Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Democrat walks out of moment of silence for Texas massacre victims
California Rep. Ted Lieu that he would not join his colleagues who were observing the moment of silence in the chambers of the House of Representatives. |
A junior Democratic congressman walked out of a
moment of silence Monday night for victims of this weekend's mass
shooting at a Texas church.
In a video posted to Facebook Monday
evening, California Rep. Ted Lieu said that he would not join his
colleagues who were observing the moment of silence in the chambers of
the House of Representatives.
"I can’t do this again; I’ve been to too many moments
of silences," Lieu said in the video. "In just my short period in
Congress, three of the worst mass shootings in us history have occurred.
I will not be silent.”"I urge us to pass reasonable gun safety legislation, including a universal background check law supported by 80 percent of Americans, a ban on assault rifles and a ban on bump stocks,” Lieu added.
Lieu has been active on social media since the shooting.
"My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families affected by the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs," he posted on Twitter Sunday.
But just two hours later, after some of his followers objected to the measured nature of the tweet, Lieu unloaded on the National Rifle Association.
"I agree my prior tweet could be better," Lieu tweeted. "So here: I pray for the victims in TX. Also, screw the @NRA & can you help Dems take back the House."
Classy woman fired after flipping off Trump's motorcade
President Trump's motorcade drives through New York City during the United Nations General Assembly. |
What a Classy Lady. |
The woman who flipped off President Trump's motorcade last month said Monday that she was fired on Halloween for violating her employer's code of conduct policy -- but she vowed she would do it all over again if given the chance.
Juli Briskman, 50, now an ex-member of the marketing team at the government contractor Akima LLC, was on her bicycle on Oct. 28 when Trump's motorcade drove by her on a northern Virginia road.
A photo that quickly went viral showed her raising the middle finger of her left hand in defiance as the motorcade returned from the Trump National Golf Club.
"My finger said what I was feeling," Briskman, who had been on the job for just over six months, told CNN. "I'm angry and I'm frustrated."
Briskman's face was not visible in the photo, but she claimed she immediately confessed her involvement to her employer the Monday after the photo went viral.
Briskman said she was then promptly fired on Tuesday from the government contracting firm and escorted out of the building for violating the "code of conduct policy."
“They said, ‘We’re separating from you,‘” Briskman told the Huffington Post. “Basically, you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
Briskman, who claimed she was fired because her employer was worried about losing government contracts, said she has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. She insisted she would flip off the president again if given the chance.
"Health care doesn't pass, but you try to dismantle it from the inside," Briskman told CNN. "Five-hundred people get shot in Las Vegas; you're doing nothing about it. You know, white supremacists have this big march and hurt a bunch of people down in Charlottesville and you call them good people."
Election Day: Trump factor looms large in Virginia, New Jersey governor's races
Virginia is one of only two states that have off-year governor's races on Election Day 2017. Here's why the Virginia race is getting national attention and how the "Trump effect" could impact the battle between Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam.
Democrats have worked feverishly all
year to make nearly every local election a referendum on President Trump
– and Tuesday's gubernatorial races are no exception.
The Trump factor looms large in the
marquee Virginia gubernatorial race, where Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph
Northam and his allies have churned out mailers and ads tying Republican
rival Ed Gillespie to the Trump White House at every turn.
The Trump-referendum strategy has not been particularly
successful for Democrats in the House special elections so far this
year. But this time, polls in New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial
races show the Democratic candidates in the lead.In New Jersey, Democratic nominee Phil Murphy holds a substantial lead over Republican Kim Guadagno.
But the race in Virginia is considerably tighter. According to the latest Fox News Poll released Monday, Northam holds a 5-point edge over Gillespie, who says there is “no doubt” the polls are close.
In the final stretch, Gillespie questioned whether the Democrats' Trump-all-the-time strategy is a sound one.
FOX NEWS POLL: VIRGINIA GOVERNOR'S RACE REMAINS TIGHT
“They’ve known they’re in a close race for some time. They’ve been throwing the kitchen sink at us with awful and vile ads,” Gillespie said on Fox News’ “Daily Briefing” Monday.
