codes, safe spaces and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans like those here today,” Trump said at a signing ceremony.
The 2020 Democrat hopeful pledges net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke found out on Friday that there is truth to the old adage “with friends like these, who needs enemies?” after a supporter introduced him as a “blank slate” at a campaign stop in Iowa.
The remark, flagged first by The Washington Examiner, came in Knoxville, Iowa when a local Democrat who was tasked with introducing the former Texas congressman explained why she was introducing him to the stage.
She noted that he had almost beaten Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in the 2018 Senate race, and also praised O’Rourke’s charisma: “He has a divining quality, he can command a crowd.”
“The last thing is that Beto is here because he wants to hear what rural Iowa and rural America is standing for. He is going from city to city. He wants to hear what we want,” she said. “He is a blank slate that is waiting to be filled by our hopes and dreams for the United States.”
O’Rourke has struggled in the polls in recent months as he has proposed a wave of policies on everything from immigration to decriminalizing truancy
A May Fox News Poll found O’Rourke in sixth place with 4 percent support. While that puts him ahead of the majority of declared candidates, it puts him far behind frontrunners such as former Vice President Joe Biden (35 percent) and Bernie Sanders (17 percent.)
Last month he tried to reboot his campaign and admitted that his campaign made a series of missteps since it launched.
O’Rourke specifically indicated he regretted saying he “sometimes” raised his son, and that a Vanity Fair cover “reinforced” the perception that he was privileged.
Media captionA look at the steps Mexico is taking to deal with migrants
President Donald Trump has hailed a deal reached with Mexico to help stem the flow of migrants to the US after he threatened to impose trade tariffs.
Under the deal, in which Mexico agreed to take “unprecedented steps”, the duties that were due to come into effect on Monday have been suspended.
“Mexico will try very hard, and if they do that, this will be a very successful agreement,” said Mr Trump.
There were fears that the tariffs could hurt US businesses and consumers.
Under Mr Trump’s proposal, duties would have risen by 5% every month on goods including cars, beer, tequila, fruit and vegetables until they hit 25% in October.
The deal was reached at the end of three days of negotiations which saw Washington demand a crackdown on Central American migrants.
What do we know about the deal?
In a joint declaration released by the US state department, the two countries said Mexico would take “unprecedented steps” to curb irregular migration and human trafficking.
But it seems the US did not get one of its reported key demands, which would have required Mexico to take in asylum seekers heading for the US and process their claims on its own soil.
Under the deal, Mexico agreed to:
Deploy its National Guard throughout the country from Monday, pledging up to 6,000 additional troops along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala
Take “decisive action” to tackle human smuggling networks
The US agreed to:
Expand its programme of sending asylum seekers back to Mexico while they await reviews of their claims. In return, the US will “work to accelerate” the adjudication process
Both countries pledged to “strengthen bilateral co-operation” over border security, including “co-ordinated actions” and information sharing.
Media captionFive numbers that explain why the current US border situation is different
The declaration added that discussions would continue, and final terms would be accepted and announced within 90 days.
Should Mexico’s actions “not have the expected results”, the agreement warned that additional measures could be taken but did not specify what these would be.
In one of a series of tweets about the deal, Mr Trump quoted National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd as saying: “That’s going to be a huge deal because Mexico will be using their strong Immigration Laws – A game changer. People no longer will be released into the U.S.”
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told journalists: “I think it was a fair balance, because they have more drastic measures and proposals at the start, and we have reached some middle point.”
Speaking at a separate news conference, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said “we couldn’t be more pleased with the agreement”.
Mr Trump caught members of his own party unaware when he announced the proposed tariffs last week.
Trump tariff threat recedes – for now
By Will Grant, BBC Mexico and Central America correspondent
It’s still unclear whether it was internal pressure within his party or the measures being offered by Mexico that dissuaded Mr Trump from implementing the plan, or perhaps simply an appreciation of its potential consequences.
It became apparent during the talks just how intertwined the two neighbouring economies are, and many argued that a 5% tax on all Mexican goods would hurt US suppliers and customers too. Furthermore, damaging the already fragile Mexican economy could have pushed it into a full recession and created more migrants heading north in search of work.
Still, some considered the bilateral meetings were useful, in part to recognise that both nations are facing a steep rise in undocumented immigration.
