Tillerson urges calm after 5 Arab nations sever diplomatic ties with Qatar

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the Gulf nations to work out their differences after five countries severed ties with Qatar Monday for allegedly embracing several terrorist groups and its ties with Iran.
Tillerson, speaking alongside Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Sydney, said he did not believe the diplomatic crisis would affect the war against the Islamic State.
"I think what we're witnessing is a growing list of disbelief in the countries for some time, and they've bubbled up to take action in order to have those differences addressed," Tillerson said. "We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences."
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen all announced they would withdraw their diplomatic staff from Qatar, which is home to a major U.S. military base used for the air campaign against ISIS. Saudi Arabia also said Qatari troops would be pulled from the ongoing civil war in Yemen.
All the nations also said they planned to cut air and sea traffic. Saudi Arabia said it also would shut its land border with Qatar, effectively cutting off the country from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.
Yemen's internationally recognized government said it would follow Saudi Arabia and supported the kingdom's decision to remove Qatari troops from the Gulf coaltion fighting the war.
Qatar had appeared unperturbed by the growing tensions. On May 27, Qatar's ruling emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, called Iranian President Hasan Rouhani to congratulate him on his re-election.
The call was a clear, public rebuttal of Saudi Arabia's efforts to force Qatar to fall in line against the Shiite-ruled nation, which the Sunni kingdom sees as its No. 1 enemy and a threat to regional stability. Qatar shares a massive offshore gas field with the Islamic Republic.
Saudi Arabia said it took the decision to cut diplomatic ties due to Qatar's "embrace of various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region" including the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida, the Islamic State group and groups supported by Iran in the kingdom's restive eastern province of Qatif. Egypt's Foreign Ministry accused Qatar of taking an "antagonist approach" toward Egypt and said "all attempts to stop it from supporting terrorist groups failed."
The tiny island nation of Bahrain blamed Qatar's "media incitement, support for armed terrorist activities and funding linked to Iranian groups to carry out sabotage and spreading chaos in Bahrain" for its decision.
Qatar said later Monday there was "no legitimate justification" for the Arab nations to cut ties.
The crisis comes after U.S. President Donald Trump's recent visit to Saudi Arabia for a summit with Arab leaders. Since the meeting, unrest in the region has grown.
At that Saudi conference, Trump met with Qatar's ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
"We are friends, we've been friends now for a long time, haven't we?" Trump asked at the meeting. "Our relationship is extremely good."

Al Gore: Trump's Paris climate decision 'reckless,' indefensible’

Another Idiot is back.

Former Vice President Al Gore, a champion of environmental issues, on Sunday blasted President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, saying the move was “reckless” and “indefensible."
“It makes no sense to me,” Gore told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think that it was a reckless decision, an indefensible decision.”
Trump, citing economic reasons, decided last week not to join six other industrial nations in reaffirming their country's commitment to the accord -- an effort to curb global warming by reducing greenhouse gases and other air pollutants.
Gore talked in person to Trump after he won the 2016 presidential election. Gore said Sunday that the substance of their conversations will remain confidential, but made clear he tried to convince Trump to stay in the Paris deal.
“I did my best to persuade him that it was in the country’s best interest,” said Gore, whose 2006 documentary  “An Inconvenient Truth” warns about the dangers of global warming. “Climate change is real. … The president won’t say it, but it’s true.”
Gore argued Sunday that reducing carbon emissions is a global challenge and that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord has hurt America’s stature.
“I think it undermines our nation’s standing in the world and isolates us and threatens to harm humanity’s ability to solve this crisis in time,” he said.
Earlier on “Fox News Sunday,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt responded to such claims, saying: “We’re the United States. We’ll always have a seat at the table.”

