Health Care Bill on Hold Because of McCain’s Health

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Sen. John McCain’s absence from the Senate as he recovers from surgery for a blood clot has led the GOP leadership to postpone consideration of health care legislation already on the brink.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday night he was deferring action on the measure as McCain recovers at his home in Arizona. Surgeons in Phoenix removed a blood clot from above McCain’s left eye on Friday. The 80-year-old Senate veteran was advised by doctors to remain in Arizona next week, his office said.

“While John is recovering, the Senate will continue our work on legislative items and nominations, and will defer consideration of the Better Care Act,” McConnell said in a statement. (Read more from “Health Care Bill on Hold Because of McCain’s Health” HERE)

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‘Caitlyn’ Jenner Weighs Senate Run

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Olympic gold medalist and transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner is the latest celebrity to reveal [he] has considered launching a run for Senate, telling radio host John Catsimatidis [he] is in the process of determining [his] future in activism and politics.

“I have considered it. I like the political side of it,” Jenner, who is a Republican, told Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.

“The political side of it has always been very intriguing to me. Over the next six months or so, I gotta find out where I can do a better job. Can I do a better job from the outside? Kind of working the perimeter of the political scene, being open to talking to anybody? Or are you better from the inside, and we are in the process of determining that,” she said.
“Yeah but I would look for a senatorial run,” [he] continued.

Jenner told CNN’s Don Lemon in April [he] would “seriously look at a run for office.” (Read more from “‘Caitlyn’ Jenner Weighs Senate Run” HERE)

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Trump Administration Appeals Hawaii Court Ruling on Travel Ban

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The Trump administration late Friday appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal judge in Hawaii ordered to expand the list of U.S. family relationships that refugees and visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to get into the country, including grandparents and grandchildren.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson’s decision on President Trump’s travel ban has reopened a window for tens of thousands of refugees to enter the United States.

In its appeal, the U.S. Justice Department said Watson’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling on what family relationships qualify refugees and visitors from the six Muslim-majority countries to enter the U.S. “empties the court’s decision of meaning, as it encompasses not just ‘close’ family members, but virtually all family members. Treating all of these relationships as ‘close familial relationship(s)’ reads the term ‘close’ out of the Court’s decision.”

“Only this Court can definitively settle whether the government’s reasonable implementation is consistent with this Court’s stay,” the Justice Department said. (Read more from “Trump Administration Appeals Hawaii Court Ruling on Travel Ban” HERE)

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Illegal Aliens Face Criminal Charges for First Offenses

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Migrants who are caught crossing the border illegally for the first time are now facing criminal charges in federal court in Arizona as the Trump administration steps up efforts to deter illegal immigration.

That changed as of June in the Tucson Sector, which includes most of Arizona’s border with Mexico, the agency said in a news release on Thursday. The new program has led to 565 prosecutions.

The illegal immigrants are charged with misdemeanors and tried in federal court under Operation Streamline, a 12-year-old initiative in which the migrants are charged, enter pleas and are sentenced within a few minutes in large groups. (Read more from “Illegal Aliens Face Criminal Charges for First Offenses” HERE)

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Shock Claim: Russians Passed DNC Dirt Documents During Donald Jr. Meet

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A prominent Russian-American lobbyist and former Soviet military officer attended a meeting with President Donald Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman last year, the lobbyist said Friday, adding a new wrinkle to the Trump team’s evolving explanations about the June 2016 session.

Rinat Akhmetshin confirmed his involvement to The Associated Press in an interview. He had not been previously identified as a participant in the meeting at Trump Tower in New York, which was billed as part of a Russian government effort to help the Republican’s White House campaign.

The meeting has heightened questions about whether Trump’s associates coordinated with Russia to meddle in the presidential election — to help him and thwart Hillary Clinton — and whether they’ve been forthcoming about their foreign contacts. Federal and congressional investigators are probing possible connections between the campaign and Moscow. (Read more from “Shock Claim: Russians Passed DNC Dirt Documents During Donald Jr. Meet” HERE)

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Aides to Pope Call Christian Trump Supporters ‘Radicals’

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An article written by two of the Pope’s closest associates claimed that Christian leaders supportive of President Donald Trump are radical fundamentalists with dangerous beliefs.

Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor-in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica (LCC), and Presbyterian pastor Marcelo Figueroa, the editor-in-chief of the Argentinian edition of L’Osservatore Romano, wrote an article in LCC in which they attacked Evangelicals and Catholics who supported Trump, whom they said had a “Manichean vision” founded upon “gradually radicalized” fundamentalist theology, according to Crux Now. Spadaro and Figueroa specifically lambasted White House chief strategist Steven Bannon and Church Militant, a U.S. Catholic digital media company.

“The panorama of threats to their understanding of the American way of life have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on. And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims,” the article read. (Read more from “Aides to Pope Call Christian Trump Supporters ‘Radicals'” HERE)

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House Rejects Amendment Prohibiting DOD Funds for Gender Transition

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The House rejected an attempt Thursday to prevent the Pentagon from paying for gender transition treatment.

A total of 24 Republicans joined Democrats in defeating GOP Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s amendment by 209-214, which recently passed through the Rules Committee.

Those Republicans include Reps. Justin Amash, Mike Coffman, Barbara Comstock, Darrell Issa and Frank LoBiondo, among others.

The amendment would have prohibited the Pentagon from paying for gender transition treatments like hormone therapy.

Pro-LGBT military organizations applauded the vote and called the amendment a “horrifying, vicious attack on service members.” (Read more from “House Rejects Amendment Prohibiting DOD Funds for Gender Transition” HERE)

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CONFIRMED: Another “Suicide” Connected With DNC Emails, Alleged Russian Hackers

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A Republican donor and operative from Chicago’s North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton’s missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show.

In mid-May, in a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, including a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring.

Days earlier, the financier from suburban Lake Forest gave an interview to the Journal about his quest, and it began publishing stories about his efforts in late June. The Journal also reported it had seen emails written by Smith showing his team considered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then a top adviser to Republican Donald Trump’s campaign, an ally. Flynn briefly was President Trump’s national security adviser and resigned after it was determined he had failed to disclose contacts with Russia.

At the time, the newspaper reported Smith’s May 14 death came about 10 days after he granted the interview. Mystery shrouded how and where he had died . . .

In the note recovered by police, Smith apologized to authorities and said that “NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER” was involved in his death. He wrote that he was taking his own life because of a “RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017” and timing related “TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING.”

(Read more from “CONFIRMED: Another “Suicide” Connected With DNC Emails, Alleged Russian Hackers” HERE)

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Congressman Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against Trump

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Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., has introduced formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, accusing him of obstruction of justice.

Sherman, who first drafted the articles in June, formally introduced H.R. 438 on the House floor on Wednesday.

Other Democrats have expressed concern about Sherman’s effort to impeach Trump over possible ties to Russia, and the resolution had only one cosponsor, Rep. Al Green, D-Tex. A successful vote for impeachment would require a majority in the House, where Republicans have 46 more seats than Democrats.

The articles accuse Trump of violating “his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of president of the United States.” Trump “has prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice during a federal investigation,” Sherman’s resolution says.

Both chambers of Congress as well as a special prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice are investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. (Read more from “Congressman Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against Trump” HERE)

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Sessions Reveals in Closed-Door Speech New Protections for Religious Liberty on the Way

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At a closed-door event Tuesday evening, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed that new federal guidance to protect “religious liberty” is on the way “soon.”

Tuesday’s speech to the Alliance Defending Freedom was not open to the press and the Justice Department declined requests to provide Sessions’ prepared remarks to the media, but later published the speech on The Federalist Thursday.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May entitled, “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty,” which directed Sessions to “issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in federal law,” but nothing — at least publicly — has come of the executive order to date. (Read more from “Sessions Reveals in Closed-Door Speech New Protections for Religious Liberty on the Way” HERE)

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