The plan to deploy military personnel to Mexico’s southern border may well have helped bring this dispute to an end. However, President Trump has now tied immigration to bilateral trade and could easily do so again in the future should the situation fail to improve.
What is the reaction in Mexico?
Mexico is currently one of the largest trading partners of the US, just behind China and Canada – two countries also locked in trade disputes with the US.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for office vowing to stand up to the US and once said he would not allow Mexico to be Mr Trump’s “whipping boy”.
But some Mexican politicians felt he had given too much, too quickly, and they demanded to see details of the deal.
Ángel Ávila Romero, a senior member of the left-wing PRD party, said the agreement was “not a negotiation, it was a surrender”.
“Mexico should not militarise its southern border. We are not the backyard of Donald Trump,” he tweeted.
Media captionWhy are Africans in Mexico heading to US?
Marko Cortés, leader of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), said the sovereignty and dignity of Mexico had been damaged, newspaper El Universal reported.
Mr López Obrador said on Twitter that a rally in the border city of Tijuana on Saturday to celebrate Mexican sovereignty would go ahead.
What’s the situation on the US-Mexico border?
On Wednesday, US Customs and Border Protection said migrant detentions had surged in May to the highest level in more than a decade – 132,887 arrests, a 33% increase from April.
The detentions were the highest monthly total since Mr Trump took office.
Official figures show illegal border crossings had been in decline since 2000. In 2000, 1.6 million people were apprehended trying to cross the border illegally – that number was just under 400,000 in 2018.
In 2017, Mr Trump’s first year in office, the figures were the lowest they had been since 1971. But the number of arrests has been rising again, especially in recent months.
In February, Mr Trump declared an emergency on the US-Mexico border, saying it was necessary in order to tackle what he claimed was a crisis.
NYC to Shanghai in 40 minutes: SpaceX’s goal for point-to-point…
UBS believes that, if the obstacles to point-to-point space travel can be overcome, the service would represent an annual market of more than $20 billion.
President Trump has a 41% approval rating, according to a new NPR/PBSNewsHour/Marist Poll.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
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President Trump has a 41% approval rating, according to a new NPR/PBSNewsHour/Marist Poll.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
There is a growing desire for impeachment proceedings to begin against President Trump, but Americans are still split overall on what to do after the release of the Mueller report, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll finds.
A slim majority of Americans (52%) want one of the following:to begin impeachment proceedings (22%), to continue investigations into potential political wrongdoing of Trump (25%) or to publicly reprimand him — that is, censure (5%).
Thirty-nine percent say no further action should be taken and that the current investigations should end. That is largely reflective of Trump’s base, as Trump maintains a 41% approval rating in the poll. (Trump’s approval rating in Marist’s polling has never been lower than 35%, which it hit right after the racist violence in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017; or higher than 43%, which it reached in February 2019 as the unemployment rate dipped below 4%.)
“Right now, there’s a growing appetite [for impeachment], but still not at the full-course meal,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll.
Shifts and splits in support for impeachment
The share that supports beginning impeachment proceedings is up from 16% a month ago — before former special counsel Robert Mueller spoke out about his probe into 2016 Russian election interference and the Trump campaign,but after the release of his report.The growth in support comes from a near doubling of the number of independents who say they want impeachment rather than continuing investigations, publicly reprimanding Trump or taking no further action.
Democrats are split as to whether impeachment should begin (36%) or investigations should continue (37%). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., continues to try to hold the line against impeachment proceedings, saying she favors another I-word — investigations.
A growing number — but still a minority — of Democrats in the House are calling for impeachment proceedings. The number, by Axios’ count, is up to 60 members of Congress, including one Republican.
“So what you have is a unified base [of Trump supporters who want] to move on, and a splintered group … moving more in the direction of impeachment,” Miringoff said.
It’s worth noting that while less than a quarter support beginning impeachment proceedings, the results of the investigations could change those numbers, depending on what is revealed.
Take Watergate, for example: In May 1973 when the Watergate hearings began, Gallup found that just 19% said Nixon should be impeached. But 15 months later, by August 1974 — after edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes were released, the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon had to hand the tapes over and a House committee recommended impeachment hearings — 57% were in favor of removing Nixon from office.
