5: Jeff Sessions Couldn’t Explain Why Trump Fired Comey
The wad of media reports, official testimony, and silly gossip known these days as the “Russia scandal” continues to roll around DC like a tumbleweed of trash, rattling the foundations of the Trump administration and coating everyone associated with the president in a thin layer of disrepute. But actionable specifics have been hard to come by. Since investigations into the Russian hacking that influenced America’s last election remain ongoing, there aren’t yet—and may never be—actual legal charges in this saga. So far, barely anything we know about Donald Trump rises to the level of a plausible criminal allegation, even if he has committed impeachable offenses in a boorish attempt at damage control.
At this point, the most important question to be asked isn’t even about the hacking, the Russians, or whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions had some sort of contact with by Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the Mayflower Hotel. It’s a simple question, and it should be simple to answer: Why was former FBI director James Comey fired by Trump?
Vice News
4: Qatar blockade worse than Berlin Wall
The cutting of diplomatic ties, closure of air, land and sea and the restrictions placed on Qatar are “worse than the Berlin Wall”, according to the chairman of Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee (NHRC).
Speaking in Geneva on Friday, Ali Bin Smaikh al-Marri called on the UN Human Rights Council to condemn the blockade of Qatar as it infringes upon the rights of more than 13,000 citizens of the Arab countries involved.
“All these decisions are really a violation against the rights of the families,” Marri said in a separate interview with Al Jazeera.
According to a report released by NHRC on Thursday, the actions taken by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, along with Egypt, separated mothers from their children in some cases.
Hundreds of complaints were submitted to the NHRC by email, phone and hotlines, or personal visits to its headquarters in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Aljazeera
3: TRUMP TO REVERSE OBAMA OPENINGS TO CUBA UNDER THE FALSE FLAG OF HUMAN RIGHTS
In the days following the death of Fidel Castro, then-President-elect Donald Trump did exactly what one might expect: He took to Twitter. Trump condemned the “deal” the Obama administration put in place over the course of its normalization process with Cuba. “If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal,” Trump tweeted.
Today at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, Trump unveiled his administration’s Cuba policy — though not necessarily to the benefit of the Cuban or American people, as his tweet pledged.
Following statements by his Cuban-American congressional allies Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., as well as Florida Governor Rick Scott and Vice President Mike Pence, Trump promised to roll back recent openings with Cuba. “We will enforce the ban on tourism,” he proclaimed. “We will enforce the embargo. We will take concrete steps to ensure that investments flow directly to the people so they can open private businesses and begin to build their country’s great, great future, a country of great potential.”
The Intercept
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has won a major legal victory in federal court which may have the power to force the shutdown of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration failed to conduct an adequate environmental review of the pipeline, after President Trump ordered the Army Corps to fast-track and greenlight its approval. The judge requested additional briefings next week on whether the pipeline should be shut off until the completion of a full review of a potential oil spill’s impacts on fishing and hunting rights, as well as environmental justice. The pipeline faced months of massive resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, members of hundreds of other indigenous tribes from across the Americas, as well as non-Native allies. We speak with Standing Rock Sioux Chair Dave Archambault II and Nick Tilsen, executive director of the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation and a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.Democracy Now
1: ‘We want justice’: Grenfell Tower protest spills into town hall
Hundreds of protesters angry at the government’s handling of the Grenfell Tower disaster descended on the offices of Kensington town hall and barracked the prime minister as she met residents for the first time near the scene of the tragedy.
Demonstrators demanded more information on their families and friends, and help from the authorities, and one group tried to force their way into Kensington town hall to confront councillors directly, demanding that they come out and answer questions.
They also insisted that people affected by the fire not be pushed out of the area after there were conflicting messages from the local council and the government in Westminster over whether they could be rehoused locally. Other demonstrators held a minute’s silence in memory of the victims, complaining that their deaths had not been properly acknowledged.
Later, demonstrators also marched through central London through Whitehall and towards Broadcasting House off Oxford Street. The crowd later began marching towards Kensington High Street, chanting: “No justice, no peace”.
The Guardian