The most controversial of those ads was run by a Democratic group, Latino Victory Fund. It showed minority children seemingly being chased by a driver in a pickup truck, decked out with a Confederate flag and a “Gillespie for governor” bumper sticker. The ad concluded with a scene of a Charlottesville-like rally, with a narrator asking: “Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the ‘American Dream?’”
The ad was removed after extensive backlash.
ELECTION DAY 2017: FULL COVERAGE
Other mailers boast that Northam is "standing up to Trump and Gillespie's politics of fear and hate."
“Independent groups are denouncing Ed Gillespie because he has run the most divisive, fear-mongering campaign in modern history,” Northam campaign spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel said in a statement to Fox News. “It is not shocking that communities of color are scared of what his Trump-like policy positions mean for them.”
Northam has campaigned with Democratic power players like former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden and even had a fundraiser headlined by Hillary Clinton.
WHO ARE ED GILLESPIE AND RALPH NORTHAM?
Meanwhile, Gillespie has garnered Republican support, with a fundraiser hosted by former President George W. Bush. He was joined by Vice President Pence on the campaign trail—but not Trump. Trump, though, has repeatedly expressed his support for Gillespie on Twitter.
"The state of Virginia economy, under Democrat rule, has been terrible. If you vote Ed Gillespie tomorrow, it will come roaring back!" Trump tweeted Monday.
Despite Democrats' claims, Gillespie seems to be keeping a certain distance from Trump, while telling Fox News that he would work with “President Trump and Vice President Pence and the Cabinet.” He listed priorities for Virginia, like “building more ships” and “keeping Norfolk the largest base in the world.”
“In terms of working with the president and vice president, any governor of Virginia has to be able to work with the president of the United States,” Gillespie said Monday. “That’s always been our history given our proximity. I’ll be able to.”
Murphy, a multimillionaire former Goldman Sachs executive and former U.S. ambassador to Germany, said the choice for New Jersey’s next governor couldn’t be clearer.
“On the one hand more of the same, another Chris Christie four years of failed politics, of failed politices for the middle class that was hollowed out and ravaged, where public education doesn’t get funded, infrastructure is ignored, we become more unfair by the day and we are caught in this awful us vs. them vortex,” Murphy said at a recent campaign event. “Or we can turn the page and change.”
Guadagno’s response? She reminds voters that Christie is no longer on the ballot.
Murphy, like Northam, also has welcomed big names on the campaign trail, with former Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton, and Biden, at campaign events.
There is much at stake in both gubernatorial elections, but whoever takes the governor’s mansion in New Jersey could have the added responsibility of appointing a senator—if Sen. Bob Mendendez, D-N.J., is convicted in his corruption trial and resigns.
Menendez maintains his innocence. But if he were to step down, the appointment decision would have serious implications for Trump's policy agenda in a closely divided Senate.
“With the Senate so evenly divided, the outcome of the New Jersey gubernatorial election, if Senator Menendez were to be convicted, could determine the Trump agenda and if it would move forward with greater ease in the Senate," said Brigid Harrison, a professor of political science and law at Montclair State University.
Another race to watch Tuesday is in Utah, with the election to fill the House seat previously held by Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz who resigned from his post in June.
As kidnapped American professor's health dangerously deteriorates, pressure on Pakistan again mounts
It has been a year and three months since five
gunmen disguised in Afghan military uniforms targeted an SUV on a main
road near Kabul’s American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) — taking
two foreign professors, U.S. citizen Kevin King, 60, and Australian Timothy Weeks, 48, as hostages.
But as King’s health dangerously
declines, a spotlight again has been put on Pakistan and what role they
can play in facilitating an urgent release. Najib Danish, the
spokesperson of the Afghan Ministry of Interior, told Fox News that they
believe the professors are being held in the border region — on the
Pakistan side.
