TV News LIES

Democrats this weekend offered mixed responses to recent allegations against Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, with some standing by his campaign while a handful voiced deeper concerns.

Their statements follow a New York Times story published last week that detailed accounts of “unsettling” behavior by Platner toward past romantic partners. In one instance, a former partner alleged that he had twisted her arm behind her back and shoved her into a room during an argument – an allegation he denied.

“There are some allegations in this piece that, I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was,” Platner said in an MS NOW interview last week.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a staunch supporter of Platner’s, said in a CBS interview on Sunday he believed the allegations that had been brought against Platner, calling the oyster farmer’s alleged conduct “shameful” and “ugly.” However, Khanna added that Platner had taken accountability and had “redemption,” and noted that he wouldn’t support the Marine Corps veteran if there was evidence of violence or sexual assault.

More...

President Trump abruptly ended his interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker on Friday, after the two discussed his unfounded claim that the California gubernatorial primary was “rigged.”

During a lengthy interview in Wisconsin that aired Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Trump repeated his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and said “it’s happening again right now” in California.

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra (D) on Thursday advanced to November’s general election in the Golden State, according to Decision Desk HQ. With 73 percent of the vote in as of Sunday, Becerra leads Republican Steve Hilton by less than 1 percentage point.

Hilton is more than 4.7 percentage points ahead of Democrat Tom Steyer, but Decision Desk HQ is yet to call the race for the second candidate to advance.

The president said it’s been four days “and they aren’t even close” to coming up with the results, referring to California’s slow vote-counting process. “Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election,” Trump said.

More...

Hours after Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel on June 7, the Israeli military said it conducted strikes against military targets in the western and central region of Iran.

Several explosions were heard in the Iranian cities of Tehran, Tabriz, and Isfahan, local media reported early on June 8. The strikes by the Israeli military occurred after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had targeted the Ramat David Airbase in northern Israel with ballistic missile fire on the evening of June 7.

The Israel Defense Forces said it identified missiles fired from Iran toward northern Israel and "defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat." Sirens were sounded in several areas across the country after the missiles were detected, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The IRGC said the Israeli military must halt attacks on Lebanon and warned that if Israel retaliates, it will face "more crushing and regretful blows."

More...

Six people were injured, and a suspect is in custody on June 7 after stabbings were reported at Penn Station in New York City, the city's fire department said.

At around 7 p.m. local time, fire crews and emergency medical services received a 911 call reporting that a person stabbed multiple people at Penn Station, the New York City Fire Department told USA TODAY. The fire department found one victim with a serious injury, two with moderate injuries, and three with minor injuries.

Five people were transported to Bellevue Hospital and one person was transported to Cornell Hospital, the fire department said in a statement.

The suspect was taken into custody, according to the fire department. The agency did not provide further details on the incident.

"Earlier this afternoon, Amtrak Police responded to a reported stabbing at New York Penn Station. The suspect has been apprehended and an investigation is underway," an Amtrak spokesperson said in a statement to USA TODAY.

More...

The Pentagon has raised Israel’s counterintelligence threat level to its highest category, amid growing alarm that Washington’s supposed closest Middle East ally is intensifying efforts to spy on senior US officials.

The warning, reported by NBC News and The New York Times on Saturday, exposes behind the scenes tensions in a relationship Washington often treats as untouchable.

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency recently issued the new assessment as tensions grow between the Trump administration and Israel over the Israeli-US war on Iran.

US officials told NBC that the DIA posted an internal message raising Israel’s threat level to “critical”.

The designation signals alarm inside the Pentagon that Israel is working to monitor top US officials and obtain information about internal Trump administration deliberations on wars across the Middle East.

The New York Times reported that US intelligence has focused on Israeli efforts to eavesdrop on senior officials, including Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top negotiator, Elbridge A Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, and Michael P DiMino IV, one of Colby’s main deputies.

More...

Russian forces executed a series of targeted irst-person view (FPV) drone strikes and heavy artillery bombardments on Saturday, June 6, killing two civillians and wounding at least four others across eastern and southern Ukraine.

The first fatal morning strike occurred in the Kharkiv region within the Derhachi suburban community. Vyacheslav Zadorenko, head of the Derhachi Municipal Military Administration, confirmed that a Russian FPV drone intercepted a 51-year-old resident of Lobanivka at approximately 6:00 a.m. local time.

The victim was operating a scooter along the highway between the settlements of Prudyanka and Slatyne on his way to purchase groceries when the munition struck him, killing him instantly.

A second fatal FPV drone strike was documented shortly after in the industrial hub of Kramatorsk, located in the Donetsk region. Oleksandr Honcharenko, head of the Kramatorsk City Military Administration, characterized the morning attack as a cynical war crime against the municipality’s civilian populace.

More...

Modern roads in the United States will last for decades. And yet the damage they cause in our national forests is immediate.

Since 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected more than 58m acres of national forests from development, barring road construction and timber harvests. The policy came to be with huge bipartisan support; almost 2 million people submitted comments on it, the majority of whom championed the protections.

Now the US secretary of agriculture, Brooke L Rollins, is working to rescind the “Roadless Rule”, opening up public lands – our lands – for logging and other development to the highest bidder.

This is just one prong in the Trump administration’s campaign to remake public lands in ways that most Americans would find.

More...

The end of the 60 Minutes broadcast as we know it has sickened millions of longtime viewers, colleagues, and all of us who are offended and threatened by our current administration and its cronies’ assaults on the first amendment. The news of Scott Pelley’s firing hits particularly hard. He spoke of “risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast”.

Having literally grown up with that broadcast – my father, Morley Safer, joined the program when I was eight months old and retired 46 years later – I am acutely aware of the costs of that devotion. 60 Minutes, particularly in its early days, demanded commitments of time and travel that were keenly felt at home.

I have early memories of trying to speak to my dad through the TV on Sunday niI imagine their families feel similar grief in the wake of the news from CBS, and Washington’s broader attacks on the first amendment. The most trusted and esteemed program in American journalism, the legacy of our loved ones’ hard work and its accompanying sacrifices on the home front, has, in Pelley’s words, been murdered.

More...