Today In News: June 13, 2017

Today In News:

• The United States is "not winning" the war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress. The remarks were a blunt reminder of the gloom underscoring U.S. military assessments of the war between the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Islamist militant group. To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and more than 17,000 wounded since the war began in 2001.

• "Director Mueller is going to have the full degree of independence that he needs to conduct that investigation appropriately," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told a Senate appropriations subcommittee, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller. This was in reference to comments made yesterday that Trump may fire Mueller...who is investigating his ties with Russia.

• Kamala Harris was again reprimanded for questioning and interrupting a witness while questioning Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday.

• Otto Warmbier, a U. S. university student held captive in North Korea for 17 months, has been released, but a former U. S. official said on Tuesday he has been in a coma for the past 15 months, and in urgent need of medical care.

• A North Korean soldier defected on Tuesday across the heavily mined Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) border to South Korea.

• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday denounced the isolation of Qatar as "inhumane and against Islamic values", and said the methods used against the Gulf state were unacceptable, and analogous to a "death penalty”.

• Senate Republicans on Tuesday quickly backed away from a proposal to restrict media access in the Capitol.   Senate Rules Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) sent out a statement around lunchtime clarifying that there would not be a rules change, only a discussion about how to ensure safety as the Capitol hallways have become more hectic because of growing crowds of journalists.

• 13 Million people could become uninsured under the House Republican healthcare plan by 2026, according to an analysis from the Trump administration. 

• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I) engaged in a testy exchange over President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to enact a “21st Century Glass-Steagall Act,” a financial regulation separating commercial and investment banking.  Mnuchin’s first report outlining principles of financial regulation, released Monday, made no mention of an updated version of Glass-Steagall, a 1933 regulation repealed under President Bill Clinton.

• Donald Trump accuses Barack Obama’s former Attorney General Loretta Lynch of illegal activity and of giving special treatment to his Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton.

• Trump doesn’t mind that by forcing members of his cabinet to genuflect before him with viscous declarations of adoration and praise he reduces them to sycophantic worms.   That the scene, played out before the cameras, seemed absurd verging on tragic to you or to me concerns him not a jot.