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Trump Head of Domestic Issues Is Senior Fellow at Anti-Gay Group FRC

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Called 2014 Killing Spree ‘Attack on Natural Marriage’ 

The head of domestic issues for the Donald Trump presidential transition team is Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council. Blackwell has suffered several ethics and conflict of interest accusations during his time as Ohio’s Secretary of State. He is also on the Board of Directors of the NRA. Politico has published a document detailing the structure of the transition team in charge of federal agencies.

Blackwell will oversee policy for the Departments of Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Education, Interior, and Agriculture. He will also oversee policy for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the head of policy for the Dept. of Agriculture, Blackwell will be in control of the incoming administration’s positions on food stamps, also known as SNAP. In 2013 Blackwell said there is “nothing more Christian” than gutting America’s food stamps program.

A religious extremist, Blackwell has repeatedly attacked same-sex marriage, which he linked to the 2014 Isla Vista killing spree that left six people dead and 14 injured. 

Blackwell pointed to “the crumbling of the moral foundation of the country” and “the attack on natural marriage and the family… that have been a part of the teaching of sexual roles and the development of human sexuality in our culture,” as reasons for the murders.

Last year, ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell, Blackwell claimed there is no Civil Right to same-sex marriage, but Christians, he said, must respond to it like the Civil War.

And on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Blackwell once tried to suggest that a gay high school teen was crowned Prom Queen because of Sesame Street indoctrination.

In 2013 Blackwell wrote an indignant letter to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which the FRC Senior Fellow referred to same-sex marriages as “counterfeit,” and supporters of marriage equality “Marriage Enders.”

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“If two men can marry, why not three?,” Blackwell asked. “If gays and lesbians can marry, what about bi-sexual persons and persons who have sought to change their sex? Why can’t they have one spouse of either sex? After slavery, after Jim Crow, after the KKK, it is fair to say that among the worst things visited upon black Americans have been the targeting of our families by abortionists and the effort to end marriage. That is why we are in a crisis. This is what happens when a major party rejects God.”

In addition to being an anti-gay activist, Blackwell apparently spends a good deal of time on Facebook. Here are some of his postings:

Posted by Ken Blackwell on Thursday, November 10, 2016

Posted by Ken Blackwell on Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Ok, this is funny…

Posted by Ken Blackwell on Friday, August 5, 2016

Posted by Ken Blackwell on Friday, October 14, 2016

Posted by Ken Blackwell on Monday, October 31, 2016

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license 

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Watch Live: President Biden to Deliver Rare Address to the Nation on Bipartisan Debt Ceiling Agreement

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President Joe Biden will make a rare address to the nation Friday evening, to share with the American people the results of successful negotiations with Republicans to avert what could have been not only a national but global economic disaster had the debt ceiling crisis not been averted.

Biden is being credited for smart and savvy negotiations while keeping out of the public eye and allowing Republicans to control the narrative, while steering the agreement to one best for the American people.

Even Speaker Kevin McCarthy “conceded that he had been impressed with Biden’s negotiating team during the talks, calling them ‘very professional, very smart’ and ‘very tough at the same time,'” HuffPost reported Wednesday.

Many extremist House Republicans were hoping for a default, and over the past several weeks they made clear they did not understand what the consequences would have been.

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Watch President Biden below at 7 PM ET, or at this link.

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FBI Agrees to Brief Top House Oversight Leaders on Unsubstantiated Allegation Against Biden

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Under threat of a contempt of Congress referral against FBI Director Chris Wray, the Bureau has agreed to allow a briefing for the top Republican and top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee on a years-old unsubstantiated allegation, which has been called a second-hand tip, accusing then-Vice President Joe Biden of a supposed wrongful act.

The existence of the lone, unclassified document, called an FD-1023 form, until recently was not even verified by the FBI.

Chairman Jim Comer (R-KY) and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) “will receive a briefing from the FBI and review the FD-1023 form behind closed doors in a secure SCIF, a sensitive compartmented information facility at the Capitol rather than going to FBI headquarters, as the bureau had initially offered,” CNN on Friday reported.

