Democratic House candidate pepper sprays himself to promote gun control

A Democratic congressional candidate in Colorado released a campaign ad featuring him being pepper sprayed in the eyes in a bid to encourage non-lethal self-defense tools in schools to deter gun violence.
Levi Tillemann, who’s trying to woo the voters in the upcoming party’s primary in less than two weeks, criticized President Trump’s suggestion to arm school officials and teachers with guns, claiming pepper spray is a better alternative to stop potential school shooters.
“I’m calling on Congress to stop talking past each other and try something new,” Tilleman says in the video. “Empower schools and teachers with non-lethal self-defense tools, like this can of pepper spray.”

“Empower schools and teachers with non-lethal self-defense tools, like this can of pepper spray.”

“Pepper spray doesn’t cost much and it can be safely stored in a break glass in case of emergency cabinet. But it’s powerful and won’t accidentally kill a kid,” he continued. “Trust me, this will stop anybody in their tracks.”
The Democrat then proceeded to close his eyes and began spraying the pepper spray in his face. He’s later seen trying to wash off his face by dunking his head into water and spraying himself with a hose. “It’s incredibly painful, now I can’t see anything,” he said. “Wow, that’s intense.”
Tillemann, a former Department of Energy official during the presidency of Barack Obama, made gun control the key issue of his campaign, doubling-down on his website that pepper spray should be “be made widely available as quickly as possible” for teachers and school officials to combat potential school shooters.
“The time has come to move beyond apologies and half measures and fight for real solutions to gun violence in our community. Help us win this fight,” he said.
PELOSI DEFENDS HOYER AFTER AUDIOTAPE SUGGESTS INTERFERENCE IN HOUSE RACE
This isn’t the first time Tillemann caught the attention. He secretly recorded Democratic House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer back in December, who urged him to drop out of the primary race to give way to Jason Crow, who was backed by the party’s establishment.
“Yeah, I’m for Crow,” Hoyer was reportedly recorded saying at the December meeting in a Denver hotel. “I am for Crow because a judgment was made very early on. I didn’t participate in the decision.”
He added: “But it was clear that it was our policy and our hope that, early on, try to come to an agreement on a candidate that we thought could win the general, and to give that candidate all the help we could give them.”
Tillemann’s stunt is unlikely to earn him the party’s nomination as Crow remains the leading candidate in the primary race.

Berkeley declares 'climate emergency' worse than World War II, demands 'humane' population control

The Berkeley City Council on Tuesday night declared what it called a "climate emergency" with more global significance than World War II, and demanded an immediate effort to "humanely stabilize population" and "reverse ecological overshoot."
The resolution, which invokes the global conflict between the Axis and Allies, charges that Americans bear an "extraordinary responsibility to solve the crises" facing the environment.
"[D]uring World War II, the Bay Area came together across race, age, class, gender and other differences in an extraordinary regional mobilization, building and repairing Liberty ships, converting car assembly plants into tank manufacturing facilities," the resolution reads.
A similar effort is necessary today to confront an even greater threat, according to the document.
"[W]e can rise to the challenge of the greatest crisis in history by organizing politically to catalyze a national and global climate emergency effort, employing local workers in a mobilization effort building and installing renewable energy infrastructure," the resolution says.
More than 60 million people died during World War II, according to most estimates -- a huge portion of the global population.
But according to the Berkeley City Council, another thinning of the herd might be needed.
The resolution notes that "reversing ecological overshoot and halting the sixth mass extinction requires an effort to preserve and restore half Earth’s biodiversity in interconnected wildlife corridors and to humanely stabilize population."
UC BERKELEY CONVERTS HOMELESS, DRUG-USER HAVEN INTO STUDENT HOUSING
The resolution, introduced in the ultra-progressive city by councilwoman Cheryl Davila, then invokes Pope Francis' comment that humanity is on the verge of global "suicide" and that "God's creation" is at stake.
Davila's resolution also calls for a global climate summit in San Francisco in September and a push to "educat[e] our citizens about the climate emergency."
The document's most substantial promise is for Berkeley to become a "carbon sink" by 2030 -- a term that means the city's greenhouse gas emissions will be in the negative.
In addition to population control and a national mobilization effort, according to the Berkeley City Council, residents should avoid "consumerism" and "narcissism."

