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July 2017

As I noted in Morning Insurrection last week, I will be spending 18 days touring Central Europe and the Balkans. During our stop in Budapest, Hungary, motorcades are rolling down our street continuously and Israeli flags are flying high. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in town, and he is now making news with a rather stark assessment about his country's relationship with the European Union.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a blistering attack against the European Union during a closed-session meeting Wednesday morning in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, telling the premiers of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia that the EU's behavior toward Israel is crazy.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is entangled in a new controversy only a week after the public lashed out at officials for refusing to release video footage of crimes over fears the videos would incite racism. Recent reports indicate that BART has seen double the amount of rapes in the first six months of 2017 than all of 2016.

Just as states have finally taken steps to stop civil asset forfeiture, Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to take the federal government a few steps back. In a speech to the National District Attorneys Association, Sessions announced that this week the Department of Justice hopes to issue "policies to increase forfeitures."

Saudi Arabia is a country that oppresses females, treating them as second class citizens. Recently, authorities arrested a young woman who wore a skirt and crop top in public. Her head was not covered. The video, posted to Snapchat, "show the woman walking through an ancient fort in Ushayqir, a village in Najd province about 95 miles from the capital, Riyadh," reports the Washington Post.

Two years ago tomorrow University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing, who is white, shot and killed black motorist Sam DuBose during a traffic stop. The stop, DuBose' attempt to drive away while dragging Officer Tensing down the road, and the fatal shot were largely captured on Tensing's body-cam.  Today, after trying Tensing twice and achieving only two hung juries, Prosecutor Joe Deters announced that he is not seeking to try Tensing a third time, reports WCPO news and other sources.

Monday night, Sens Lee and Moran effectively killing the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) when they announced they would not support the bill, leaving Senate Republicans with no foreseeable path forward to repeal and replace Obamacare. Sens Lee and Moran joined three other Republican Senators refusing to support the bill.

Hawaii just filed its Opposition (pdf.) to the Trump administration's request for clarification of the Supreme Court's prior ruling as to Travel Order No. 2, and to stay the Hawaii federal District Court's Order significantly scaling back the Trump administration's interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling. A full copy of the Opposition papers is embedded at the bottom of this post. We covered the issues in our prior post, Trump asks Supreme Court halt Hawaii Court ruling on Travel Order:

Germany faces a "growing threat" from left-wing extremism, warns Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of the country’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV). This intelligence assessment comes little more than a week after the leftist protests against the G20 summit in Hamburg turned into -- what some European commentators described as -- an embarrassment for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Around 500 police officers were injured during those protests.

Give Joe Scarborough credit. Just when we were getting bored with all the Trump/Nazi analogies, Joe has come up with a new one. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough compared Trump press secretary Sean Spicer to an old Soviet spokesman and propagandist. Scarborough's beef was that Spicer had supposedly said that the meeting of Trump campaign people including Donald, Jr. and the Russians was "just about adoptions." Joe called that a "lie." But have a look at the screenshot below, showing what Spicer actually said.