Mediaboss Marketing

Washington Examiner

Spicer 'would proudly play any role' if Mike Pence runs for president in 2024 News & Observer Pence the former governor of Indiana and a staunch social conservative has proven to be an important figure in the Senate, already casting a tie-breaking vote four times in just sixth months, according to CNN. That would put him on pace to have ... Sean Spicer would 'proudly' work for Mike Pence if he runs for presidentWashington Examiner all 23 news articles »

Visit link:
Spicer 'would proudly play any role' if Mike Pence runs for president in 2024 - News & Observer

Ragtime, the musical snapshot of life at the turn of the 20th century, is a big show based on a novel by E.L. Doctorow. Terence McNally masterfully turned the sweeping story into a production packed with music by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

The production is meant to be both powerfully affecting and entertaining and it is just that in a production at Northampton Community College Summer Theatre.

NCC artistic director Bill Mutimer has assembled a cast of great actors and singers who make it easy to care about them and the messages they deliver. During the Saturday night performance, audience members gasped, murmured or cheered at key moments and gave the cast a well deserved standing ovation.

The story follows three groups of people a white upper class family in New Rochelle, N.Y.; African Americans in Harlem facing discrimination and Eastern European immigrants trying to achieve the American dream. It explores their hopes, fears and struggles as they navigate life in a changing time. Although the novel is more than 40 years old and the musical 20 years old, the story somehow feels as contemporary as it is historical.

The cast is very large more than 50 but this is a case where the more is indeed the merrier, as their collective voices and presence create a swell of energy. Thats especially the case with the musical numbers, starting from the opener, Ragtime, featuring the entire cast, divided into their groups. More than three dozen songs do a good job of moving the story forward, although the play is not entirely sung.

The lead actors are exceptional, starting with Mother, played by Equity actor Valerie Hill. She is sparkling, charming, expressive, sensitive and strong in a Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music kind of way and she sings beautifully. Mother is guided by love and compassion. Father seems at times impossibly stubborn, unlikeable and one dimensional, but Matthew Walczer captures the subtleties of his personality and allows you to actually care about him.

Caleb James Grochalski as Tateh, a Jew from Latvia, effectively captures the breadth of the immigrant experience from determination to hopelessness and despair and then success bred from ingenuity, strength and resolve.

The African American experience is represented convincingly by Justin Boyd as Coalhouse Walker Jr., an aspiring singer/pianist, and Shannon Dionne as Sarah, the mother of his child. They are both charismatic and their chemistry is strong. Their voices beautifully combine for moving duets.

Supporting players are plentiful and noteworthy, including Evelyn Carpenter as Tatehs daughter (the role is doublecast), Claran Walsh as Mother and Fathers young son (also doublecast), and Colin White, who captures the conflict and passion of Mothers Younger Brother, and who sings well.

The historical figures woven through the musical also are appealing, especially Megan Schmidt as chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit and Sarah Thatcher as political activist Emma Goldman, who are charismatic in quite different ways. Thatcher also has a commanding voice and presence.

The staging is well done, with the large cast moving smoothly and props moving in and out without much disruption. Scenes with violence or destruction are handled with tasteful restraint to a powerful result.

There also is exceptional choreography by Christina Sohns-Williams. I loved the Henry Ford number with workers simulating a factory line.

Costumes are stereotypical, but that works well with such a big cast. The upper class people are in white from head to toe, the immigrants in layers of browns and greys and the African Americans with lots of plaid.

The simple set consists of a drawing of a Lincoln penny covering the floor and a catwalk to facilitate the movement of time and place.

The show is long about 2 and a half hours but well worth the time.

Ragtime, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, Northampton Community College, Lipkin Theatre, Kopecek Hall, 3835 Green Pond Road, Bethlehem Township. Tickets: Tickets: $25; $20, seniors and students. http://www.nccsummertheatre.org, 866-967-8167.

jodi.duckett@mcall.com

Twitter @goguidelv

610-820-6704

See the article here:
Review: 'Ragtime' a moving musical at Northampton Community College - Allentown Morning Call

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump signed a bill on Wednesday imposing new sanctions on Russia, putting to rest questions about whether he would support the legislation passed overwhelmingly by Congress last week while he still excoriated the measure as "significantly flawed."

The bill sanctions Russia citing its cyberhacking as well as aggression in Ukraine and Syria while also slapping new sanctions on North Korea and Iran.

The legislation limits the ability of the president to lift the sanctions unilaterally, something lawmakers had insisted on.

Trump signed the bill behind closed doors, with no press coverage. In one White House statement released after the signing, referred to as the "official signing statement," the president called some of the provisions "clearly unconstitutional."

In a second statement, Trump lamented that the bill "encroaches on the executive branch's authority to negotiate."