Bright spots for Trump
In addition to relatively low support for impeachment proceedings, there are other hints of good news in the poll for Trump. With Americans’ improving views of the economy, fewer are saying they will “definitely vote against” Trump in next year’s presidential election. In this poll, 51% say they will definitely vote against him, a proportion that has consistently ticked down since the beginning of 2019. In January, the number of Americans saying they would definitely vote against the president hit a high of 57%.
Remember, 54% of Americans did not vote for Trump in 2016. Trump won almost 63 million votes, just shy of 46% of the vote. Democrat Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes, or 48% of the vote.
And in another sign that it will take Democrats some time to get on the same page, a whopping 84% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they have not made up their mind yet as to which Democratic candidate they will support in the 2020 presidential election.
“You have [former Vice President Joe] Biden as a front-runner, but most people are still really just shopping,” Miringoff said. “It really puts an awful lot up on the debates, not just for the people who need to get known but [for] the people who are better known who haven’t tied down the real estate yet. This suggests [the Democratic presidential field is] even more wide open than the fact that there’s 24 candidates.”
The telephone survey of 944 adults was conducted by live callers from May 31 through June 4. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. There are 783 registered voters in the poll with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. There are 339 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents for a margin of error of plus or minus 7.6 percentage points.
When Pete Buttigieg stood before thousands in the heart of South Bend, Indiana, to formally announce his entrance into the 2020 race in mid-April, the 37-year-old mayor embraced the historic nature of his quest: if elected, he would be the first openly gay president to occupy the White House.
“The forces of change in our country today are tectonic,” he told the crowd. “Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That’s why, this time, it’s not just about winning an election — it’s about winning an era.”
Two months into his bid, in the midst of Pride Month, a celebration of the LGBTQ community, Buttigieg is among the higher polling candidates – often right behind frontrunners former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders – in a sign of those shifting forces within the party this cycle.
Tom Uhlman/AP, FILE
Former Vice President, and democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during the Human Rights Campaign Columbus, Ohio Dinner at Ohio State University, June 1, 2019.
Buttigieg’s candidacy as an openly-gay man shows just how far Democrats have come on the issue from more than a decade ago. In 2004, then-Democratic presidential nominee and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry opposed gay marriage throughout his campaign, favoring civil unions instead.
But in 2019, with three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents supporting same-sex marriage, according to a May Pew Research poll, voters are seeing near-universal support across the expansive field of 23 candidates on key issues for the LGBTQ community, such as, the Equality Act, a landmark bill that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in workplaces, schools, etc.; marriage equality; nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act, federal civil rights laws and protections; and transgender rights.
In the early months of the 2020 contest, in one of the most visible signals that the party is more openly embracing the rights of a historically marginalized community, a slate of the 19 presidential contenders speaking at Sunday’s Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration, the largest gathering of candidates ahead of the first debate in Miami at the end of this month, are attending Capital City Pride’s “Meet the Candidates” forum on Saturday.
On the eve of the forum, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the most out-front defenders of LGBTQ rights in the current field, headed to the oldest gay bar still operating in the Midwest, The Blazing Saddle, which opened its doors in 1983.
“I was one of the founders of [Iowa] pride,” the owner of the bar, Bob Eikleberry told ABC News in an interview on “The Briefing Room” on ABC News Live Friday. “One of our very first, the five of us walked up to the capitol and turned around and walked back. That was pride. And now we’re talking 10, 20 thousand people – gay, straight, black, white, Asian. A total embrace of all of God’s kids.”
And at the onset of this month, a parade of presidential hopefuls shared messages touting equality for all – part of more widespread embrace of gay rights among Democrats that reflects the broader shift in attitudes toward LGBTQ people – and as a rebuke of the conservative movement’s efforts, often led by President Donald Trump’s administration, to fortify discriminatory policies against the community.
“#PrideMonth is a time to proudly celebrate who you are. As we recognize the rich history and contributions of the LGBTQ+ community, let’s renew our commitment to dignity, acceptance, and equal rights for everyone,” California Sen. Kamala Harris wrote in a tweet.
Dustin Chambers/Getty Images
Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks to a crowd at the African American Leadership Council, June 6, 2019, in Atlanta.
“We just saw the President try to make it harder for transgender Americans to get health care,” former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke tweeted. “As Pride begins — 50 years from Stonewall — we know there is so much progress to celebrate, but so much more to fight for. The work continues, the march goes on, but equality will win.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee sent an email to supporters to unveil his pride collection, sandwiched between “shamazing” gifs from the Netflix shows, Queer Eye.
