Lawyers for President Donald Trump tried to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on links between Trump campaign staff and Russian officials, according to correspondence first obtained by The Washington Post.
In a series of letters last week, Yates’ lawyer, David O’Neil, accused the Trump Justice Department of trying to silence Yates by asserting that “all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department.”
Yates served as deputy attorney general in the Obama administration and then as acting attorney general in the first few weeks of the Trump administration. Trump fired her on Jan. 31, after she refused to enforce the president’s original executive order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.
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The man who popularized Greek-style yogurt, Hamdi Ulukaya, is probably one of the only, if not the only, billionaire of recent years who does not owe his fortune to the government. Jeff Bezos does, Bill Gates does, Mark Zuckerberg does, along with dozens of others who have amassed fortunes in the digital age.
They are smart men all who have exploited opportunities, which would not have existed but for the government’s presence in science. I applaud individuals who build on government discoveries to make their fortunes.
But government-backed science, which has brought us everything from GPS to the internet, is in for a radical reversal, as laid out in the Trump administration’s budget proposal.
It was greeted with derision when it was released, with many hoping Congress will reverse it. However in the science community, in the halls of the National Science Foundation, in the facilities of the National Institutes of Health, and in the sprawling world of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, there is fear and alarm.
The Affordable Care Act overcame the tea party protests of 2009 and the Democrats losing their filibuster-proof Senate majority in 2010. It survived two challenges in front of the Supreme Court and the calamitous rollout of healthcare.gov.
Now it has withstood the attempt to replace it with the American Health Care Act, better known as Trumpcare.
Somehow, despite the intense political forces arrayed against it, and the mind-boggling policy problems it tries to solve, the 2010 health care law keeps defying efforts to wipe it out. That says something about the people who wrote it ― and what they have achieved.
Obamacare has never been hugely popular, and it has never worked as well as its architects hoped. Millions of Americans don’t like it and, even now, there are parts of the country where the markets are struggling to survive.
But the program has provided security and access to care for millions of others. More importantly, it has shifted the expectations of what government should do ― and of what a decent society looks like.
Thousands of Russians gathered on Sunday to demonstrate against government corruption in what may be the biggest anti-Kremlin protest in years.
Unsanctioned rallies in several cities ― including Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok ― sprung up after Alexei Navalny, who plans to run against President Vladimir Putin in the 2018 election, published allegations that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had accumulated a massive fortune surpassing his official salary.
The rallies attracted an “[u]nprecedented number of young Russians,” reported Max Seddon, a Moscow correspondent for The Financial Times. They grew to massive numbers in cities where Putin once commanded strong support.
The protests appear to be the largest since 2012, Reuters reported. Authorities arrested hundreds of demonstrators, including Navalny and Guardian reporter Alec Luhn, who was covering the protests.
The company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor, has unveiled plans for a makeover of a New York City building.
The Wall Street Journal said Tuesday that Kushner’s role in the White House is complicating the process due to the potential for conflicts of interest, even though he has sold his stake in this and other family owned properties.
But the possible conflicts aren’t getting nearly as much attention as the building’s design, which Twitter users say is unmistakably phallic.
Cities across the country were awash in red on Wednesday as thousands gathered to show support for International Women’s Day.
The rallies ― which mobilized men and women in New York, California, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., among other states ― was part of “A Day Without A Woman,” which organizers described as a day of “economic solidarity.”
Women were encouraged to take the day off and strike to “highlight the economic power and significance that women have in the U.S. and global economies,” Women’s March organizers said. Many people wore red to show their support for the movement.
The strikes were similar to last month’s A Day Without Immigrants, a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
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At San Francisco City Hall, hundreds gather to honor International Women’s Day on Wednesday.
If President Donald Trump and Republicans make good on their promise to angry rural voters to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, those voters may wind up a lot angrier.
And it won’t be good for their health or for the electoral prospects of the GOP.
Democrats, at least, certainly think so, and are looking at both fresh polling data and history for evidence that the GOP’s repeal and replace effort will also repeal Republican control of Congress.
For Jill Hanauer, who runs the progressive election research and strategy outfit Project New America, the landscape is starting to remind her of Colorado in 2004, when Democrats did especially well, running in part on a health care message.
“The way we really won in Republican-leaning districts of the state legislature was talking about the specifics of health care ― particularly breast cancer and prostate cancer and other cancer screenings and other prevention,” Hanauer recently told The Huffington Post. “Thirteen years later, those same issues are, I believe, going to tear this party potentially apart if they don’t smell the coffee.”
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Women and children crossing together illegally into the United States could be separated by U.S. authorities under a proposal being considered by the Department of Homeland Security, according to three government officials.
Part of the reason for the proposal is to deter mothers from migrating to the United States with their children, said the officials, who have been briefed on the proposal.
The policy shift would allow the government to keep parents in custody while they contest deportation or wait for asylum hearings. Children would be put into protective custody with the Department of Health and Human Services, in the “least restrictive setting” while until they can be taken into the care of a U.S. relative or state-sponsored guardian.
Currently, families contesting deportation or applying for asylum are generally released from detention quickly and allowed to remain in the United States until their cases are resolved. A federal appeals court ruling bars prolonged child detention.
President Donald Trump has called for ending so-called “catch and release,” in which migrants who cross illegally are freed to live in the United States while awaiting legal proceedings.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made strides to become more diverse in recent years, but there’s a long road ahead to make up for the organization’s long legacy of exclusion.
Throughout its 90-year history, the Academy has not only failed to recognize the talent of many actors and actresses of color but awarded whitewashed roles in the industry.
Hollywood has consistently given diverse roles to white actors over the years; in fact, quite recently when Tilda Swinton was cast in 2016’s “Doctor Strange” as the Ancient One, a character who is Tibetan in the Marvel comics. And The Oscars haven’t helped alleviate this long-standing issue by rewarding this kind of whitewashing.
Several notable white actors have been nominated for an Oscar for portraying people of color through the years. Many of them have actually won.
Former President Barack Obama has finally returned from his post-presidency vacation, where he got some much-deserved R&R in Palm Springs, California, and on Richard Branson’s private escape in the British Virgin Islands.
While Obama’s vacation style consisted of a backward hat and flip-flops, he looked seriously dapper in New York City on Friday in a black suit and a white collared shirt. No tie necessary.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
James' World 2 