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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are reportedly being treated like royalty on their first official visit to China.Trump and his wife were granted a rare dinner at the Forbidden City, an honor that has not been bestowed on a foreign leader since the founding of the People’s Republic of China 68 years ago, reports New York Daily News, as well as several other media outlets.The president and first lady arrived in China, the third leg of Trump’s two-week Asia tour, Wednesday afternoon. After landing in Beijing, Trump and Melania toured the Forbidden City with Chinese President Xi...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is walking back his claim that no middle class Americans will see a tax increase under the Senate GOP plan. "I misspoke on that. You can't guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase," McConnell told The New York Times on Friday. McConnell added that "what we are doing is targeting levels of income and looking at the average in those levels and the average will be tax relief for the average taxpayer in each of those segments."

<p>RUSH: You know, these political sex scandals, they’re fascinating, folks. When the Democrats have one, you need to produce semen, you need the blue dress, you need transcripts of sexting, you need photos of people sneaking into hotel rooms like John Edwards. But when the 40-year-old childhood memories of a wacky woman and the Washington Post allege something about a Republican, all hell breaks loose.</p>

President Trump hit back early Friday at critics at home for challenging his comments in Beijing on the massive trade deficit with China, doubling down on blaming not China but past U.S. administrations for the situation. “I don’t blame China,” Trump reiterated on Twitter. “I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100s of billions,” he continued. “How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would’ve done same!” The unrepentant Friday morning tweet...

Earlier in the week, we learned that the female Russian attorney whose June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner -- which remains the most (only?) concrete evidence of attempted collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government -- met with the founder of Democratic opposition research firm Fusion GPS on that very same day. Twice. Both before and after the truncated and much-discussed Trump Tower confab. As someone who cut Team Trump very little slack on the Don Jr. emails that preceded their huddle with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the revelations about her schedule on that...

A day after explosive allegations of sexual assault surfaced against Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, the Republican Party’s senate campaign arm has severed financial ties with the embattled former state supreme court justice. A joint fundraising committee benefitting Moore and a handful of Republican Party organs filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Friday removing the National Republican Senatorial Committee as one of its beneficiaries. Going forward, the committee’s fundraising will benefit Moore’s Senate campaign, the Alabama Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee but not the NRSC.

WASHINGTON — Roy Moore could do more damage to the GOP brand than an Alabama Senate seat is worth. NBC News has not confirmed that (sic) allegations; the woman didn't file a police report or bring a civil suit. Moore, now 70, called the charges "completely false" in a statement released by his campaign Thursday. It's a "no-win situation through and through" for the GOP, said Doug Heye, a former Senate and House Republican aide. "He's not worth it," Heye said. The question of how to handle Moore has both political and moral components, said Republicans who spoke to NBC...

The Senate campaign arm of the Republican Party on Friday severed ties with Roy Moore, one day after the Washington Post reported that Moore had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and pursued inappropriate relationships with several other teenagers while he was a district attorney in his 30s. As the Daily Beast first reported, a joint fundraising committee supporting Moore’s election bid and the Republican Party filed paperwork Friday morning dropping the National Republican Senatorial Committee from its list of beneficiaries. The Alabama Republican Party and the Republican National Committee remain linked to the campaign. Moore has strongly denied the allegations,...

The armed civilian who used his assault rifle to stop Sunday’s mass murder of 26 Texas churchgoers has been hailed, rightly, as a hero, but Stephen Willeford is hardly unique. A number of armed American citizens have also used their firearms to stop or limit mass killings.

The allegations against Roy Moore are disgusting — and if you find yourself reluctant to say so because of your politics, then you’re pretty gross, too. The Leigh Corfman story, reported by the Washington Post, is about so much more than just some older guy having a relationship with some younger girl. That, of course, would be bad enough — many girls haven’t even had their f***ing periods at age 14 — but this is also about a man who abuses his power to prey on the powerless. It’s about a respected district attorney finding a girl in a vulnerable...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election continues to hang over Washington, D.C. like a dark cloud. The investigation, which has already produced two indictments, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and business partner Rick Gates, may very soon engulf even more political figures. A lot of them. LawNewz.com verified that there are currently 34 cases that have been filed under seal in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia between the dates of October 27th (when Manafort was indicted) and today’s date. While the sealed cases are certainly interesting to note,...