On Vice President Mike Pence’s birthday, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, a more moderate voice in the 2020 field, declared he is donating money to the Human Rights Campaign, one of the most prominent LGBTQ advocacy groups in the country.
Beyond the celebratory tweets, and despite the near-universal alignment policy-wise on LGBTQ rights, Democrats vying for the party’s presidential nomination are still seeking to emphasize the issue on the campaign trail to a greater degree than previous cycles.
At the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Ohio gala, Biden said that enshrining the Equality Act will be his top legislative priority in his keynote address, according to the Associated Press.
“It will be the first thing I ask to be done,” he said, before calling the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail LGBTQ rights, such as barring transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military “wrong” and “immoral.”
Biden’s evolution on the issue is notable, since in 2008, alongside then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Biden opposed nationwide gay marriage. But in 2012, Biden publicly announced his support for same-sex marriage ahead of his boss, and then Obama, in turn, supporting the issue telling ABC’s Robin Roberts that “I’ve been going through an evolution on this issue.”
Gillibrand released her LGBTQ rights agenda on June 1, to coincide with the beginning of pride month.
“As president, I would undo Trump’s harmful policies and defend the civil rights of LGBTQ Americans,” she writes in a Medium post. “I’ll push for proactive policies to ensure all Americans can live free from discrimination and bigotry based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images, FILE
NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand speaks as Mayor Bill de Blasio joins elected officials, advocates and New Yorkers in designating Stonewall Inn a National Monument, June 27, 2016, in New York.
Among the key planks of her platform, Gillibrand includes: signing the Equality Act, rescinding Trump’s ban on transgender troops, directing the Department of Justice to consider gender identity and sexual orientation as a protected class, and federally recognize a third gender in identification documents, with an “X” gender designation.
On his campaign website, Buttigieg cites a list of policies that form his platform on LGBTQ rights, that span from the Equality Act to the transgender military ban to criminal justice reform for members of the LGBTQ community.
“Pete knows that our families, communities, and nation are stronger when we allow all individuals to be true to who they are,” the mayor’s website states. “A person’s sexual orientation or gender identity should not limit them from pursuing their dreams and realizing their full potential — to work, live, and go to school where they want; to love whom they choose, and to live safe, healthy lives.”
Ahead of this weekend’s events, the Human Rights Campaign praised the field for their overtures to garner support among the LGBTQ community, a significant slice of the electorate needed to win the nomination.
“We couldn’t be more happy to see the most pro-equality group of potential presidential nominees in U.S. history,” national press secretary for campaigns, Lucas Acosta, said in a statement to ABC News Friday. “Presidential candidates are actively courting the 10 million LGBTQ voters nationwide, speaking to our issues and directly to our community. Candidates know that LGBTQ voters and our allies are among the most highly active and engaged voting blocs in the nation, consistently outperforming our presence in the electorate. In great part, this nomination runs through the LGBTQ community.”
Democratic Representative <a data-cke-saved-href=”https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/alexandria-ocasio-cortez” href=”https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/alexandria-ocasio-cortez” target=”_blank”>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> issued an interesting tweet on Friday morning insinuating that “powerful people” are attempting to bribe President Trump into war with Iran.<br data-cke-eol=”1″> (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested in a tweet Friday that “powerful people” are attempting to bribe President Trump into war with Iran.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez quoted a tweet by Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold which linked to an article that revealed documents obtained from Trump hotels. According to the Post’s report, an Iraqi sheik reportedly stayed at a suite in Trump’s hotel in Washington D.C. for 26 days after urging the Trump administration to take a “hard-line” approach towards Iran in July 2018.
“Sure looks like powerful people are trying to bribe the President into war,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet garnered more than 30,000 likes and 7,000 retweets in under five hours, but responses to her statement were varied.
Concerns about escalating tensions between the United States and Iran prompted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to proclaim that the Trump administration is ready to sit down with Iran’s leaders for a conversation with “no preconditions.”
He added, however, that “the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue.”
President Trump has consistently maintained that he does not want to resort to military intervention to respond to “credible threats” from Iran but will do so if it becomes necessary.
