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demmiblue's JournalDina Powell, deputy national security adviser, to depart Trump White House
Source: The Washington Post
Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, a driving force behind the Trump administration’s Middle East policy, plans to leave the White House as part of an anticipated wave of departures following President Trump’s first year in office, according to four senior administration officials.
Unlike some top White House officials who were fired or resigned amid controversy earlier this year, Powell is exiting on good terms with the president, the officials said. She and Trump have discussed her departure and are working on an arrangement for Powell to continue advising the administration on Middle East policy from outside the government, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Powell’s departure has not yet been publicly announced.
Powell committed to serving in her national security job for a full year and her decision to leave is her own, the officials said. She plans to move home early next year to New York, where her family lives.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster called Powell “one of the most talented and effective leaders with whom I have ever served.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dina-powell-deputy-national-security-adviser-to-depart-trump-white-house/2017/12/08/85d8c9ea-dc31-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_whexodust-132pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Roy Moore Blamed Drive-By Shootings on Evolution Education: 'They're Acting Like Animals Because...
Source: Newsweek
Video has resurfaced of Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore making a speech in 1997 in which he links the teaching of evolution in schools with drive-by shootings.
“That’s the kind of logic they’ve used in our society today when we have kids driving by shooting each other that they don’t even know each other. They're acting like animals because we've taught them they come from animals," said Moore, who at the time was an Alabama Circuit judge. He was speaking at the "Role of Religion in the U.S. Government" conference hosted by the National Clergy Council.
Amanda Glaze, a professor who specializes in evolution education at Georgia Southern University, told Newsweek Friday that Moore’s 1997 statements were “inflammatory, ludicrous and unsubstantiated.”
About halfway into the 1997 speech, Moore joked, "Scientists who study evolution come up with some of the oddest things, don’t they? They tell us we evolved from something that crawled out of the water, but they have no evidence for that."
Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/roy-moore-blamed-drive-shootings-evolution-education-742275?utm_campaign=NewsweekTwitter&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social
Minnesota is now ground zero in the 2018 midterm elections
Source: CNN
Al Franken's resignation Thursday means the state will now have two Senate seats on the ballot: a special election to fill the last two years of Franken's term, as well as fellow Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar's re-election.
The state also features five House races that could swing control of the chamber -- with the seats of two Republicans (Reps. Erik Paulsen and Jason Lewis) and three Democrats (Rick Nolan, Tim Walz and Collin Peterson) all top targets.
Walz isn't even running for re-election. Instead, he's running for governor, to replace the term-limited Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton.
All this comes in a state that was surprisingly competitive in the 2016 presidential campaign: Hillary Clinton bested Donald Trump by just 1.5 percentage points.
...
With Franken's resignation, Minnesota -- already crucial to control of the House, where Democrats need 24 seats to regain the majority -- becomes one of 2018's most important states.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/minnesota-2018-midterms-al-franken/index.html?sr=twCNN120817minnesota-2018-midterms-al-franken0628AMVODtop
Tax bill could make 'dark money' political contributions tax deductible
Source: CNN
(CNN)For the first time in American politics, anonymous "dark money" political donations could become tax-deductible. That's if a provision currently being debated between House and Senate negotiators makes it into the final tax bill.
The issue at hand started with the "Johnson Amendment," named after then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson's 1954 measure that prohibits nonprofit groups who maintain tax-exempt status, including churches and charities, from directly participating in politics.
But efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment have resulted in language that would ease political speech rules for all nonprofits. The results, critics say, could effectively let people deduct de-facto political donations and further hide those donations and spending from the public.
"This is taxpayer-subsidized "Citizens United,'" said Ian Vandewalker of the Brennan Center for Justice, referring to the 2010 landmark Supreme Court case that loosened campaign finance rules.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/tax-bill-dark-money-political-contributions-tax-deductible/index.html?sr=twCNN120817tax-bill-dark-money-political-contributions-tax-deductible0640AMVODtop
Trump Financial Regulator Mulvaney Pushed CFPB To Back Off Industry That Bankrolled Him
Source: International Business Times
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Mick Mulvaney repeatedly pressed the agency to back off lending regulations as financial industry donors were bankrolling his congressional bids, according to government documents obtained by International Business Times. Some of the letters signed by Mulvaney that pressured the agency came within weeks of him raking in campaign contributions from payday lending industry donors who were urging the CFPB to stand down.
In response to an IBT open records request, the CFPB released 268 pages of correspondence between the agency and Mulvaney during the Republican’s six years in Congress representing South Carolina —which is home to one of the largest payday lenders in America. President Donald Trump recently appointed Mulvaney to run the CFPB, which Mulvaney had previously criticized.
IBT has published the full trove of Mulvaney’s congressional correspondence with the CFPB and made the documents word-searchable. Click here to see the documents.
During his congressional campaigns, Mulvaney vacuumed in more than $567,000 from donors in the commercial banking, credit and securities/investment industries, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That includes more than $55,000 from donors in the payday and title loan industry, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/trump-financial-regulator-mulvaney-pushed-cfpb-back-industry-bankrolled-him
UPDATED: Email pointed Trump campaign to WikiLeaks documents
Source: CNN
Washington (CNN)Correction: This story has been corrected to say the date of the email was September 14, 2016, not September 4, 2016. The story also changed the headline and removed a tweet from Donald Trump Jr., who posted a message about WikiLeaks on September 4, 2016.
Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents, according to an email provided to congressional investigators.
The September 14 email was sent during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race.
CNN originally reported the email was released September 4 -- 10 days earlier -- based on accounts from two sources who had seen the email. The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information. The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.
After this story was published, The Washington Post obtained a copy of the email Friday afternoon and reported that the email urged Trump and his campaign to download archives that WikiLeaks had made public a day earlier. The story suggested that the individual may simply have been trying to flag the campaign to already public documents.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/email-effort-give-trump-campaign-wikileaks-documents/index.html?sr=twCNN120817email-effort-give-trump-campaign-wikileaks-documents0808AMVODtop
Op-Ed Dylan Farrow: Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?
Source: LA Times
We are in the midst of a revolution. From allegations against studio heads and journalists, to hotel maids recounting abuses on the job, women are exposing the truth and men are losing their jobs. But the revolution has been selective.
I have long maintained that when I was 7 years old, Woody Allen led me into an attic, away from the babysitters who had been instructed never to leave me alone with him. He then sexually assaulted me. I told the truth to the authorities then, and I have been telling it, unaltered, for more than 20 years. Why is it that Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrities have been cast out by Hollywood, while Allen recently secured a multimillion-dollar distribution deal with Amazon, greenlit by former Amazon Studios executive Roy Price before he was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations? Allen’s latest feature, “Wonder Wheel,” was released theatrically on Dec. 1.
Allen denies my allegations. But this is not a “he said, child said” situation. Allen’s pattern of inappropriate behavior — putting his thumb in my mouth, climbing into bed with me in his underwear, constant grooming and touching — was witnessed by friends and family members. At the time of the alleged assault, he was in therapy for his conduct towards me. Three eyewitnesses substantiated my account, including a babysitter who saw Allen with his head buried in my lap after he had taken off my underwear. Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-farrow-woody-allen-me-too-20171207-story.html
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