Big Time News Blog: 06/11/20

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Trump Will Give Convention Speech in Jacksonville, Capping a Dispute Over Safety

By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/37n1OeC

Trump Cites ‘Bad Apples’ but Defends Nation’s Police

By BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2C01F5t

Trump Defends Police, but Says He’ll Sign Order Encouraging Better Practices

By BY PETER BAKER AND THOMAS KAPLAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2MOyiVE

Moving Beyond ‘MAGA’?

By BY LISA LERER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Yu0TF9

Ex-judge says push to dismiss Flynn case is abuse of power

A former federal judge appointed to review the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss criminal charges against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn said there was evidence of a “gross abuse” of prosecutorial power and that the request should be denied. Former U.S. District Judge John Gleeson said in a filing Wednesday that the government “has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President.” Gleeson was appointed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in a special role to weigh in on the case, but it will ultimately be up to Sullivan and potentially an appeals court whether to accept the Justice Department’s motion to drop the case.

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Iran sentencing an alleged CIA source to death for the Soleimani assassination has reminded US allies of a constant worry: Media leaks can get their people killed.

Many allies of the US were unsettled by the level of detail made public about how Qassem Soleimani was killed in January 2020.

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Coronavirus: Satellite traffic images may suggest virus hit Wuhan earlier

A surge in hospital traffic may indicate the virus hit China earlier than reported, a study suggests.

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Dan Bongino on House policing hearing: Some Democrats were just there to stoke the flames of division

Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, who testified at the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on police reform, says some Democrats don't want to solve problems but create new ones for political gain.

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Trump news – live: President uses racial slur to condemn renaming of military bases while threatening to ‘take back’ Seattle

Donald Trump called Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" when condemning her involvement in attempting to pass an amendment to rename the military bases originally named after Confederate generals.The nickname he often uses for the Massachusetts senator has been called a divisive slur among critics. Mr Trump's choice of wording comes as a larger conversation has grown across the country about systematic racism and racist rhetoric.

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Minneapolis police chief takes on union, promises change

The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said Wednesday, as he announced initial steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyd's death. Faced with calls from activists and a majority of City Council members to dismantle or defund the department, Arradondo also said he would use a new system to identify problem officers early and intervene. "We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart,” he said at a news conference more than two weeks after Floyd died after a white officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man's neck even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.

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Protesters tear down Christopher Columbus statue in Saint Paul, Minnesota

A group of protesters pulled down a statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, the latest U.S. monument to be torn down amid nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and racial inequalities. The 10-foot bronze statue was pulled from its granite base by several dozen people led by a Minnesota-based Native American activist outside the state Capitol, documented by news photographers and television camera operators. "It was the right thing to do and it was the right time to do it," the activist, Mike Forcia, told Reuters in apparent reference to more than two weeks of protests over the May 25 death of a 46-year-old black man, George Floyd, under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

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Why are states seeing a sudden increase in coronavirus cases? Experts have more than one answer

Arizona, South Carolina and Texas are seeing a sharp increase in coronavirus cases despite other states reporting a decline.

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Two Missouri hairstylists with coronavirus saw 140 clients in their salon, but no one got infected

Last month, Missouri hairstylists saw 140 clients while symptomatic with the coronavirus. None seem to have contracted it, though, officials said.

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Stepdad of 2 missing Idaho kids hid remains of children on property, police say

A criminal complaint said Chad Daybell "did willfully conceal and/or did aid and abet another to willfully conceal human remains."

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China says it's working with India to reduce tensions

China said Wednesday it is taking measures with India to reduce tensions along their disputed frontier high in the Himalayas following a recent flareup that prompted rock-throwing and fistfights. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters that the sides had engaged in “effective communication through diplomatic and military channels” on how to deal with issues on the western section of their disputed border. “At present, the two sides are taking corresponding actions to ease the situation on the border in accordance with the relevant consensus,” Hua said at a daily briefing.

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Fleischer: I would like to see Trump address police reform and lead the nation to a better place

Trump weighing executive action on police reform; Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer reacts.

