Bomb explodes outside US Embassy in Beijing, suspect injured: report

An explosion was reported on Thursday outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing's Chaoyang District.  (Associated Press)

A small bomb was detonated outside the U.S. Embassy compound in Beijing on Thursday, the embassy told The Wall Street Journal.
The bomber, a 26-year-old man identified only by his surname, Jiang, injured his hand when the homemade firework device exploded, Chinese police said in a statement. No one else was reported injured.
Police said Jiang was from the city of Tongliao in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia.
An embassy spokesperson told the AP that Jiang was the only person involved, and that no embassy property had been damaged.
Officials have not released a motive for the incident as they continue their investigation.
Bystanders shared video of the aftermath on social media, showing images of smoke unfurling in the street and what appeared to be police vehicles surrounding the building in the city's Chaoyang District.
The blast occurred around 1 p.m. local time and could be heard from blocks away, The New York Times reported.
Witnesses told Reuters they felt tremors, and later saw police examining a vehicle outside the compound.
Neither the police nor the embassy have commented on a report by ruling Communist Party newspaper Global Times that said police "took away a woman spraying gasoline on herself in suspected attempt at self-immolation" at around 11 a.m.
China and the U.S. are in the middle of a trade dispute.

Lawyer Michael Cohen Cartoons

Trump-backed Brian Kemp defeats NRA-endorsed Casey Cagle in wild Georgia gubernatorial runoff

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp has won a bruising Republican runoff in the state's race for governor, leveraging a damning secret audio recording of his opponent and a last-minute Trump-Pence endorsement.
With Tuesday's win against Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Kemp faces Democrat Stacey Abrams. She could become the country's first black woman governor.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who secured Trump's endorsement, won in a primary runoff Tuesday against NRA-backed Lt. Gov Casey Cagle.  (AP)

The race will test Democrats' assertion that changing demographics have turned the Republican stronghold into a swing state. Cagle's campaign was rocked by a secret recording in which he says he helped pass a "bad public-policy" bill for political gain.
In another recording, Cagle allegedly offers to help pay off former gubernatorial candidate Clay Tippins' $300,000 in campaign debt in exchange for an endorsement.
“I’m well aware that we walked away from $300,000,” Tippins said. “It’s the best $300,000 we’ve ever walked away from."
Cagle denied the allegations, saying he never offered a bribe for any reason and saying he was tiring of "antics" in the race.
After conceding the GOP runoff to Kemp on Tuesday, Cagle told supporters that Kemp was "undeniably ready to lead this state." The praise was a swift reversal after a nine-week runoff that saw Cagle and Kemp attack each other on multiple fronts.
Gov. Nathan Deal and the National Rifle Association had supported Cagle. But Kemp was boosted by the president's endorsement.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Kemp called Trump's endorsement on Wednesday "huge," and compared it to "pouring gasoline on a fire."
Kemp, who has called himself a "politically incorrect conservative," made headlines in May for running an advertisement boasting that he has a pick-up truck "in case I need to round up criminal illegals."
WHO ARE KEMP AND CAGLE? A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CANDIDATES
And in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Cagle acknowledged the significance of Trump's endorsement, but touted Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal's support for his candidacy.
"We have two gold-star endorsements: one is President Trump, and the other is Gov. Deal," Cagle said. "And Gov. Deal knows this state, and I have partnered with him to create the number-one state to do business in, the historic job numbers and the historic tax cut, as well."
Georgia, long a deep-red state whose changing demographics may make it a swing state in coming elections, went for Trump by less than six percentage points in 2016.
Georgia's potential evolution toward swing-state status comes at a critical time for Democrats. Gains in coastal and Sunbelt states — Virginia, North Carolina and potentially Arizona — could offset growing challenges for the party in the upper Midwest, where Trump shocked many Democrats in 2016 by sweeping a band of states that Hillary Clinton's campaign had considered a "blue wall."
"This is a light-red state," GOP pollster Mark Rountree said. "I don't think Georgia will be a national afterthought for either side anymore" regardless of what happens in November, Rountree adds.

