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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-all-lives-matter.html

Pete Buttigieg Faces Scrutiny Over ‘All Lives Matter’ Remark in 2015

It was March 2015, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., recognized that the country was having what he called a “painful dialogue” about how people of color and law enforcement were coexisting in their communities. The Black Lives Matter movement was growing in influence after several high-profile killings of black men by police officers.

Mr. Buttigieg was also facing a crisis at home. He had demoted the city’s black police chief after the chief was accused of having recorded officers’ conversations without their consent. The chief had sued, contending that he had been demoted because he was black. And rumors were swirling that the recordings had captured racist remarks by some of the officers.

In his State of the City address that March, Mr. Buttigieg said it was “time for South Bend to begin talking about racial reconciliation.”

“There is no contradiction between respecting the risks that police officers take every day in order to protect this community, and recognizing the need to overcome the biases implicit in a justice system that treats people from different backgrounds differently,” Mr. Buttigieg said, according to a transcript of the speech published by The South Bend Voice.

“We need to take both those things seriously, for the simple and profound reason that all lives matter,” he added.

Four years later, as Mr. Buttigieg pursues the Democratic nomination for president, his use of the phrase “all lives matter” — which has often carried the connotation of ignoring the specific grievances of black Americans — has come under scrutiny.

A story published this week by CNBC drew attention to Mr. Buttigieg’s 2015 remarks and also raised questions about his decision to demote the police chief.

On Thursday, Mr. Buttigieg, 37, sought to explain his past use of the phrase while speaking to reporters at a convention for the National Action Network, the nonprofit civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“At that time, I was talking about a lot of issues around racial reconciliation in our community,” Mr. Buttigieg told reporters. “What I did not understand at that time, was that phrase, just early into mid-2015, was coming to be viewed as a sort of counter-slogan to Black Lives Matter. And so, this statement, that seems very anodyne and something that nobody could be against, actually wound up being used to devalue what the Black Lives Matter movement was telling us.”

“That is the contribution of Black Lives Matter,” he added, “and it’s a reason, since learning about how that phrase was being used to push back on that activism, I’ve stopped using it in that context.”

The close examination of Mr. Buttigieg’s language and his handling of the police department is one of the first speed bumps for a campaign that has otherwise enjoyed a relatively smooth ride. Mr. Buttigieg announced this week that his presidential campaign had raised more than $7 million in the first quarter of 2019, a significant sum for a mayor who was little known outside of South Bend only a few months ago.

Nate Levin-Aspenson, a local organizer in South Bend, told CNBC that Mr. Buttigieg’s use of the phrase in 2015 “was not that long ago.”

“It was not a time when ‘all lives matter’ was a smart thing to say, or reflective of someone who is concerned about black people being killed by the police,” he said.

The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager. The movement gained even greater recognition the following year after the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Soon, the phrase “all lives matter” also emerged. Some people who faced blowback for using the phrase said they had used it with good intentions as a way to bring people together. But others seemed to use it to rebut the idea that black people faced unique prejudice in the United States.

The fresh scrutiny of Mr. Buttigieg’s 2015 remarks has also resurfaced the allegations made by the police chief, Darryl Boykins, who sued the mayor in 2013. In federal court documents, Mr. Boykins — who could not immediately be reached on Thursday — said he had been illegally demoted from his job as chief in 2012 because he was black. Mr. Buttigieg has maintained the demotion was necessary because Mr. Boykins was the subject of a federal wiretapping investigation.

The case was settled in late 2013, court documents show. But a separate legal dispute continues between the City Council of South Bend and the group of police officers who were recorded over whether the tapes can be released. Mr. Buttigieg’s office has refused to release the tapes without a court order, and has said that doing so would put the administration in legal jeopardy.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...ara-bush-nasty-jabs-look-what-did-to-her-sons

Trump Unsurprised By Barbara Bush’s ‘Nasty’ Jabs: ‘Look What I Did To Her Sons’


An introspective President Trump told the Washington Times on Thursday that he wasn’t surprised by some of former first lady Barbara Bush’s posthumous comments about him in the new book “The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of a Dynasty.”


“I have heard that she was nasty to me, but she should be. Look what I did to her sons,” he told the Washington Times.

In the book, by USA Today reporter Susan Page, Bush calls Trump the “symbol of greed” and blamed him for a heart attack she suffered in 2016. She also told Page after Trump was elected that she no longer considered herself a Republican.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-skips-whca-dinner

Trump Will Ditch The WHCA Dinner Again Because It’s ‘Boring’ And ‘Negative’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he’ll be skipping this year’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner again and holding a rally instead.

Trump is criticizing the dinner as he departs the White House en route to California, telling reporters he doesn’t want to attend “because the dinner is so boring and so negative.”

He says he likes “positive things” instead.

Trump also says his team has yet to settle on a rally location, but assures “it’ll be a big one.”

Trump had suggested earlier that he might attend this year’s dinner after organizers scrapped the usual format featuring a comedian and instead invited Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow to speak.

Presidents traditionally attend the dinner, but Trump has skipped it the last two years.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...-best-job-in-the-world-governor-west-virginia

Manchin Mulls Bid For ‘Best Job In The World’: Governor Of West Virginia

Just after winning a tough reelection bid in the midterms last fall, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is reconsidering the length of his stay in the Senate.

Manchin told Politico in a piece that published Friday he is mulling going back to his old gig that he held from 2005 to 2010, “the best job in the world,” as governor of West Virginia.

“I think about it every minute of every day. Now, thinking about it and doing it are two different things,” Manchin told Politico. “I’ll make a decision this fall sometime. I don’t think there’s any hurry at all.”