Democratic House hopeful puts out ad saying he 'won't vote for Nancy Pelosi' amid GOP attacks

Clarke Tucker, a Democrat running for a congressional seat held by Republicans in Arkansas released a new television ad saying he won’t support House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.  (Facebook/Clarke Tucker for Congress)

A Democrat running for a congressional seat held by Republicans in Arkansas released a new television ad saying he won’t support House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in a bid to defuse Republican attacks amid the midterm election.
Clarke Tucker, a state representative who won the party’s primary last month, is set to air the anti-Pelosi ad on all four broadcast stations in the 2nd Congressional District.
The ad follows the attacks by Republican U.S. House Rep. French Hill, who accused him of being supported by Pelosi’s allies in Washington. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) reportedly propped up Tucker as he was perceived as having the best chance to win against the incumbent Congressman.
In the ad, Tucker slams Hill and assures voters that he won’t be supporting Pelosi if he gets elected.
"Congressman Hill opened his campaign by attacking me, knowing full well that I've said from day one that I won't vote for Nancy Pelosi. We're better than that," he said.
But the Hill campaign pushed back against his opponent’s efforts to distance himself from the top party leader.

Republican U.S. House Rep. French Hill criticized his opponent for being linked to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's allies.  (Facebook)

"Clarke Tucker is the hand-picked candidate of Nancy Pelosi's liberal Washington allies because they know Clarke Tucker supports higher taxes and bigger government and that French Hill will continue to champion lower taxes and a stronger economy," said Mike Siegel, a spokesman for Hill's campaign.
Tucker previously told the New York Times in March that the victory of Democrat Conor Lamb, who also opposes Pelosi, in a special election in Pennsylvania’s deep-red district validated his approach to position himself against the leadership in Washington, D.C.
He claims to have told his party in Washington that he was “very frustrated with the leadership of the House in both parties,” noting that Lamb’s seat is “a lot like the one I’m running in.” He added: “I think voters are interested in changing the leadership in Washington."
The race between Tucker and Hill will benefit from an infusion of money from Republican groups. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton's political action committee, the Republican Majority Fund, announced Wednesday that it will spend six figures on a campaign backing the Republican candidate. The money will include mailers, online ads linking Pelosi to Tucker and TV ads at later stages of the campaign.
Tucker’s anti-Pelosi ad was first of the kind to him as his previous ads focused on health care and veterans’ issues. Democrats are targeting Hill’s seat because they believe he’s vulnerable due to his opposition to the federal health overhaul.

Giuliani denies report that Michael Cohen may cooperate with investigation

Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for President Trump, on Wednesday  tried to put to rest claims that the president's personal attorney Michael Cohen might cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
“It’s not so. He’s not cooperating nor do we care because the president did nothing wrong,” Giuliani told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Wednesday night. “I am absolutely certain of that.”
Reports indicated that Cohen might have been looking for new lawyers.
When asked if the Trump team was worried that Cohen may have tape recordings that exist without their knowledge, Giuliani was firm that the president was and is “clean as a whistle.”
“Michael Cohen I think would tell you he’s got nothing incriminating with the president,” he said. Giuliani said he would be “comfortable” if Cohen chose to cooperate with authorities.
Giuliani said a greater concern is the length and the costly investigation headed by Mueller.
Giuliani maintained that there is no evidence of collusion and that the claim of obstruction of justice is completely “negated” by the fact that “the president can fire anybody he wants for any reason he wants.”
Giuliani added that despite urging the president against it, Trump “wants to testify” because he believes he “did nothing wrong” and can stand up to any line of questioning.
Giuliani estimated that the ultimate decision on whether Trump will give his testimony to Mueller will come in the next week or two.
He further clarified that “the decision” could mean “battling over a subpoena” or preparing for a “small, tailored, limited interview” with the special counsel.
“What they are talking about is they were bitter over losing the election and some of the people right in Mueller's office were the ones crying -- crying like babies the night that Hillary lost,” Giuliani said. “They are trying to delegitimize him.”

