McConnell agrees to meet with 9/11 first responders after Jon Stewart’s urging: report

Sen. Mitch McConnell has plans to meet with 9/11 first responders on Tuesday in wake of the recent public tussle with Jon Stewart that culminated last Monday on Fox News when the Kentucky senator asked why Stewart was “bent out of shape.”
The of the FeelGood Foundation confirmed the meeting with The New York Post. John Feal said McConnell will meet with a few team leaders and said they “come in peace” but said he’s prepared for anything.
Stewart appeared on Capitol Hill and blasted Congress for its inaction on a permanent fix for the 9/11 victims fund, which is set to expire next year.
Stewart accused McConnell of slow-walking the legislation and using it as a political pawn to get other things done.
"If you're busy I get it," Stewart said. "Just understand that the next time we have war, or you're being robbed, or your house is on fire and you make that desperate call for help, don't get bent out of shape if they show up at the last minute with fewer people than you thought would pay attention and don't actually put it out. Just leave it there smoldering for another five years."
More than 40,000 people have applied to the fund, which covers illnesses potentially related to rescue work at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania. More than $5 billion in benefits have been awarded out of the $7.4 billion fund, with about 21,000 claims pending.
Asked again about it on Tuesday, McConnell said, "I don't know how many times I can say, we've never left the 9/11 victims behind and we won't again."
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Iranian official warns more US spy drones can be blown out of the sky

Photo released by the U.S. Air Force, an RQ-4 Global Hawk is seen on the tarmac of Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Airman 1st Class D. Blake Browning/U.S. Air Force via AP)

An Iranian military official said Monday that Tehran is capable of shooting down more American spy drones as tensions between the two countries continue to simmer, according to a report out of the country.
Rear. Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, Iran's naval chief, said Iran can deliver another “crushing response … and the enemy knows it," according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Trump called off military strikes against Tehran after Iranians shot down a U.S. surveillance drone, which was valued at over $100 million.
Iran claimed that the drone was flying over its airspace at the time of the shooting. Washington insisted that the drone was over international waters.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Trump said that he did not think the potential loss of life in Iran was “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
Instead of a military strike, the president noted that his administration plans to ratchet up the already hefty sanctions on Iran. Trump is prepared to announce new sanctions on the country on Monday.
Trump expressed his willingness to open talks with Iranian officials without any preconditions – saying that he doesn’t want a war with the Islamic Republic, but if it comes down to an armed conflict it will be “obliteration like you've never seen before.”
The Associated Press and Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Sanders to propose eliminating all $1.6T of student debt in US: report

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pauses while speaking during a forum on Friday, June 21, 2019, in Miami. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Bernie Sanders, the 2020 hopeful, is set to announce on Monday a policy proposal that would eliminate all $1.6 trillion of American student debt, according to a report.
The Democratic presidential candidate’s new proposal calls for the federal government to wipe clean the student debt held by 45 million Americans, including all private and graduate school debt, The Washington Post reported. The proposal package also includes making public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free.
Sanders reportedly plans to pay for the lofty proposal with a tax on Wall Street, which his campaign says will generate more than $2 trillion over 10 years. The tax would focus on financial transactions, the report said, such as a 0.5 percent tax on stock transactions and a 0.1 percent tax on bonds.
Sanders on Monday will join Rep. Ilhan Omar, who will introduce legislation in the House to eliminate all student debt in the United States. They will be joined by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“This is truly a revolutionary proposal,” said Sanders said in a statement, according to the Post. “In a generation hard hit by the Wall Street crash of 2008, it forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, another 2020 hopeful, announced in April a plan to cancel existing student loan debt for millions of Americans. Under Warren’s plan, each person’s student debt would get a relief of $50,000 if household income is up to $100,000. Higher incomes would also be entitled to massive debt reductions, while only those households with earnings of over $250,000 would get no student debt reduction.
“For example, a person with household income of $130,000 gets $40,000 in cancellation [of student debt], while a person with household income of $160,000 gets $30,000 in cancellation,” Warren in a blog post at the time.

Alien Cartoons

Pres. Trump and State Officials Speak on Upcoming Mass Deportation Sweep

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:13 AM PT — Saturday, June 22, 2019

President Trump says ‘when people come into our country illegally, they will be deported’.
That’s according to a series of tweets by President Trump Saturday, regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s upcoming deportation sweep this week.