The current governor of Manchin’s home state, Gov. Jim Justice, will be in for a rough reelection bid if Manchin decides to run against him, especially because he ran as a Democrat, but flipped parties.

Manchin himself narrowly eked out a win in the midterms when he was challenged by the state’s Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/dhs-employees-warned-leak-nonpublic-information

DHS Employees Warned Not To Leak ‘Nonpublic Information’ Or Else

Department of Homeland Security employees were warned in an email Thursday not to leak any “nonpublic information” or else face “criminal, civil or administrative consequences,” according to a Buzzfeed News report.

“As federal employees, we serve the public, and our loyalties must prioritize that purpose above all others. A violation of the public trust might arise, for example, if DHS personnel disclose nonpublic information or use it for their own personal benefit, such as for monetary gain, or for the private gain of others,” wrote Chip Fulghum, deputy under secretary for management.

The “nonpublic information” would include “you know or should have known has not been made available to the general public, is designated as confidential and would not be made public even upon a request.”
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/uptick-whistleblowers-trump-dozens-working-house-dems

Uptick In Whistleblowers Under Trump, ‘Dozens’ Secretly Working With House Dems


The House Oversight Committee is currently working with “dozens” of government employees who have flagged rule-breaking throughout the Trump administration, an aide to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) told The Atlantic.

The number of whistleblowers coming to lawmakers has reportedly spiked under President Donald Trump, the first reports of malfeasance coming right after his inauguration. A handful of them work in the White House.

Tricia Newbold, the former White House personnel security office employee, stands out from the pack because most whistleblowers won’t go on the record with their accusations. Newbold brought to light White House advisor Jared Kushner’s initially denied security clearance due to foreign influences and business entanglements.
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If anybody wants to watch a good documentary.....they should check out the "Weiner" documentary......dude is sick and very manipulative


Former US Rep. Anthony Weiner ordered to register as sex offender
PUBLISHED 2 HOURS AGO

KEY POINTS
  • Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner has been ordered to register as a sex offender as he nears the end of a 21-month prison sentence for having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl.
  • A New York City judge designated Weiner a Level 1 sex offender, meaning he’s thought to have a low risk of reoffending.
  • Weiner must register for a minimum of 20 years
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GP: Former Congressman Anthony Weiner leaves his home in Manhattan on Monday, September 25, 2017. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting a minor. (Photo by Anthony DelMundo/NY Daily News via Getty Images)
Anthony DelMundo | New York Daily News | Getty Images

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner has been ordered to register as a sex offender as he nears the end of a 21-month prison sentence for having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl.

A New York City judge on Friday designated Weiner a Level 1 sex offender, meaning he’s thought to have a low risk of reoffending.

Weiner must register for a minimum of 20 years. He’s required to verify his address every year and visit a police station every three years to have a new picture taken.

Weiner didn’t attend Friday’s court hearing. He’s in a halfway house after serving most of his sentence at a prison in Massachusetts.

He’s due to be released May 14.

Before being sentenced, the Democrat said he’d been a “very sick man.”
 
StringerBell said:


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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/julian-assange-free-man-can-leave-embassy

UK Foreign Secretary: Julian Assange Is A ‘Free Man’ Who Can Leave Embassy


LONDON (AP) — British police stationed armed officers outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Friday after tweets from WikiLeaks quoted what it said were high-level sources saying that Julian Assange could be kicked out of the building within “hours to days.”

The red-brick embassy building with white window frames and balconies was quiet, though a few protesters gathered outside. No embassy official commented on the WikiLeaks founder’s status, while British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Assange is a “free man” and can leave the embassy whenever he chooses.

Asked about the presence of armed officers outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, London’s Metropolitan Police force said there had been no change in police procedure.

Police said in a statement there is an active warrant for Assange’s arrest and that the police are “obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy.”

Police withdrew the round-the-clock guard outside the embassy in October 2015 after more than three years in favor of what the service called a “covert” approach.

Assange hasn’t left the embassy since August 2012, fearing if he steps off Ecuador’s diplomatic soil he will be arrested and extradited to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry issued a statement late Thursday saying it wouldn’t comment on what it called “rumors, theories or conjectures.”

Later, a senior official told The Associated Press that no decision had been taken to expel Assange from the embassy.

WikiLeaks argued in a statement Friday that forcing Assange out of the embassy would be illegal and a violation of international law on refugees.

Hunt said that “Julian Assange is a free man” and “can leave that embassy whenever he wants to, so we want the situation resolved as quickly as possible.” Asked whether he thought that was likely, the British foreign secretary replied: “That’s up to him”

On Friday morning, a van appeared outside the building showing a placard that said “Free Speech” and featured images of Assange and convicted classified document leaker Chelsea Manning. Police moved it on.

WikiLeaks on Thursday tweeted: “BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @ WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days” using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext–and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.”

Another tweet said it had received a secondary confirmation from another high-level source.

But a top official said while Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno was angered by the apparent hacking of his personal communications, he denied WikiLeaks’ claim and said no decision had been taken to expel Assange from the Embassy. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter.

On Tuesday, Moreno blamed WikiLeaks for recent allegations of offshore corruption that in appeared in local media outlets and the publication of family photos to social media.

Moreno accused WikiLeaks of intercepting phone calls and private conversations as well as “photos of my bedroom, what I eat, and how my wife and daughters and friends dance.”

Moreno provided no evidence, but the speech reflected ongoing tension between Assange and his hosts at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

WikiLeaks in a statement called Moreno’s charges “completely bogus,” saying it reported on the accusations of corruption against the president only after Ecuador’s legislature investigated the issue.

Assange’s defense team suggested on Twitter that Moreno was trying to use the scandal to pressure the WikiLeaks founder.
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