The Post It Note 7/8/18

News from the note…

A round up of the day’s news that might be of interest to you.

Consider this an OPEN THREAD,  folks. Chat about any of the stories listed, share links to stories that caught your eye today, and generally have a good time discussing whatever you want.

 

Trump team not worried about Michael Cohen: ‘As long as he tells the truth, we’re home free’: Giuliani

From ABC

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney said he’s not worried about what Michael Cohen might tell federal prosecutors, saying, “As long as he tells the truth, we’re … home free.”

Rudy Giuliani told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday that he has “zero” concerns about Cohen, who once described himself as “the guy who would take a bullet” for Trump.

Stephanopoulos asked Giuliani about Cohen’s recent exclusive interview with ABC News in which he indicated his willingness to cooperate with Mueller and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

 


Kids as young as 1 face judges in immigration court

From Axios

“The 1-year-old boy in a green button-up shirt drank milk from a bottle, played with a small purple ball that lit up when it hit the ground and occasionally asked for ‘agua,'” AP’s Astrid Galvan writes from Phoenix.

What’s happening: “Then it was the child’s turn for his court appearance before a Phoenix immigration judge, who … asks immigrant defendants whether they understand the proceedings.” Judge John W. Richardson told the lawyer representing the 1-year-old: “I’m embarrassed to ask it, because I don’t know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law.”

“The boy is one of hundreds of children who need to be reunited with their parents after being separated at the border, many of them split from mothers and fathers as a result of the Trump administration’s ‘zero-tolerance policy.'”

 


Diplomatic disconnect with North Korea spells trouble for Trump

From CNN

Less than a month after President Donald Trump talked about opening “a new chapter” between the US and North Korea, the relationship between the two nations has taken a tense and hostile, but predictable turn.

In a fiery escalation, North Korea on Saturday accused the US of a “gangster-like mindset” in high-level negotiations over denuclearization, a glaring contradiction of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s description of the talks as “productive.”

The diplomatic disconnect makes it clear that the nations are not on the same page. It calls into question the US effort to extract concessions from Pyongyang and underscores a vast difference in the way the two sides view the agreement between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last month.

 


Jenna Bush Hager clarifies Bush 41’s ‘thousand points of light’ for Trump

From The Hill

Jenna Bush Hager shared a note from her grandfather, former President George H.W. Bush, on Friday, clarifying his popular phrase “thousand points of light,” after President Trump took a swipe at it during a campaign rally earlier this week.

Hager, a “Today” show correspondent and daughter of former President George W. Bush, on Friday tweeted a 1997 letter from her grandfather discussing the phrase “thousand points of light,” which he coined during his 1988 presidential bid to highlight the importance of community organizations.

“I have pursued life itself over many years now and with varying degrees of happiness. Some of my happiness still comes from trying to be in my own small way a true ‘point of light,’” Bush wrote in the letter.

 


Flake: ‘There is concern across Europe’ about what Trump might promise Putin

From The Hill

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on Sunday voiced concerns about President Trump‘s pattern of refusing to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of an expected one-on-one meeting between the two leaders next week.

“Many of us are concerned, I certainly am, about the president’s ongoing rhetoric that really demeans or ridicules our allies and praises our adversaries. So this is a part of kind of a continuum, so yes it does concern me,” Flake said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Flake, who is among the most outspoken Republican critics of the president, said he’s glad Trump is talking to Putin and negotiating with North Korea.

“But I am concerned, and I know there is concern across Europe, about what might be promised,” he added.

 


The secret story of how America lost the drug war with the Taliban

From Politico

As Afghanistan edged ever closer to becoming a narco-state five years ago, a team of veteran U.S. officials in Kabul presented the Obama administration with a detailed plan to use U.S. courts to prosecute the Taliban commanders and allied drug lords who supplied more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin — including a growing amount fueling the nascent opioid crisis in the United States.

The plan, according to its authors, was both a way of halting the ruinous spread of narcotics around the world and a new — and urgent — approach to confronting ongoing frustrations with the Taliban, whose drug profits were financing the growing insurgency and killing American troops. But the Obama administration’s deputy chief of mission in Kabul, citing political concerns, ordered the plan to be shelved, according to a POLITICO investigation.

Now, its authors — Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Justice Department legal advisers at the time — are expressing anger over the decision, and hope that the Trump administration, which has followed a path similar to former President Barack Obama’s in Afghanistan, will eventually adopt the plan as part of its evolving strategy.

 


CNN’s Stelter blasts Trump-Hannity relationship: ‘Let’s just underscore how weird this is’

From The Hill

CNN host Brian Stelter offered a scathing assessment of President Trump‘s close relationship with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Sunday, describing a relationship that he said is both highly unprecedented and “weird.”

“When Hannity’s off the air he gossips with Trump and gives advice about who to hire,” Stelter said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “So let’s just underscore how weird this is. No TV host has ever had this kind of relationship with a U.S. president before.”

 


A Sunday Bonus Note From The “With Great 2A Power Comes Great Responsibility” File

Rightwing Women Discuss Guns — And It’s Not What You Think

From Conservative Pathways

This round, the group discusses gun ownership — why they carry, what’s wrong with the NRA, what the left should understand and what you should know about guns.

 

 

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