The people that Ice will apprehend have already been ordered to be deported. This means that they have run from the law and run from the courts. These are people that are supposed to go back to their home country. They broke the law by coming into the country, & now by staying.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019

When people come into our Country illegally, they will be DEPORTED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019

The President said, the individuals ICE are scheduled to apprehend ‘have already been ordered to be deported’ saying ‘they have run from the law and run from the courts, these are people that are supposed to go back to their home country’.
ICE will begin its massive deportation sweep Sunday, with reports saying, they plan to remove up to 2,000 illegal migrants across ten major cities.
Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, says the city’s police will not cooperate with ICE in the deportation effort.
Rather, Lightfoot tweeted on Friday, that she ordered Chicago police and law enforcement officials to block ICE’s access to city department databases related to immigration.
She also said she personally reached out to ICE leadership in the city to voice her opposition to the raids.
Other cities where raids are expected to take place include Houston, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.

Iran Threat Remains High as Iranian Cyber Attacks Continue Against U.S.

In this June 18, 2019 photo, President Donald Trump speaks during his re-election kickoff rally at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla. Trump declared Thursday that “Iran made a very big mistake” in shooting down a U.S. drone. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:22 AM PT — Saturday, June 22, 2019

Cyber security firms say they’re seeing an uptick in Iranian cyber attacks against the U.S.

Iran is allegedly targeting U.S. cyber infrastructure in its recent attacks, as tension continues to rise between Washington and Tehran.
Most often, the attacks take the form of a deceptive email, meant to trick users into installing malicious software onto their systems.
Experts say, the report shows the length to which the Iranian regime is going to find out what the next U.S. move will be.
The surge in attacks this month took place around the same time the U.S. blamed Iran for the oil tanker attacks.

Biden vows to repeal Trump tax cuts on 'Day One' if he captures White House

Former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden promised Saturday that on "Day One" of a Biden presidency he would repeal President Trump's 2017 tax cuts and close $500 billion on tax loopholes.
Speaking at the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention, Biden said that "Income inequities are at an all-time high and made worse by Trump's tax cuts and enormous giveaways to the top one-tenth of the 1 percent ... and it's time we start to reward work over wealth."
Outlining his policy proposals in this visit to the early primary state, Biden said the GOP-backed tax cuts, which have been heavily criticized in some quarters as beneficial only to the rich, have no socially redeeming value. He vowed to "put that money to good use."
Biden promised that, among other things, residual funds from the tax break would be put toward initiatives such as green energy research and development, two-year college tuition grants and a public-option health insurance plan.
The 2020 hopeful also proposed an $8,000-per-child credit for child care. In addition, he promised to increase Title I funding for schools with high numbers of low-income students, and to allocate between $15 billion and $45 billion to expand universal pre-K, raise teachers' pay, fully fund special education and double the number of school psychologists, guidance counselors and nurses to support public school systems.
Biden also reiterated his plan to implement a public health care option like Medicare, which would guarantee that low-income individuals have health coverage.
Biden continues to lead the polls in a field of some two-dozen Democratic contenders.

Trump says US will impose 'major' sanctions on Iran starting Monday

President Trump said on Saturday that his administration was preparing an additional round of "major" sanctions against Iran amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

"Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable. We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday," he wrote in a tweet. "I look forward to the day that sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again - The sooner the better!"

Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters that his administration was moving forward with sanctions.

“They’re going on slowly and in some cases pretty rapidly," Trump said as he was departing for Camp David.

The president also confirmed in a tweet that he would discuss Iran at Camp David this weekend.

“I am at Camp David working on many things, including Iran!” he wrote.

Concerns about the possibility of a military confrontation rose on Thursday, after Iran shot down a U.S. spy drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Officials in Tehran and Washington have disputed whether the drone was in Iranian airspace or not.

Trump said in a tweet that the U.S. was “cocked & loaded” to retaliate on Thursday night, but that he ultimately decided against doing so because 150 people would have died.

“We want to be proportionate,” he said on Saturday, though he did not rule out the possibility of future military action against Iran.

“It’s always on the table until we get this solved,” he added. “We have a tremendously powerful military force in that area.”

Trump announced last year that Washington would unilaterally withdraw from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, bucking U.S. allies while imposing a punishing round of economic sanctions.