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Trump's Singapore summit, a first step, being trashed by many pundits

On this, perhaps, we can all agree: It is better that President Trump is talking to Kim Jong Un than exchanging threats over nuclear war.
And so the Singapore sitdown, the first ever between the leaders of America and North Korea, was a step in the right direction.
There are all kinds of legitimate criticisms to be leveled at the process. But I've really been struck by the relentless negativity of many liberal commentators. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews went off on Trump moments after the first handshake, because he dared put his hand on Kim's back. Jeremy Bash, an Obama aide turned NBC commentator, pronounced the display of U.S. and North Korean flags "disgusting."
This much is undoubtedly true: If Barack Obama had held a groundbreaking summit with the leader of North Korea, the liberal precincts of the media would be nominating him for another Nobel Prize.
We don't have to guess about that, since they largely supported Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, from which Trump recently withdrew. (That admittedly had a whole regimen of inspections and verification, but Trump and Kim are just starting out).
And they cheered Obama's meeting with Fidel Castro and resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, despite the repressive nature of that regime.
Trump may have been a bit too fulsome in his praise, but there's really no dispute that Kim is an awful human being who kills and jails his opponents.
When ABC's George Stephanopoulos, scoring the first broadcast-network interview with Trump in a year, asked about Kim's "police state," with "forced starvation, labor camps, he's assassinated members of his own family," the president replied: "George, I'm given what I'm given. Okay?"
The fact is, American presidents negotiated with the old Soviet leaders, who crushed human rights, and continue to meet with China, which is also a repressive dictatorship. The world is full of bad guys. That doesn't mean the United States should refuse to engage.
The online and print coverage has followed a similar pattern. "It sure looks as if President Trump was hoodwinked in Singapore," wrote New York Times columnist Nick Kristof. "Trump made a huge concession — the suspension of military exercises with South Korea ... In exchange for these concessions, Trump seems to have won astonishingly little."
The criticism didn't all come from the left. While Salon called Singapore "Trump and Kim's Big Nothing Summit," The Weekly Standard's headline was "A Summit About Nothing": "In reality, the meeting in Singapore was no negotiation. Nor was it ever going to be one: You don't hash out the end of a 60-year conflict and the elimination of a complex nuclear weapons program over the course of 45 minutes."
That's true. It's also true that you don't eliminate a complex nuclear program without the negotiations starting somewhere.
It's easy to feel uneasy about Kim's intentions, the horrifying nature of his regime, and whether he'll ever give up his nukes. But the approaches of the last 30 years haven't worked either.
Nate Silver, the left-leaning data analyst, had a striking observation on Twitter: "90% of the punditocracy's commentary on the Singapore summit seems to be constructed with the goal of convincing people that Trump shouldn't get any credit for it—rather than rationally analyzing the merits and demerits of the 'deal.'"
Perhaps, along with a skeptical, wait-and-see attitude, the press might give the president the benefit of the doubt before pronouncing the effort a failure.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

California 'three states' plan OK'd for November ballot

An initiative to divide California into three states has received enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot, the California secretary of state's office confirmed Tuesday.
The three-states campaign, dubbed “Cal-3,” submitted more than 600,000 signatures.
Tim Draper, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capital investor, sponsored the ballot measure to divide America’s most populous state into three jurisdictions, the Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., reported.
-- California would be made up of six mainly coastal counties, including Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
-- Northern California would include 40 counties from Santa Cruz to the Oregon border, including San Francisco and Sacramento, the state’s current capital.
-- Southern California would comprise 12 counties, including Fresno, Kern, Orange and San Diego counties.
“California government has rotted,” Draper told the Mercury News last month. “We need to empower our population to improve their government.”

“California government has rotted. We need to empower our population to improve their government.”

However, the ballot measure faces long odds.
A SurveyUSA poll found that 72 percent of registered California voters opposed the proposal, while only 17 percent support it, the report said.
Even if voters approved the plan, it would still require approval from the California Assembly and Senate, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Then the plan would have to overcome likely court challenges -- and still win approval from Congress, the Hill reported.
Steven Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant who opposes breaking up the Golden State, told the Mercury News that Draper’s initiative was taking the wrong track.
“Splitting California into three new states will triple the amount of special interests, lobbyists, politicians and bureaucracy,” Maviglio said in an email. “California government can do a better job addressing the real issues facing the state, but this measure is a massive distraction that will cause political chaos and greater inequality.”
If passed, it would be the first division of a U.S. state since 1863 when West Virginia was created, the Times reported. California, admitted to the Union on Sept. 9, 1850, has faced more than 200 attempts at boundary reconfiguration, divisions and even secession over the course of its history, the report said.
Draper previously proposed splitting the state into six separate states in 2012 and 2014, but election officials invalidated many of the signatures his campaign collected, the Hill reported.

