11/30: GOP insists a $700 billion Pentagon budget is dangerous. SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Friday implored President Donald Trump to boost defense spending plans in fiscal 2020 over already announced targets, arguing the lower funding levels will undermine recent improvements in military readiness.
In a Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Don’t cut military spending, Mr. President,” Rep. 11/30: Flake says Mueller protection bill has votes to pass Senate. 11/30: Major Damage after Magnitude-7 Earthquake in Alaska. The magnitude-7 quake occurred at 8:29 a.m., local time, the epicenter just north of Anchorage, which is home to more than 294,000 people.
Moments later, the National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for Cook Inlet and the southern Kenai Peninsula. The warning was canceled shortly after 10 a.m. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. Local and state officials said they were assessing the impact, which the police department said included "major infrastructure damage across Anchorage.
" Anchorage Fire Chief Jodie Hettrick said at a briefing that authorities were contacted about possible building collapses, but she did not provide more information. 11/29: Michael Cohen-Trump Tower Moscow Deal: Everything We Know After President’s Ex-Lawyer Admits Lying to Congress. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and longtime fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to Congress about Trump’s efforts to open a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Cohen admitted that he had lied about the timeline of negotiations for opening a Trump Tower in Russia, and revealed that negotiations to launch the real estate project were still ongoing as late as June 2016. Trump had been floating the idea of building a Trump Tower Moscow since his first visit to Russia, then a republic in the Soviet Union, in the 1980s, but the project consistently fell through. It is now clear that Trump continued his efforts to build the tower while he was running for president. 11/29: GOP Senators Who Tried to Kill Yemen War Resolution Were Paid by Saudi Lobbyists. On Wednesday, senators delivered a historic blow to the country’s relationship with ally Saudi Arabia, a country whose leadership has committed notable human rights violations, by voting to move forward a resolution that would end all U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
But at least five of the Republican Senators who voted against the bill have received funding from lobbyists working for Saudi Arabia, a fact that illustrates how the kingdom uses its vast wealth to influence U.S. foreign policy. Republican Senators Roy Blunt of Missouri, John Boozman of Arkansas, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Tim Scott of South Carolina received financial contributions from lobbying firms that worked for Saudi Arabia, according to a report by the Center for International Policy released last month. Senators Boozman and Crapo received $1,000 contributions from Squire Patton Boggs PAC, which was working for Saudi Arabia at the time, according to the report.
11/28: Migrants Speak as Thousands Continue to Arrive. 11/27: Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy, sources say. Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told.
Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House. In a statement, Manafort denied meeting Assange. He said: “I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. 11/26: Ted Cruz growing beard. Ted Cruz, without a beard.
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images Senator Ted Cruz is trying something new with his look. 11/16: Women applaud Michelle Obama’s decision to share her trauma of miscarriage. Miscarriage is “lonely, painful, and demoralizing,” Michelle Obama writes in her new memoirs.
Yet, by some estimates, it ends as many as 1 in 5 pregnancies before the 20-week mark. The former first lady’s disclosure that she and former President Barack Obama suffered from fertility issues, including losing a pregnancy, has sparked conversations about miscarriage, a common but also commonly misunderstood loss. 11/15: Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ becomes flash point for Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi is facing an unexpected flare-up on climate change that is complicating relationships among House Democrats ahead of crucial leadership elections.
Incoming liberals, led by Rep. -elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are demanding Pelosi go beyond her promise to revive a select committee on global warming; they want her and the rest of the Democratic Caucus to back an ambitious plan to transition the economy to 100 percent renewable energy in a little more than a decade. Story Continued Below But the party's chairmen-in-waiting are pushing back on the idea that even a new select committee would be necessary, arguing that the existing Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, Transportation and Science committees have the tools they need to address climate change. Climate activists are urging Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals to consider withholding their support for Pelosi's bid to be speaker without additional concessions.