“The terrorists do not have the power to keep hostages
for such a long time in Afghanistan because the people here would have
let Afghan Forces know of their location by now,” he said. “We are sure
the Pakistan government wants to take advantage of these professors and
at some point will release them like the other couple. This is a game by
Pakistan.”Last week, the Afghan Taliban released a statement indicating that King is seriously ill and requires urgent medical attention.
“His illness has intensified, his feet have swollen and sometimes he becomes unconscious and his condition worsens every day,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said. “We have tried to treat him time to time but we do not have medical facilities as we are in a war situation.”
A senior Afghan intel source, connected to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), also affirmed to Fox News that the professors were kidnapped by Haqqani with the help of “internal circles,” which function like criminal gangs in Kabul. According to the source, they were held initially in the Arzo district of Logar province in the Speen Jomat area, just a few miles from the tribal area of Pakistan known as Parachinar, but were later shifted deeper inside the Kurram district inside the bordering tribal areas.
The NDS source also claimed that the Haqqani network continues to demand the release of one of their top commanders, Anas Haqqani, who was captured in 2014 and sentenced to death by Afghan officials and that there are some Afghan officials pushing for this maneuver under the belief it may make foreign visitors safer.
However, a well-placed U.S. official told Fox News that they are absolutely standing by their no-concession policy, and that there will be no such trades made. Nonetheless, they do believe King’s condition to be especially dire and are calling for the immediate release of the professors on humanitarian grounds, stressing that “time is of the essence.”
The Taliban, which did not provide proof of King’s deteriorating condition, indicated in their statement last week that the U.S. is running out of time to fulfil its demands and that the “Islamic emirate will not be held responsible” if he dies.
The Pakistan Embassy in the U.S. did not respond to a further request for comment, but Washington-based Pakistan Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry assured Fox News in September that they do not allow insurgent groups to operate in their territory, and that the government has regained full control of the country — including the oft-considered lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Chaudhry also insisted that it is the Afghan government which needs to stop sending “mixed messages” to groups like the Taliban. The two neighboring countries long have had tensions over issues of security and terrorism, and which country is to blame for its export.
DOZENS OF AWOL AFGHAN TRAINEES IN THE US REMAIN UNACCOUNTED FOR, REPORT SAYS
GETTING TOUGH ON THE TALIBAN: TRUMP ADMIN SAID TO BE URGING CLOSURE OF THE MILITANT GROUP'S QATAR OFFICE
The last visual proof-of-life came in June with the release of a video by the Taliban, in which the two appeared haggard seemingly speaking into a laptop webcam with King pleading to President Trump: “Have mercy on me and get me out,” and “please do not send any commandos.”
AUAF also is cooperating closely with authorities to push for a release, but acknowledged that efforts to have their staff members released so far have proven fruitless.
“We are really worried about their health and safety. They were here to teach the Afghan boys and girls, the future of this country and this has had bad effects on all our educational programs,” an official, who asked not to be identified, said. “We are still trying our best to release them, and we are talking to Afghan officials. No one has asked us for money yet, we just hope for their safe release.”
The students too have taken a vocal role in requesting that their professors be returned safely.
One student, Marzia, described King as someone “extremely passionate about teaching them about the world,” and another, Freshta, stressed that King and Weeks only ever wanted to see them do well.
“They came to Afghanistan as teachers, to help us. These innocent people have done nothing to harm anyone and they need to be reunited with their family, friends and colleagues,” she added. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them, and we will not feel good until they are safely back with us.”
Monday, November 6, 2017
Man hailed a hero for chasing Texas church gunman after massacre
Johnnie Langendorff said in a interview that he helped track down the gunman after the Texas church massacre. (Fox San Antonio) |
One of the men who said he helped tracked down the
Texas church gunman on Sunday is being hailed a hero for potentially
preventing more bloodshed after the deadly shooting.
Johnnie Langendorff told Fox San Antonio that he decided to track down the killer after seeing the gunman exchanging fire with a member of the community.
