July 28, 2017

Police chiefs association refutes Trump's speech that endorsed officer brutality

Source: RawStory




President Donald Trump on Friday told a cheering crowd of police officers that they shouldn’t be afraid to rough up suspects during arrests.

“When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don’t be too nice,” Trump said during a speech at Suffolk County Community College. “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody — don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

In the wake of Trump’s remarks, the International Association of Chiefs of Police released a statement reiterating that police officers should not use needless violence while arresting suspects.

“Law enforcement agencies develop policies and procedures, as well as conduct extensive training, to ensure that any use of force is carefully applied and objectively reasonable considering the situation confronted by officers,” the association writes. “Law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are complainant, suspect, or defendant, with dignity and respect.”


https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/891037047892430849

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/police-chiefs-association-refutes-trumps-speech-that-endorsed-officer-brutality/

July 28, 2017

Trump names Gen. John Kelly as chief of staff, Priebus out

By POLITICO STAFF 07/28/2017 04:53 PM EDT

President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted that Gen. John Kelly is his new chief of staff, replacing Reince Priebus.

"I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American...." Trump wrote.

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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/28/trump-names-gen-john-kelly-as-chief-of-staff-priebus-out-241105

July 28, 2017

...The internet recoils in horror as Trump asks cheering cops for brutality

‘Problem isn’t a few bad apples’: The internet recoils in horror as Trump asks cheering cops for brutality

Police officers cheered as President Donald Trump urged them to use petty violence against suspected criminals — and social media users reacted in outrage and horror.

“When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don’t be too nice,” Trump told police officers Friday during a speech in Long Island.

“Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody — don’t hit their head,” he added. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

Twitter users weren’t sure whether to be more appalled by the president or the police officers who roared in approval.

https://twitter.com/swin24/status/891005638037450753
https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/891003710129799168
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/891009080973807616
https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/891005850420224001
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/891014096975388672
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/891008504051453952
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/891008378163605505

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/problem-isnt-a-few-bad-apples-the-internet-recoils-in-horror-as-trump-asks-cheering-cops-for-brutality/

July 28, 2017

John Delaney: Why I'm running for president

By John Delaney July 28 at 1:08 PM

John Delaney, a Democrat, represents Maryland’s 6th Congressional District in the House.

The American people are far greater than the sum of our political parties. It is time for us to rise above our broken politics and renew the spirit that enabled us to achieve the seemingly impossible. This is why I am running for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

Our government is hamstrung by excessive partisanship. We are letting critical opportunities to improve the country pass us by. And we are not even talking about the most important thing: the future. The victims of this leadership failure are the good people we are sworn to serve, and we are leaving our country ill-prepared for dramatic changes ahead. The current administration is making us less prosperous and less secure. I’m running because I have an original approach to governing and economic policy that can put us on a different course.

My vision for the country is based on my own American Dream. I was raised in a blue-collar family; my dad was a union electrician, and my parents didn’t attend college. Because of a great education and a helping hand from others, I was fortunate enough to become a successful entrepreneur. Before age 40, I founded and led as chief executive two publicly traded companies that created thousands of jobs and were admired in the community. I’ve been blessed with a great family and the opportunity to give back through philanthropy and public service. As a progressive businessman, I’ve made it a priority to be solutions-oriented and have been consistently recognized as one of the most innovative and bipartisan members of Congress. I’ve done this by simultaneously celebrating the power of our free-market economy while also insisting that there is a role for government to set goals and rules of the road and take care of those who are left behind.

My focus is on preparing our country for the future. Technological innovation, automation and globalization are the most powerful forces in the world today. These forces have been enormously positive; they will continue to make life better, enhance productivity, solve some of the world’s most difficult problems and open societies. Sadly, these forces will also eliminate certain jobs and require workers to learn new skills more quickly. They will create security risks and strain our resources. We need to respond to these large-scale opportunities and challenges by thinking about policy from a fresh perspective. What are the resources we have, how do we compete and create jobs, how can we ensure that everyone has a fair chance, and how do we protect ourselves?

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-delaney-why-im-running-for-president/2017/07/28/02460ae4-73b7-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html

July 28, 2017

This is what you get when you elect Republicans

By Paul Waldman July 28 at 1:30 PM

This has been quite a week in Washington, a week full of terror, intrigue, suspense, backstabbing and outright chaos. While we might not have been able to predict the particular contours of the catastrophe that complete GOP rule has been, we should have known it would turn out something like this.

Guess what, America: This is what you get when you elect Republicans.

It goes much further than their repugnant and disastrous effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but all the contemporary GOP’s pathologies could be seen there: their outright malice toward ordinary people, their indifference to the suffering of their fellow citizens, their blazing incompetence, their contempt for democratic norms, their shameless hypocrisy, their gleeful ignorance about policy, their utter dishonesty and bad faith, their pure cynicism, and their complete inability to perform anything that resembles governing. It was the perfect Republican spectacle.