Biden flips on federal funding for abortion; reaction from American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp and Trump 2020 campaign national press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
Joe Biden‘s reversal this week on the Hyde Amendment regarding abortion funding was a surrender to the “exceedingly radical” wing of the Democratic Party, American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp argued Friday on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
Biden said Thursday he could “no longer support” the amendment, which he had backed as recently as Wednesday, saying it makes a woman’s right to an abortion “dependent on someone’s ZIP code.”
“The saddest thing of all,” Schlapp told “Hannity” guest host Dan Bongino, “is to watch him stumble through that statement. Clearly, he doesn’t know what to say or what to do.”
Matt Schlapp, left, had some sharp words to say Friday regarding Joe Biden’s reversal on the Hyde Amendment.
Schlapp added that abortion “is not health care” and said the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationally, doesn’t mean taxpayers should have to pay for abortion services.
Biden, a Roman Catholic, had long supported the Hyde Amendment and has said he personally opposes abortion. So his reversal this week smacked of political expediency, Schlapp argued.
“This is an open-borders, Green New Deal, socialist Democratic Party that believes in post-birth abortion, late-term abortion,” Schlapp said. “They are exceedingly radical and Joe Biden is trying to go along to get that brass ring.”
“This is an open-borders, Green New Deal, socialist Democratic Party that believes in post-birth abortion, late-term abortion. They are exceedingly radical and Joe Biden is trying to go along to get that brass ring.”
— Matt Schlapp, American Conservative Union
Another “Hannity” guest, Trump 2020 campaign national press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, agreed with Schlapp.
“Joe Biden is Puppet Boy,” McEnany said. “There is someone pulling his strings. It’s pathetic. He has no convictions, no principles, no message.”
She said actress Alyssa Milano — who tried to prevent passage of Georgia’s pro-life law — and low-level Biden staffers appeared to have steered the former vice president away from “whatever principles he had left.”
“This is quite a modest thing to be for,” Schlapp added. “They have become radicalized. This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party.”
Other 2020 Democrats, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, have said the Hyde Amendment disproportionately affects poor women who can’t access abortion through government-funded health care.
The United States and China have largely been at a standoff since negotiations broke down last month. The countries were unable to find a compromise on Mr. Trump’s tariffs, with the United States arguing for keeping many of them and Beijing insisting that they must come off as part of any trade deal.
The United States wants China to accelerate the opening of its market, improve protections for intellectual property and commit to big purchases of American products.
But talks faltered at the beginning of May when China made significant alterations to the text of the agreement. The Trump administration had been pushing for any changes to be codified in Chinese law, but Beijing backtracked and refused to make any legal changes as part of the deal, American officials said.
Since then, the two sides have only hardened their positions. China threatened to compile a blacklist of foreign companies and individuals that it considered “unreliable” and published a white paper last weekend arguing that the country would “never give in on major issues of principle.”
The Trump administration also answered harshly. In a statement on June 3, the United States Trade Representative and the Treasury Department accused China of pursuing “a blame game misrepresenting the nature and history of trade negotiations between the two countries.”
“Our negotiating positions have been consistent throughout these talks, and China backpedaled on important elements of what the parties had agreed to,” the American statement said.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been moving ahead with plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on the remaining roughly $300 billion of goods from China, and companies are becoming more concerned about the rapid increase in prices on a range of goods, including furniture, toys, mobile phones and sneakers. On June 17, a hearing is to be held in Washington to allow companies to weigh in on the impact of the tariffs.
Democratic Representative <a data-cke-saved-href=”https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/alexandria-ocasio-cortez” href=”https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/alexandria-ocasio-cortez” target=”_blank”>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> issued an interesting tweet on Friday morning insinuating that “powerful people” are attempting to bribe President Trump into war with Iran.<br data-cke-eol=”1″> (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested in a tweet Friday that “powerful people” are attempting to bribe President Trump into war with Iran.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez quoted a tweet by Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold which linked to an article that revealed documents obtained from Trump hotels. According to the Post’s report, an Iraqi sheik reportedly stayed at a suite in Trump’s hotel in Washington D.C. for 26 days after urging the Trump administration to take a “hard-line” approach towards Iran in July 2018.
“Sure looks like powerful people are trying to bribe the President into war,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet garnered more than 30,000 likes and 7,000 retweets in under five hours, but responses to her statement were varied.
