monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials have withheld public documents for years, some of which would expose details about Democrats’ taxpayer- and foreign-funded travel, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.

Four unfulfilled requests, including the oldest, seek records related to FEC commissioners’ travel. These documents are especially relevant because of a recent report showing the Democratic members of the commission have taken at least 50 trips funded by foreign groups, governments and U.S. taxpayers since 2002.

Additionally, foreign groups funded overseas travel for Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub who recently proposed a plan to defend against foreign influence in U.S. elections following allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential contest, TheDCNF previously revealed.

None of the current Republican commissioners have taken such trips.

Weintraub also took a tax-paid $9,200 trip to Indonesia that an FEC itinerary showed included a five-day gap between official events.

then-FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel, for example, took two foreign-funded trips to Brazil and three domestic trips to give speeches and attend panels at various colleges across the country between 2015 and 2016, The Washington Free Beacon previously reported. Ravel took another five international trips between October 2013 and September 2014, according to The Blaze.

She also nixed a foreign-funded trip to Ecuador after facing criticism, the Free Beacon reported in February. In fact, Ravel had asked the FEC to hold a special session to vote on her travel request after having phoned in to regular meetings for two months prior

President Donald Trump says his proposed border wall may not need to cover the whole US frontier with Mexico because of existing natural barriers.
He told journalists travelling on Air Force One to France that it also needed to be transparent, to offer border guards visibility into Mexico.
He also reiterated his desire the final design would involve solar panels.
Building the wall, and having it paid for by Mexico, was one of Mr Trump's key campaign promises.
Now, almost six months into his presidency, it seems he is acknowledging some of the geographical and practical difficulties of such a construction.

He also said the wall would have to be transparent, using an offbeat example to explain why.

“When they throw large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them — they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over,” he said. “As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall.”

I think he would.

In addition to submitting her resignation from the Federal Election Commission this week, Ann Ravel is leaving behind some scathing last words in a report condemning the “dysfunction and deadlock” of the agency she chaired.

“While the FEC’s employees strive to fulfill its mission, the Commission itself—made up of six Commissioners—is not performing its duty,” Ravel wrote. “A bloc of three Commissioners routinely thwarts, obstructs, and delays action on the very campaign finance laws its members were appointed to administer.”

President Trump is tasked with nominating a replacement, who must be confirmed by the Senate. The remaining five commissioners are all serving beyond the ends of their terms — in some cases way beyond.

Mr Trump said it was vital the new construction was transparent to protect border guards from drug traffickers.

"As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don't see them," he said.

"They hit you on the head with 27kg of stuff? It's over."

Drug traffickers have used catapults and other innovative methods to transfer their illegal cargo, says the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico.

However, tunnels are far more common, and it is certainly not clear that any border guards have been injured in the way that Mr Trump described, our correspondent adds.

A key Federal Election Commission Republican warned Wednesday that liberals are moving aggressively to "amend the First Amendment"...

"The general tenor of the Left in American politics today has certainly spoken out against First Amendment rights. It has been a reversal over the last 50 years," he added, citing FDR Democrats who defended socialists and communists.

Democrats on the FEC have led the attacks, publicly calling for reversal of Citizens United and even for regulating conservative news sites like the Drudge Report.

They have also treated complaints against conservatives differently and tougher than those against Democrats or left-leaning outlets.

President Trump is tasked with nominating a replacement, who must be confirmed by the Senate. The remaining five commissioners are all serving beyond the ends of their terms — in some cases way beyond.

Trump embroiled in ANOTHER sexism scandal after remarks to Macron's wife Brigitte Trogneux

DONALD Trump has become embroiled in another sexism scandal after he claimed Emmaneul Macron’s 64-year-old wife Brigitte Trogneux was “in such good shape."

In the video, Mr Trump is seen telling Ms Trogneux she is in “such good physical shape”, before turning to Mr Macron and saying “beautiful”.

Stuff like that pisses me off too, but what do you expect? Trump's supporters aren't exactly the most educated bunch of people.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/13/it-looks-like-rachel-maddow-hilariously-exaggerated-her-fake-nsa-document-scoop/

I don't think "exclusive scoop" means what she thinks it does.

“Somebody, for some reason, appears to be shopping a fairly convincing fake NSA document that purports to directly implicate somebody from the Trump campaign in working with the Russians in their attack in the election,” Maddow said.

U.S. judge narrows travel ban in defeat for Trump

July 13- President Donald Trump's temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries cannot stop grandparents and other relatives of United States citizens from entering the country, a U.S. judge said on Thursday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu also opens the door for more refugees and deals Trump a fresh courtroom defeat in a long back-and-forth over an executive order that has gone all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state of Hawaii had asked Watson to narrowly interpret a Supreme Court ruling that revived parts of Trump's March 6 executive order banning travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, as well as refugees for 120 days.

The Supreme Court last month said the ban could take effect, but that anyone from the six countries with a "bona fide relationship" to a U.S. person or entity could not be barred.

The Trump administration then interpreted that opinion to allow spouses, parents, children, fiancés and siblings into the country, but barred grandparents and other family members, in a measure Trump called necessary to prevent attacks.

Watson harshly criticized the government's definition of close family relations as "the antithesis of common sense" in a ruling that changes the way the ban can now be implemented.

"Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents. Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members," he wrote.