Authorities believe the man suspected of shooting the son and husband of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas in their home Sunday in North Brunswick, New Jersey was an attorney who harbored deeply misogynistic beliefs, according to reports.
Law enforcement has identified the suspect as Roy Den Hollander, the Daily Beast first reported Monday. The New York Times and New Jersey Globe confirmed the suspect’s identity.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) on Sunday explained why they issued statewide mask mandates in the past week after their initial reluctance to do so.
Continue reading “Govs Explain How They Finally Came Around To Issuing Statewide Mask Mandates”
Roger Stone denied using a racial slur during a live airing of a radio show hosted by a Black man on Saturday while he was pressed on President Trump’s decision to commute his prison sentence. Continue reading “Stone Denies Uttering Racial Slur On Black Radio Host’s Show Amid Heated Exchange”
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) defended his refusal to issue a statewide mask mandate during an interview on CNN Sunday. Continue reading “MS Governor Struggles To Defend Lack Of Statewide Mask Mandate: ‘It’s Complicated’”
Portland mayor Ted Wheeler hit back at President Trump’s assertion that his administration is “trying to help” the city by deploying federal law enforcement officials in light of ongoing protests, during an interview on CNN Sunday morning. Continue reading “Portland Mayor Rips Trump For ‘Abhorrent’ Use Of Federal Police To Quell Unrest”
President Trump aired numerous grievances when pressed by Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace during a lengthy interview that aired Sunday morning. Continue reading “5 Key Takeaways From Trump’s Lengthy Off-The-Rails Interview On Fox News”
Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Saturday issued apologies after erroneously posting photos of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings in social media posts that paid tribute to Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) following his recent death. Continue reading “Two GOP Sens Apologize For Using Photos Of Cummings In John Lewis Tribute Posts”
The Trump administration is seeking to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to provide for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, sources told The Post.
The report also comes as the United States broke its record of daily new cases for the 11th time in July on Thursday.
The officials, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential discussions, cautioned that talks were still underway and that numbers had not yet been finalized.
The negotiations focus on a bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is expected to bring before Congress next week as part of negotiations with Democrats on what will likely be the last major coronavirus relief bill before the November election.
Congressional negotiations are expected to unfold with added urgency due to the surge of cases and climbing death toll in the United State. The disagreement, however, between Trump administration officials and Senate Republicans who are at odds about money for testing and other priorities is creating a major bottleneck before those talks get started.
One person involved in the talks told The Post that Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely. According to the report, many White House officials argue that some of that money remains unspent since the last major coronavirus spending bill Congress was approved in April which included $25 billion to increase testing.
Meanwhile testing challenges still abound in some hotspots where wait times for test results vary greatly, with people in some places having to wait more than a week to find out if they have tested positive. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) announced Wednesday that he would send less business to some labs where testing results have been delayed for long periods.
The report comes as the Trump administration has deepened its attacks of health experts and scientists who have provided guidance — and at times warnings — about the future of the nation should its leaders fail to take critical action to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The news follows a White House announcement Wednesday that directed hospitals to change how they report data to the federal government and how that data will be made available. Effective Wednesday, hospitals were told to report coronavirus case data to the Health and Human Services Department bypassing the CDC – a move that has be criticized by many as an attempt to potentially obscure the true picture of testing results.
TPM Reader JC flagged this press conference with the Mayor of Portland and the Chief of Police where they discuss the on-going protests in the city and the role of DHS law enforcement and the President in re-inflaming the situation.
I’ve captured this one answer from Mayor Ted Wheeler in which he says the situation was settling down before federal forces re-escalated the situation with their aggressive tactics.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler says protests/vandalism was winding down before Feds came in and re-inflamed the situation with aggressive tactics and escalation. pic.twitter.com/t9JgzJiKkr
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 18, 2020
President Donald Trump finally commented on the death of Representative John Lewis (D-GA), hours after an announcement about the passing of the lionized civil rights hero, who was among the President’s prominent critics.
In the midst of a wave of bipartisan tributes that streamed late Friday evening and early Saturday remembering the Black Democratic congressman from Georgia who served 17 terms following his election in 1986, Trump fired off a series of vicious tweets on other matters.
The President slammed “Corrupt Joe Biden,” and criticized “lowlife dummy John Bolton” for his tell-all account as former national security adviser. He even tweeted angrily about the recent book of his niece, Mary Trump – but did not utter a word of condolence or praise for Lewis.
Vice President Mike Pence issued his own statement Saturday, saying that in spite of their differences “John Lewis will be rightly remembered as an icon of the civil rights movement, for me he was also a colleague and a friend.”
He added that he would remember Lewis as a man who was “unfailingly kind.”
“I will never forget the privilege of crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge at his side on the 45th anniversary of Bloody Sunday,” Pence said.
The White House also announced late Saturday morning that its flags would be lowered to half-staff — a move to honor the late Georgia lawmaker that amounted to just about “half a day,” Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Philip Rucker said in a tweet, since the order was issued after 11 a.m.
Just in: Trump has ordered the U.S. flag to be flown at half-staff at the Whtie House and all federal buildings in honor of John Lewis…. for one day. Really, for half a day, since the order came out just past 11 a.m. The president’s proclamation expires tonight.
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) July 18, 2020
Lewis boycotted the President’s inauguration in January 2017, citing concerns of the legitimacy of Trump’s election amid questions of foreign meddling.
Trump responded at that time by criticizing Lewis, tweeting that instead of announcing his absence from the President’s inauguration Lewis “should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!”
The President finally managed to muster his condolences Saturday afternoon, saying in a tweet after 2 p.m., that he was “saddened” and sends “prayers.”
Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, lauded Lewis as a “moral compass,” in a statement issued Saturday morning.
“He absorbed the force of human nature’s cruelty during the course of his life,” Biden wrote, “and the only thing that could finally stop him was cancer.”
In a nod to recent protests, Biden added that “peaceful marchers for racial and economic justice around the world who are asking where we go from here” should follow Lewis’ lead. A veteran of nonviolent protest, Lewis was the only remaining survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists who organized the 1963 March on Washington.
Lewis had endorsed Biden’s 2020 bid for president in April.
