The "party of limited government" in Tennessee is aggressively trying to interfere with a gay couple's custody battle.
The Tennessean reports that 53 Republican lawmakers in the state have signed on with the Family Action Council of Tennessee's efforts to make sure a gay woman who is getting a divorce in the state has no rights to see her soon-to-be-former partner's children.
The woman in question, a Tennessee resident named Erica Witt, is now in a custody battle with her partner, Sabrina Witt, who gave birth to a baby girl after being artificially inseminated.
The couple have been married since 2014, and Erica Witt is arguing that her role in raising the daughter up until this point as Sabrina Witt's spouse ought to give her some visitation rights after the divorce is finalized.
However, The Tennessean notes that "Knox County Circuit Court Judge Greg McMillan ruled in June that Erica Witt has no legal rights under Tennessee law" to involvement with the daughter.
The Family Action Council has filed a motion to defend the judge's ruling and has said that the 53 GOP lawmakers who signed on in support have "unique and substantial interest in the legislative power and process will be impeded, impaired, and/or nullified" if courts interpret a state law "to apply to any persons other than a man and woman joined together as 'husband' and 'wife.'"
Put another way, these Tennessee GOP lawmakers do not believe divorced gay people should have any right to be involved in children they've helped raise because they weren't part of a "traditional" family.
The North Carolina Republican state legislator who voted in favor of the state's now-infamous "bathroom bill" is trying to back away from the monster she created.
According to WRAL News, state Sen. Tamara Barringer -- faced with plunging poll numbers -- is now calling for the "full and complete" repeal of the controversial law, a move her Democratic opponent has called politically opportunistic.
Barringer told WRAL that the law -- which ordered trans people to use public facilities corresponding to their birth gender rather than their expressed gender and made it illegal to sue cities for employment discrimination -- has had "unintended consequences."
“I did not realize the consequences of this bill, that it would have worldwide consequences, and they just keep piling up," the lawmaker said. "So, at this point, I’m willing to stand up and say, ‘Let’s put the brakes on it. Let’s get together and find a common solution that we call can live with and move forward.'”
House Bill 2 was passed in a rushed 12-hour session with Republican lawmakers overriding the objections of Democrats and rights activists. Since its passage into law and implementation across the state, multiple touring performers have canceled their North Carolina shows and just this week, the NCAA announced it will withdraw seven college championship games from the state.
Barringer is the senator for Wake County. Her district will lose a projected $2 million in revenue due to the NCAA decision.
Statewide, Gov. Pat McCrory and other Republicans are finding themselves faced with a rising tide of negative public opinion. According to Public Policy Polling's August numbers Democratic state Attorney Gen. Roy Cooper is edging ahead of McCrory as the governor's approval ratings remain "underwater." Some 47 percent of voters view the Tea Party governor unfavorably versus 41 percent who say he's doing a good job.
"Voters overwhelmingly think [H.B. 2] is hurting the state," said PPP. "58% say it's hurting North Carolina to only 22% who think it's helping. Specifically on the issue of the economy 58% say it's hurting the state to just 8% who think it's helping."
Democrats say that Barringer's about face on the law is just cynical political maneuvering in the face of plummeting poll numbers for Republicans statewide.
"A vote is a vote. When she voted for HB2 in March, Sen. Barringer knew what she was doing," said Dustin Ingalls -- campaign manager to Barringer's challenger, Democratic state school board member Susan Evans. "Only now that she's in danger of losing her seat does she waffle. Her latest change of mind is certainly not a change of heart. It's a purely political move designed to make voters forget that she is responsible for the loss of jobs and millions of dollars in economic investment in her district."
Thus far, no other state Republicans have joined Barringer's call to repeal the law. When WRAL asked her if she consulted with the state party before making her announcement, she said, "I have not talked to leadership, and I've not talked to other Republicans. But I do hope that they will listen because this is important. It's important to North Carolina, it's important to our citizens. We need to fix this, work this out and move forward."