Multiple sources speaking to Fox News identified the
gunman as 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley. The mass shooting
unfolded around 11:30 a.m. at First Baptist Church of Sutherland
Springs, which is about 30 miles southeast of San Antonio. At least 26
people were killed and 20 wounded.Langendorff said he arrived at an intersection near the church. He said he witnessed two men exchange fire and recognized one of them from the community.
“The shooter of the church had taken off, fled in his vehicle, the other gentleman came and said we need to pursue him. And that’s what I did, I just acted,” he told a local TV station Ksat.com.
Following a brief chase, the two caught up with the gunman.
“He got a little bit of a jump on us. We were doing about 95 (mph) down (Route) 539 going around traffic and everything. Eventually he came to a kind of a slowdown and after that we got within just a few feet of him and then he got off the road,” he said.
“He just lost control. That is when I put the vehicle in park and I was still on the phone to dispatch (police). The other gentleman jumped out and has his rifle drawn on him. He didn’t move after that.”
Police arrived within five to seven minutes to the location where the shooter stopped. “We led police to him,” he said, according to Ksat.com.
Langendorff said he was not aware at the time of the chase that the shooter had additional weapons in his vehicle and he might have prevented more deaths.
Trump says Texas church shooting result of 'mental health problem,' calls gunman 'deranged'
Nov. 6: President Trump issued a
statement on the Texas church shooting during a news conference with
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.
(Reuters)
President Trump on Monday said the
mass shooting at a Texas church is the result of a "mental health
problem at the highest level" and called the gunman a “very deranged
individual.”
Trump was at an even with Japan’s
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo and responded to questions about the
shooting Sunday at a Texas church that killed at least 26 and wounded
20.
“This isn’t a guns situation,” Trump said. “This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event.”Authorities on Monday were working to determine a motive in the shooting that occured at around 11:30 a.m. at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, which is about 30 miles southeast of San Antonio.
Multiple sources told Fox News the gunman was 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley.
Kelley lived in a suburb of San Antonio and didn't appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. The official said investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley may have made in the days before Sunday's attack, including one that appeared to show a semiautomatic weapon.
Authorities said the gunman wore black tactical gear and a ballistic vest when he pulled into a gas station across from the church. He crossed the street and started firing a Ruger AR rifle at the church, said Freeman Martin, a regional director of the Texas Department of Safety, then continued firing after entering the white wood-frame building, where an 11 a.m. service was scheduled.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr., whose territory includes Sutherland Springs, said there was likely "no way" for the church congregation to escape once the shooting started.
"You've got your pews on either side. He just walked down the center aisle, turned around and my understanding was shooting on his way back out," said Tackitt, who said the shooter also carried a handgun but that he didn't know if it was fired.
Tackitt described the scene inside the church as "terrible."
"It's unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenseless people," Tackitt said. "I guess it was seeing the children that were killed. It's one thing to see an adult, but to see a 5-year-old ..."
As he left, the shooter was confronted by an armed resident who "grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect," Martin said. A short time later, the suspect was found dead in his vehicle at the county line.
Several weapons were found inside the vehicle and Martin said it was unclear if the attacker died of a self-inflicted wound or if he was shot by the resident who confronted him. He said investigators weren't ready to discuss a possible motive. Martin said 23 of the dead were found in the church, two were found outside and one died after being taken to a hospital.
The man who confronted Kelley had help from another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who told KSAT TV that he was driving past the church as the shooting happened.
"I was strictly just acting on what's the right thing to do," Langendorff said.
Gov. Greg Abbott called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
Among those killed was the church pastor's 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy. Pastor Frank Pomeroy, and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message.
"We lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends," she wrote. "Neither of us has made it back into town yet to personally see the devastation. I am at the charlotte airport trying to get home as soon as i can."
Federal agents swarmed the small rural community of a few hundred residents, including ATF investigators and the FBI's evidence collection team.
Later Sunday, two sheriff's vans were parked outside the gate of a cattle fence surrounding the address listed for Kelley on the rural, western outskirts of New Braunfels, north of San Antonio.
