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solarbirdI've been busy today, so this is probably not as comprehensive as it should be.
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Trump, Inslee trade Twitter barbs over Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHAZ
June 11, 2020
By Heidi Groover
Seattle Times staff reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/trump-inslee-trade-twitter-barbs-over-capitol-hill-protest-zone-known-as-chaz/
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday he “will not allow… threats of military violence against Washingtonians coming from the White House” after President Donald Trump a day earlier threatened to “take back” Seattle from protesters.
Inslee also appeared to tacitly defend an area on Capitol Hill now controlled by protesters and dubbed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” or CHAZ. A day earlier, Inslee said he didn’t know about CHAZ.
“I spoke with [Mayor Jenny Durkan] and her team about the situation on Capitol Hill,” Inslee tweeted. “Although unpermitted, and we should remember we are still in a pandemic, the area is largely peaceful. Peaceful protests are fundamentally American, and I am hopeful there will be a peaceful resolution.”
“What we will not allow,” Inslee continued, “are threats of military violence against Washingtonians coming from the White House. The U.S. military serves to protect Americans, not the fragility of an insecure president.”
Durkan said Thursday it would be “unconstitutional and illegal to send military to Seattle.” “There is no imminent threat of an invasion in Seattle,” Durkan said.
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Conservative Operatives Float Plan to Place Retired Military, Police Officers as GOP Poll Watchers on Election Day
Lee Fang, Nick Surgey
April 11 2020
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/11/republican-poll-watchers-vote-by-mail-voter-fraud/
On Election Day in November, some polling places could be patrolled by off-duty police officers and veterans, according to a plan hatched by Republican operatives.
The idea is a reprise of once-illegal Election Day “ballot security” intimidation tactics, intended to challenge voter registration and remove voters from the rolls. At a strategy session in February attended by conservative donors and activists, several people expressed a specific need for Republican poll watchers in “inner city” and predominantly Native American precincts, according to audio recordings of the event obtained by The Intercept and Documented.
“You get some [Navy] Seals in those polls and they’re going to say, ‘No, no, this is what it says. This is how we’re going to play this show,’” said Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, a group that lobbies for voting restrictions and organizes volunteers to go into precincts and aggressively challenge voters who they believe are improperly registered. “That’s what we need. We need people who are unafraid to call it like they see it.”
The election strategy discussions occurred during a three-day conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Orange County, California, and was sponsored by the Council for National Policy, a secretive foundation on the religious right. The Intercept has previously reported from CNP gatherings.
Several GOP-aligned leaders gave remarks at the conference, including Ralph Reed, a key figure mobilizing conservative evangelical voters; Marc Lotter, a senior communications official with the Trump reelection campaign; FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon, and Ken Blackwell, a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, the now-shuttered group that sought but failed to find evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 election.
Using former soldiers and law enforcement as poll watchers was banned in 1981 by a judicial consent decree imposed on the Republican Party, but that ban was lifted in 2018 when a New Jersey judge declined to renew it. The ban came explicitly in response to an effort by the Republican National Committee to intimidate voters in African American communities by creating a so-called Ballot Security Task Force, threatening arrest and a $1,000 fine for improper voting.
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Joe Biden Has Already Considered What He’ll Do If Trump Refuses To Leave The White House
The former vice president told Trevor Noah that Trump will try to “steal the election.”
headshot
By Bill Bradley
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-remove-trump-from-the-white-house_n_5ee21f1ec5b6843ba6f808cf
Joe Biden wants Donald Trump out of the White House, one way or another.
The presumptive Democratic nominee got serious in his Comedy Central interview with Trevor Noah on Wednesday. Besides discussing police reform, Biden told “The Daily Show” host that voter suppression is his “single greatest concern.”
“This president is going to try to steal this election,” said the former vice president. “This is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent — voting by mail — while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary.”
To combat this, Biden explained he’s putting together a “major initiative of lawyers” to patrol the issue in “every single district in the country.”
Noah also asked Biden if he had considered what to do if he won the election and his predecessor refused to leave.
“Yes, I have,” said Biden, though the episode appeared to have a funny edit right after. The segment continued with Biden speaking about former military officials criticizing Trump and saying that the current president would be efficiently escorted from the premises.
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Senate panel approves dozens of subpoenas targeting origins of Russia probe
By Mike DeBonis
June 11, 2020 at 9:41 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-panel-approves-dozens-of-subpoenas-targeting-origins-of-russia-probe-of-trump-campaign/2020/06/11/6387e3f8-abff-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Thursday to authorize subpoenas targeting more than 50 people involved in the decision to begin investigating President Trump’s 2016 campaign over potential links to Russia.
The subpoenas are part of a larger GOP effort to question the investigations into Trump, which culminated in the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and consumed the early years of his presidency.
The Mueller report said investigators found insufficient evidence to show a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election and reached no conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice — despite laying out episodes of the president apparently seeking to stymie the investigation.
Another Senate committee approved a similarly sweeping set of subpoenas last week, and a Justice Department prosecutor, John Durham, is investigating the origins of the probe at the behest of Attorney General William P. Barr.