The head of the Democratic National Committee said on Tuesday the organization had been hacked by Russian state-sponsored agents who were trying to influence the U.S. presidential election and they may have released more documents after a similar leak in July roiled the party.
A link to the documents was posted on WikiLeaks' Twitter account and attributed to alleged hacker Guccifer 2.0. The release came during a presentation on Tuesday from a person speaking on behalf of Guccifer 2.0 at a London cyber security conference, Politico reported.
Reuters could not immediately access the documents.
"There's one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that's (Republican presidential nominee) Donald Trump," DNC interim Chair Donna Brazile said in a statement.
"Not only has Trump embraced (Russian President Vladimir)Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign," she said.
Trump in July invited Russia to dig up emails from Clinton's time as secretary of state, prompting Democrats to accuse him of urging foreigners to spy on Americans. He later said he was speaking sarcastically.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC chair on the eve of July's Democratic National Convention after WikiLeaks published an earlier trove of hacked DNC emails that showed party officials favoring eventual nominee Hillary Clinton over U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders during the party's nominating contests. Three other senior officials also stepped down from the DNC after the leak.
"We have been anticipating that an additional batch of documents stolen by Russian agents would be released," said Brazile, who took over from Wasserman Schultz on an interim basis.
Democratic Party sources said the party and Clinton's presidential campaign were deeply concerned about possible publication by WikiLeaks or other hackers of a new torrent of potentially embarrassing party information ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
(Reporting by Eric Beech and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Peter Cooney)
The complicated saga of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's disclosure of the results of a physical exam he underwent on Friday just got even weirder.
After his campaign announced that Trump would not be revealing his medical results to Dr. Mehmet Oz in a taped interview on Wednesday, CNN said the candidate did produce what he said where the results, but which amounted to a single page summary from his personal physician Dr. Harold N. Bornstein. Bornstein was the author of Trump's risible "health report" letter from December of 2015, in which the gastroenterologist claimed that Trump would be the healthiest president in the history of the Republic if elected.
After sending out surrogates Tuesday and Wednesday to defend Trump's "right to privacy" and to say that he never planned to talk to Dr. Oz about the physical results, Trump produced the one-page summary at Wednesday's taping session.
CNN Money said that the Republican nominee "talked with Oz about his physical activity, dietary habits, and broader health-related issues."
Bornstein made a number of remarkable and wildly unprofessional claims in his 2015 letter on behalf of Trump. When pressed in a spaced-out seeming interview why he'd made such outlandish claims about Trump's health, Bornstein -- with the aide of his wife -- asserted that this was just his "sense of humor."
"[Trump] needed this letter and we got his letter," said Mrs. Bornstein. "My
husband does have a sense of humor and so the 'astonishing' word can sound
however you interpret it. Dr. Bornstein wrote that, with his long hair and
his earrings."
The doctor -- who has been sued by the families of dead patients who said Bornstein recklessly "overmedicated" their loved ones -- said that he wrote Trump's typo-laden health certification letter in five minutes while the former reality TV star's limousine waited outside.
Political commentator David Gergen, who has served under four presidents, accused Donald Trump of turning the 2016 election into a "national joke" by appearing on The Dr. Oz Show to discuss his health.
After initial reports suggested that Trump would be revealing the results of a recent medical exam on Dr. Mehmet Oz's show, the campaign backtracked on Wednesday and said that only general health information would be discussed.
"The losers are clearly the American voters," Gergen told CNN host Ashleigh Banfield on Wednesday. "I do think Trump has been much more secretive than Hillary Clinton. And for him to use The Dr. Oz Show as a forum to have his health all sorted out trivializes this whole exercise."
"And I think it makes it more of a national joke," he added. "Whoever wins is going to be in their 70s and the country deserves to know, what are the prospects for this person's health? Are there any clouds that might impair the judgement of a person who is going to be the president?"
Gergen argued that the "one-page summary" that Trump's doctor provided to Oz was "ludicrous on its face."
Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast Sept. 14, 2016.
