Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
In the category of: Democracy in the balance.
White House press corps showing unity after reporter barred from Rose Garden event
The ultra-competitive White House press corps is displaying something rare and refreshing: Solidarity.
Trump’s so-called war with the media has taken on many forms, but Wednesday’s action against Collins was a serious escalation.
“Blocking a credentialed White House reporter from an event open to all members of the media is highly unusual and possibly unprecedented, and it marks another low point,” the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi and Felicia Sonmez said Wednesday evening.
Shine and Sanders might be banking on the possibility that Trump’s fans will jeer Collins and cheer them on. Maybe they believe these battles are “good” for the White House. Maybe they want to intimidate other reporters.
Or maybe they were just following Trump’s order.
In the category of: Sometimes you just can’t defend the crazy.
The Trump Administration Struggles to Defend Its Unruly Foreign Policy
The Administration had faced scathing criticism from both Republicans and Democrats over the invitation, especially when details are still scant over what happened at the first summit, in Helsinki, on July 16th. The proposed Putin visit to the Oval Office would also have been on the eve of the high-stakes U.S. midterm elections, in which the Russians are reportedly meddling again. Last week, the director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, warned of “ongoing, pervasive efforts” by the Russians “to undermine our democracy.” More broadly, questions have grown since Helsinki—and other recent Trump summits with North Korea, the G-7 economic allies, and the twenty-eight other natonations—about Trump’s unruly U.S. foreign policy. The optics in Washington are not good.
Trump allies in the House decided not to force a vote on impeaching Robert Mueller’s boss.
The impeachment articles were thin. They complained that Rosenstein hadn’t appointed a second special counsel to look into why Carter Page was surveilled (even though the department’s inspector general is looking into it). They complained that not enough documents about the Clinton email and Trump-Russia probes had been handed over, and that there were some unnecessary redactions in some that were. And they complained that the Justice Department hadn’t handed over a document listing several people and areas Mueller was investigating (because the investigation is ongoing).
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