London attacks: Trump vows to protect US from 'vile enemy'

President Donald Trump spoke out on the latest London terror attacks on Sunday night, vowing to do whatever was needed to protect his country from a "vile enemy."
Giving his first public comments on the attacks, Trump said, "This bloodshed must end, this bloodshed will end." He was appearing with First Lady Melania Trump at a fundraiser for Ford's Theater in Washington, the site of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
"America sends our thoughts and prayers and our deepest sympathies to the victims of this evil slaughter and we renew our resolve, stronger than ever before, to protect the United States and its allies from a vile enemy that has waged war on innocent life, and it's gone on too long," Trump added. "As president I will do what is necessary to prevent this threat from spreading to our shores and work every day to protect the safety and security to our country, our communities and our people."
The president said he had spoken with British Prime Minister Theresa May to express America's "unwavering support" and offer aid. He tweeted a string of comments in the hours after the attack, offering help for the U.K. and criticizing political correctness, among other things.
The attacks at London Bridge and nearby Borough Market killed at least seven people and wounded nearly 50 others Saturday night. Police said they shot and killed the three attackers.
After more than 20 people were killed in the suicide bombing last month at a concert in Manchester, England, Trump condemned the assault as the act of "evil losers" and called on nations to band together to fight terrorism.
Earlier Sunday, Trump had criticized London's mayor after he sought to reassure residents about a stepped-up police presence following the attack, the third in the country in past three months, arguing on Twitter for leaders to "stop being politically correct" and focus on "security for our people."
The mayor's spokesman said he was too busy to respond to Trump's "ill-informed" tweet.
In a series of tweets that began late Saturday, Trump also pushed his stalled travel ban, mocked gun control supporters and pledged that the United States would be there to help London and the United Kingdom.

Democrats Easy on Terrorism Cartoons

Supreme Court could rule within days on lifting temporary stay on travel ban

The Supreme Court could rule within days on whether to lift a temporary stay on President Trump's revised executive order banning travel from six mostly Muslim countries.
The issue has become a major test of presidential power, especially in the area of immigration. At issue is whether the ban violates the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, and the ban on nationality discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas contained in a 65-year-old congressional law.
The Justice Department filed the ruling request with the justices late Thursday, also asking that the federal policy be enforced while the larger issues are litigated.
A federal appeals court in Virginia last month ruled against Executive Order 13769, "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States." A majority of the 4th Circuit appeals court cited then-candidate Trump's campaign statements proposing a ban "preventing Muslim immigration."
The Trump administration said that ruling was flawed on several legal fronts, and asserted the president's broad authority over immigration matters.
But groups opposing the ban were confident the Supreme Court would eventually side with them and lower courts to strike down the executive order.
There was no timetable on how quickly the Supreme Court would issue a final ruling in the case.
Two federal appeals courts had been considering the issue. A ruling from the San Francisco-based 9^th Circuit is still pending, but the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to get involved in the issue now.
The justices have the discretion to wait indefinitely to decide the broader merits of the case, but will issue an order in the meantime on whether the ban can be temporarily enforced. The federal government asked the high court to allow the order to go into effect now, and proposed oral arguments be held in October.
The White House frames the issue as a temporary move involving national security. A coalition of groups in opposition call the order blatant religious discrimination, since the six countries involved have mostly-Muslim populations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.      
This is the White House's second effort to impose a travel ban. An order issued a week after President Trump took office was also quickly blocked from taking effect. Nationwide protests were held in many cities and airports.
Rather than continue defending that executive action in the courts, the administration issued its revised order March 6, which included removing Iraq from the original list of banned countries. It also lifted the indefinite ban on Syrian refugees, many fleeing a years-long civil war there.
Officials say the new executive order only applied to foreign nationals outside the U.S. without a valid visa.
The appeals court took the president to task for what he said about a travel ban-- both before and after he took office.
Chief Judge Roger Gregory called it an "executive order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”
A major sticking point for the justices will be navigating how much discretion the president really has over immigration. Courts have historically been deferential in this area, and recent presidents including Carter, Reagan and Obama have used it to deny entry to certain refugees and diplomats, including from nations such as Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.
A 1952 federal law-- the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in the midst of a Cold War fear over Communist influence-- gives the chief executive broad authority.

