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brooklynite's JournalGOP escalates fight with Secret Service over convention protesters
Source: Washington Post
Top Republican Party officials are escalating their fight with the Secret Service over the party’s convention in Milwaukee in July, demanding that the agency expand the security perimeter of the event so that protesters can be moved farther away from the arena where the main events will be held.
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A cadre of senior GOP officials had a lengthy argument with Secret Service officials in Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. The Republicans repeatedly pushed the agency to widen the perimeter so that a prominent city park about a quarter-mile from the arena could not be used by the city for a designated protest zone. The Republicans also again demanded a meeting with the head of the Secret Service to no avail, the people familiar with the meeting said.
The Secret Service officials — which included two senior officers — told the Republican National Committee that its director was not inclined to meet with them and that the agency was not planning to expand the perimeter to include the park, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting. That infuriated party officials.
Republican Party officials are now encouraging other top lawmakers to weigh in, with just two months before the convention.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/10/republican-convention-milwaukee-protesters/
Ex-aides dispute Rep. Nancy Mace's claims that staff 'sabotaged' her
Source: Washington Post
Mace alleged the staff misconduct in a story published Friday by DailyMail.com, which noted she “fired or lost nine staffers from her Washington D.C. office” over a three-month period.
Members of Congress rarely take aim at ex-aides so publicly and with such specific allegations. But the turmoil between Mace and former staffers has played out in public view over the past year as staff has cycled through her office.
Mace, who won election to Congress in 2020, initially positioned herself as a moderating force in the Republican Party on issues such as abortion and gun violence, attracting national fame and widespread media attention. But Mace’s shifting positions on debt ceiling legislation, abortion restrictions in a defense-spending bill, and former president Donald Trump alienated some of her former allies. Her detractors and opponents — and some of her colleagues — came to view her as an attention hog, uninterested in crafting policy and singularly focused on elevating herself on television and social media.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/10/nancy-mace-staff-interview-sabotage/
Jim Jordan's quiet power play for 2025
Source: Axios
Why it matters: Many GOP members doubt Johnson will keep the top job, whether or not the party holds the majority. Jordan is a top ally of former President Trump who would help keep the conference full-on MAGA.
Jordan privately told colleagues what he would be doing differently than Johnson during the recent fight over foreign aid funding, multiple sources told Axios.
The Ohio Republican has been noticed handing out more campaign checks to colleagues, multiple lawmakers told Axios.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/05/09/mike-johnson-jim-jordan-trump-speaker?lctg=136755346
BREAKING: Barron Trump stepping down to spend more time with his family.....
https://twitter.com/alaynatreene/status/1789038653236219926Biden administration won't conclude Israel violated terms of US weapons agreements, AP sources say
Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A soon-to-be-released Biden administration review of Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in its war in Gaza does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for their use, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter.
The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel, even though it doesn’t conclude that Israel violated terms of U.S.-Israel weapons agreements, according to one U.S. official.
The administration’s findings on its close ally’s conduct of the war, a first-of-its-kind assessment that was compelled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress, comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Biden has tried to walk an ever-finer line in his support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war against Hamas. He has faced growing rancor at home and abroad over the soaring Palestinian death toll and the onset of famine, caused in large part by Israeli restrictions on the movement of food and aid into Gaza. Tensions have been heightened further in recent weeks by Netanyahu’s pledge to expand the Israeli military’s offensive in the crowded southern city of Rafah, despite Biden’s adamant opposition.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/us-israel-gaza-war-nsm-international-law-c83b6f39ce2799e5d2c473a337e2f857
The Biden campaign has the Presidential race tied (per Jim Messina)
Getting a briefing now.
Race down to seven States (WI, MI, PA, GA, AZ, NV, NC) with focus on the Midwest States.
