Civility as a Prop for the Status Quo
The "Trump voter" is not something new. There have always been people in the small towns and backwaters who believe that their way of life is God's plan and everything else is just plain wrong. This happens when a community is isolated and their social reality goes unchallenged, untested; customs and norms become facts, strangers are strange and frightening.
You could see the proto-Trump supporter nearly fifty years ago, in the end of Easy Rider. Warning: violence.
When that movie came out in 1969 -- and everybody saw it -- there was no discussion about this scene. Nobody asked, "Why did those guys in the pickup truck do that?" The concept of "owning the libs" did not exist yet but this sort of thing was well established and well understood. No one at all was surprised when they pulled the shotgun down from the gun rack and had a little fun with them city boys.
A tribe understands that other tribes have different norms. A basic universal part of being human: belonging to a group and realizing that there are other groups. The hard part is when various groups have to share resources. Maybe two tribes hunt in the same woods or row in the same river. Maybe two groups live in the same neighborhood, city, country, planet. Then they have to work things out.
When we talk about civility we mean that people speak to one another with respect. You consider the other as equal to yourself. Our tribe recognizes that your tribe has needs, and we can try to work out a way for both of us to have what we need. Civility requires effort, it requires a bit of sacrifice and concession. Civility is recognition that the world does not revolve around you, which is an attitude you have to learn -- since your eyes always literally see the world from your own point of view.
Civility is the implementation of the Golden Rule.
Let's be clear: the Trump platform was incivility and incivility is the guiding principle of his presidency. He ran on his rudeness, he was offensive, mean, petty, he lied and insulted people, and that is what his followers like about him. Incivility did not start last week.
An outside observer would be totally amused by the outrage over the Virginia restaurant owner who eighty-sixed Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week. By all accounts she was polite about it, took SHS outside to discuss it quietly after her employees had taken a vote on the matter. And woo, the press freaked out about this! Also, two other administration officials trying to order Mexican food were publicly shamed and had to leave restaurants. Another having a binto box in DC, a mom with her two-year-old asks him to please resign and spells out the reasons why. Never mind poor Alan Dershowitz, snubbed by his so-called "friends" on Martha's Vinyard. Liberals are not being passive, and suddenly democracy is in crisis.
Here is how the Washington Post summarized the state of the "incivility" debate:
The debate over civility kicked into high gear after a Virginia restaurant asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave because employees didn't want to serve her. That followed the outright heckling of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as she ate at a Mexican restaurant in the District. Some people, such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), have called for more such confrontations with Trump administration officials. Others warn of a race to the bottom and plea for an end to the boorishness.
In other word, all the name-calling and provocations to violence by Trump and his people since the start of the campaign were nothing. A whole campaign was based on incivility, that was the message and that was the point -- but that was just some rednecks havin' them some fun. One liberal restaurant owner judges a customer by her character and we have a debate kicking into high gear.
I do not have to remind you of the rhetoric during the past presidential campaign. Violence was encouraged at Republican rallies, not just rudeness, not just disrespect, but actual "second amendment" activities, violence against protesters and political opponents. It was funny, people laughed. Outsiders were mocked, called names, criticized for made-up offenses. Innocent people were described as "criminals." Conservatives feel this is their right, they can say anything they want about someone. This offensiveness, the assumption that their way is the only way, is what defines conservatism. The taxes, defense, small-government, economy stuff was just window dressing, they don't even bother saying those things any more. When we say Republicans are racist we mean that they feel that their own way of life should set the standard for all Americans.
Why did the lefties accept the incivility all those years? Well, for one thing, you figured it was a kind of price you paid for standing up for what you believed in. Opposing the war in the sixties was a risky deal, you could end up with a baseball bat upside the head at any moment, they could pick your lifeless body up off a campus sidewalk. But the war was wrong, and thousands of people expressed their opposition to it, and in the long run the war had to end. The civil rights movement was a risky deal, people were literally murdered for acting on liberal principles and the government, from J. Edgar Hoover on down, let it happen. Standing up for peace and freedom has always been a dangerous thing.
Traditionally if you were identifiably gay in public, or black in a white neighborhood, you could expect to be beaten up and harassed by conservatives on the street, if not arrested. Women who need to have an abortion are met with gangs of jeering conservatives threatening them and calling them terrible names -- this has long been accepted behavior in America. This is how conservatism works, it is a movement of people enforcing their own group's norms. The concept of "political correctness" is a force conservatives hate, because it means that people expect -- wait for it -- civility. No, sorry, you can't beat up gays and minorities any more, just for being different. Against the law. Sucks, don't it? Hence, MAGA.
Today's conservatives are breaking up immigrant families, abusing and harassing women, cops are killing innocent black people, they are destroying the economy and our web of international alliances, and the administration -- including liberal-incivility victims such as Sarah Sanders, Kristjen Nielson, Steve Miller, and Scott Pruitt -- routinely lies and manipulates the system to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and dispossessed. We don't have to be nice to them. Listen to Sarah Sanders lie about the immigration policy, about the president's dalliances and payoffs, about chaos in the White House -- if that was your neighbor lying to you, you would not be nice to them. If a family member was hurtful and lied like that you would not invite them to dinner. These are people who are systematically destroying what is great about our country, they say whatever it takes to make life better for them and worse for us, and we don't have to be nice to them.