Republican challenger pulls even with anti-Trump Democrat in solid-blue Oregon's governor's race: poll

Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler is waging a serious challenge to incumbent Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, with both candidates getting support from 45 percent of likely voters, the latest poll shows.  (Facebook)

If there's a "blue wave" coming in 2018, someone may have forgotten to tell Oregon's voters. A Republican challenger has pulled even with blue state Oregon's Democratic incumbent governor, according to a new poll.
The news comes as a surprise in a state that hasn’t seen a Republican governor since late 1980s, sparking fears of the end of Democratic Party’s total domination of the state.
The poll indicates that Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler is waging a serious challenge to Gov. Kate Brown, a vocal critic of President Trump, with both candidates getting support from 45 percent of likely voters, the Oregonian reported.

January 9, 2017: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown delivers her inaugural speech in the Capitol House chambers in Salem, Ore.  (AP)

Oregon is considered a solid blue state, with Democrats controlling both the state House and Senate, while Brown has been the governor since 2015.
The poll, conducted by Florida-based Gravis Marketing, invigorated the race overnight, though Democrats began questioning its validity.
“It's hard to understand how this is a reputable piece of public opinion research,” Brown’s campaign spokesman, Christian Gaston, told the Oregonian.

"It's a bit surprising to see a Democratic statewide candidate in Oregon have such weak numbers, but (Brown) does."
- John Horvick, DHM Research Vice President

But other pollsters in the state aren’t dismissing the poll showing the two candidates deadlocked in the race, saying Brown doesn’t have strong voter support.
“We've seen it pretty close, head-to-head, between Brown and Buehler,” John Horvick, vice president and political director of DHM Research in Portland, told the newspaper. "It's a bit surprising to see a Democratic statewide candidate in Oregon have such weak numbers, but (Brown) does.”
DHM Research’s previous poll in January indicated Brown was leading Buehler 46 percent to 29 percent.
The latest poll, showing Brown struggling against a Republican in a solid blue state, strikes at the core of Democrats’ messaging about the looming so-called “blue wave” in the upcoming midterm elections.
Buehler is running a campaign based strictly on statewide issues, avoiding any national politics distractions. His platform is moderate Republican, promising to “restore fiscal sanity” and not to impose new taxes, all while improving the state’s education system.
Brown, meanwhile, appears to stick to the Democratic Party’s efforts to gather support by pointing fingers at the White House in a bid to energize voters in a state where the overwhelming majority of voters supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016.
Brown has since become a loud voice in national politics. She has repeatedly called out the Trump administration over issues of immigration and, more recently, criticized the selection of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court.
But attacks on Trump may not work against Buehler as he himself once condemned Trump. In 2015, before Trump became the Republican Party’s nominee for the president, Buehler called Trump “angry” and “self-absorbed” while urging voters to reject him in the state's GOP primary.
“For Republicans to win nationally and here in Oregon, we need a presidential nominee and GOP that is positive, inclusive and hopeful,” he said at the time.

Georgia lawmaker to resign after yelling racial slurs, dropping pants on Sacha Baron Cohen show

Rep. Jason Spencer announced his resignation Tuesday following backlash from his appearance in an episode of "Who Is America," starring Sacha Baron Cohen, on Sunday in which he dropped his pants and used racial slurs.  (Showtime via AP) 

 

A Georgia state lawmaker on Tuesday announced that he will resign just days after he appeared on an episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s controversial new show, “Who is America?” in which he took off his pants and shouted racial slurs. 
Rep. Jason Spencer plans to step down from his post on July 31, the Georgia House speaker's office said.
Spencer faced backlash after he repeatedly yelled the N-Word and mimicked a Chinese tourist while taking a photo up the skirt of an actor pretending to be a Muslim woman during Sunday’s episode.
Cohen, who posed as an Israeli military expert, also had Spencer expose his backside in an exercise to ward off a potential terrorist, while shouting, “USA mother----r.”
Spencer is one of several public figures -- including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- who claimed to have been duped into participating in the Showtime program.
Spencer previously said he was tricked into doing the show because of his “fears that I would be attacked by someone” and that “they exploited my state of mind for profit and notoriety.”
“This media company’s deceptive and fraudulent behavior is exactly why President Donald Trump was elected,” Spencer said in a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, while threatening to take legal action if the “fraudulently obtained footage of me is used by these Hollywood liberals to line their own pockets.”
Several Republican colleagues called for Spencer’s resignation following his “appalling and offensive” conduct on the show.
“There is no excuse for this type of behavior, ever, and I am saddened and disgusted by it,” Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, said in a tweet.
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is running for governor, removed Spencer from his campaign’s list of endorsements, he announced on social media.
“Rep. Spencer's words and behavior are hurtful, insensitive, and completely unacceptable. At the very least, he should issue a public apology for this shameful incident,” Kemp said in a statement.