Concerns about escalating tensions between the United States and Iran prompted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to proclaim that the Trump administration is ready to sit down with Iran’s leaders for a conversation with “no preconditions.”
He added, however, that “the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue.”
President Trump has consistently maintained that he does not want to resort to military intervention to respond to “credible threats” from Iran but will do so if it becomes necessary.
Two young children were killed Friday when a drunk driver plowed into a horse-drawn buggy on the side of a Michigan highway, authorities said.
A 2-year-old and 6-year-old died when the pickup truck rear-ended the carriage in Marshall, Michigan, just outside Battle Creek, in the central part of the state. Both children died on the scene, Michigan State Police Sgt. Todd Price told ABC News.
There were seven people — two adults and five children — in the buggy at the time of the crash. All of them were thrown from the carriage, police said.
In addition to the two children who died, another child, age 4, was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Jesse Bogan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS via Getty Images
A sign on Shafer Road near Licking, Mo., warns drivers about Amish buggies.
A 3-year-old child and adult woman were also injured, according to CBS affiliate WWMT.
The driver, whose name has not been released, was intoxicated at the time of the accident, Price said. He is being held in Branch County Jail.
The Amish population in Michigan is about 15,465, according to a study by Elizabethtown College’s The Young Center. The school, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, is located in Lancaster County, which has one of the highest concentrations of Amish people in the country.
Michigan has the sixth-highest Amish population in the country, behind Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and New York.
Last month, a car hit a horse-drawn carriage in California Township, Michigan, about 40 minutes south of Marshall. The driver fled, but no one in the buggy was seriously injured, state police said.
At the same time, Mr. López Obrador, who was elected on a promise to transform Mexico, tackling poverty and inequality, has big, expensive ambitions.
He has doubled pensions for the elderly, granted stipends to unemployed youth, paid a princely sum to cancel a new airport project started by his predecessor and vowed to build a new oil refinery. More broadly, he has promised to rescue the ailing state-run oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, which has racked up an astounding $100 billion in debt.
The fight with his giant neighbor risked plunging his country into an economic crisis that would endanger those plans.
Before the deal was made, Mr. López Obrador had called on Mexicans to rally on Saturday in the border city of Tijuana to both defend the dignity of Mexico and, at the same time, celebrate its friendship with the United States. On Friday night, he tweeted that the rally would go on as planned.
The agreement that Mr. Trump announced ended — at least for now — an escalation of the trade wars that the United States has waged against other countries, like China.
The new levies would have raised the cost of a wide array of products imported from Mexico, including cars, cucumbers, bluejeans, packaged food and chemicals. Mr. Trump had warned that he was prepared to ramp tariffs up each month until they hit 25 percent in October.
That would have been a drastic cost increase for the United States’ current largest trading partner, one that could have significantly increased prices for American consumers and ruptured long-established supply chains.
Little is being held at a prison near Los Angeles on other murder charges. Little last week confessed to the murders of Stewart and Jane Doe in Cincinnati.
Det. Mark Piepmeier said it’s “weird to say” that Little was friendly, forthcoming and wanted to help identify Jane Doe when they spoke.
“I think he could blend in on the street, because as we’re sitting across from him he comes off as very normal,” Piepmeier said.
Little is too ill to travel, so Judge Melba Marsh expects to take his guilty plea from California via a video chat service, such as Skype. According to Deters’ recollection, that’s never been done in Hamilton County. Deters said he expects a plea in early August.
The FBI says it believes Little killed 93 women as he crisscrossed the United States for four decades. Little, who grew up in Lorain, Ohio, confessed to 90 killings between 1970 and 2005, the FBI said in November.
RELATED: Samuel Little, America’s most prolific serial killer, confesses to killing two women in Cincinnati
Little draws his victims. He writes notes on those pictures. And he remembers, in some cases, a lot of detail. Deters and police are hoping someone might recognize the “Jane Doe” in Little’s drawing below.
Jane Doe was a black woman. Little said he didn’t have the right color for her skin when he first made the drawing (above left), so authorities made a rendering of the drawing (right) with darker skin. Doe was slender with dark skin and dark eyes. She had short hair and wore a wig and glasses. She lived in an apartment in Over-the-Rhine with a Hispanic woman. Authorities believe Doe could have been 15 to 50 years old, and Little confessed to murdering her sometime between 1980 – 1999.
