De Blasio skips slain NYPD cop's vigil to praise police in Germany

Mayor de Blasio flew all the way to Hamburg, Germany, to praise that city’s police in a speech — while cops back home continued to mourn, without him, the assassination of one of their own in The Bronx.

“Our right to protest is directly related to the fact that our police protect us,” Hizzoner told a crowd of thousands at the outdoor Hamburg Shows Attitude rally protesting the G-20 summit Saturday. “So help me by joining in applause and thanks for the police,” he said as the crowd cheered.

“There have also been great acts of bravery and restraint,” he said. “Remember, our police are working men and women, too.”
But Hamburg police weren’t feeling the love, despite the praises of “Burgermeister de Blasio.” By Saturday night — after two days of rioting — more than 200 Hamburg cops had been injured by a rowdy minority of bottle- and firebomb-tossing protesters, according to CNN.
And back home, the mayor missed an evening vigil honoring slain NYPD Officer Miosotis ­Familia at the 46th Precinct station house where she worked in The Bronx.
Familia, 48, a mother of three, was shot in the head early Wednesday by a cop-loathing ­parolee as she sat in a police command vehicle.
“It’s disgraceful that the mayor is anywhere but at this ceremony right now,” vigil attendee Maria Rinaldi, 53, of University Heights, told The Post.
“I get where he’s at right now,” said precinct neighbor Caesar Montez, 61. “But this is your city. You need to be here when a tragedy like this happens.”
De Blasio gave two speeches Saturday during his all-expenses-paid junket to Hamburg.
The first was in the morning, at the city’s Thalia Theater, where he avoided any mention of filth or delays as he praised the New York City subway system, calling it a metaphor for a harmonious society.

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Riding the subways are “people of all faiths and people of all backgrounds,” he said.
“You have the rich and the poor, people of all faiths and all backgrounds, cramped in close together.
“And I like it as a metaphor because it’s not perfect, it’s not necessarily the way you want to live, to be the sardine in the sardine can. But what you notice is there is a working harmony.”
The mayor spent much of his second outdoor rally speech ­distancing himself from US conservatives.
“My nation isn’t broken, but my nation is going through an identity crisis,” he said. “It’s on its way somewhere, and I know it’s somewhere good because I see what happens in the neighborhoods in my city . . . I see the process of change underway.”
De Blasio was accompanied at both speeches by his 19-year-old son, Dante, a Yale University ­undergrad who is spending the ­summer in Berlin.
After the rally, de Blasio gave a series of softball interviews to local media, who asked him how much German he could speak and how he and Dante were ­enjoying their visits.
But he refused to take any more questions when a Post reporter approached to ask for a response to the criticism he has received — from police, political opponents and New Yorkers — for leaving the city just one day after Familia’s assassination to grandstand on a global stage.
“It seems the mayor hasn’t learned anything from the men and women [in blue] who turned their backs on him in the past,” said Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association — in a reference to angry cops turning their backs on the mayor at past events.
“No one in uniform is surprised” by de Blasio’s show of disrespect, said Pat Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

Priebus pushes back on Russia meeting story, suggests Democrats, opposition research involved

hite House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Sunday suggested a recent news story about President Trump and his advisers meeting last summer with a Russian lawyer is part of a large political smear campaign orchestrated by a group that pushed out the largely discredited “Steele dossier.”

“The individual who set up the meeting may have been affiliated with Fusion GPS, which is an opposition research firm that is being subpoenaed and talked to by the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Priebus told “Fox News Sunday.”

Priebus was responding to a story posted Saturday afternoon by The New York Times about the June 2016 meeting, shortly before Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, between a Russian lawyer and Trump, Jared Kushner and political adviser Paul Manafort.
The story is among many attempting to connect the Trump presidential campaign to Russia meddling in the 2016 White House race.
The possible connection between the meeting and Fusion GPS was reported first by Circa.com.
Circa reported Saturday that the president’s legal team thinks the meeting may have been “part of a larger election-year opposition effort aimed at creating the appearance of improper connections between Trump family members and Russia that also included a now-discredited intelligence dossier produced by a former British intelligence agent named Christopher Steele who worked for a U.S. political firm known as Fusion GPS.”
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team, told Circa that lawyers have learned that “the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm that according to public reports was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier."
Priebus said Sunday that the Senate committee is questioning Fusion GPS about its role in “putting together that phony dossier.”
“So, this is a developing story,” he continued. “I don’t know much about it other than it seems to be on the end of the Trump individuals, a big nothing burger but may spin out of control for the (Democratic National Committee) and the Democrats.”
Fusion GPS is reportedly run by three former Wall Street Journal reporters and has helped Planned Parenthood.
The dossier largely included reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The news media began reporting widely on the dossier in fall 2016, the homestretch of the White House race, but the unverified reports have since largely been dismissed as “fake news.”

Turkish Opposition Holds Anti-Govt Rally

Supporters of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party, rise their hands as they gather for a rally following their 265-mile ‘March for Justice’ in Istanbul, Sunday, July 9, 2017. Kilicdaroglu, along with thousands of supporters, walked from the capital Ankara to an Istanbul prison, to denounce the imprisonment of a party lawmaker, and the large-scale government crackdown on opponents in the wake of July 2016’s failed coup attempt. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

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Protesters rally in Istanbul in the final stage of a three-week justice march against the Turkish government.
The opposition leader held an event on Sunday in defiance of an intensifying government crack-down.
It comes after thousands of people marched from the country’s capital to Istanbul following the arrest of an opposition lawmaker.
They accuse the government of trying to create a one-party state in the wake of a failed coup last year, using powers under a state of emergency.

Pres. Trump Pushes GOP Leaders on Healthcare

FILE – In this photo taken June 27, 2017, the U.S. Senate is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. July shapes up as one of the most critical tests for President Donald Trump’s agenda in Congress. Get healthcare done in the Senate, a budget in the House and overhaul of the nation’s tax code will be next up. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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President Trump urges Republican leaders to continue their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.
In a tweet Sunday, the President said for years he listened to Republicans push to repeal and replace the healthcare law and now they finally have their chance.
The President’s remarks come just one day before GOP senators return to work after the July 4th recess.
They delayed a vote before their break after failing to garner enough support behind the current bill.
President Trump recently indicated he would be open to repealing Obamacare first and developing a replacement later on.