Spending bills, debt ceiling complicate Hill Republicans' efforts on taxes, ObamaCare

The GOP-controlled Congress returns Monday in what members and top staffers say will be one of the busiest Junes in years —  as Republicans try to pass ObamaCare reform or another top item on President Trump’s legislative agenda.
Their goal to give Trump -- and themselves -- a major win during the president’s first year in office continues to be complicated by additional legislative challenges and the ongoing Capitol Hill investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential elections.
Lawmakers are way behind on the annual spending legislation to keep the government fully operational past September and likely will have to pass another stop-gap measure.
In addition, they recently were informed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that they will have to raise the federal government's borrowing limit before August, a daunting task ripe for brinkmanship.
Senate Republicans say they are working daily behind closed doors to craft an ObamaCare overhaul bill, following the House last month passing its version. However, Republicans appear less than optimistic about crafting a bill that at least 51 of its 52 senators will sign.
“I don't see a comprehensive health care plan this year," North Carolina GOP Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate's Intelligence committee, on Friday told a hometown TV station. "At the end of the day, this is too important to get wrong."
Still, Trump and essentially every elected Washington Republican campaigned on repealing and replacing ObamaCare. So failing in that effort would be a big problem with voters, ahead of the 2018 midterm races in which Democrats are trying to win about two dozen more House seats to retake the chamber.
"We just need to work harder," Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, told KFYO radio in Lubbock over the week-long congressional recess that ends Sunday.
And he pledged to complete the health care “by the end of July at the latest."
Congress has yet to unveil a plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code -- another Trump campaign promise -- even though the president recently tweeted that the plan is ahead of schedule.
"The president keeps saying the tax bill is moving through Congress. It doesn't exist," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said mockingly on Friday. 
Seven legislative weeks are left before Congress scatters for the five-week August recess.
Healthcare and taxes are enormously difficult challenges, and the tax legislation must follow -- for procedural reasons -- passage of a budget, no small task on its own.
Looming over everything is the investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and connections with the Trump campaign.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump, is scheduled to testify before the Senate on Thursday.
"The Russia investigation takes a lot of oxygen, it takes a lot of attention," said Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a veteran lawmaker.
Trump has hired an outside attorney and reportedly dedicated an entire team to the issue -- in an apparent attempt to limit the amount of distraction the issue is creating for his legislative agenda.
Cole also argued that Republicans have not gotten the credit they deserve to date for what they have accomplished: voting to overturn a series of Obama regulations and reaching compromise last month on spending legislation for the remainder of the 2017 budget year that included a big increase for defense.
The biggest bright spot for the party and for Trump remains Senate confirmation in early April of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose elevation goes far to placate conservatives frustrated with inaction on other fronts.
Historically, Capitol Hill has been at its busiest and most productive in the early days of a new president's administration, during the traditional honeymoon. But with his approval ratings hovering around 40 percent, Trump never got that grace period, and although his core supporters show no signs of abandoning him, he is not providing the focused leadership usually essential to helping pass major legislation.
In the Senate, Republicans' slim 52-48 majority gives them little room for error on healthcare and taxes, issues where they are using complicated procedural rules to move ahead with simple majorities and no Democratic support. Trump's apparent disengagement from the legislative process was evident this past week when he demanded on Twitter that the Senate "should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy."
In fact that's exactly how Republicans already are moving. But the trouble is within their own ranks as Senate Republicans disagree over how quickly to unwind the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law as well as other elements of the GOP bill.
For some Republicans, their sights are set on the more immediate and necessary tasks of completing the annual spending bills that are needed to avert a government shutdown when the budget year ends September 30, and on raising the debt ceiling to avert a first-ever default.