Roy Moore may or may not become a U.S. senator, but he was fortunate that the explosive allegations about him pursuing relationships with teenage girls (one as young as 14) while he was in his 30s emerged at a time in his party’s history when it had been preparing for years to defend something like this. If Moore’s political ambitions survive, he’ll have President Trump — and the way the GOP, in service to Trump, abandoned any pretense of moral principle — to thank. [snip] But if you read the story, it’s almost impossible to believe it isn’t true. Our...

... I have been fretting for some time about Roy Moore coming to the U.S. Senate. He embodies every negative stereotype anyone ever had of people from Alabama. As I wrote soon after his win in the GOP primary, “Moore is bad for Alabama and worse for the GOP.” Well, I didn’t think it was possible when I wrote that piece a couple weeks ago, but things have managed to get even worse. Suffice it to say, I was worried then — and more so now — that if anyone or any company considered moving jobs to Alabama, holding a...

FULL TITLE - As GOP lawmakers discuss Roy Moore stepping aside, state election official says he can’t be removed from the ballot MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WHNT) - Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill tells WHNT News 19 Roy Moore's name was already printed on Alabama's ballot after the nominees were confirmed back in October. Merrill also pointed out many voters have already cast their ballot for Moore, considering absentee ballots were sent out October 15th. This comes as prominent members of the US Senate and the Republican Party, from Mitch McConnell to Richard Shelby to John McCain, say Roy Moore should...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Standing in a stately Mayo Clinic library, Lilly Ross reached out and touched the face of a stranger, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless gap in a chin she once had known so well. "That's why he always grew it so long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin," she told Andy Sandness, as he shut his eyes and braced for the tickle of her touch on new nerve endings in the face that had been her husband's. Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that had belonged to...

Embattled Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore is tied with Democrat Doug Jones in a new poll on Friday, one day after accusations surfaced that Moore had inappropriate sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl decades ago. Moore and Jones are tied at 46 percent in the new poll by Decision Desk and Opinion Savvy, with 82 percent of respondents aware of the new allegations leveled by named accusers in The Washington Post. In an average of polls, Moore was previously leading Jones by six points. Most polls were taken before the allegations of Moore’s sexual conduct were reported. The new...

Link only (Reuters)

Durham, N.C. — Charges for three people who are accused of toppling a Confederate monument in downtown Durham have been dropped, according to their defense attorney. According to defense attorney Scott Holmes, charges were dropped against Aaron Alexander Caldwell, Myles Spigner and Taylor Cook, citing that probable cause exists, but there was not enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. On Aug. 14, a group of protesters tore the statue of a Confederate soldier down after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., ended with one woman dead and almost two dozen injured.

The Steele dossier has already become a thing of John le Carré-like intrigue—British spies, Kremlin agents, legal cutouts, hidden bank accounts. What all this obscures is the more immediate point: The dossier amounts to one of the dirtiest tricks in U.S. political history. It was perpetrated by Team Clinton and yielded a vast payoff for Hillary’s campaign. “Details from the dossier were not reported before Election Day,” ran a recent CNN story. Hillary Clinton herself stressed the point in a recent “Daily Show” appearance. This is utterly untrue. In British court documents Mr. Steele has acknowledged he briefed U.S. reporters...

An Alabama GOP state representative said Friday that he thinks legal action should be taken against the women who accused Roy Moore of sexual misconduct with a minor. State Rep. Ed Henry told The Cullman Times that he is “not buying” the Washington Post report, which was published with accounts from four women and backed up by 30 sources. The report accused Moore of kissing and sexually touching a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. “If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years,” Henry said. “I think someone should prosecute...