Look at the balance here. One restaurant owner called an undesirable customer outside and quietly expained to her that she would not be served. On the other hand, the freakin' PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA went on the Internet and tried to ruin the restaurant's reputation and business forever with a string of lies.
Do you think the press is going to publish stories about how tacky and incivil it is for the President of the USA to try to destroy a small business in Lexington, Virginia, pop. 7,045? For some reason, this is normal but a restaurant owner politely asking an undesirable person to leave is "liberals going too far." Conservatives act like they are afraid of violence now, big scary liberals are going to do mean and nasty things to them -- though terrorists inspired by nationalist and rightwing ideology have killed about ten times as many people as left wing terrorists since 1992. Look at this, Sarah Sanders now has a Secret Service detail. What, so she can go where she is not wanted? Is that a right now, liars are a protected class?
You see it everywhere. The "debate about civility" is nothing more than a way to prop up the status quo and shut up liberals. Maxine Waters said, "If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere" The President responded on Twitter, "Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person..." You may or may not agree with Waters' idea, but it's just an idea, expressed in temperate and firm tones, she is urging liberals to assert themselves in protest against morally corrupt public figures. She is not insulting anyone personally, as the President is -- but guess who will be accused of violating the code of civility.
We can thank the owner of the Red Hen Restaurant for bringing this to the front page, for making the media come right out and say that they don't think liberals should be able to act on their beliefs.
posted by JimK at 9:09 AM
https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/viral-video-shows-teen-attacked-for-wearing-make-american-great-again-hat said...
SAN ANTONIO — Police are investigating after a teen says he was verbally attacked and assaulted at a Whataburger for wearing a Make America Great Again hat.
In the video, you can see a man throw a drink in 16-year-old Hunter Richard's face before leaving the restaurant with his hat. Hunter said some of his hair was pulled during the assault.
"I support my President and if you don't let's have a conversation about it instead of ripping my hat off. I just think a conversation about politics is more productive for the entire whole rather than taking my hat and yelling subjective words to me," he said.
So Impressed said...
Wow, let's load up the news-cycle with this story -- a guy pulled a kid's hat off in Texas at two in the morning. Liberal incivility! Assault! Militant libtard violence! Here is your proof that the liberals are out of control.
actually stole his hat and threw a drink in his face
I just happened to see this right before Jim's daft post and thought it was timely
but we wouldn't want to "load up" the news cycle with any truths, such as that liberals are suffering from Trump derangement syndrome
liberals have no capacity for civil conversation because their views are hopeless to try to defend, so they lose every time
personally, I think the Red Hen wackos have every right to refuse service to anybody
I thought that about the Colorado baker as well
but the baker was willing to serve gays just not if he would be assisting in the celebration of an act he considered immoral
serving Huckabee dinner really doesn't fall into the same category
but the bigger problem for liberals is that if they want to go down this path, they will lose
and when liberal wackos start getting thrown out of restaurants and plays and movies, you will hear howls from the ACLU as if someone went medieval on their arse
Dems never learn
if they moderate their views and behavior, they might have a chance in November
Red Hen can expect the same fate as the NFL, who tried to inject politics into our off-hours and is struggling to cope
love it! said...
Washington (CNN)Nearly 200 black female leaders and allies outside of Congress have signed a letter calling on top congressional Democrats to defend Rep. Maxine Waters after she was criticized by members of her own party for urging people to protest President Donald Trump's Cabinet members in public spaces.
The group includes a mix of local elected officials, religious leaders, academics, activists and political consultants -- including some men -- who felt Waters was unfairly treated and want Democratic leaders in Congress to apologize.
"We write to share our profound indignation and deep disappointment over your recent failure to protect Congresswoman Waters from unwarranted attacks from the Trump Administration and others in the GOP," the letter states.
The letter, which was earlier reported by Politico, was sent to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California -- both of whom responded last week to Waters' controversial comments.
Last week, Pelosi tweeted a link to a CNN article on Waters' comments and added that "Trump's daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable."
For his part, Schumer took to the Senate floor, saying, "I strongly disagree with those who advocate harassing folks if they don't agree with you."
"If you disagree with a politician, organize your fellow citizens to action and vote them out of office," he added. "But no one should call for the harassment of political opponents. That's not right. That's not American."
After few colleagues on Capitol Hill publicly defended or agreed with Waters' remarks, the group of leaders and supporters of Waters organized the letter to send to Democratic leadership.
"Disparaging or failing to support Congresswoman Waters is an affront to her and Black women across the country and telegraphs a message that the Democratic Party can ill afford: that it does not respect Black women's leadership and political power and discounts the impact of Black women and millennial voters," the letter says.
The group called on Pelosi and Schumer to "step up and publicly support" Waters as well as apologize "for your public comments insinuating she is 'uncivil' and 'unAmerican.' "
Welcome to Trumplandia said...
"if they moderate their views and behavior, they might have a chance in November"
Of course you hope they do just that while you'll be chanting LOCK HER UP with the rest of your tribal bully thugs.
Trumplandia should be no one's standard, certainly not for Americans. We fight to defend the principle that all people are created equal and have equal rights.
Priya Lynn said...
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "liberals have no capacity for civil conversation because their views are hopeless to try to defend, so they lose every time".
If that were true then conservatives wouldn't need to lie all the time to promote their unjust policies - its conservatives who can't defend their views.