READ MORE: Classified Pentagon ‘War Plans’ Document Trump Bragged About in Audio Recording Is Missing: Report

“While the document contains the allegations made by an unnamed whistleblower, it doesn’t provide proof that they are true, people briefed on the matter said. The FBI and prosecutors who previously reviewed the information couldn’t corroborate the claims.”

Chairman Comer, who has been accused of using his position on the powerful Oversight Committee aid Donald Trump’s efforts to regain the presidency, late last month appeared to validate that accusation.

The unverified FD-1023 form “has origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020, people briefed on the matter said,” CNN notes.

“According to Comer,” CNN adds, the FD-1023 form, “dated June 30, 2020, says [a] foreign national allegedly paid $5 million to receive a desired policy outcome, based on unclassified and legally protected whistleblower disclosures.”

On Thursday, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who has teamed up with Chairman Comer, came under fire for admitting he does not care whether or not the accusations against President Biden are true or not, he wants to pursue them regardless.

READ MORE: Classified Pentagon ‘War Plans’ Document Trump Bragged About in Audio Recording Is Missing: Report

CNN earlier this week reported that even then-Attorney General Bill Barr questioned the validity of the alleged document.

“The allegations of wrongdoing by the then-vice president, many originating from sources in Ukraine, were dubious enough that Attorney General William Barr in early 2020 directed that they be reviewed by a US attorney in Pittsburgh, in part because Barr was concerned that Giuliani’s document tranche could taint the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation overseen by the Delaware US attorney.”

Ranking Member Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, in a statement this week characterized the FD-1023 as containing “unsubstantiated, second-hand claims,” and called it a “tip.”

Raskin has also accused Comer of being determined to send a contempt of Congress referral for Director Wray to the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

“It is increasingly clear that Committee Republicans have always planned to hold Director Wray in contempt of Congress to distract from the obvious fact that they do not have evidence to support their unfounded accusations against President Biden. This latest political maneuver underscores Chairman Comer’s determination to use the Committee to help former President Trump’s reelection efforts and pander to extreme MAGA Republicans.”

Last month, The New Republic reported, the “House GOP accused Joe Biden and his family … of engaging in business with foreign entities—but were unable to provide any actual evidence linking the president to any wrongdoing.”

“House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer released a 65-page memo detailing a sprawling investigation into Biden and some of his relatives, particularly his son Hunter Biden. Nowhere in the massive document was there a specific allegation of a crime committed by Biden or any of his relatives.”

 

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Classified Pentagon ‘War Plans’ Document Trump Bragged About in Audio Recording Is Missing: Report

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Donald Trump’s legal team has been unable to locate the classified Pentagon document detailing a possible attack on Iran the ex-president was recorded at his Bedminster golf resort in 2021 bragging he had held onto.

“Attorneys for Donald Trump turned over material in mid-March in response to a federal subpoena related to a classified US military document described by the former president on tape in 2021 but were unable to find the document itself, two sources tell CNN,” the network reported Friday. “Prosecutors issued the subpoena shortly after asking a Trump aide before a federal grand jury about the audio recording of a July 2021 meeting at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.”

In that audio recording Trump allegedly says he wished he could show the document, but acknowledges it is classified and therefore he is not allowed to share it. Attendees in that 2021 meeting reportedly did not have clearance to even know about the existence of the document.

“Prosecutors sought ‘any and all’ documents and materials related to Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Iran, including maps or invasion plans, the sources say. A similar subpoena was sent to at least one other attendee of the meeting, another source tells CNN.”

READ MORE: Decision to Not Charge Pence in Classified Docs Probe Is ‘Prelude to DOJ Seeking Charges Against Trump’: Legal Expert

The Pentagon appears greatly concerned about the document, which legal experts have referred to as “war plans.”

CNN adds that its “sources say prosecutors made clear to Trump’s attorneys after issuing the subpoena that they specifically wanted the Iran document he talked about on tape as well as any material referencing classified information – like meeting notes, audio recordings or copies of the document – that may still be Trump’s possession.”

CNN also reports both DOJ and the Special Counsel’s office have expressed concerns Trump still has not returned all classified documents he unlawfully removed from the White House.

READ MORE: ‘Objectively Amazing’: Economists Cheer ‘Extraordinarily Robust’ and ‘Close to Unprecedented’ Jobs Report

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