Tag: Washington

#CNN #News Ahead of what is expected to be the most anticipated congressional hearing in decades, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are preparing for special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee.…

Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. This is the story behind the relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden. • Attorney General William P. Barr and congressional Democrats clashed on Sunday over his scheduled testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this week, with Mr. Barr threatening to skip the session and the panel’s chairman threatening to subpoena him. • As House Democrats return to Washington after a two-week recess, they will find a Capitol consumed by the Mueller report. But rank-and-file Democrats are not being propelled by their constituents into impeaching the president. • Guantánamo Bay as nursing home: With no sign that the prison will close, the Pentagon has begun planning for detainees to grow old at the American military base in Cuba. • As Washington wrestles with Mr. Trump’s refusal to grant more disaster relief to Puerto Rico, farmers affected by disaster elsewhere have been left in limbo. • Mr. Trump on Saturday repeated an inaccurate claim about doctors “executing babies.” Here’s the truth. • Ron Chernow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, hosted the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, breaking from the tradition of featuring a comedian.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Offering an upbeat assessment of the headline-grabbing college-admissions scandal, Betsy DeVos said on Thursday that bribing colleges gave students “a really neat opportunity” to learn math. The Secretary of Education suggested that, rather than keeping children in the dark about the bribes that enable their college acceptances, “Parents should sit around the kitchen table with their kids and work on some fun math problems together.” “Let’s say it’ll cost Amber seventy-five thousand dollars to get into Stanford, and it’ll cost her twin brother Dylan seventy-five thousand to get into Georgetown,” she said. “How much money total will their parents have to wire?” “Or let’s say Jenna has a 470 verbal score, but she needs a 730 to get into Yale,” DeVos said. “How much will she have to pay to get her score changed?” DeVos said that, as regrettable as the criminal charges against the parents in the bribery scandal were, the arrests themselves provided a teachable moment. “Lori Loughlin posted a million dollars in bail, and Felicity Huffman posted two hundred fifty thousand,” she said. “How much bail did Lori and Felicity post?”

Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA), who has made climate change the hallmark of his presidential campaign, discusses his plan to transition the United States to a green economy. #CNN #News

Joe Biden on Friday twice made joking references to complaints from women that his physical behavior made them uncomfortable. The former vice-president’s comments came during his first public appearance since the allegations began to surface last week. Biden quipped: “I just want you to know – I had permission to hug Lonnie.” The crowd, which was mostly male, erupted in laughter. Later, Biden made a similar joke after inviting a group of children onstage and putting his arm round a young boy. “By the way, he gave me permission to touch him,” the former vice-president said, again to laughter. “Everybody knows I like kids more than people,” Biden said. Although he has not been accused of sexual assault or harassment, the women have said they felt Biden violated their personal space. On Wednesday, Biden pledged in a video to change his behavior. “WELCOME BACK JOE!” Trump tweeted. Biden hit back, tweeting: “I see that you are on the job and presidential.”

Completely self-absorbed MPs have proven time and time again that they are not qualified to pull off something as complicated as Brexit. FromEveryAngle ‘Time to pass the ball to some other sucker’ How does Theresa May not just step down and walk away from this mess? Sort of feels like she’s tried enough and it’s time to pass the ball to some other sucker. Online and on the streets the voice of those who actually want to leave the EU is barely audible above that of those who want to remain. thatotherbloke ‘Politicians don’t have the will or courage to deal with this’ So after all this time spent negotiating and working out a Brexit agreement, the UK political establishment realises that it doesn’t like it and is unable to articulate alternatives it does like. There’s total paralysis in political decision making. The country, and parliament are split down the middle, the vote was too close and should never have been passed on such a small margin. May’s negotiated WA will be voted down again, there is no alternative, I think we know where this is heading and it isn’t revoking article 50. It is going to be a final end to this farce, or it will be the end for the EU as UK politicians will be arguing about this for another two years. JoeMcJoe ‘How long will it take for Britain to heal the division?’ It’s unbelievable how British MPs, especially the Conservatives, are unable to find a compromise and a way forward.

David Fahrenthold, reporter for the Washington Post, talks with Rachel Maddow about documents showing Donald Trump presenting a distorted picture of his financial holdings to make himself appear to have more wealth, and whether such lying comes with any legal…

Braden Holtby is not on the side of Donald Trump, which surely does not make him alone in a presidency that has now all but killed the put-politics-aside-and-come-to-the-East-Room-and-smile days of champions who used to visit the White House. President Jimmy Carter put out word he would like the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates, both of whom had won championships in the 1979-1980 calendar year, to visit the White House to be feted for their greatness. By the time Ronald Reagan hit Ricky Sanders on a slant pattern on the White House lawn in 1987, celebrating Washington’s Super Bowl victory, the tradition of inviting championship teams to the White House was cemented, and the tradeoff felt worth it: One town's beloved athletes got to visit the halls of American history and one nation's president got to bask in the reflected glory of those champions. Manny Ramirez couldn’t make it in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox visited to celebrate their first World Series title since 1918 because his grandmother was sick. When he missed the ceremony again in 2007 after the Red Sox won, President Bush couldn't help himself. Now, we must have media gatherings to report a player's decision, and whether that affects the chemistry of the locker room, his relationships with his other teammates who did go to the White House going forward. "We stick by every single teammate that we have and their decision," Holtby said. Holtby’s support of the LGBTQ community has spanned his time in Washington. "We've just gotten to know people in around the community, and the issues they go through and what they’re trying to accomplish. It's something that we both feel is an issue that’s close to us, an issue we believe in."