Like when Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous lied about about a transwoman he doesn't know by saying she preys on young girls in the bathroom. They used that lie to try to promote violence and oppression against innocent transwomen. As Jim pointed out, its the conservatives being incivil, not the liberals.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "personally, I think the Red Hen wackos have every right to refuse service to anybody I thought that about the Colorado baker as well but the baker was willing to serve gays just not if he would be assisting in the celebration of an act he considered immoral".
Bullshit. The baker didn't give a damn about a same sex couple marrying, his sole motivation is that he wanted to spit in their faces so he could feel superior.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "serving Huckabee dinner really doesn't fall into the same category".
Boy, you got that right. The baker was refusing to serve a couple for their harmless innocent lives while the owner of the Red Hen was refusing to serve Huckabee-Sanders because of her evil actions supporting policies that hurt millions of innocent people.
I believe the owner of the Red Hen should have served Huckabee-Sanders but there's a case to be made that the owner was justified in refusing service because of Huckabee-Sanders immoral behavior. One can't make the same case with a same sex couple who are hurting no one.
Republicans are bit by bit implementing christian Sharia law and absurd Wyatt/Regina calls for Democrats to "moderate" their views, lol!
Transparent and absurd Wyatt/Regina under the guise of "helping" Democrats get votes constantly advises them that the way to do so is to go along with destructive Republican policies instead of opposing them. Phuque you Wyatt/Regina.
Moron Wyatt/Regina talks about Democrats getting votes as if they didn't get almost 3 million more votes than the popular vote losing admitted sexual predator. #denial lol!
Americans overwhelmingly support a woman's right to choose, Obamacare, common sense gun control, gays having the same anti-discrimination protections christians do, and oppose gay marriage bans.
The majority of Americans support transpeople being able to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.
These are all Democratic positions and yet lying Wyatt/Regina claims Democrats need to "moderate" their positions to win. Obviously that's not true. Republicans only win because the lie to the public and con them into believing they're going to do things like "replace Obamacare with something that will give everyone healthcare coverage" and then when they get in power they take away healthcare from tens of millions of people while distracting the public from that by lying about how immigrants are going to kill and rape then when study after study shows immigrants (both illegal and legal) have much lower crime rates than citizens born in the States.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "In the video, you can see a man throw a drink in 16-year-old Hunter Richard's face before leaving the restaurant with his hat. Hunter said some of his hair was pulled during the assault.".
Oh, cry me a river! In the meantime conservative parents torture and kill their pre-pubescent sons because they think they're gay.
There's no comparing the "abuse" conservatives "suffer" with the horrors inflicted on innocent people by conservatives.
Thousands of families have had their babies taken away and lost, either for committing a misdemeanor or no crime at all, but just asking for asylum. Our government has made enemies of our friends and friends of our enemies, every cabinet member is incredibly corrupt and incompetent, racism is the law of the land, the list goes on and on.
And conservativew are complaining because somebody took a kid's cap at two in the morning in San Antonio, Texas, oh and threw a drink in the little MAGAsshole's face.
This was actually the big headline on Drudge this morning. This is really the worst you fuckheads can come up with. Get some perspective, would you?
"Thousands of families have had their babies taken away and lost, either for committing a misdemeanor or no crime at all, but just asking for asylum"
the way to ask for asylum is to go to an American embassy
illegally crossing the border and finding an immigration office is not
few of these immigrants are fleeing political persecution
they are merely seeking economic opportunity
people who break the law and are jailed are always separated from their families
it's a tragedy but why have Dems only now discovered it
happens in the ghetto every day
"Our government has made enemies of our friends and friends of our enemies,"
and how does that justify violence?
"every cabinet member is incredibly corrupt and incompetent,"
is it OK to pour a soda over your head?
"racism is the law of the land,"
actually, Dems are underperforming in polls among both Hispanics and blacks
minorities are being to realize who the real racists are
"the list goes on and on."
no it doesn't
if it did, you wouldn't have had to make so many lame points
"And conservativew are complaining because somebody took a kid's cap at two in the morning in San Antonio, Texas, oh and threw a drink in the little MAGAsshole's face."
remember the outrage among liberal idiots when Laura Ingraham noted that David Hogg couldn't find a college to take him?
"This was actually the big headline on Drudge this morning. This is really the worst you fuckheads can come up with. Get some perspective, would you?"
I've got one
liberals, as usual, are trying to use violence to suppress thought
Oops! said...
Donald J. Trump✔
I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this. The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will...
3:37 PM - Jul 5, 2018
Another flood of lies from Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous because they can't truthfully defend their views.
Republicans bit by bit are implementing christian Sharia law.
Oops again said...
"minorities are being [sic] to realize who the real racists are"
Racists are racists. They support the man who called the white supremacists who rioted in Charlottesville "good people."
Dems are racists
they seek to exacerbate and exploit racism for their political benefit
they seek legislation to treat people differently based on their race
they blatantly compare racial identity to sexual perversion
despite running all major US cities, they refuse to provide adequate security to the neighborhoods of racial minorities and force minority children to attend failing, dangerous schools
under the current administration, minorities are enjoying the lowest unemployment rate ever and Dems are furious
Minority activist Canda Owens predicted a "major shift" of black voters away from the Democratic Party ahead of the 2020 election. The Turning Point USA communications director predicted that black men and women - not white middle-class women - will become the "most relevant vote" in the United States by 2020 because more and more African-Americans are hearing "different ideas" through digital and social media.