Tim Draper previously proposed splitting California into six states.

Last summer, Draper formally submitted the three-states proposal.
“Three states will get us better infrastructure, better education and lower taxes,” Draper told the Times in an email. “States will be more accountable to us and can cooperate and compete for citizens.”
Analysts from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics predict that the new California and Northern California would be Democratic-leaning, while Southern California would be a swing state.
"This measure would cost taxpayers billions of dollars to pay for the massive transactional costs of breaking up the state, whether it be universities, parks, or retirement systems,” Maviglio told the Times.
Meanwhile, Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at the University of California at Riverside, told the Mercury News that “this isn’t as easy or straightforward as its supporters want to make out.”
But Draper remains optimistic.
“These three states,” Draper told the Mercury News last month, “create hope and opportunity for Californians.”

Republicans push for House vote to force DOJ to release documents on Trump investigation

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday said that they will be pushing for a vote on a resolution that compels the Department of Justice to cease the delays and finally release all remaining documents related to the Trump campaign probe.
Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordon, R-Ohio, both members of the House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that they will push for a vote on the resolution, which will be filed on Wednesday, that would encourage Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to comply with their requests at the House intelligence committee.
“It's all about compelling DOJ to turn over documents so we could do proper oversight. If they have nothing to hide, turn over the documents,” Meadows said on “The Ingraham Angle.”

"It's all about compelling DOJ to turn over documents so we could do proper oversight. If they have nothing to hide, turn over the documents."

Jordan said the resolution is different from other the committee requests because it would come from the entire Congress.
“[It’s] one thing for us to say, one thing for the chairman of subpoena – it's another thing if the House of Representatives would actually go on record and say, 'Mr Rosenstein, we as the House, a majority of the House, say you're not giving us the information we need,” he said.
ROSENSTEIN THREATENED TO ‘SUBPOENA’ GOP-LED COMMITTEE IN ‘CHILLING’ CLASH OVER RECORDS, EMAILS SHOW
The resolution comes in the wake of a bombshell report that Rosenstein threatened to “subpoena” emails, phone records and other documents from lawmakers and staff on a Republican-led House committee during a meeting earlier this year.
The reviewed emails recalled a January 2018 closed-door meeting involving senior FBI and Justice Department officials and members of the House Intelligence Committee.
“The DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] criticized the Committee for sending our requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee’s request to have DOJ/FBI do the same when responding,” the committee's then-senior counsel for counterterrorism Kash Patel wrote to the House Office of General Counsel. “Going so far as to say that if the Committee likes being litigators, then ‘we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records and your emails,’ referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and Congress overall,” the email added.
The Republican-led intelligence committee is seeking a vast array of documents related to the potential abuses of intelligence and memos that kick-started the investigation into the Trump campaign and whether it colluded with the Russian government.
NUNES SETS DEADLINE FOR DOJ TO PROVIDE DOCUMENTS ON ALLEGED FBI INFORMANT, CLAIMING ‘OBSTRUCTION’
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sent a letter last week to Rosenstein demanding to the requested documents concerning the FBI's alleged informant looking into any Russian ties to President Trump's 2016 campaign.
"DOJ continues to obfuscate and delay its production using an array of tactics, such as incorrectly categorizing the requested documents as Gang-of-Eight-level material in order to limit access," wrote Nunes, referring to an April 30 subpoena for the documents.
The so-called Gang-of-Eight refers to Republican and Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress as well as top lawmakers from the intelligence panels. "Such conduct by DOJ is unacceptable because the Gang-of-Eight is a legal fiction that has no basis outside of the confines of Presidential approval and reporting of covert actions.”

Trump-basher Mark Sanford, who president called 'nothing but trouble,' ousted in key South Carolina primary

Incumbent Republican South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford, a frequent Trump critic who the president lambasted earlier in the day as "nothing but trouble" and "very unhelpful," was ousted in Tuesday night's primary by state Rep. Katie Arrington.
On a key primary night with elections also held in Maine, Virginia, Nevada and North Dakota, the results in South Carolina were an unmistakably positive referendum on President Trump's tenure.
Arrington's shock win was also a dramatic rebuke of Sanford's heated "Never Trump"-style rhetoric and scandal-pocked career. It signaled that the president's base in the state remains solidly behind him ahead of November's midterm elections, despite withering criticism from both inside and outside the Republican party.
State Rep. Katie Arrington, a relative political newcomer who secured Trump's backing, repeatedly bashed Sanford for deriding the president and even ran advertisements featuring video clips of Sanford's Trump criticisms.
ALSO ON TUESDAY: PRO-TRUMP FIREBRAND WINS IN VIRGINIA SENATE PRIMARY