Newsweek reporter on Donald Trump's shady business dealings this week, and he's been making the rounds on cable news to explain why Trump's businesses represent a "national security nightmare" for the United States.
Media Matters notes that Eichenwald appeared on CNN Wednesday morning to explain how Trump has massive conflicts of interest in key countries around the world that would compromise his ability to make national security decisions that are in the best interests of the country. To cite one prominent example, Eichenwald discussed Trump's business connections in Turkey.
"You have in Turkey a connection between Trump and a politically tied organization," the reporter explained. "In fact, it was so politically tied that when there was a project that was launched, the president of Turkey came out to stand there with Donald Trump. Well, the president of Turkey has now declared that to have been a major mistake."
It seems that the Dogan family, the family who runs the organization Eichenwald is referring to, is right now facing criminal allegations for their conduct. This means that Trump's ties to them could jeopardize America's alliance with a key NATO country that serves as a launch pad for attacks against Islamic State militants.
"What I am being told is that Turkey's cooperation with the United States in terms of providing an airbase where we are able to launch bombers against ISIS would be at risk if Donald Trump was president," Eichenwald told CNN. "And, so, then you come down to who is Donald Trump going to side with? Is he going to try and repair relations with the Turkish government, or is he going to try and act on behalf of his investments and business partners there?"
In an appearance on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom, Trump surrogate Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) -- tried to pretend that Republican nominee for president Donald Trump wasn't chickening out by refusing to release the results of a medical exam during his appearance on Dr. Oz's show.
On Wednesday morning, just hours before the scheduled appearance, the Trump campaign abruptly announced that the candidate would not be revealing the results of a physical he took on Friday as part of his interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz.
CNN's Carol Costello asked Huckabee why Trump changed his mind.
"You know, I'm not sure he has," Huckabee said. "All along, he has said that he was going to release his health records this week. That hasn't changed, he'll do that."
Costello then quoted Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, who on Tuesday said that Oz will be receiving and analyzing Trump's health records in time for Wednesday's taping, which is set to be broadcast on Thursday.
"It seems like he changed his mind," Costello said.
"Well, not necessarily," Huckabee said, "as far as I know, Brian Kilmeade is not a spokesperson for the campaign and I think the campaign itself has been extremely clear that Donald Trump will release his records this week from a physical he took on Friday."
"We're in the middle of the week and it's certainly not over," she continued, "and he plans to do that. But he is, unlike Hillary Clinton, willing to sit down with a doctor in a public forum and have a very open discussion about his health, just as he's done on hundreds of other issues because he's unafraid to sit down with the press, he does it every single day and he's going to do it to talk about his health as he continues to do it on the campaign trail."
"Well," said Costello, chuckling, "some press, these days. Mostly Fox News and CNBC."
Trump told Fox and Friends on Monday morning that he plans to release "very, very specific" results from his physical exam. It was, however, Fox News itself which claimed that the results would be featured in the Dr. Oz interview.
“I think they’re going to be good. I feel great,” said Trump.
FoxNews.com followed up by saying, "Fox News has learned Trump plans to release those details during his appearance Thursday on 'The Dr. Oz Show.'”
The Party of Lincoln may soon have someone who hates Abraham Lincoln representing it in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Nolan West, a Republican legislative aide who is now running for an open seat in the Minnesota state legislature, has apologized for posting several messages on Facebook that praised the Confederacy and trashed Abraham Lincoln.
"I apologize for posting insensitive material," West said in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. "I've taken those posts down because they do not reflect who I am or what I believe."
And it seems there was a lot of insensitive material.
For example, to mark the 150th anniversary of Confederate President Jefferson Davis resigning from his post in the U.S. Senate, West posted a message attacking Lincoln as "the single worst president this country has ever seen."
West even posted a message that read, "IT'S LYNCHING TIME!" on the eve of President Obama's election in 2008.
The Star Tribune also notes that West "posted derogatory comments about women and gays," which shouldn't be surprising -- after all, if you're the kind of person who celebrates the existence of a slave state, you're probably not all that sensitive to women's and LGBT issues either.
