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demmiblue's JournalTrump suggests NATO allies raise target spending to 4 percent
Source: The Hill
President Trump suggested Wednesday that NATO allies should increase their defense spending from 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to 4 percent.
"During the President’s remarks today at the NATO summit he suggested that countries not only meet their commitment of 2% of their GDP on defense spending, but that they increase it to 4%. The President raised this same issue when he was at NATO last year," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
"President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations," she added. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev first told a national radio station that Trump had raised the prospect of a heightened spending commitment during a meeting with world leaders at the NATO summit.
“NATO is not a [market] at which one can buy security. But yes, on the other hand, President Trump is right, as each country should build its effective capabilities, and the unwillingness with which Bulgaria spends money on defense is obvious,” Radev said, according to Bloomberg.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/396485-trump-suggests-nato-allies-raise-target-spending-level
AP Live coverage:
[div class"excerpt"]6 p.m.
President Donald Trump has suggested that NATO allies commit to spending 4 percent of their GDP on defense, up from the current goal of 2 percent by 2024.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms Trump raised the idea at a closed-door meeting with fellow NATO leaders Wednesday in Brussels.
It's unclear by what date he'd like to see the increase.
Trump has been pressing member countries to spend more on defense, accusing them of freeloading off the U.S.
https://www.apnews.com/5d9af207650e42cd9fbf96ce7d8c59d1/The-Latest:-Trump-suggests-NATO-allies-spend-more-on-defense?utm_campaignSocialFlow&utm_mediumAP&utm_sourceTwitter&__twitter_impressiontrue
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1017076641288343552
"Trump Is Too Chickenshit to Fire Kelly Himself": With Bill Shine Producing His West Wing Reality...
Former Fox News co-president Bill Shine has only been White House deputy chief of staff for communications for less than a week, but he’s already becoming one of Donald Trump’s closest confidants. “Trump absolutely loves the guy,” a Republican close to Trump and Shine told me. Sources familiar with the relationship said Trump was effusive about Shine’s production of the much-hyped prime-time rollout of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Monday night. “Shine brought in all new lights,” a person briefed on the production said. “He gave Trump what’s called a ‘downlight.’ Trump’s a little fat, but that made him look younger.”
The ascent of Shine, who was ousted from the network for his handling of its myriad sexual harassment scandals, has intensified speculation in the West Wing that the president’s long-suffering chief of staff and nemesis, John Kelly, will soon be departing. Kelly opposed the hiring of Shine and has seen his role continue to be diminished, sources said, sometimes in humiliating ways. “They’ve basically stopped telling Kelly when meetings are. People leave him off the calendar,” one administration official told me. “When he finds out, he storms into the room and is like, ‘What’s going on?’” A Republican close to the White House told me that Trump hopes Shine’s expanding role will encourage Kelly to quit. “Trump is too chickenshit to fire Kelly himself,” the source said. The strategy is reminiscent of the president’s decision to hire Anthony Scaramucci as communications director in July 2017 to drive out then-chief of staff Reince Priebus. “This is a more subtle version of Scaramucci,” an outside adviser to the White House told me.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/trump-bill-shine-john-kelly-sarah-sanders?mbid=social_twitter
https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1016774923447087107
Australia takes advice of far-right 'strong borders' advocate, kicks her out
In early March, Lauren Southern, a Canadian darling of white supremacists, learned that she had been barred from the United Kingdom on account of her history of thinly veiled racism.
Now, Southern can add another country to the list of places she can no longer visit.
On Monday, Australian media reported that Southern’s application for an Australian visa had been denied. As Sky News’ Ross Cameron tweeted, the Australian Visa Bureau had declined Southern’s application for an Electronic Travel Authority.
Southern promptly took to Twitter to complain, saying she is “still attempting to fight” for entry.
https://thinkprogress.org/australia-and-new-zealand-bar-lauren-southern-and-stefan-molyneux-a5fb5e4afb87/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5b4510619ebbef00077ae228&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
Trump's Office of Refugee Resettlement Is Budgeting for a Surge in Child Separations
Source: Slate
The Office of Refugee Resettlement is preparing for the possibility of another surge in family separations. Internal documents obtained by Slate show that ORR has modeled a scenario in which the Trump administration’s border policies could require the detention of thousands more immigrant children.