Interns are looking through files at the coroner’s office to see if one of Little’s victims could be Jane Doe, Deters said.
Little strangled his victims, Deters said. Autopsies showed no signs of rape.
“He specifically looked for girls with a certain neck type that he liked,” Deters said. “And that’s why he did it. That’s how twisted this guy is.”
Piepmeier said Little viewed strangulation as sex.
“He said, ‘How could you tell a man not to have intercourse with a woman? Well that’s like telling me not to strangle people,'” Piepmeier said.
Little targeted women who he thought would not be missed, “street people and prostitutes,” Piepmeier said.
Det. Kelly Best said Little was very intentional and specific with his crimes. He’d kill, dump the body and leave town.
Asked why Little drew pictures of his victims, Deters said, “Why did he kill them, I don’t know.”
“Look, this is the fifth serial killer that I’ve dealt personally with since I’ve been prosecutor,” Deters said. “They all have proclivities that people don’t understand, but the reality is, they have a compulsion to kill people. They’re not insane. They’re nothing but evil, period. And that is what we’re dealing with.”
Deters asks anyone who knows anything about Jane Doe to contact one of the following:
A windy, hot and dry weekend forecast has prompted the first red flag warning for parts of the North Bay in 2019, potentially leading to power outages over the weekend for thousands of area residents.
The National Weather Service on Friday morning warned that high-risk fire weather would return to Wine Country starting Friday night and last through Sunday afternoon for parts of Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties above 1,000 feet, including the Mayacamas Mountains and the hills of western Sonoma County.
Winds are expected to gust up to 50 mph Friday and Saturday on local peaks — potentially reaching 60 mph on Mt. St. Helena — with temperatures projected to get near or above 90 degrees, according to the weather service.
While trees and flowering brush might still be wet from May’s rains, potential fire fuels like grasses have already started to dry out, said Spencer Tangen, a weather service meteorologist. That development, combined with the potential for spiking wind speeds and dropping humidity, prompted the warning, he said.
“A lot of those finer fuels are really drying out and will be able to carry a fire,” Tangen said, referring to leaves and grasses in higher elevations that can fuel the rapid spread of flames.
PG&E announced late Friday it planned to shut off power to about 1,300 customers in eastern Napa County. The shutoff around the Lake Berryessa, Circle Oaks, Wooden Valley and Gordon Valley areas were set to begin at 6 a.m. Saturday, with affected customers set to be notified directly by PG&E. Smaller areas in Solano and Yolo counties were also set to be affected.
“We know how much our customers rely on electric service and would only consider temporarily turning off power in the interest of safety during extreme weather conditions,” Michael Lewis, PG&E’s senior vice president of electric operations, said in a statement.
The utility’s equipment has been blamed for sparking numerous wildfires over the past few years, including the Camp fire in Butte County, which killed 85 people last year and destroyed more than 10,000 homes in and around the town of Paradise. State regulators recently approved a new wildfire prevention plan featuring expanded capabilities for PG&E to shut off power indefinitely to broad regions of Northern California.
Sonoma County officials held a conference call Friday afternoon to coordinate with meteorologists and local public safety and government officials in light of the red flag warning, said Chris Godley, the county’s emergency management director. He said it was important for residents to communicate with each other and not rely solely on government when preparing for the potential impacts of the weather.
“It really does come down to people being able to maintain their own situational awareness and being able to take action,” he said.
The weather service has issued a heat advisory covering Santa Rosa and other North Bay valley areas on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. with forecasts calling for record or near-record high temperatures.
Sonoma County Supervisor David Rabbitt advised residents against mowing or trimming their lawns, kindling campfires, smoking cigarettes and driving with loose trailer chains. The first red flag warning of the year is a good opportunity to take stock of how one might evacuate if necessary, he said, noting that the spell of dry and windy weather was unlikely to be the last.
“This is the first of undoubtedly many to come, unfortunately,” he said.
More information about wildfire preparedness can be found at socoemergency.org.
Red flag warnings are generally more common in late summer after months of dry and hot weather, but Tangen noted that it wasn’t unusual to see such an advisory in early June.
Similar weather conditions were expected in Mendocino and Lake counties, but those areas are not yet under red flag warnings or fire weather watches Friday.
You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.
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