Richard Wolf USA TODAY Published 5:14 PM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – As a government lawyer a generation ago, Brett Kavanaugh sought to impeach a sitting president. As a federal judge writing in a law review a decade later, he staunchly defended the impeachment process. And last year, during a Senate confirmation hearing that focused on allegations of sexual assault against him from the early 1980s, Kavanaugh warned senators that “what goes around comes around.” Now the subject of impeachment has come around again, not with President Donald Trump in the crosshairs but…

David Jackson USA TODAY Published 3:46 PM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – A day after threatening an armed response over an attack on Saudi Arabia oil facilities, President Donald Trump said Monday it looks like the Iranians were responsible – but he doesn’t want war with them. “Well, it’s looking that way,” Trump said when asked if Iran was responsible for the weekend attack on Saudi oil facilities. “We’ll let you know definitively … That’s being checked out right now.” Trump added that he doesn’t want war with Iran, but said that…

David Jackson USA TODAY Published 1:58 PM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – A day after threatening an armed response over an attack on Saudi Arabia oil facilities, President Donald Trump struck a more neutral tone on Iran early Monday, saying the United States does not need Middle East oil production. “Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World,” Trump said. “We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas,…

Meredith Newman Delaware News Journal Published 10:26 AM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WILMINGTON — Yes, “Corn Pop” is a real person.  This weekend, a clip of presidential candidate Joe Biden recalling his time as a Wilmington, Delaware, lifeguard in the 1960s went viral. Biden was speaking in Wilmington in 2017, where the pool he worked as a college student was being named after him. At the time, he was the only white lifeguard at the pool. To many in Wilmington, Biden’s time as a lifeguard marked the beginning of his close relationship with…

David Jackson USA TODAY Published 10:18 AM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – A day after appearing to threaten military action against Iran over the attack on Saudi Arabia oil facilities, President Donald Trump struck a more neutral tone early Monday by saying the United States does not need Middle East oil production. “Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World,” Trump said. “We don’t need Middle…

Nicholas Wu USA TODAY Published 4:49 PM EDT Sep 15, 2019 WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump talked on the phone with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Sunday morning as pressure mounted for Congress to act on gun control.  In a statement released Sunday afternoon, Schumer and Pelosi said they told Trump that any gun control package that did not include the background check legislation passed earlier this year by the House would “not get the job done.”  “This morning, we made it clear to the president that any…

Nicholas Wu USA TODAY Published 2:35 PM EDT Sep 15, 2019 WASHINGTON – Republicans reignited controversy over Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comments about 9/11 after she was asked about it on a Sunday morning television interview.  Omar had given remarks before the Council on American-Islamic Relations in March, and had said the group had been “founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”  Democrats have previously argued Omar’s remarks were taken out of context…

Nicholas Wu USA TODAY Published 1:09 PM EDT Sep 15, 2019 WASHINGTON – The report of a new sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has sparked fury among figures on both the left and right.  In a Sunday morning tweet, President Donald Trump accused the “LameStream Media” and Democrats of colluding to scare Kavanaugh “into turning Liberal.” And on the left, presidential candidates Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment.   Harris had voted against Kavanaugh’s confirmation in October 2018.  Kavanaugh had been…

Gabrielle Canon USA TODAY Published 4:55 PM EDT Sep 14, 2019 On the final day of California’s legislative session, the state’s newspaper industry won a temporary reprieve in a fight over pay for carriers. In the early hours of Saturday, the Assembly voted 62-4 to send AB170 to the governor’s desk. The “carveout” bill gives publishers a one-year extension to comply with a new landmark labor measure, AB5, that would reclassify many workers now considered independent contractors — including newspaper delivery people — as employees. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is expected to sign both bills into law. Though…

James DeHaven Reno Gazette Journal Published 2:29 PM EDT Sep 14, 2019 Bernie Sanders took aim at Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden on Friday, telling a Carson City, Nevada, audience that the former vice president had distorted Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal during Thursday’s nationally televised debate. Sanders, a two-time presidential contender, said he was dispirited by the on-stage exchange at Texas Southern University, where Biden attacked Sanders’ single payer health plan as too costly. Sanders went on to deride what he saw as Biden’s willingness to “parrot” the health…