- Trump, Inslee trade Twitter barbs over Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHAZ
- Conservative Operatives Float Plan to Place Retired Military, Police Officers as GOP Poll Watchers on Election Day
- Joe Biden Has Already Considered What He’ll Do If Trump Refuses To Leave The White House
- Senate panel approves dozens of subpoenas targeting origins of Russia probe
----- 1 -----
Trump, Inslee trade Twitter barbs over Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHAZ
June 11, 2020
By Heidi Groover
Seattle Times staff reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/trump-inslee-trade-twitter-barbs-over-capitol-hill-protest-zone-known-as-chaz/
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday he “will not allow… threats of military violence against Washingtonians coming from the White House” after President Donald Trump a day earlier threatened to “take back” Seattle from protesters.
Inslee also appeared to tacitly defend an area on Capitol Hill now controlled by protesters and dubbed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” or CHAZ. A day earlier, Inslee said he didn’t know about CHAZ.
“I spoke with [Mayor Jenny Durkan] and her team about the situation on Capitol Hill,” Inslee tweeted. “Although unpermitted, and we should remember we are still in a pandemic, the area is largely peaceful. Peaceful protests are fundamentally American, and I am hopeful there will be a peaceful resolution.”
“What we will not allow,” Inslee continued, “are threats of military violence against Washingtonians coming from the White House. The U.S. military serves to protect Americans, not the fragility of an insecure president.”
Durkan said Thursday it would be “unconstitutional and illegal to send military to Seattle.” “There is no imminent threat of an invasion in Seattle,” Durkan said.
----- 2 -----
Conservative Operatives Float Plan to Place Retired Military, Police Officers as GOP Poll Watchers on Election Day
Lee Fang, Nick Surgey
April 11 2020
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/11/republican-poll-watchers-vote-by-mail-voter-fraud/
On Election Day in November, some polling places could be patrolled by off-duty police officers and veterans, according to a plan hatched by Republican operatives.
The idea is a reprise of once-illegal Election Day “ballot security” intimidation tactics, intended to challenge voter registration and remove voters from the rolls. At a strategy session in February attended by conservative donors and activists, several people expressed a specific need for Republican poll watchers in “inner city” and predominantly Native American precincts, according to audio recordings of the event obtained by The Intercept and Documented.
“You get some [Navy] Seals in those polls and they’re going to say, ‘No, no, this is what it says. This is how we’re going to play this show,’” said Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, a group that lobbies for voting restrictions and organizes volunteers to go into precincts and aggressively challenge voters who they believe are improperly registered. “That’s what we need. We need people who are unafraid to call it like they see it.”
The election strategy discussions occurred during a three-day conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Orange County, California, and was sponsored by the Council for National Policy, a secretive foundation on the religious right. The Intercept has previously reported from CNP gatherings.
Several GOP-aligned leaders gave remarks at the conference, including Ralph Reed, a key figure mobilizing conservative evangelical voters; Marc Lotter, a senior communications official with the Trump reelection campaign; FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon, and Ken Blackwell, a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, the now-shuttered group that sought but failed to find evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 election.
Using former soldiers and law enforcement as poll watchers was banned in 1981 by a judicial consent decree imposed on the Republican Party, but that ban was lifted in 2018 when a New Jersey judge declined to renew it. The ban came explicitly in response to an effort by the Republican National Committee to intimidate voters in African American communities by creating a so-called Ballot Security Task Force, threatening arrest and a $1,000 fine for improper voting.
----- 3 -----
Joe Biden Has Already Considered What He’ll Do If Trump Refuses To Leave The White House
The former vice president told Trevor Noah that Trump will try to “steal the election.”
headshot
By Bill Bradley
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-remove-trump-from-the-white-house_n_5ee21f1ec5b6843ba6f808cf
Joe Biden wants Donald Trump out of the White House, one way or another.
The presumptive Democratic nominee got serious in his Comedy Central interview with Trevor Noah on Wednesday. Besides discussing police reform, Biden told “The Daily Show” host that voter suppression is his “single greatest concern.”
“This president is going to try to steal this election,” said the former vice president. “This is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent — voting by mail — while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary.”
To combat this, Biden explained he’s putting together a “major initiative of lawyers” to patrol the issue in “every single district in the country.”
Noah also asked Biden if he had considered what to do if he won the election and his predecessor refused to leave.
“Yes, I have,” said Biden, though the episode appeared to have a funny edit right after. The segment continued with Biden speaking about former military officials criticizing Trump and saying that the current president would be efficiently escorted from the premises.
----- 4 -----
Senate panel approves dozens of subpoenas targeting origins of Russia probe
By Mike DeBonis
June 11, 2020 at 9:41 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-panel-approves-dozens-of-subpoenas-targeting-origins-of-russia-probe-of-trump-campaign/2020/06/11/6387e3f8-abff-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Thursday to authorize subpoenas targeting more than 50 people involved in the decision to begin investigating President Trump’s 2016 campaign over potential links to Russia.
The subpoenas are part of a larger GOP effort to question the investigations into Trump, which culminated in the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and consumed the early years of his presidency.
The Mueller report said investigators found insufficient evidence to show a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election and reached no conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice — despite laying out episodes of the president apparently seeking to stymie the investigation.
Another Senate committee approved a similarly sweeping set of subpoenas last week, and a Justice Department prosecutor, John Durham, is investigating the origins of the probe at the behest of Attorney General William P. Barr.