"There is going to be a major black exit from the Democrat Party and they are going to actually have to actually compete for their votes in 2020," Owens said.
"Black supporters are leaving the left and going over to the right. You need to pay attention to the underground movement. Just because a poll says something, it isn't right. The polls told us that Hillary Clinton was going to win and she didn't. I wasn't fooled by the polls. I thought that Hillary Clinton was going to lose, in the same way that I am also saying that I believe black voters are going to exit the left completely by 2020.
She also said she is not concerned about the possibility of future Supreme Courts overturning Roe v. Wade, saying that refighting the battle over abortion rights is "typical leftist... fearmongering to get everybody all upset and up in arms."
"Even the fact we are discussing Roe v. Wade is a typical leftist tactic to get everybody upset and think that something's going to be overturned," Owens argued. "It's a way for left to fear monger – which is what they always do – as if somehow all of their rights are going to be violated because Donald Trump gets a Supreme Court pick."
Some people never change said...
Look who's still being misinformed by watching FOX.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/07/05/candace-owens-there-will-be-major-black-exit-democratic-party-2020
Hey jackass, the quotes I posted were from an msnbc interview
"We can thank the owner of the Red Hen Restaurant for bringing this to the front page, for making the media come right out and say that they don't think liberals should be able to act on their beliefs."
Yes, and thanks for showing America how incivil the left has become simply because they can't win in the voting booth.
Let's hope this kind of thing spreads.
The left never has much hope of success on the issues but Trump's egregious personal behavior gave them some advantage. Now, as they have increasingly tried to mimic him, the polls have narrowed and all that's left is the policy issues. You will lose.
Just like you will lose if you want to start a war of refusing to allow those you disagree with to eat out.
What do I mean "will" lose?
You have lost. You have lost in every branch of government at every level. And now, it appears you have lost the SCOTUS for a generation. That's why these types of actions are all you have left to cling to.
Robert DeNiro yelling the F word on national TV. Samantha Bee calling the President's daughter a c*** on national TV. Kicking out a Press Secretary out of your restaurant because the gay busboys don't like the President. Maxine Waters saying everyone who disagrees with her should be harassed in all public places. This is the face of the Dem party.
A Texas Councilwoman, Kellye, Burke approached a group of girls waiting in line to buy cookies at a shop Saturday and started screaming at them, "'Grab 'em by the p---y girls!'"
One of the girls was wearing a "Make American Great Again" shirt. A father of one of the teens said they tried to ignore Burke but she kept yelling at them.
"At that point the girls were getting kind of scared, and then the woman starts going, 'MAGA! MAGA! MAGA!' while shaking her fist," the father said.
This is how Jim thinks liberals should be able to act on their beliefs.
That should keep you as the "resistance" for decades.
White millennials are equally divided between supporting Republicans and Democrats in this year's critical midterm elections, as a campaign urging people to "Walk Away" from the Democratic Party has picked up steam online.
Young people do not like President Donald Trump, but whites between the ages of 18 and 34 said they are equally likely to vote for a Republican as for a Democrat in the elections for Congress this November. A full 39 percent said that "if the election for U.S. Congress were held today," they would vote for the Republican in the district where they live. Another 39 percent said they would vote for the Democrat.
This represented a nine-point shift away from Democrats since 2016. That year, only 33 percent of young white voters said they would elect a Republican to Congress, while 47 percent said they would choose a Democrat.
Young white men made the greatest shift toward the GOP. In 2016, nearly half of them (48 percent) said they would vote for a Democrat, while only 36 percent said they would vote Republican. This year, 46 percent said they would choose a Republican, while only 37 percent said they would vote Democrat — a 21 percent shift in favor of the GOP.
Democrats have been hoping for a "blue wave," resulting from Americans across the country voting against Republicans as Trump's party. Indeed, midterm elections tend to favor the party out of power, and Republicans do hold the House, the Senate, and the presidency.
However, there are signs that Republicans may win the 2018 midterm elections as the anti-establishment underdog. How? By campaigning against the excessive Trump derangement syndrome across the media, Hollywood, and college campuses.
This is the premise of the "Walk Away" campaign. Brandon Straka, a gay man from Nebraska, identified himself as "The Unsilent Majority" and launched a campaign urging people to reject the Left — for the same reasons he became a liberal.
In the "Walk Away" viral video, Straka denounced racism, misogyny, "tyrannical group think," junk science, "hate," and "a system which allows an ambitious, misinformed, and dogmatic mob to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and apathetically steamroll over the truth." He said he became a liberal for these reasons, and he "walked away" for the very same reasons.
"For years now, I have watched as the left has devolved into intolerant, inflexible, illogical, hateful, misguided, ill-informed, un-American, hypocritical, menacing, callous, ignorant, narrow-minded, and at times blatantly fascistic behavior and rhetoric," Straka declared.
Straka's video has racked up more than 492,000 views on YouTube and nearly 2 million views on Facebook.
Some millennials might be rejecting the Left as it pushes for control over the way people think, but others merely prefer the economic growth associated with the Republican Party.
Terry Hood, a 34-year-old African American who works at a Dollar General store in Baton Rouge, La., told Reuters that while he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, he will consider a Republican for Congress this year.
"It sounds strange to me to say this about the Republicans, but they're helping with even the small things," Hood said. "They're taking less taxes out of my paycheck. I notice that."