"The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President. This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice," Trump said, adding that he signed legislation "for the sake of national unity."

That statement goes on to chastise Congress for an entirely different issue its inability to "negotiate a healthcare bill after seven years of talking" and finishes with a personal note: "I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters Tuesday that neither he nor President Trump, "were very happy" about the way Congress put these new sanctions in place, but he anticipated the bill would be signed anyway.

"We were clear that we didn't think it was going to be helpful to our efforts, but that's the decision they made, they made it in a very overwhelming way. I think the president accepts that," he said.

The sanctions bill was passed in both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support and by veto-proof margins. It passed in the Senate on Thursday with a 98-2 vote and in the House last Tuesday, 419-3.

Lawmakers pushed the sanctions, particularly those against Russia, in spite of the president's conciliatory tone toward the country whose government U.S. intelligence agencies concluded meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Russian government officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have denied the allegations, both in the press and to Trump directly.

Trump has hedged repeatedly on the question of Russian responsibility for election meddling last year, saying it is possible Russia was involved but other countries could have had a role.

Putin voiced his objection to the proposed sanctions last week, accusing the U.S. of attempting to use "geopolitical advantages in competition to pursue economic interests at the expense of [U.S.] allies."

View post:
Donald Trump Signs Russia Sanctions Bill for 'Sake of National Unity' - NBCNews.com

(WASHINGTON) There wasn't a dramatic public break or an exact moment it happened. But step by step, Senate Republicans are turning their backs on President Donald Trump.

They defeated an Obamacare repeal bill despite Trump's pleas. They're ignoring his Twitter demands that they get back to work on the repeal measure. They dissed the White House budget director, defended the attorney general against the president's attacks and passed veto-proof sanctions on Russia over his administration's objections.

They're reasserting their independence, which looked sorely diminished in the aftermath of Trump's surprise election win.

"We work for the American people," Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Tuesday. "We don't work for the president."

Those are surprisingly tough words from a Republican whose state Trump won easily less than a year ago. But after six months of controversies and historically low approval ratings , it's clear Trump isn't commanding the fear or respect he once did.

Some Republicans no doubt are giving voice to long-held reservations about a man whose election was essentially a hostile takeover of their party. But it is notable that the loudest criticism is coming from the Senate, where few Republicans are burdened with facing an electorate anytime soon. The situation is different in the House, where most Republicans represent conservative districts still loyal to Trump. For those lawmakers, the fear of facing a conservative primary challenger, possibly fueled by angry Trump followers, is real.

In the most remarkable example of public Trump-bashing, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is taking aim at the president and his own party in a new book, writing that "unnerving silence in the face of an erratic executive branch is an abdication" and marveling at "the strange specter of an American president's seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians."

The criticism from Flake is especially striking since he is one of just two GOP senators facing competitive re-election races in next year's midterm elections, the other being Dean Heller of Nevada. The other 50 Senate Republicans are largely insulated from blowback from Trump's still-loyal base, at least in the short term.

That is likely contributing to their defiance, which is emerging now after an accumulation of frustrations, culminating in the failure of the health care bill Friday. In particular, senators were aghast over Trump's recent attacks on their longtime colleague Jeff Sessions , the former Alabama senator who is now attorney general and facing Trump's wrath over having recused himself from the investigation into possible collaboration between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina deemed Trump's treatment of Sessions "unseemly" and "a sign of great weakness on the part of President Trump." The comments were echoed by other Republican senators.

Then, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, a former House member, suggested on a Sunday show that the Senate must pass health care before doing anything else. No. 2 Republican John Cornyn didn't hesitate to go after him.

"I don't think he's got much experience in the Senate as I recall, and he's got a big job," Cornyn said. "He ought to do that job and let us do our jobs."

The ill will flows both ways. At Tuesday's White House briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointedly blamed lawmakers for the president's failures to deliver. "I think what's hurting the legislative agenda is Congress' inability to get things passed," she said.

Trump has been ignoring past warnings from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to stay out of the Senate's business, tweeting relentless commands in the wake of Friday's failure on health care that the Senate should eliminate the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to move forward on much major legislation.

"Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT'S TIME!" the president said over Twitter.

That ignored the fact that Republicans tried to pass the health care bill under rules that required only a simple majority.

So Republicans, in turn, ignored Trump.

"It's pretty obvious that our problem on health care was not the Democrats," McConnell said drily on Tuesday. "We didn't have 50 Republicans."

Some Republicans say Trump and his administration only made it harder to pass health care by ineptly pressuring Sen. Lisa Murkowski with threats from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about consequences for her state, which rankled the Alaska senator. She proceeded to postpone votes in the Energy committee she chairs on a group of administration nominees, while saying it was for unrelated reasons, and voted "no" on the health bill.