Giuliani slams 'outrageous' Cohen-Trump tape leak, claims recording ends at key point

Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Trump, told Fox News on Tuesday that it is 'outrageous' that an audio conversation between Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen was leaked to the media and questioned why the recording ended at a key part in the conversation.
Giuliani told Laura Ingraham, host of “The Ingraham Angle,” that he found out the tape was leaked at 6 p.m. Tuesday. He said Trump's legal team listened numerous times to the tape and determined that the then-candidate told Cohen, “Don’t pay with cash.”
“Cohen then interrupts,” Giuliani said. “And says, “No, no, no, I got it.’ And then you hear — distinctly … if you’re careful and you slow (the tape) it down — ‘check.’ And then Cohen follows with ‘No, no, no,’ and then quickly cuts off the tape.”
Giuliani admitted that the audio was muffled, but said the rest of the recording -- had it not stopped -- would have been “exculpatory,” from the point of view from the president.
The former prosecutor said he spent about 4,000 hours listening to legal recordings in his career and he is confident that if the public listens to the tape three times, "it will become clear."
CNN on Tuesday played the secretly recorded audiotape from two months before the 2016 presidential election. The tape was provided to CNN by Cohen's attorney, Lanny Davis.
Davis, 72, was a special counsel to President Bill Clinton and regularly appeared on television to defend the Democrat during his 1998 impeachment.
Davis said he will not give another original copy to any other network. He gave one copy to CNN, to defend his client, whom he said was “falsely accused.”

“The president does bring up cash, but he said, ‘Don’t pay with cash.’”
- Rudy Giuliani

The conversation between Trump and Cohen came weeks after the National Enquirer's parent company reached a $150,000 deal to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal for her story of a 2006 affair, which it never published, a tabloid practice known as "catch and kill."
Trump denies the affair ever happened and his campaign had said he knew nothing about the payment.
Trump and Cohen appear to be discussing buying the rights to McDougal's story from the Enquirer's parent company.
Cohen can be heard on the tape saying that he needed to start a company "for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," a possible reference to David Pecker, Trump's friend and president of the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc.
When Cohen begins to discuss financing, Trump interrupts him and asks, "What financing?"
"We'll have to pay," Cohen responded.
The audio is muffled, but Trump can be heard saying "pay with cash," though it isn't clear if he is suggesting to pay with cash or not to pay with cash.
“The president does bring up cash,” Giuliani said. “But he said, ‘Don’t pay with cash.’”
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, posted on Twitter that the Cohen tape shows that Giuliani was "untruthful" when he said Trump didn't know about the payments. He said the move was "campaign motivated" and "regardless of cash or check, whole point of phony corp. was to hide campaign expenditure."

Russian Meddling Cartoons

Why do Democrats only care about Russian meddling when it comes to Trump?

Human rights groups say nearly 300 anti-government protesters have been killed after the government tried to scale back social security for Nicaraguans; national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reports.
Americans are rightly upset over President Trump’s obsequiousness toward Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. The former KGB agent heads a gangster government, and Mr. Trump should have stood up to him.
On the other hand, Democrats’ moralizing Helsinki hysteria is phony. They’re upset with Mr. Putin’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election because Hillary Clinton lost. When it comes to Russian expansionism in the Western Hemisphere and the Kremlin’s abysmal human-rights record, the American left mostly looks the other way.
Democratic ballyhooing over Mr. Putin’s habit of jailing and sometimes killing his political and media opponents is especially rich. Russia’s longstanding ally Cuba has an even worse civil-liberties record. Yet when President Obama unconditionally reshaped U.S. policy to please Cuban dictator Raúl Castro, his party cheered. Mr. Obama even trotted off to a baseball game in Havana with the Cuban mob boss. Democrats cheered some more.
Advocates of the Obama Cuba policy argue that Havana poses no threat to U.S. interests. But if regional security, stability and economic growth matter, that is demonstrably false. Sixty years after Castro came to power, Cuba, with strong backing from the Kremlin, still underwrites tyranny in Central and South America.