President Trump powerfully turned the "blue wave" narrative on its head last month, predicting a "red wave." Perhaps he was on to something
On the far right, shooting at Maryland newspaper draws praise, celebration said...
​After five people were gunned down in their own newsroom, the normally feisty editorial page of the Capital-Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, went silent Friday.
"Today, we are speechless," the page said. "This page is intentionally left blank today to commemorate victims of Thursday's shootings at our office."
But, among the far-right, activists were anything but silent, celebrating, speculating and casting blame for the shooting of a group of local reporters and editors who cover the central Maryland community.
"We don't give a fuck about you, journalist," tweeted Nicholas Fuentes, a YouTube personality who attended the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Hundreds of posts, tweets and comments populated Twitter, the alt-right social network Gab, 4chan and other social media outlets, condemning the five people killed in what they expected to be just another day at work.
The posts ranged from conspiratorial to wondering if the shooter was Jewish — a favorite target of the alt-right — to outright blaming the reporters for what happened to them.
"Wowza. Maybe it was a Jew, but probably a goy," wrote AltonRocht, on The Daily Stormer. "Let's try to push an offensive narrative for this. The media, and the anti-white forces in American mean that these shootings will grow more frequent."
Police arrested Jarrod Warren Ramos, a 38-year-old white man with a long history of grievances against the newspaper. He's charged with five counts of first-degree murder.
The shooting came just days after President Donald Trump, at a campaign rally, pointed to a group of reporters and called them the "enemy of the American people" and alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos said he couldn't "wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight."
Yiannopoulos later referred to the comment as a joke, saying he wasn't serious and police haven't commented on a motive.
Andrew Anglin, the blogger and primary voice behind the racist and antisemitic website The Daily Stormer, posted a long diatribe about Yiannopoulos on Friday morning, and dismissed the deaths of the five journalists at the end.
"But seriously — just straight talk here — there is no single group of people on the planet that is more deserving of just getting gunned down like animals," Anglin wrote.
For far-right adherents, the shooting spurred on conspiracies and celebration that journalists, never a popular group with the alt-right, were dead.
"Is there only 2 options here," wrote a poster going by "Lucky" on Daily Stormer. "1. The beginning of our side taking out the real enemy. 2. False flag attack. If it was our guy, they would have killed him. So strange, how kikes pretending to be white, get taken alive."
Christopher Cantwell, best known as the "Crying Nazi" after the Unite the Right rally, kept his thoughts simple: "#MAGA" posted over a picture of Yiannopoulos and a Drudge Report headline "Shooting at Newspaper."
"They should live in fear," tweeted @WarthogJim, whose account was suspended Friday morning.
Alt-right activist Laura Loomer tied the shootings to recent comments from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who called for Trump administration staffers to be harassed while out in public.
"I wonder if the shooter in Annapolis today is a supporter of @RepMaxine Waters …" Loomer wrote on Twitter shortly after the shooting took place.
Others took on the reporters as a stereotype, lumping everyone working in journalism into a group up to no good.
"If they work for a newspaper, they've got to be douchebags," wrote @GabrielWest, posting as "Joe Lincoln" on Twitter. "Fuck'em. #Kapow #LyingLeftistLosers #FuckTheLeftistMedia."
But, for all the anger, conspiracies and stereotypes about those killed, no one on the far-right mentioned the names of the five people with families, friends and loved ones who were killed: Robert Hiaasen, John McNamara, Gerald Fischman, Wendi Winters and Rebecca Smith.
"White millennials are equally divided between supporting Republicans and Democrats in this year's critical midterm elections, as a campaign urging people to "Walk Away" from the Democratic Party has picked up steam online."
No they aren't.
"The online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall...
Only 28 percent of those polled expressed overt support for Republicans in the 2018 poll - about the same percentage as two years earlier."
46% vs. 28% is not "equally divided" no matter how you try to spin it.
But it's nice to see you relying on polls to make your point after just telling us "The polls told us that Hillary Clinton was going to win and she didn't."
Your ONLY consistencies are your mistakes, lies and pirouettes.
Keep up the great work showing everyone how lame you are.
happy days are here again, America is great again said...
"But, among the far-right, activists were anything but silent, celebrating, speculating and casting blame for the shooting of a group of local reporters and editors who cover the central Maryland community."
the far-right is small and inconsequential
why is TTf obsessed with them?
because, like racism, Dems want more of it
their arguments against conservatives are lame so they need to get traction somehow
wala! a fringe minority, a handful of mental cases
"White millennials are equally divided between supporting Republicans and Democrats in this year's critical midterm elections,"
TTF:
"No they aren't."
according to reuters they are
39% for each
"The employment part of the economy continued to power forward in June, adding another 213,000 jobs, according to a government report Friday.
Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected a nonfarm payrolls gain of 195,000.
Hiring continues to grow. Along with June's upside surprise, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised April's count up from 159,000 to 175,000 and May's from 223,000 to 244,000, a total of 37,000 more than initially stated.
Markets reacted positively to the report, with the S&P 500 and Dow pointing to a flat opening on Wall Street after being negative earlier.
The labor force participation rate increased 0.2 percentage points to 62.9 percent as 601,000 people came off the sidelines and re-entered the labor force. A more encompassing measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those at part-time jobs for economic reasons also rose two-tenths, to 7.8 percent.