Fact Checker: RFK Jr's 'history lesson' on Russia's invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test
Washington PostA reader asked us to fact-check a four-minute “history lesson” posted by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on YouTube. International events — and the causes of war — are often open to interpretation. But Kennedy’s lecture, about how the United States allegedly provoked the Ukraine war, was filled with so much misinformation and Russian talking points that it seems worthy of a detailed look.
Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war by invading Ukraine, and he’s shown little sign of wanting to end it unless Ukraine accepts losing territory Russian has seized. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian atrocities during the war make it imperative for the country to win back all of its territory.
It’s unclear how Kennedy counts three invasions of Russia through Ukraine, though he says the “last time” was World War II. The previous prominent attack on Russia was by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812, but Napoleon aimed his attack on Moscow and did not invade through Ukraine.
Kennedy is echoing Russian propaganda here. By every account of the 1990 negotiations for the unification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, including Gorbachev’s, the conversation claimed by Kennedy never happened.
“The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years,” Gorbachev said in a 2014 interview. “I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either.”
Trump team throws out GOP plan and builds a 'leaner' 2024 operation
Washington PostTrump’s 2024 campaign has traded Star Wars metaphors for talk of a “leaner” and “more efficient” operation, with less real estate, fewer employees and greater dependence on outside groups.
“We’re focused on quality over quantity. I mean, how novel a concept,” top strategist Chris LaCivita told the crowd of top donors May 4 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., according to attendees.
The shift comes as President Biden’s campaign and its allies, buoyed by incumbency, have been moving in the opposite direction, building a more expansive operation sooner than in 2020. Strategists for both major parties expect Democrats to raise and spend more than Republicans over the coming months, a dynamic that has been magnified by the significant legal costs Trump’s fundraising apparatus has absorbed to defend him in state and federal courts.
Vulnerable Senate Dems lukewarm on reported White House plan for Palestinian refugees
PoliticoThe idea of allowing Palestinian refugees into the U.S. blends a couple of political problem points for Democrats. It touches on immigration, a subject Republicans regularly hammer their opponents on, and it could also be seen as a referendum on Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza, where high civilian casualties have sent many fleeing for refuge.
“I’ve been clear that allowing anyone to enter the country without being properly vetted and going through a legal process undermines our national security,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “And that neighboring countries in the region including Egypt and Jordan should play a leading role in taking in refugees.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said the White House and Biden’s administration should keep its focus on a bigger prize: “The administration should be focused on reaching an agreement that ends the fighting, frees the hostages and gets much-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
The DNC Is Preparing for the Worst in Chicago -- Without the Help of the City's Mayor
Source: Politico
CHICAGO — President Joe Biden’s top advisers are all too aware the ghosts of 1968 may haunt their convention here, but they’re grappling with a pair of more urgent and thoroughly modern-day challenges as summer nears: How far can they go in reprising their virtual 2020 convention to mitigate the threat of disruption inside the arena, and how will they navigate a rookie mayor who unabashedly sympathizes with protesters?
Trumpeting the success of their Covid-era convention four years ago, some in Biden’s orbit are aggressively pushing to make the 2024 conclave a hybrid production. That would mean in-person speeches from the president, party luminaries and rising stars to draw television attention alongside a mix of pre-recorded testimonials and videos from other parts of the country.
The goal: drive maximum viewership on television and the internet while minimizing live programming and openings for protest in Chicago’s United Center. This would mean moving party business, such as rules and platform votes, off the floor and denying would-be demonstrators a chance to seize on contentious debates.
While the Biden campaign, White House and convention planners have only just started hatching plans, senior Democrats tell me they’re discussing whether to conduct such business before the convention even begins or move it out of the arena and across town to McCormick Place, their other Chicago venue. Serendipitously, Biden’s advisers may have a very good reason to move up such housekeeping: If the Ohio Legislature does not relax its ballot certification deadline, which is before the Democrats’ August convention, the DNC may have no choice but to technically nominate the president before the conclave begins.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/10/rookie-mayor-chicago-dnc-00157208
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Name: Chris BastianGender: Male
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 95,087
