collusion cartoons

Roy Moore: Former chief justice, fiery and outspoken, stirs far-right base in Alabama Senate race

In the blood-red state of Alabama, a fiery, outspoken jurist is running for U.S. Senate by standing up for what he believes.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore doesn’t shrink from telling voters he has twice been ousted from the bench for defying federal courts over the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage.

Instead, he wears those rejections as a badge of honor, telling Republican voters that they are akin to battle scars.
“I will not only say what is right, I will do what is right,” Moore said during a June forum in the east Alabama city of Oxford.
Moore is part of a crowded GOP field vying to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ old seat in the U.S. Senate. Moore’s iconic status in the culture wars gives him a strong GOP voter base and makes him a leading contender in the primary on August 15.

 

But he’s also a polarizing figure. Some voters said they are voting for him because of his past fights.

Others said they want someone else for the same reasons. Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen, who filed the complaint that led to Moore’s removal, last year referred to him as the “Ayatollah of Alabama” for intertwining his personal religious beliefs and judicial responsibilities.
Incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, appointed last year by the state’s former governor and backed by Republican establishment, faces multiple challengers. Among them, in addition to Moore, is U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who has the endorsement of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. The race could lead to a runoff between the top two primary finishers.
The Senate Leadership Fund, which has ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and tries to bank candidates perceived as winnable in general elections, has put its fiscal force behind Strange.
The Republican National Committee last week authorized its Senate campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to spend $350,000 on the Alabama Senate race, money that is expected to benefit Strange.
Moore is a West Point graduate and former military policeman during Vietnam. He became a prosecutor, circuit judge and then state chief justice.
But Alabama’s judicial discipline panel twice stripped him of his chief justice duties. In 2003 he was removed for disobeying a federal judge’s order to remove a boulder-sized Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse.
He re-took the chief justice’s office in 2012, but was suspended for the remainder of his term last year.
The suspension — not, technically, a removal — came after Moore wrote a memo telling probate judges that they remained under a state court order to deny marriage licenses to gay couples even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled gays and lesbians have a fundamental right to marry. While he was suspended, Moore left the bench to run for Senate.
“I stood up to same-sex marriage legally by pointing out active injunctions. They didn’t like that. I opposed the agenda of the Supreme Court, and they came after me,” Moore said in Oxford.
Thirty-nine-year-old Emily Holland said she admires Moore. “He goes by what the Bible says,” said Holland. “He has been to war. He refused to take down the Ten Commandments.”
Jean Hobson said she watched the Oxford debate to learn more about the other candidates, but knows she’s not voting for Strange or Moore.
“Judge Moore has been elected twice and thrown out twice,” Hobson said.
Moore also discusses other issues on the campaign trail — including a call for increased military spending — but it’s his well-known history that appears to be driving both his support and his opposition.
For now, “The Judge,” as Moore is nicknamed, revels in his outsider status in a year of anti-Washington sentiment.
“Washington doesn’t want me, evidently, from the money they are pouring behind one of the candidates and from the message we received from Washington. That’s OK,” Moore said with a slight grin as he removed his sunglasses during a sweltering June campaign stop on the Alabama Capitol steps. “I’m looking forward to going and representing the people of Alabama, what they stand for. What they believe in is what I believe in and I’ll take it to Washington whether they like it or they don’t.”

Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner respond to meeting with Russian lawyer

President Donald Trump’s eldest son, son-in-law, and then-campaign chairman met with a Russian lawyer shortly after Trump won the Republican nomination, in what appears to be the earliest known private meeting between key aides to the president and a Russian.

Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner’s attorney confirmed the June 2016 meeting of the men and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. Then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended, according to the statement from Donald Trump Jr.

“It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow-up,” said Donald Trump Jr. in a statement released to Fox News. “I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.”
Trump Jr. does not serve in the administration and is not required to disclose his foreign contacts.
Kushner lawyer Jamie Gorelick, told Fox News in a statement: “As we have previously stated, Mr. Kushner’s SF-86 was prematurely submitted and, among other errors, did not list any contacts with foreign government officials. The next day, Mr. Kushner submitted supplemental information stating that he had had ‘numerous contacts with foreign officials’ about which he would be happy to provide additional information."
"He has since submitted this information, including that during the campaign and transition, he had over 100 calls or meetings with representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during transition," said Gorelick. "Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included, out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to cooperate and share what he knows.”
Manafort helmed Trump’s campaign for about five months until August and resigned from the campaign immediately after the Associated Press reported on his firm’s covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling political party. He is one of several people linked to President Trump who are under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees investigating Russian attacks on the U.S. during the 2016 campaign and potential collusion with Trump associates.
Manafort has denied any coordination with Russia and has said his work in Ukraine was not related to the campaign.

U.S. Rejects UN Treaty on Nuclear Weapons

A detail of the video board showing the votes in favor, against and the abstention is seen after a vote by the conference to adopt a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, Friday, July 7, 2017 at United Nations headquarters. More than 120 countries have approved the first-ever treaty banning nuclear weapons at a U.N. meeting boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations. Friday’s vote was 122 countries in favor with the Netherlands opposed and Singapore abstaining.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

OAN Newsroom
The United States, along with the other nuclear powered nations of the world, rejected the UN’s treaty to ban nuclear weapons on a global scale.
All of the world’s nuclear powers – including the U.S., France, Britain, and Russia – have refused to be part of the negotiations.
The vote was approved by 122 non-nuclear members of the United Nations Friday, with the Netherlands voting against the deal, and Singapore sitting out the vote.
The dissenting nations are also permanent members of the UN Security Council and stated the treaty was unrealistic.
They added countries like North Korea would never comply with a nuclear weapons ban.

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May talks with U.S. President Donald Trump during the G20 leaders summit in Hamburg, Germany July 8, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

OAN Newsroom
President Trump meets with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Hamburg to discuss the future of trade between the U.S. and the U.K.
The President told reporters he and the Prime Minister spoke on the sidelines of the G20 leaders summit and are working on a ‘powerful deal.’
While Britain can’t seal a separate trade deal with the United States until it has left the European Union, President Trump says, once that happens, the U.S. and the U.K. will get a deal done without hesitation.
The U.K. plans to exit the European Union in 2019.