11/14: Flake threatens to vote against judges after GOP blocks Mueller protection bill. Flake made the new judicial threat after he and Sen.
Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, unsuccessfully attempted to force a Senate vote on the special counsel legislation Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to the request for a vote from Flake. But the Arizona Republican's threats on judicial nominees could complicate matters in the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have an 11-10 majority.
There are currently 21 judicial nominees pending in the committee and 32 who are awaiting a floor vote, Flake said. 11/12: Sessions’ Final Act Could Have More Impact Than Expected. Jeff Sessions hides emotion poorly — his face is reflexively expressive — and last Wednesday night, it betrayed a mixed set of sentiments as he stepped out of the Robert F.
Kennedy Department of Justice Building in downtown Washington. He had the stunned appearance of a hostage emerging out of an underground prison for the first time in months. 11/11: Drain the Swamp— LWT w/ John Oliver. 11/7/18: Kemp's Lead in Georgia Needs an Asterisk. Kemp had no intention of relinquishing a post he has held since 2010, and often wields as a weapon to cull Georgia’s electorate.
He understood that he would need every trick in the book because he was up against a woman who, in addition to serving as the minority leader of the state’s House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017, founded a formidable voter-registration organization, the New Georgia Project. Several years ago, Abrams noticed that the state’s demographics were changing quickly, as minorities made up an increasing share of the age-eligible electorate.
Abrams noticed, as well, that more than half a million black Georgians were not registered to vote. In 2013, as the executive director of the New Georgia Project, she set out to “register and civically engage the rising electorate in our state.” 11/7: Dead brothel owner elected to Nevada State Assembly. 2018 (US) Midterm Elections. 11/7: No One Above the Law—Mueller Protection Rapid Response. BREAKING: PROTESTS CALLED FOR THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 5 PM LOCAL TIMEDonald Trump has installed a crony to oversee the special counsel's Trump-Russia investigation, crossing a red line set to protect the investigation. By replacing Rod Rosenstein with just-named Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker as special counsel Robert Mueller's boss on the investigation, Trump has undercut the independence of the investigation.
Whitaker has publicly outlined strategies to stifle the investigation and cannot be allowed to remain in charge of it. 11/5: Scientists Teach Father To Communicate Emotions Using Rudimentary Hand Gestures. 11/3: Supreme Court agrees to hear case that could negate US separation of church and state. In what will almost certainly be a victory for the religious right, the Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will decide whether the Constitution permits a local government to display “on public property a 40-foot tall Latin cross, established in memory of soldiers who died in World War I.” Although a federal appeals court held that this cross violates the Constitution’s ban on laws “respecting an establishment of religion,” the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh — which gave Republicans a solid five-person majority on the Supreme Court — all but guarantees that this lower court decision will be reversed.
The cross dispute arises in two consolidated cases, American Legion v. American Humanist Association, and Maryland-National Capital Park v. American Humanist Association. 11/2: Green Party Candidate Drops Out, Endorses Dem in Tight Arizona Senate Race. 11/2 Nigerian Army Uses Trump’s Words to Justify Fatal Shooting of Rock-Throwing Protesters. 11/1: King has citizen removed from Des Moines event. Congressman Steve King became angry and had a citizen removed from a candidate forum with the Des Moines Partnership on Friday after being asked about his stance on immigration, according to reporting from online news source the Iowa Starting Line. The site reported that the individual, Kaleb Van Fosson, an Iowa State University student, asked King about an interview he did with a white supremacist and anti-semitic website, and mentioned the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh last Saturday.
As Van Fosson continued to ask King about what distinguished him from the man charged in the synagogue shooting, King erupted, telling Van Fosson not to compare him to the shooter. "Do not associate with me that shooter," King is heard saying on a video posted on the Iowa Starting Line's Twitter account.
"It's not tolerable to accuse me of being associated with a guy who shot 11 people in Pittsburgh. As Van Fosson persisted, King yelled, "Sir, stop it.