The U.S. Senate unanimously backed President Barack Obama’s nomination of Eric Fanning as secretary of the Army on Tuesday, making him the first openly gay leader of a U.S. military service branch.
Fanning was previously undersecretary of the Air Force and chief of staff to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
* All you young people (and older folks, too) who are concerned about climate change…note this:
Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would renegotiate America’s role in the U.N. global climate accord, spelling potential doom for an agreement many view as a last chance to turn the tide on global warming.
A pull-out by the world’s second biggest carbon-emitting country would hobble the deal reached in Paris last December by nearly 200 nations, who for the first time in more than two decades found a common vision for curbing greenhouse gas emissions…
Trump has said that he believes global warming is a concept that was invented by China to hurt the competitiveness of U.S. business. One of his energy policy advisers is a climate change skeptic, U.S. Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.
* This one belongs in the category of: “You know your campaign is in trouble when…”
Donald Trump is “not a groper,” insists his daughter Ivanka (in contradiction to the deposition of a woman who has accused Trump of groping her under the table). Trump’s vigorous defense of her father follows on the heels of Melania Trump’s protestation that her husband is “not Hitler.” Finally, a plausible line of defense for the Republican nominee from his familial surrogates. He may reduce women to their sexual value and humiliate them routinely, but he usually confines himself to verbal rather than physical abuse, and he admires authoritarian governments in Russia, China, and North Korea and proposes to replicate some of their tactics, but he’s just a common dictator rather than a genocidal one.
* While everyone, including Sen. Harry Reid, is consumed with talking about the behavior of Sanders’ supporters in Nevada last weekend, Al is the only one I’ve heard make this observation?
Meanwhile, notice how while Harry Reid has Sanders & Weaver locked in conflict with him, Clinton has had free swings at Trump.
— Senator Al Giordano (@AlGiordano) May 18, 2016
* Finally, if you’re looking for a break from politics, read this story to learn how this happened 30 years ago.