Mark Sanford, a frequent Trump critic, went head-to-head in Tuesday's South Carolina primary with Trump backer Katie Arrington, a relative political newcomer.  (Sanford state portrait, Arrington campaign photo)

Earlier Tuesday, as the ballots were being counted, Sanford acknowledged in an interview that his criticisms of Trump had hurt him in the primary.
“Well I think it has probably hurt me in this race," he said. "But again, there are no free lunches in life.  I think there are times I have had to oppose the president because of stands I have had for a long time."
The coastal 1st Congressional District is Republican-leaning, but contains sizable liberal pockets such as Charleston County, which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Sanford has warned that Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs will be "disastrous," called the president intolerant and untrustworthy, and even appeared to blame him for the shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice last year.
"I would argue that the president has unleashed — it's partially, again, not in any way totally — but partially to blame for demons that have been unleashed," Sanford said, after gunfire from a disaffected progressive loner nearly took the life of Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.
Even before Trump took office, Sanford said the billionaire businessman should “just shut up” and “quit responding” to anyone critical of him on a personal or professional level.
Sanford resigned as governor in 2011 after finally acknowledging that he was having an extramarital affair. In June 2009, he disappeared from public view for six days and later claimed that he had been hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
He later admitted that he had in fact traveled to Argentina to meet a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
But he staged a political comeback in 2013, winning the House seat in the district he had earlier represented for six years.
As voters headed to the polls Tuesday, Trump reminded them of Sanford's rhetoric, as well as the affair.

TRUMP MOCKS 'VERY UNHELPFUL' SANFORD, SAYS HE'S 'BETTER OFF IN ARGENTINA'
"I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love," tweeted Trump, who was traveling aboard Air Force One on the way back from his historic one-on-one meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!"
By contrast, Trump said that Sanford "has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to [Make America Great Again]. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina."
Other key races in NV, VA, and SC
Voters in Virginia also handed a big win Tuesday to pro-Trump Senate candidate Corey Stewart, the firebrand who has vowed to wage a "vicious" and "ruthless" fight against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine.
Stewart said he plans to campaign like Trump and appeal to blue collar voters.

Corey Stewart, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate and Chairman of Prince William County Board, addresses his supporters at the Electric Palm restaurant on election night  (Washington Post via AP)

Chants of "lock her up" rang out at Stewart's victory speech Tuesday night.
TRUMP-BACKED CANDIDATE WINS IN NEVADA GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY
Also in Virginia, voters decided that state Sen. Jennifer Wexton will take on vulnerable Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock in November in the northern Virginia congressional district. Wexton, who won a six-way primary, routed her well-funded competition in a race called early in the evening.
Comstock fought off a challenge from Shak Hill, who attacked the two-term incumbent as insufficiently conservative and weak in her support of President Donald Trump.

Barbara Comstock is one of the GOP's more vulnerable representatives in Congress; she will face state Sen. Jennifer Wexton in November.  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Comstock's district is considered a prime target for Democrats as they hope to retake the House in November.
Voters in Virginia also decided that former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger will face hard-right conservative Representative Dave Brat in November. Hillary Clinton carried Comstock's district by nearly ten points in 2016, and Trump's win in Brat's district was relatively narrow.
Meanwhile, Archie Parnell has won the Democratic nomination in a South Carolina congressional district despite revelations from a divorce filing last month that he beat his wife more than 40 years ago.Parnell's win sets up a rematch with U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman. Parnell lost by just 3 percentage points in a special election last year.
In Nevada, Trump-backed candidate Danny Tarkanian, the son of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, defeated Scott Hammond and television reporter Michelle Mortensen.
Tarkanian, a businessman, had been running in the primary against GOP Sen. Dean Heller, when Trump reached out and asked him to switch races so that Heller could run without intra-party opposition.
Elsewhere in Nevada, Sharron Angle, the conservative who once ominously threatened to "take out" then-Sen. Harry Reid, lost her race against Rep. Mark Amodei.

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