West has since removed the posts from his Facebook feed, although he has signaled no willingness to drop out of the race at this point.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has reportedly had second thoughts about disclosing results of his medical examination when he appears Wednesday on The Dr. Oz Show.
On Tuesday, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade reported that Trump would provide the results of his physical to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who would reveal the information on air.
But hours before the show taped on Wednesday, campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks told CNN's Brian Stelter that Trump's plans had changed.
"Instead, Trump will be talking with Oz about his physical activity, dietary habits, and broader health-related issues," Stelter wrote. "The plan also calls for Trump to discuss political topics that are of interest to the 'Dr. Oz Show' audience, like efforts to fight the Zika virus and Trump's new child care policies."
asked if Trump would be willing to sever all ties with the Trump Organization and it's secret foreign investments. They then outlined the complicated network of Trump businesses and relationships from Mumbai to the Middle East and even Libya. There are also deep connections in China, Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, Canada, France, Germany and other countries.
But former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says it's all hogwash. On a Wednesday episode of "New Day," the paid CNN commentator attacked Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald claiming he has "zero credibility" because Lewandowski claims Eichenwald alleged "George W. Bush was directly related to 9/11." Eichenwald actually wrote a detailed piece that showed the warnings the Bush Administration got that an Al Qaeda strike was possible. The piece never said that Bush was related to 9/11, as Lewandowski claimed.
Eichenwald's report asks if Trump would step away, as the Clintons would say they would from their foundation. "Absolutely not," Lewandowski responded.
Trump has claimed in the past that he would put the company in a blind trust and his adult children would run the organization. In an interview with "Good Morning America," Ivanka Trump said that they wouldn't pursue any business deals that could appear as though they're a conflict of interest.
Lewandowski then slammed Eichenwald for not reaching out to "fact check the story with the Trump Organization."
"But there are foreign deals," CNN host Alisyn Camerota wondered.
"Of course there are!" Lewandowski declared. "Because he is an international businessman, because he built a $10 billion corporation."
When asked if would continue and compared it to the Clinton Foundation, Lewandowski claimed the two weren't the same.
"Do his children continue to run a $10 billion corporation that their father has built? Absolutely they do," he said. "Why wouldn’t they?" he asked, to which Camerota responded that they might be "compromised by foreign deals and foreign money coming into it."
He continued, reiterating that Trump plans to turn his company over to the Trump children. "What—is he just going to give up the company, is he going to fold up and unemploy 10,000 people?"
Eichenwald responded to the claims by Lewandowski with a tweet, saying, "Folks: Trump surrogates are apparently already attacking me. I am just a messenger. Have them dispute the facts."
A Politico report also alleged the paid CNN contributor is actually back at work on the campaign. Last Thursday at the Manchester Radisson ahead of a Trump speech, Lewandowski was seen and days later was offering advice to Trump insiders behind the scenes.
Mike Biundo, Donald Trump’s New Hampshire-based senior national adviser confirmed that Lewandowski got an updated briefing on the operation in New Hampshire. He reportedly told Biundo, “Anything you need, you go through me,” one New Hampshire Republican alleged.
Lewandowski was fired from the Trump campaign in June but still draws a severance. He's also a paid contributor on CNN, an issue that has drawn the network a lot of criticism.
The latest Trump Hotel to open was one just down the street from the White House in Washington, D.C.
“If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to, just so you understand, a lot of money,” Trump said in one of the 2015 Republican debates. “I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me.” He added, “And that’s a broken system.”
It appears now that, once again, the Trump Organization took advantage of that "broken system" when working to secure the deal for the new Washington Trump property. According to a report from the "Daily Beast," Trump and his children all donated the maximum amount of money they could to the Washington mayor and members of Congress, including Democrats, who all supported Trump's property.
The federal government announced that Trump won the contract in February of 2012 for the Old Post Office Pavilion building, and not long after money began flowing into the campaign war chests of the politicians who helped make it happen. Both Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and Mayor Muriel Bowser scored campaign contributions from the Trump family.