Ryan Albers, 16, who lives across the road, said he heard intensifying gunfire coming from that direction in recent days.
The church has posted videos of its Sunday services on a YouTube channel, raising the possibility that the shooting was captured on video.
Shocking Donna Brazile expose drives Hillary camp into chaos, may throw crucial Virginia governor race to the GOP
Donna Brazile's scathing review of
Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign sent more shock
waves this weekend through the Democratic Party, with members eager to
bury the Clinton era ahead of Tuesday’s key Virginia governor’s race and
other upcoming elections.
“Those telling me to shut up … I tell
them, 'Go to hell.' I’m gonna tell my story,” Brazile, who ran the
Democratic National Committee during the 2016 White House race, on
Sunday told ABC’s “This Week.”
Brazile roiled the political world on Thursday when she
published excerpts in Politico of her upcoming book that detailed a
2015 money deal between the Clinton campaign and the DNC that made
winning the party’s presidential nomination nearly impossible for any
other Democratic candidate.NBC News published a memorandum Saturday detailing the joint-fundraising agreement that shows the Clinton camp would have input on such key DNC decisions as hiring and spending, in exchange for helping the group with its roughly $20 million debt.
The memo also made clear that other potential candidates could enter into a similar agreement with the DNC.
But Brazile suggested Sunday that the authority the Clinton camp had under the agreement went beyond “standard” joint-fundraising agreement and that a “separate,” undisclosed deal also existed.
“I could not control the purse strings of the Democratic Party,” she said. “I become chair, and I'm trying to write a check for something that I raised money (for.) And they're like, 'You have to get that signed off on from Brooklyn.' This wasn’t a standard joint fundraising agreement. … They had separate memo of understanding.”
A review Saturday by The Washington Post of the book -- “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House” -- resulted in former Clinton campaign staffers on Saturday penning an open letter, disputing Brazile’s accusations that the campaign was tone-deaf to middle-class voters, acted with a false sense of “inevitability” and in the closing weeks had “the odor of failure.”
According to the review, Brazile, who is African-American, also said she felt the campaign treated her like a “slave” and that she considered replacing Clinton with then-Vice President Joe Biden, after Clinton passed out during a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York City.
“We were shocked to learn the news that Donna Brazile actively considered overturning the will of the Democratic voters by attempting to replace Hillary Clinton,” campaign members, including Robby Mook, John Podesta and Huma Abedin, in part said in the letter. “It is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian-fueled propaganda, spread by both the Russians and our opponent, about our candidate’s health. … Finally, we are pretty tired of people who were not part of our campaign telling the world what it was like to be on the inside.”
To be sure, the scathing criticism of one long-standing Democrat on other members of her own party comes at a bad time -- days away from the Virginia gubernatorial race featuring Republican Ed Gillespie against Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam.
The RealClearPolitics polls average shows Northam now leading by 3 percentage points, essentially a dead heat, after leading by nearly 7 points just weeks ago.
“Donna Brazile going off the reservation right now is bad for Democrats,” Republican strategist Rory McShane told Fox News on Sunday. “But we’ve seen this before in off-year elections like in Georgia and South Carolina, where Democrats believed they’d win. This is just the latest case of no message, no organization, no leadership.”
Tom Perez, the new DNC chairman, on Sunday, after The Post review of Brazile’s book, rushed to assure Democrats that he would clean up the group’s mess ahead of the next presidential election cycle.
“While we’ve made remarkable progress since last November, we still have a long way to go,” he said in a statement. “I am more committed than ever before to restoring voters’ faith in our democratic process because even the perception of impartiality or an unfair advantage undermines our ability to win. That is unacceptable. To that end, the new DNC under my leadership is committed to the task of making sure that our 2020 nominating process will be unquestionably fair and transparent.”
Liz Smith, who was a spokeswoman for Martin O’Malley, another 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, on Saturday told Fox News’ “America’s News Headquarters”: “I know Donald Trump and Republicans would like to use Hillary Clinton as a whipping boy. But she’s in our past. We are moving beyond her.”
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