"I think most Republican senators have their own identity that's separate from the president," said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist and former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "If you look at the elections last fall, almost every Republican senator who was up for re-election ran ahead of Trump and that's not a fact that's lost on Congress."

The House has been a friendlier place for Trump. Republicans there pushed through a health care bill in May.

"For the most part our caucus is still in support of the president," said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky. "That doesn't mean we agree with everything he says and does, but we still support his agenda, his presidency, and we're not going to fumble the ball."

In the Senate, though, lawmakers and the president appear to be going their separate ways, with some senators talking as though Trump is almost irrelevant.

"Ever since we've been here we've really been following our lead, right?" said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. "Whether it was the Supreme Court justice or the Russia sanctions bill, attempting to do health care and obviously we did so unsuccessfully, and now we're moving on to tax reform, but most of this has, almost every bit of this has been 100 percent internal to Congress."

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Matthew Daly and Jill Colvin contributed.

Read the original here:
Senate Republicans Are Slowly Turning Their Backs on Trump - TIME

It is a classic of the form. I went through and pulled out the strangest of the strange Trump lines. They're below in the order Trump said them.

1. "But once you get that motion, it's in pretty good shape, once you get in. It's hard to get in, but once you get in."

Trump is talking here about the motion to proceed on the health care legislation, in case you were wondering.

2. "John McCain was a great help, coming in as he did. And so it was something I very much appreciate, and we'll see what happens."

3. "Many conversations. I just had one with a certain senator that was very convincing to that senator. So I've done a lot."

Hmmm. You would assume this had to do with health care given the timing of the interview. And, if so, was Trump really "very convincing" given that the vote failed hours later?

4. "And I you know, I think I you know, look, just don't quote me on this unless it happens, but I think we have a pretty good shot."

They did quote you. And the vote failed.

5. "If it's repeal and replace, which one do you want to go? Which form of existing conditions? I mean, there's many things."

Here's the truth: Trump isn't a details guy. Never has been. He comes in at the end and uses the power of his #brand and personality to close deals. In this quote he makes clear he knows very, very little about the specific policies being debated in the health care fight. "Which form of existing conditions" is not a phrase anyone who knows the law and the proposed changes says.

6. "It was nice to see you out in Southampton a couple weeks ago."

OK, I'm cheating a little bit here since this quote is from Wall Street Journal executive editor Gerard Baker. But what a quote! He's talking to Ivanka Trump who stopped by the interview. And who says media tycoons don't live like regular people!

7. "He's a good he's a good boy."

According to Politico, Trump is talking about Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, here. And, apparently Jared is a good boy.

8. "If you remember, it was you know, it was an idea that I had very early on, repeal."

Trump appears to be taking credit here for calling for the repeal of an Obamacare, an idea that has been kicking around in Republican circles for almost as long as the Affordable Care Act has existed.

9. "It's a very difficult -- it's a very difficult thing, always has been."

"On my first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to send me a bill to immediately repeal and replace, I just said it, Obamacare." -- Donald Trump, September 2016.

10. "I honestly believe for six months I have done more than just about any president when you look at all of the bills that were passed, 42, 43."

11. "Look, I had 45,000 people there yesterday. It's the biggest crowd they've ever had, and they were they were going wild yesterday in West Virginia."

12. "And, you know, it is it would have been easier to start with taxes, but this is better if it works, OK? If it works, this is better."

So ...Trump thinks, in hindsight, he should have started with tax reform rather than health care? Or no? Yes?

13. "And then I'm going to do a very big we're doing very big trade deals, and we're looking forward to that."

Things to look forward to: "Very big trade deals." So, we got that going for us, which is nice.

14. "She lost easily, you know, 306 to 223 I think, right -- 223, something like that."

This was a question about whether Democrats have any incentive to work with Trump. Also, he won 304 electoral votes.

15. "So you have the governor of Ohio not supporting you and you win by almost 10 points, which is pretty good because Ohio's not if you remember, you guys were always saying you have to win Ohio, right?"

The 2016 election ended 259 days before this interview was conducted.

16. "Biggest crowd they've ever had. What did you think?"

This quotes proves two things. First, Trump is obsessed with crowd size and it always being the biggest and best. Second, he cares deeply what reporters and their editors think of him.

17. "I'd be the first to admit mixed. I'm a guy that will tell you mixed. There was no mix there. That was a standing ovation from the time I walked out to the time I left, and for five minutes after I had already gone. There was no mix."

NO MIX. Trump is insistent that the Boy Scouts crowd loved him. Every second of his speech. One long standing ovation. NO MIX.

18. "I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful."

19. "I call him Mr. Elegant. I mean, that was a great debate. We did such a great job."

