monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

US President Donald Trump will make a three-day state visit to the UK from 3 to 5 June, Buckingham Palace has announced.

The president and First Lady Melania Trump will be guests of the Queen and attend a ceremony in Portsmouth to mark 75 years since the D-Day landings.

He will also have official talks with the prime minister at Downing Street.

Mr Trump previously met the Queen at Windsor Castle when he came to the UK in July 2018 on a working visit.

The White House said the upcoming trip would reaffirm the "steadfast and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom".

The president was promised a state visit by Prime Minister Theresa May after he was elected in 2016 - but no date was set.

Mrs May said June's state visit was an "opportunity to strengthen our already close relationship in areas such as trade, investment, security and defence, and to discuss how we can build on these ties in the years ahead".

But shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry voiced concerns about the visit, saying: "It beggars belief that on the very same day Donald Trump is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution against the use of rape as a weapon of war, Theresa May is pressing ahead with her plans to honour him with a state visit to the UK."

The suspected leader of a New Mexico militia group allegedly boasted of plans to assassinate former President Barack Obama, the FBI has said.

Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, and his group United Constitutional Patriots, also plotted to target Hillary Clinton and billionaire George Soros, according to a tip received by the FBI.

It is unclear when he allegedly made these comments, which were included in court papers released this week.

His lawyer has denied the allegations.

"He says that is categorically false that that's what they were doing," Kelly O'Connell told NBC News. "There was no plan to do any of that."

Mr Hopkins appeared in court in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Monday, charged with being a convicted criminal in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

He was arrested on Saturday, just days after the group hit the headlines for detaining migrants in the desert near the US-Mexico border.

The small volunteer group argues it is helping US Border Patrol to deal with a surge in migrants crossing America's southern border, but their actions - caught on camera - earned widespread condemnation from civil rights groups and local officials.

The FBI were apparently first made aware of the group United Constitutional Patriots in 2017.

According to an affidavit by Special Agent David Gabriel, the FBI received information in 2017 that the Patriots, based out of Mr Hopkins' residence, had about 20 members and was armed with AK-47 rifles, among other firearms.

"Hopkins also allegedly made the statement that the United Constitutional Patriots were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, because of these individuals' support of Antifa [a left-wing group]," Mr Gabriel said.

But Mr O'Connell questioned why it had taken some two years to charge his client. He pointed out that the FBI had searched Mr Hopkins' residence in 2017, and discovered weapons that Mr Hopkins said were owned by his wife, but did not arrest him at that point.

"If it was that outrageous of a crime, why not lock him up right then?" he said.

Mr Hopkins now faces up to 10 years in prison, probation and $250,000 (£192,000) in fines, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.

Under US law, convicted felons are generally prohibited from possessing firearms, and the FBI states Mr Hopkins has "at least one prior felony conviction".

In 1996, Mr Hopkins pleaded guilty to possessing a loaded firearm. In 2006, he was convicted of possessing a weapon and impersonating a police officer in Oregon.

A detention hearing has been scheduled for next week, and Mr Hopkins remains in custody until then.

I think, he'll be in France for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Does Mr Greenwald knows something we don't about the Steele dossier? How can he know it's fake, false, and fraudulent?

Merely a shrill defense of a fixed position without any response to specific points I raised.

I expected you to do better than that. However, when cornered and out of ideas, people often act that way.

What a shock, extra points for using 'shrill'.....you really can't help yourself can you? Remarkably, I didn't expect better from you. Just the usual flaccid regurgitation of partisan sniping.

@Brand X,
Oooh okay, he intensely studied it and therefore he can tell it's fake.

flaccid regurgitation

Even for him, this was weird phrasing: “Trump claimed the New York Times had apologized to him after the 2016 election and that if they wanted his forgiveness again, they’d have to make a real gesture out of the apology: ‘Get down on their knees and beg for forgiveness.’” (Keep in mind, the newspaper never apologized to him, and it’s unclear why he keeps saying it did.)

The Atlantic published an interesting piece this morning from J. W. Verret, a Republican law professor at George Mason University, who spent a few months serving on Donald Trump’s transition team in 2016. Verret, who’s also worked with Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee, spent the weekend reading Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report – twice.

After he was done, the professor “realized that enough was enough,” and he “needed to do something.” That “something,” it turns out, was Verret’s call for impeachment proceedings against the president.

“Politics is a team sport, and if you actively work within a political party, there is some expectation that you will follow orders and rally behind the leader, even when you disagree,” he wrote. “There is a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty and pragmatism into something more sinister, a blind devotion that serves to enable criminal conduct.”

Verret added that Mueller’s findings were his “tipping point.”...