London terror: Saturday attacks a tipping point in campaign to destroy the West

There is no longer any doubt: the mayhem in London Saturday night has raised terrorism to a new threat level to the Western world.
The methods, and reported reference to Allah by one of the knife wielders points to Islamic perpetrators, though no official statements have been issued. Yet the van that plowed into pedestrians on the historic London Bridge, the knife attacks near Borough Market – carried out nearly simultaneously – reflect the same boldness and brazenness on the part of the twisted warriors of the Islamist campaign to destroy Western civilization and force us all to worship their version of God.
Coming only a few days before British voters go to the polls for a June 8 snap election, and just months after a similar vehicular attack on Westminster Bridge, the weekend violence is certain to have an effect on turnout and, quite possibly, the makeup of parliament and the next British government.
“My view is that we are no longer facing random acts of terrorism,” says Frank Gaffney, a terror expert who is president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy. “We have reached a tipping point. This is now an insurgency.”
Gaffney, who has warned of the dangers of Islamic extremism for years, thinks this latest spate of attacks is the natural evolution of years of recruitment among British Muslims by terror cells like ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.
“The Muslim terrorist population in Britain and Europe no longer feels constrained to live by stealth,” Gaffney says. “They have built an infrastructure, they have put it in place, and now they are moving up to the next level.”
Gaffney calls the new phenomenon “Sharia Supremacism.” And he warns that the United States is on the same trajectory.
He’s right.
For far too long, Western societies, including in the United States, have tried to rationalize what has now become an avalanche of violent hatred of democratic freedom, basic human rights, and freedom to choose if and how to worship. We have asked if some of this is our fault, if we haven’t listened to the voices of religious extremism, or if we have failed to understand their message. The result in Britain: government officials estimate there are more than 20,000 jihadists living among the population.
Here’s their message: We hate you and want to kill you.
Gaffney is among an emerging group of terrorism experts who now downplays the ideological differences between Shi’a and Sunni Muslim extremists. Yes, ISIS is peopled by Sunni killers and Hezbollah soldiers are Shi’a. The two Muslim sects dislike each other and have killed one another – always in Allah’s name, of course.
But here’s the thing, as Gaffney sees it: “Shi’as and Sunnis have had serious differences for centuries, but what we are seeing now is a global alliance, they are perfectly capable of making common cause to take down the West. And I think it will get worse before it gets better.”
For British voters, this week’s election may come down to one central issue: who will call these soldiers of Islam what they really are – savages – and keep us safe?

Trump uses suspected London terror attacks to again make case for US travel ban

President Trump responded Saturday evening to suspected terror attacks in London by vowing U.S. support and apparently using the incidents to bolster his legal argument for a travel ban into the United States.
Trump has tweeted three times since the first incident was reported on the London Bridge shortly after midnight local time.
“Fears of new terror attack after van 'mows down 20 people' on London Bridge …,” the president retweeted from the news aggregator DrudgeReport.com.
A second incident was reported in London shortly after the bridge incident -- multiple stabbings at the nearby Borough Market.
London police said about an hour after the attacks that they are terror related. They also said a third incident, in a southern part of the city named Vauxhall and thought to be connected to the other attacks, has been ruled out as a terror strike.
Trump later tweeted: “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”
Trump's executive order to impose a temporary travel on six mostly Muslim nations, training grounds for radical Islamic terror groups, is being held up in federal courts and appears headed to the Supreme Court.
His most recent tweet was: "Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K., we will be there - WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS!"
British Prime Minister Theresa May said the incidents are being treated as potential terror attacks.
The White House said Trump spoke with May and personally offered his condolences for "the brutal terror attacks."
Trump also praised the "heroic response of police and other first- responders," according to the White House.
The incidents come nine days after a suicide bomber with apparent ties to terror groups killed 22 people and injured scores of others outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.
Within minutes of the first incident, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that the president had been apprised.
The State Department said the United States "condemns the cowardly attacks targeting innocent civilians," which the agency understands are being treated by local authorities as terror incidents.
An agency spokeswoman also said the U.S. "stands ready to provide any assistance" and expressed support for the victims and their families.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement in which an official said the agency is "closely monitoring the ongoing situation."
The agency also said it so far has no information to indicate a "specific, credible terror threat in the United States."
Homeland Secretary John Kelly told Fox News said such a attack is "right around the corner" in the United States and that DHS and other domestic law enforcement agencies are working tirelessly to prevent another one here.
He repeated that the biggest threats remain explosives on airplanes and people in the U.S. being "radicalized" and committing attacks on American soil.
"I do toss and turn all night," Kelly also said.
DHS also urged Americans in the area to "heed direction from local authorities and maintain security awareness."
In addition, the agency is encouraging American citizens who need assistance to contact the U.S. Embassy in London and follow State Department guidance.