Professional and business services led the way with 50,000 new jobs while manufacturing added 36,000. Health care was up 25,000 and construction gained 13,000.
The employment-to-population ratio held steady at 60.4 percent, tied for the highest level since January 2009, when Obama the Worst took office and things began to go downhill.
"The employment report this month demonstrates yet again the robust strength of the labor market," said Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group. "After a red-hot May, June kept up steady momentum in jobs and certainly hit back at any worries among economists who thought hiring was beginning to plateau after an inconsistent past few months."
The report comes amid hopes that the economy is beginning to shift into high gear. GDP rose just 2 percent in the first quarter but is widely projected to increase close to 4 percent for the second quarter.
more groping in Canada said...
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday responded to claims that he groped a reporter.
"I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way, but I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently," Trudeau said. "Often a man experiences an interaction as being benign or not inappropriate and a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently."
That's what all the gropers say, Justin!
Trudeau has said he didn't know at the time that the woman, whose identity is not known, was a journalist.
The groping allegations first surfaced in an unsigned editorial. Canadian political commentator Warren Kinsella tweeted a photo of the editorial last month along with the hashtag #MeToo, which reignited the conversation surrounding the allegations.
The piece said Trudeau apologized one day after the incident, but that the woman felt "blatantly disrespected."
Justitn is a piglet said...
he may be a baby
but he's a baby pig
facts are facts, and TTF hates 'em said...
more JK civility:
Alan Dershowitz addressed "friends" who have "shunned" him on Martha's Vineyard this summer which he believes is due to his vigorous defense of President Trump's civil rights on television throughout the Mueller investigation. Dershowitz said on Thursday these people are playing right into Trump's hand and helping his base.
Dershowitz said he doesn't care about the parties as he is invited to too many but at one this week a woman said, 'If Dershowitz were here tonight I'd stab him through the heart.'
"This is a Martha's Vineyard woman saying she would stab me through the heart," the law professor repeated the story.
He also cited another island antagonist, MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte who he said openly holds the position that people should only read news that represents their own personal worldview "so they wouldn't hear opposing points of view."
"It's so bad for young people to see the examples that Professor Negroponte and others are giving. We know the truth. Capital T. We don't need to hear any dissenting points of view. It's okay if you just hear my point of view. That's un-American," he said.
Dershowitz said these people are helping Trump and playing right into his hands by giving his base an argument about what the "radicals are doing."
"The end result is they are helping Donald Trump," he said. "They are strengthening Donald Trump's hands. The people who tried to shun me are giving Donald Trump and his base an argument about what the radicals are doing."
However, Dershowitz argued this is not a "liberal" thing but a "hard left radical phenomenon."
"I'm a liberal. I think it's a hard left radical phenomenon. I think liberals still support free speech. Liberals support due process but the Democratic party and the left has been taken over by radicals who have no interest in due process. They are like Negroponte. They only want their truth to prevail. They don't want any dissent. They don't want any argument," he said.
Dershowitz also issued a challenge to Joe Scarborough and the Morning Joe gang to have him on after they spent the better part of Thursday's show mocking him.
"I challenge 'Morning Joe' to have me on the show when he mocks me so that I can respond. It's easy and kind of unfair to attack somebody and then not give them the opportunity to respond," he said.
"Let's see if he has the guts to put me on the show so I can tell his viewers the truth," Dershowitz said of Scarborough.
How does Trump change a lightbulb?
He doesn't.
He lies in a tweet that says he did it while Republicans sit in the dark because Fox "News" reports that the lightbulb is on.
Illegal border crossings are at a 40 year low and the sharp decline began under the Obama administration.
Trump and the Republicans are pretending this is a big scary deal to distract people from their stealing health care from millions of Americans and their implementation of christian Sharia law.
Donald Trump's Saturday tweet about immigration is a bald-faced lie
We're all tired of "Donald Trump tweeted more BS" stories, but the lie he dropped on Saturday is too much of a doozy to ignore.
Here. See it for yourself. His own words, from his own tweet.
I never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill, either GOODLATTE 1 or 2, because it could never have gotten enough Democrats as long as there is the 60 vote threshold. I released many prior to the vote knowing we need more Republicans to win in Nov.
The second bill, Goodlatte 2, was viewed as a compromise. It was still a conservative piece of legislation — Democrats weren't included in the process — but it wasn't as hard-line. Compromise or not, that second bill suffered an even greater defeat after a 121-to-301 vote last week.
Here's how all of that ties back to today's tweet.
Shortly before that second vote occurred — the day of, in fact — Trump weighed in on his favorite social media platform. His all-caps missive strongly, explicitly encouraged the GOP to "pass" Goodlatte 2 and send it along to the Senate (where it was expected to be defeated anyway due to the slim Republican majority there).
HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS THE STRONG BUT FAIR IMMIGRATION BILL, KNOWN AS GOODLATTE II, IN THEIR AFTERNOON VOTE TODAY, EVEN THOUGH THE DEMS WON'T LET IT PASS IN THE SENATE. PASSAGE WILL SHOW THAT WE WANT STRONG BORDERS & SECURITY WHILE THE DEMS WANT OPEN BORDERS = CRIME. WIN!
Now. I'm no English language expert — granted, it's been the focus of my career for the past 15 years, whatever — but it seems to me that "HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS THE STRONG BUT FAIR IMMIGRATION BILL" actually does count as Trump having "pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill."
