White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer delivers the press briefing for June 26th:

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[TRANSCRIPT] – 1:47 P.M. EDT:

MR. SPICER: Good afternoon. I want to say at the top that with respect to the Supreme Court decision on the President’s executive order, the President was honored by the 9-0 decision that allows him to use an important tool to protect our nation’s homeland.

His number-one responsibility as Commander-in-Chief is to keep the American people safe, and that’s exactly what this executive order does.

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White House Senior Adviser to the President Kellyanne Conway is interviewed by former Clinton White House aide ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos about the current healthcare bills on Capitol Hill.

ABC’s Stephanopoulos is one of the most ardent Democrat party ideologues/operatives within media and this interview is a representative example of how he argues exclusively from a position of ideological advocacy against the Trump administration.

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Details Sketchy – Dramatic video captures the moment when a boat carrying approximately 150 tourists sunk in Colombia resulting in dozens dead, according to most recent media reporting.

The vessel was in the Penol reservoir when it went down, near the tourist town of Guatape, approximately 28 miles east of the capital Medellin. At least 25 people are feared to have died after passengers failed to put on their life vests, according to witnesses.

According to The Daily Mail police have so far confirmed three fatalities with 30 people still missing.  In the video tourists can be seen scrambling to get to upper decks in a bid to stay above the surface level as the boat plunges into the water.

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In an interview with Fox News’ Howard Kurtz (MediaBuzz), White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer pushed back against the accusations of CNN’s most delicate whaaambulance passenger Jim Acosta, who complains about the lack of press briefings aired on television.

“It’s sad that he believes if it doesn’t occur on TV — I think some of these reporters are more interested in their YouTube clips than they are in getting factual news. You look at the number of questions asked over and over again just so the reporter can get a clip of themselves saying something or yelling at someone.”

Spicer rightly said the Press Corps posturing gets “repetitive” and tiresome. “To suggest that if it’s not on television is somewhat nonsensical. We engage with the press corps very robustly from early in the morning to late at night. The briefing is one small part of what this staff does.”

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There was a widely read Chicago Tribune op-ed written a few days ago outlining an approach to dissolve the entire state and apportion the geography to Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa. –SEE HERE–  It was written tongue-in-cheek, but with an uncomfortable level of reality behind it.

Illinois has been struggling with its finances for a long, long time.

The Illinois long-term labor pension liabilities are ridiculous in the extreme.  However, things just went from bad to jaw-droppingly, gobsmackingly, unbelievably worse.

According to the latest financial media reports, Standard and Poors Global Ratings agency has positioned Illinois bonds to drop below “investment” grade; that would make Illinois the first state in the nation to achieve “junk bond” status.

(Via ABC) Illinois is on track to become the first U.S. state to have its credit rating downgraded to “junk” status, which would deepen its multibillion-dollar deficit and cost taxpayers more for years to come.

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When people react to questions from a perspective of individual self-preservation they tend to forget their professional obligation to the bigger institutional picture.

Reference Evelyn Farkas on MSNBC for one very visible and specific recent example.

Today we have another unintentional admission thanks to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and CNN.

Currently, the DNC and left-wing media apparatus writ large, are trying desperately to regain footing on the ‘vast Russian conspiracy narrative’, as specifically evidenced by the Washington Post article published early on Friday.

Included within the exhaustive Post article, and specifically as foundational evidence to support the overall conspiracy, the Washington Post highlights Russian “hacking” of the DNC servers.  Here’s an excerpt:

(WaPo) […] Meanwhile, the FBI was tracking a flurry of hacking activity against U.S. political parties, think tanks and other targets. Russia had gained entry to DNC systems in the summer of 2015 and spring of 2016, but the breaches did not become public until they were disclosed in a June 2016 report by The Post. (link)

However, almost simultaneously, in another media format, former head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, was being questioned about this very issue in the context of former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s recent congressional testimony.

What happens next is almost too funny for words. (see video below)

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The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein, have officially launched an investigation into former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  Their inquiry surrounds Lynch assuring the Hillary Clinton campaign that the FBI probe into Clinton’s emails wouldn’t go too far.

[scribd id=352113729 key=key-t42Dlp6EncjE21sWcnct mode=scroll]

(Via Politico) The Judiciary panel announced Friday it had sent letters to Lynch and other officials — the opening bid in what Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said last week would be separate investigations into the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and whether the Obama administration attempted to influence FBI investigations. (more)

There is a long-worded Washington Post story gaining lots of attention as the definitive article outlining the ‘vast Russian election conspiracy‘.  However, anyone who walks in the deep weeds of DC propaganda constructs will immediately note the Ben Rhodes styled fingerprints of obfuscation and disingenuous nonsense.

The article is transparently presented for several aligned purposes; all of them political, including the intensely political objectives of John Brennan and James Clapper, and all of them transparently spreading the truth-sauce way too thin.

As a deep weeds walker myself, and having inoculated against the nonsensical -albeit fashionable to believe- infection, here’s my take. [All emphasis mine]

(WaPo) Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.

Ah yes, the “just four people” dispatch from CIA Director John Brennan.  The small circle makes fiction much more difficult to disprove, and simultaneously stops the larger circle from refuting the entirety of the inherent false and political claims.  See how that works?

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Today President Trump delivered on a promise to provide accountability within the Veterans Affairs department.  Together with VA Secretary David Shulkin, President Trump signs the VA Accountability and Whistle-blower Protection act.

Retired Sargent Michael Verardo gives a personal testimonial and introduces Secretary Schulkin.

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Secretary Shulkin explains the goals and objectives and introduces President Trump.

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[…] John Anzalone, Ossoff’s pollster, said the Democrat’s campaign succeeded in turning out its voters — but they were swamped by Republicans who came out in numbers that ended up dwarfing previous high-profile special elections (link)

That’s a very interesting admission/statement for a Politico article.  That’s also an example of what happens when President Trump’s ‘Monster Vote‘ turns out.

(Politico) Jon Ossoff was on a trajectory to defeat Karen Handel narrowly, poised to deliver a humiliating blow to the White House in a race billed as a referendum of Donald Trump’s early months in office. Then the Republican voters in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District unexpectedly showed up in droves.

Pollsters say sky-high turnout drove Handel, the GOP nominee, to a nearly 4-point victory on Tuesday, despite most pre-election surveys showing Ossoff with a small-but-shrinking lead.

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