Who is Mr. Elegant? Lester Holt, who moderated the first general election debate? Or Maybe CNN's own Anderson Cooper, who moderated the second one? Oh, yeah, Trump is answering a question about his tax policy here. But, he wants you to know he did a great job in that debate.

20. "So I deal with foreign countries, and despite what you may read, I have unbelievable relationships with all of the foreign leaders. They like me. I like them. You know, it's amazing."

Same.

21. "You know, a lot of people say they say, well, but the United States is large. And then you call places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and you say, you know, how many people do you have? And it's pretty amazing how many people they have."

Wait, there are countries that have more people in them than the US??? That IS amazing.

22. "You know, I was with Bob Kraft the other night. He came to have dinner with me. He's a friend of mine."

23. "When George Steinbrenner died, like with the estate taxes, the estate paid nothing."

24. "We think we're going to have tremendous growth. We think money's going to come pouring into the country."

Well, I'm satisfied! [shakes hands, nods, walks away]

25. "They go to Ireland, they go to other -- I own a lot of property in Ireland."

26. "We'll have companies pouring back into our nation. I mean, it's going to be -- you know, it's going to be beautiful."

So, so beautiful.

27. "We have Tim Cook I spoke to, and he's promised me three big plants -- big, big, big."

28."I just don't know if he'd like -- this is off the record -- if he wants to sit down."

It wasn't off the record.

29. "I mean, you don't hear the word Britain anymore. It's very interesting. It's like, nope."

Like, nope.

30. "What would they do with the British Open if they ever got out? They'd no longer have the British Open."

31. "So for a guy to go -- you know, to me, that's almost worse than, like, a triple bogey, because -- but for a guy to go through these horrible holes, hit a bad drive like I've never seen -- I mean, he was 150 yards, right."

In case you needed Trump's thoughts on Jordan Spieth's victory at the Open Championship, here they are.

32. "There'll be certain pieces. It's not -- there'll be certain pieces."

Trump's answer when asked to get specific on what a trade deal with the United Kingdom would look like.

33. "I was last night in West Virginia, and I had farmers coming up to me and hugging me and kissing me because of the cattle stuff."

34. "The word reciprocal, to me, is very important."

I am more of a "reciprocity" guy myself.

35. "We're the people that are getting beat up -- one of the reasons I think I'm talking to -- I'm sitting behind this beautiful desk as opposed to somebody else."

????

36. "Well, we're doing major studies. Oh, I would be very surprised if they will be -- look, we've been extremely nice to them. We've been extremely nice to them in saying they were compliant, OK?"

The president of the United States on Iran.

37. "I know, that's just -- and Anthony will handle that. I can -- Anthony can do that out of his back pocket, OK?"

38. "But I was -- I appointed a man to a position. And then shortly after he gets the position, he recused himself. I said, what's that all about? Why didn't you tell me that you were going to do that, and I wouldn't have appointed you? But I appointed him. And shortly thereafter, he recused himself."

Here's how it went down: First Trump appointed Sessions. Then Sessions recused himself. Then Trump was like "WHAAAAA?"

39. "That's a total witch hunt, the whole Russia story. It's a hoax. It's a hoax. We had no collusion with Russia. We never dealt with Russia."

Trump's oldest son, Don Jr., released an email exchange in which he is told that "incriminating" information about Hillary Clinton has been obtained by a Russian government program. He agrees to meet in hopes of obtaining that information. When the meeting is revealed, Donald Trump is involved in the crafting of Don Jr.'s statement to The New York Times about it -- a statement that is, at best, misleading on the details of why the gathering took place and what was discussed.

40. "You know, I put out a letter from a very -- from the biggest law firm saying Trump has no involvement with Russia. I don't."

41. "So he wasn't in love with me for a short period of time."

Trump on The Mooch. Yes, really.

42. "He looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, what do I have to lose, and he endorsed me. So it's not like a great, loyal thing about the endorsement."

Trump has rewritten history in his own mind to suggest Jeff Sessions, then a senator and now his attorney general, only endorsed him because Trump was so incredibly popular. And, therefore, Sessions deserves no credit for the endorsement.

43. "And if Jeff Sessions didn't recuse himself, we wouldn't even be talking about this subject."

Trump really believes this -- that if Sessions had not recused himself on Russia it would have all disappeared. Which is, um, not right.

44. "I make good deals. I don't make bad deals. I make good deals."

Good deals only here. Bad deals need not apply.

45. "But I'm very happy with Anthony. I think Anthony is going to do amazing."

Scaramucci was pushed out six days after this interview.

Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that Trump was referring to his son-in-law Jared Kushner and not Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker when he used the term "good boy."

Read the rest here:
The 45 oddest quotes from Donald Trump's secretive Wall Street Journal interview - CNN