The current President of the United States is an unrepentant liar, and he doesn't even try to hide it anymore. I'm going to repeat myself, and I don't care: On Wednesday, he explicitly and emphatically encouraged Republicans to vote for Goodlatte 2. Now he's claiming that never happened. WTF.
This may be small potatoes stuff when you look at the big picture of the travesties being visited upon the American public each day. But holy shit. Two diametrically opposed statements delivered just days apart. There's no amount of spin that can be applied to the earlier tweet to make this new one anything other than a bald-faced lie.
As you might expect, folks on social media took notice.
"How does Trump change a lightbulb?"
looks like our little foreign troll has pretty much reached a dead end
I guess it sucks when you realize you've been barking up the wrong tree for so long
ruff-ruff, Priya
hahahahahahaha!!!!!!
"Illegal border crossings are at a 40 year low and the sharp decline began under the Obama administration."
makes sense
just heard a story on NPR last week how Obama signed big contracts to hold detained asylum seekers
we'll just call him President ICE!!
Trump Administration Suppresses EPA Cancer Warning
July 6, 2018 Donald Trump, Science
Politico reports:
Trump and the Republicans are truly evil. They want to destroy people's health and kill them but they don't want the public to know what they are doing. To Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous opposing this is one of those "liberal viewpoints they can't defend" - that's how phuqued up they are.
"just heard a story on NPR last week how Obama signed big contracts to hold detained asylum seekers
we'll just call him President ICE!!"
Thanks for pointing out we can call tRump President ICE the Second!
Do tell what NPR said about family separations and deportations.
To Republicans like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous and Trump cancer, like black lung disease, are lies made up by the Chinese to hurt the American economy.
Toronto Star editorial board fires back at Sarah Sanders for saying US has been 'nice' to Canada
The Toronto Star editorial board fired back at White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a scathing piece for saying that the United States has been "nice" to Canada.
During a press briefing on Monday, Sanders said the U.S. has been "very nice to Canada for many years" and accused the foreign country of taking "advantage of that" when discussing Canada's retaliatory tariffs recently imposed on American products. Those tariffs were prompted by Trump's initial steep tariffs imposed on the country earlier this year.
In response to Sanders's remarks, The Toronto Star editorial board slammed the press secretary in a fiery editorial on Wednesday, saying that "what President Donald Trump's press secretary doesn't know about history is a lot."
"Canadians are accustomed to benign neglect and monumental indifference from the United States," the editorial board wrote. "We're fine with that. That great American Al Capone once said, 'I don't even know what street Canada is on.' We liked it that way."
But in terms of "taking advantage of America," the editorial staff rebuked Sanders and urged its readers to consider how Canada has treated Americans over the years.
"Let's just say Canadian heroism in Tehran in 1979 in helping free American hostages, and Canadian generosity in 2001 after the terrorist attack on the U.S., not to mention Canadians sacrificing their lives in the Second World War two years before America got around to joining is hardly that," the staff penned.
The staff also asked readers to consider just "how nicely" Americans have treated Canada.
"A lot of the time, what with you marching around ranting about 'Manifest Destiny' or '54-40 or Fight,' we were never all that sure whether you were friend or foe," the editorial board wrote.
"Benjamin Franklin once demanded the British surrender all of Canada to the fledgling United States," the staff went on, in addition to noting a string of other historical incidents painting a grim picture of America's treatment of Canada over the years.
"We get it. You're a superpower. We aren't. You have 10 times our population. You bestride the globe like a Levis-clad, Bud-drinkin', rock'n'rollin' colossus," the board said. "But still. We live right next door. We're the first at your door when you need a hand. You'd think that would count for something."
The editorial board argued that Canadians "know nice" and added that they even "made it an art form."
"And your boss, Ms. Sanders, couldn't spell nice if you spotted him both the vowels," the newspaper concluded.
Gretchen Carlson is not happy about former Fox News co-president Bill Shine's new White House job, highlighting that the news comes around the second anniversary of her harassment lawsuit against the network.
The Trump administration announced on Thursday that Shine, who was pushed out of his role at Fox News in 2017 over his poor handling of sexual harassment claims, was named President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff for communications.
The White House said in a statement that Shine "brings over two decades of television programming, communications, and management experience to the role."
"This... on the 2 year anniversary eve of filing my harassment lawsuit; giving women a voice, letting them know you can be believed, launching a national movement to stand up and speak up and say enough is enough," the former Fox News host wrote on Twitter on Thursday in response to the White House announcement. "Life... works in mysterious ways."
Carlson, a former Fox News host, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes in 2016. Ailes was ousted from his position and Carlson won a $20 million settlement. Her story prompted a wave of other female Fox News employees to come forward with their own allegations of sexual misconduct. Since leaving Fox, Carlson has become an outspoken anti-sexual harassment advocate.
Shine resigned from Fox News in May 2017 after he was accused in multiple lawsuits of covering up workplace sexual harassment and racial discrimination, as well as encouraging employees to bash accusers and bullying women into confidential arbitration.
Carlson declined through a spokeswoman to comment further on Shine's new role.
HuffPost reported on Thursday that Shine's wife, Darla Shine, frequently attempted to discredit sexual harassment accusers at Fox News on Twitter. Darla Shine's Twitter account was deleted Thursday afternoon, but HuffPost reviewed several disparaging tweets against Carlson and former host Megyn Kelly.