ORR—an agency within the Administration for Children and Families, which is itself a division of the Department of Health and Human Services—was caught off guard by the family separation policy, the documents reveal. In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice would henceforth have “zero tolerance” for immigrants who cross the border without authorization. He expanded the policy in May by partnering with the Department of Homeland Security to prosecute immigrants for unlawful border crossing, a misdemeanor. Under zero tolerance, parents are imprisoned, and children are placed in ORR shelters, sometimes far from the border.
There are currently about 11,800 children in ORR’s care. Alex Azar, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has stated that somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 of those children were separated from their parents at the border. The remaining children in ORR custody are unaccompanied minors—children who crossed the border without a parent or guardian.
Read more: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/trumps-office-of-refugee-resettlement-is-budgeting-for-a-surge-in-child-separations.html
https://twitter.com/RepBarbaraLee/status/1016772692408750082
You know shit's bad when your leader is appointing his son-in-law to a position of power...
@paleofuture
Matt Novak Retweeted AFP news agency
You know shit’s bad when your leader is appointing his son-in-law to a position of power in government
Matt Novak added,
AFP news agency
Verified account @AFP
#BREAKING Erdogan names son-in-law Berat Albayrak as finance minister in new Turkey cabinet
3:53 PM - 9 Jul 2018
https://twitter.com/paleofuture/status/1016409923825963008
Some Members Of Trump's Exclusive Clubs Appear To Have Been Invited To An Air Force One Tour
Source: Buzz Feed News
Some members of President Donald Trump's exclusive Florida clubs appear to have been invited to an Air Force One tour last year, according to an invitation obtained by BuzzFeed News which was cross-checked with records received through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Members would not confirm or deny that they actually attended, but the invitations would raise more questions about the blurry line between Trump's administration and his family’s private businesses. Although past administrations have given Air Force One tours to friends, family, and even donors, in this case those attending would have paid Trump’s exclusive clubs thousands of dollars annually.
Two separate tours were scheduled at the Atlantic Aviation FBO at Palm Beach International for 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2017 — hours before Trump held his first 2020 campaign rally less than 120 miles away at the Orlando-Melbourne International Airport hangar.
The two tours are recorded differently compared to all other Air Force One tours given in the 14 months after Trump took office, according to redacted government records provided to BuzzFeed News. Unlike the other records, they don’t list an agency name or title of the official in charge of the tour. The listed date for the tours matches up with the date and time listed on the invitation.
Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/trump-air-force-one-mar-a-lago-tour
Trump's Personal Driver for 25 Years Sues for Unpaid Overtime
Source: Bloomberg
Donald Trump’s personal driver for more than 25 years says the billionaire real estate developer didn’t pay him overtime and raised his salary twice in 15 years, clawing back the second raise by cutting off his health benefits.
Noel Cintron, who is listed in public records as a registered Republican, sued the Trump Organization for about 3,300 hours of overtime that he says he worked in the past six years. He’s not allowed to sue for overtime prior to that due to the statute of limitations.
“In an utterly callous display of unwarranted privilege and entitlement and without even a minimal sense of noblesse oblige,” Trump and his businesses exploited the driver, Cintron says in the complaint.
Cintron says he was required to be on duty for Trump starting at 7 a.m. each day until whenever Trump, his family or business associates no longer required his services. He worked as long as 55 hours per week, but was paid a fixed salary of $62,700 in 2003, $68,000 in 2006, and $75,000 in 2010, according to the complaint.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-09/trump-s-personal-driver-for-25-years-sues-for-unpaid-overtime?cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=politics
'Go back to your own country.' 92-year-old man beaten with a brick, L.A. cops say
When Rodriguez bumped into a young girl while trying to pass her on the sidewalk near his home, the toddler’s mother shoved him to the ground and beat him in the face with a brick, police told the station.
After a passer-by stopped to record the incident on video and call police, four men ran up and began kicking Rodriguez while the child’s mother shouted at him, reported KCBS.
“Go back to your country, why are you here, bad things,” the witness said the mother told Rodriguez, who is a legal U.S. resident, according to the station.
Rodriguez, who doesn’t understand English, still has no idea why he was attacked, his grandson, Erik Mendoza, told KCBS.
Rodriguez suffered broken ribs and a broken cheekbone, and has bruises all over his body, reported KNBC.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article214526429.html
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