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New Trump admin proposal would make it harder for immigrants to claim asylum in U.S.

"The proposed rule is literally the kitchen sink of asylum bans and will end any notion of asylum that still remains," said an immigration lawyer.

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Kelly Loeffler’s Fundraising Committee Takes the Prize for Tone Deafness

As Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) proclaims her exoneration from allegations of insider trading, she’s simultaneously building a campaign fundraising system that imagines her campaign as a Wall Street-style investment opportunity.The Georgia Republican is offering donors and fundraisers benefit packages to support her re-election bid. Those packages come in three tiers: investor, shareholder, and board member.That’s according to a fundraising brochure obtained by The Daily Beast, which also details each of the benefits that donors can expect from membership in what Loeffler’s campaign refers to as a “co-investor program” and has dubbed its “executive council.”Loeffler Turns Over Coronavirus Stock Sale Docs to FedsIt’s common for campaigns to award such honorifics to their top donors and fundraisers. But the terms that the Loeffler campaign has chosen for its tiered donor honorees now carry some additional political baggage. Though the Justice Department chose to drop its investigation into Loeffler over her and her husband’s stock trades before the coronavirus pandemic caused the market to crash this year, the timing and size of her trades has been an albatross around the neck of her re-election effort According to the brochure laying out the various levels of “executive council” membership, an individual must donate $1,500 and a political action committee must give $5,000 if they are to qualify for the “investors” title. Alternatively they can raise $15,000 for the campaign. To achieve “shareholders” status, an individual must give $2,800 and a PAC must give $7,500, or raise $30,000 for the campaign. The top tier, “board member” is reserved for max-out donors—$5,600 for individuals and $10,000 for PACs—or those who raise $50,000 for the campaign.The donations come with access. All executive council members get access to quarterly breakfasts and monthly conference calls with the campaign, according to the brochure, as well as a thank-you event for donors. Shareholders and board members also get invites to a PAC retreat and a more exclusive quarterly reception. And board members alone get to go to the campaign’s holiday party in December and “other special events throughout the year.”One of those other events is scheduled for this September and will feature Loeffler and a to-be-announced “special guest.” The event will take place after 18 holes of golf at a donor retreat at the tony Sea Island Beach Club on the Georgia coast, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by The Daily Beast.That retreat will cost individual donors $2,800 and PACs $5,000 to attend, with contributions benefitting the Loeffler Victory Committee, a joint fundraising account benefitting Loeffler’s campaign and her leadership PAC. But only executive council board members get access to that exclusive “nineteenth hole” event.Kelly Loeffler Tries to Turn Coronavirus Into a Political AssetLoeffler is doling out these donor perks despite having already loaned $10 million to her own campaign. The Senate’s wealthiest member, she has said she’ll personally spend twice that to win reelection in November.The task became significantly more difficult in March, when The Daily Beast reported that Loeffler and her husband, New York Stock Exchange chairman Jeff Sprecher, had sold off millions of dollars in stock in the weeks after Loeffler attended a closed-door Senate briefing on the novel coronavirus.Loeffler has vehemently and consistently denied that she used any information gleaned through her official duties to inform her stock trades, which she says are handled entirely by a third-party investment advisor. Loeffler and Sprecher nevertheless agreed in April to liquidate their individual stock holdings in order to head off the controversy. They also turned over documents related to those stock sales to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as it probed insider trading allegations against multiple Senators. The Justice Department announced last month that it was dropping its investigation into Loeffler while continuing to look into similar allegations leveled at Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.)Since then, Loeffler has triumphantly declared total vindication, attacking critics and media outlets—including The Daily Beast—in statements to the press and in a barrage of television ads attempting to shore up her political standing.Loeffler is facing off in a special election in November against twenty opponents of both parties, with her most formidable challenge coming from Republican Rep. Doug Collins. The most recent poll, conducted last month, showed Loeffler trailing not just Collins but also two Democrats in that “jungle-style” race.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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