The Trump family is known for giving to Democrats and Republicans, particularly in New York and Florida, but until recently they weren't investors in Washington, D.C. political campaigns. It doesn't take a campaign finance expert to explain that the donations look bad.
“There’s no evidence of anything illegal about it,” Lawrence Noble of the Campaign Legal Center told The Daily Beast. “The closer you are to doing something specifically for somebody the more it raises ethical questions.”
Ivanka Trump, who was tasked with managing the project, first contributed $2500 to Norton's campaign in June 2012, just four months after the deal for the hotel was announced. She contributed the maximum again in the next election cycle.
Norton released a statement in June 2013 saying she has worked for 15 years to find a developer for the Old Post Office. In 2008, the statement explains that Norton passed a bill, the Old Post Office Development Act, which would require the General Services Administration to proceed with redevelopment of the property. She also celebrated Ivanka Trump for her work on the project and said, "It has been my pleasure to have the rare opportunity to work with a major developer who happens to be a remarkable young woman."
"Norton has spoken with Ivanka Trump, who leads the project, several times and today also spoke with Donald Trump," the statement also says.
Just three weeks after releasing that statement, a $2,600 check came in from Donald Trump for Norton's campaign.
“It is not unusual for businesses who build in the national capital region to contribute to Members of Congress,” communications director Benjamin Fritsch said. “Congresswoman Norton was at the groundbreaking because of her role as the sponsor of the Old Post Office bill.”
The groundbreaking was July 23, 2014, and Bowser and Norton stood alongside the whole Trump family for the event. Two weeks later, Norton got another $2,600 check from Ivanka Trump. Once Bowser won her primary election, Ivanka Trump sent her $2,000 and Eric Trump did the same a few months later. Donald Trump then gave Bowser $5,000, the maximum amount for her inaugural committee after she was elected. The total was $9,000 that could have been the maximum donation, and that's exactly what the Trump's contributed.
Bowser and Trump's offices both refused to comment.
Both U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have recently been caught deceiving the public about their health. Each candidate has accused the other of lying about medical conditions.
Trump released a note from a doctor which turned out to be questionable. Critics have attacked not only the wording of the letter but also the odd circumstances in which it was written. The former reality TV star now plans to release updated medical records on Dr. Oz’s TV show.
Clinton admitted suffering from pneumonia after having previously given conflicting accounts for troubling health episodes, first having said she was suffering from allergies, then saying she was “overheated.“ Some are now speculating that her condition is worse than pneumonia and point to past medical episodes including fainting and falling. Even her allies complain that she needs to be more transparent and honest about her health.
Americans are unforgiving about their presidents having any medical ailments. Public opinion polls suggest that voters want to know the details about the candidates' health.
Maybe that’s why reporters demand them.
The alleged health scandals may have added to the intrigue of the current race between Trump and Clinton, but the candidates' deception is nothing new in U.S. presidential history.
In fact, I wrote a piece in the Encyclopedia of Deception with Professor Michael J. Beatty about how rampant deception is when it comes to presidential health. Spoiler alert: It’s one of the most common types of political deception perpetuated against journalists and the public.
Trump shows his strength. Clive, Iowa, Sept. 13, 2016.
REUTERS/Mike Segar
Lie early and often
The first recorded account of a U.S. presidential administration lying to reporters at a press briefing was in 1893. President Grover Cleveland’s secretary of war told inquiring journalists that their speculations about the president having surgery were wrong. The nation was in a recession, and Cleveland feared that his economic plan would be doomed if the public knew that his doctor thought he could have cancer. Cleveland had surgery secretly on a yacht, the tumor was removed, but the nation continued spiraling into an economic depression.
During President William McKinley’s second term in office, his health plummeted. He had eye trouble. He was bedridden with the flu. And he neared death from pneumonia. Yet his spokesman tamped down media speculation, telling journalists that reports of the president being ill were “foolish stories."
When Woodrow Wilson became gravely ill from syphilis, his spokesman issued press statements that the president was recovering from fatigue.