It’s remarkable to consider that there was a time not too long ago when the Grand Old Party was known for being serious, sober, a little boring, but above all, responsible. They were conservative in the traditional sense: wanting to conserve what they thought was good and fearful of rapid change. You might not have agreed with them, but there were limits to the damage they could do. The devolution from that Republican Party to the one we see today took a couple of decades and had many sources, but its fullest expression was reached with the lifting up of Donald J. Trump to the presidency, this contemptible buffoon who may have been literally the single worst prominent American they could have chosen to be their standard-bearer. I mean that seriously. Can you think of a single person who might have run for president who is more ignorant, more impulsive, more vindictive and more generally dangerous than Donald Trump? And yet they rallied around him with near-unanimity, a worried shake of the head to his endless stream of atrocious statements and actions the strongest dissent most of them could muster.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/07/28/this-is-what-you-get-when-you-elect-republicans/?utm_term=.3e899cbce9d1&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

July 28, 2017

Trump is a disaster, but remember who's enabling him

By Ann Telnaes July 28 at 2:00 PM






https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2017/07/28/trump-is-a-disaster-but-remember-whos-enabling-him

July 28, 2017

Why human rights defenders love John McCain

By Berivan Orucoglu July 28 at 2:47 PM

Berivan Orucoglu is the program coordinator of the Supporting Human Rights Defenders program at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. (Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the McCain Institute.)

I’m a Turkish journalist. I’ve spent my career criticizing politicians. I have always seen that as my job.

Yet I now find myself in the unaccustomed position of singing the praises of one of them — the remarkable Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). When we learned last week that he was afflicted with brain cancer, the news not only jolted Washington’s political scene but also sent a shock wave through the community of human rights defenders around the globe. It’s important to appreciate just how unusual this is. These two worlds — the politicians and the activists — almost never agree on anything. Yet McCain enjoys immense respect in both of them.

That should help to explain why his medical diagnosis was top news not only in the United States but also across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Since the news of his illness broke, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Journalist and activist friends — from Afghanistan and Ukraine, from Egypt and Turkey — have been calling in shock and dismay, refusing to accept the news.

The first time I met McCain was at a meeting in Brussels during the George W. Bush administration. At the time, the European Union was outraged by the CIA’s clandestine flights and torture policies. McCain’s clear and resolute stance against torture came as a huge relief to the United States’ allies in Europe. “The world would be a safer place if Sen. McCain was the U.S. president,” one Dutch diplomat told me.

I next met the senator several years later, in a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey. By then, I had been to many camps and covered several high-level meetings. In striking contrast to other high-level visitors, McCain spent most of his time actually talking with the Syrians who had been forced to flee their war-torn homeland. It was refreshing to see a politician who didn’t care about photo ops and who paid more attention to the refugees themselves than to the official statement from the camp authorities. I wasn’t the only one impressed by the senator’s visit. One Syrian who attended the meeting with McCain told me: “He was the only visiting politician to give us more than lip service.”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/07/28/why-human-rights-defenders-love-john-mccain

July 28, 2017

Two No Votes On Obamacare Repeal That Were Months In The Making

By TIERNEY SNEED Published JULY 28, 2017 3:18 PM

Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) surprise, dramatic no vote that officially sunk the long-struggling Senate effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act was a fitting finale to a tumultuous and unpredictable legislative push. But the continued resistance of Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) illuminated the deep distrust that accrued over the Senate leadership’s secretive process, as well as the major substantive issues in the Republican health care bill that GOP never was fully ready to engage on.

From Day 1 the two veteran senators made clear what their top concerns were. They were shut out from a private group said to be working on a closed-door health care deal that was only the start of multiple norms busted and a unprecedented lack of transparency. And rather than meet their demands on the substance, Republicans attempted to cut side deals or even bully them, until they were just written off completely.

While McCain’s vote had up until the very last second felt up in the air, Murkowski’s and Collin’s opposition was months in the making. Though they are often aligned in votes, and they sit next to each other in the chamber, Murkowski and Collins have different styles and occupy distinct roles in the Capitol Hill ecosystem.

Collins has for a long time reveled in her position as a perpetual thorn in leadership’s side. She’s a regular on the Sunday shows, and is friendly with the congressional press stalking the Capitol, who in the last few months followed her in hordes.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/lisa-murkowski-susan-collins-two-no-votes-on-obamacare-repeal-that-were-months-in-the-making

July 28, 2017

Trump's War on the 1960s

July 28, 2017 at 10:37 am EDT By Taegan Goddard


Leonard Steinhorn: “Donald Trump and his supporters may be waging battles against the press, immigrants, voting rights, the environment, science, social welfare programs, Planned Parenthood and what they label political correctness and the deep state.”

“But to them these are mere skirmishes in a much larger conflict. The president has essentially declared an all-out war on the American 1960s.”

“What he and his followers hope to do is not necessarily turn back the clock to the 1950s, but rather restore a social order, value system and ‘real America’ that they believe was hijacked by the liberal culture, politics, thought leaders and policy priorities that emerged from the ’60s.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/07/28/trumps-war-1960s/

July 28, 2017

GOP Support for Trump Is Starting to Crack

July 28, 2017 at 10:46 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

David Leonhardt: “The capitulation of McConnell and Ryan has created an impression — especially among many liberals — that congressional Republicans stand behind the president. McConnell and Ryan, after all, are the leaders of Congress, and they continue to push for the legislation Trump wants and to permit his kleptocratic governing.”

“But don’t be fooled: Republican support for the president has started to crack.”

“Below the leadership level, Republicans are defying Trump more often, and McConnell and Ryan aren’t always standing in their way. You can see this defiance in the bipartisan Senate investigation of the Russia scandal. You can see it in the deal on Russian sanctions. And you can see it in the Senate’s failure… to pass a health care bill.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/07/28/gop-support-trump-starting-crack/