For the entirety of his service to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Press Secretary Stephen Early tried to hide the president’s polio by having the press snap photos of the president in ways that hid his wheelchair. Even after FDR died, Early released a statement that “the president was given a thorough examination by seven or eight physicians” and “he was pronounced organically sound in every way."
Dwight Eisenhower was hospitalized with a heart attack, but his press operation initially told reporters he had an upset stomach.
Just as recent reports have speculated that the alleged “cover-up” of Clinton’s health extended to her campaign staff also being sick, there is even precedent for presidential staffers lying about their own health.
William Howard Taft’s press spokesman, Archie Butt, was sickened from stress and fatigue. He flew to Rome, Italy to escape and get rested. Rather than admit that he was exhausted – which would seem reasonable for a person working in such a high-stress position – he told the press corps that his trip was to meet with the pope.
Sometimes presidents lie about medical conditions to distract from other nonhealth issues. When John F. Kennedy was holding secret meetings dealing with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Press Secretary Pierre Salinger told reporters that the president’s schedule changes and lack of public appearances were due to a cold. He even released the president’s symptoms and temperature. Perhaps proving that he wasn’t talented at deception, Salinger used the same cold excuse to explain Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s impromptu flight from Hawaii to the White House at the same time. The Washington Post’s editor suspected the colds were awfully coincidental, but Salinger refused to comment.
Trump, 70, and Clinton, 68, are two of the oldest aspirants for the White House. The American public surely does not expect either to have perfect health. But voters do not want to think either politician is deceptively “doctoring” their medical condition either. While both Trump and Clinton may be in full attack mode accusing each other of deceiving about health while defending their own, voters might be more forgiving of the candidate who comes clean first.
A Russian mobster who's wanted for allegedly fixing an ice skating competition at the 2002 Olympics was a celebrity guest of Donald Trump's Miss Universe 2013 contest held in Moscow.
This came seven months after federal agents busted into Trump Tower in Manhattan rounded up 29 suspected members of two global gambling rings allegedly overseen by Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, reported Mother Jones.
Tokhtakhounov wasn't at Trump Tower and wasn't arrested, because he had been living in Russia since U.S. authorities accused him of rigging Olympic events to ensure Russian skaters would win a gold medal and a French duo would win another gold -- in exchange for him receiving a visa for France.
He was arrested in Italy but fled to Russia after he denied the charges and was let go.
Tokhtakhounov told Mother Jones that he hadn't attended the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, but then admitted he'd been there after a reporter reminded him photos and news accounts showed he had been a guest.
However, he denied that he'd been a VIP guest and said he bought his own ticket, and Tokhtakhounov denied having any interaction with Trump.
Trump denied having anything to do with Russia, although that's where he staged the 2013 beauty pageant he co-owned with NBC.
"Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow?" Trump tweeted breathlessly months before the event. "If so, will he become my new best friend?"
The Russian leader he admires did not attend that event -- but Vladimir Kozhin, a member of Putin's inner circle, and Aras Agalarov, a billionaire close to Putin, were there.
"Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room," Trump bragged afterward to the New York Post.
U.S. authorities believe Tokhtakhounov is a high-level Russian crime boss, and a 2013 indictment accused him of using his influence to protect a high-stakes gambling rink operating out of the building Trump owns and lives in.
The gambling operation was run by Vadim Trincher, who owned a $5 million apartment one floor below another one owned by Trump, and Anatoly Golubchik.
The operation included Molly Bloom, who was known for organizing private poker games for celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, and witnesses told the New York Post that poker games in the Trump Tower sometimes included appearances by movie stars and athletes such as Alex Rodriguez.
Golubchik and Trincher pleaded guilty in 2014 and were each sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $20 million in cash.
Trincher had reportedly planned to hold a fundraiser in their Trump Tower apartment for Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign, but the event was scuttled by mold caused by a water leak.
Tokhtakhounov denies the gambling-related charges against him, but he admits that he knew Trincher and Golubchik and placed bets with them.