"Oh and Darla got to spew crap about me without any repercussions but women who are harassed and forced into secret arbitration or settlements can't say s―-. Go figure," Carlson tweeted on Thursday night.
Kelly also responded to Darla Shine on Twitter on Thursday evening.
"To Darla Shine ― yes, it was indeed an 'awkward hug' between me (then a 2d year reporter) & my then-boss, the CEO Ailes, especially when in his locked office he tried to make out w/me & then demanded to know when my contract was up after I shoved him off," Kelly tweeted.
Turns out there's a whole backstory to the kids who got the drink thrown at them and their MAGA hat taken away also. They were talking about how good it would be if the Purge was real but only for blacks and people of colour. How lynchings would be fun on the 4th of July.
How fitting that this is the person Wyatt/Regina is feeling sorry for.
toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good this week, life is sooOOooo good!! said...
"Turns out there's a whole backstory to the kids who got the drink thrown at them and their MAGA hat taken away also. They were talking about how good it would be if the Purge was real but only for blacks and people of colour. How lynchings would be fun on the 4th of July."
don't know if this is true because Priya the Foreign Troll oftens lies but it's actually irrelevant
in America, we fight offensive words with words
not physical
one characteristic of the lunatic left is that they think words are the equivalent of violence
they have developed that thought because they usually lose any arguments and so this is how they justify reacting in violent rage
anyway, Priya the Foreign Troll, document your assertion
we'll wait
I'm hoping Trump nominates Any Barrett to the SCOTUS just to watch the entertaining liberal meltdown.
Up the creek without a paddle and pitching a fit!!
Liberals must wake up every morning and curse Hillary Clinton...
Does the Constitution's prohibition on religious tests for public office apply to senators confirming justices of the Supreme Court? That's a question as President Trump mulls a successor to Anthony Kennedy.
The next justice could determine the outcome of future cases on abortion, same-sex marriage and other "social" issues animated by religion. Rarely have such questions been so hot.
They will grow incandescent if Trump names, say, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic and mother of seven. She is reportedly on the short list as Trump prepares to announce his decision July 9.
When Barrett was nominated to the 7th Circuit, Democrats subjected her to an obnoxious grilling. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Barrett gave the Democratic side "this very uncomfortable feeling."
Religion, Feinstein fumed, has "its own dogma." To Barrett, she said: "When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern."
"Did Dianne Feinstein accuse a judicial nominee of being too Christian?" asked a Washington Post headline.
So blatant was Feinstein's bias that Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber and Sen. Orrin Hatch warned that the senator was violating the most emphatic sentence in the entire US Constitution.
"No religious test," that sentence says, "shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
How could the Framers possibly have made themselves more clear? "No … ever … any."
We're shaking with rage.
FIRST: Mitch McConnell BLOCKED President Obama's Supreme Court nominee because it was an election year.
THEN: He announced he'd RUSH Trump's nominee through -- even though it's an election year!
NOW: For the first time in history, we just launched an emergency Supreme Court Fund to WIN a Democratic Congress, AVENGE President Obama, and BLOCK Trump's agenda.
We have just 2 days before Trump announces his Supreme Court pick to reach 2O,OOO critical gifts into the Fund.
That's why top Democrats are personally triple-matching gifts until Trump's announcement on Monday.
SCOTUS TRIPLE MATCH: ACTIVE
Suggested Support: $1
Quickly -- can President Obama count on your $1?
ALL GIFTS TRIPLE-MATCHED
DCCC
that's what we love to hear, hopefully incivility will ensue for voters to behold said...
how long before the liberals take to the streets? said...
We can now say we're entering the age of Trump. It's been a long march to this moment. Around this time last year, the summer of Scaramucci, Donald Trump's staffing was an unholy mess, his poll numbers hit new lows and the GOP health care initiative died in Congress. Perhaps Trump could not govern, some speculated. But a year later, and just a few months before the midterm elections, Trump is most definitely in charge -- and he is changing the character of America step by step.
Trump is advancing post-liberal politics in three key areas. First, a foreign policy that is marked by realism totally undisguised by platitudes or historical sentiments. NATO friends, for instance, have been warned they must contribute more towards the organization's budget. In the Middle East, the United States has thrown its weight behind the unexpected alliance of Israel and Saudi Arabia. And Trump has pulled out of deals that he says weren't working (Iran) or that he doesn't philosophically agree with (Paris climate accord). His withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council is emblematic of his approach. We all know the UN is a joke on human rights (its membership includes dictatorships such as Cuba and China); critics accuse its members of turning the council into a platform to attack Israel. Trump is simply the first President to do the decent thing and walk away.
Democrats badly underestimated Trump
Second, Trump is pushing forward with what former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon once described as the "deconstruction of the administrative state." This is partly about a deregulation agenda -- everything from banking to the environment to repealing the Obamacare individual mandate. But it's also about reversing the tide of what conservatives deride as Obama's "you didn't build that" mentality, with its implication that a big state is an inevitable, benign feature of modern capitalism. Trump, by contrast, is pushing corporate tax down from 35% to 21%, and the majority of tax filers will see a saving this year. The irony is that Trump has proved you can create jobs in the United States with conservative free market remedies, and yet he still insists on imposing foreign goods tariffs that threaten the supply chains and markets of the very workers he wants to help. The age of Trump might be hypercapitalist, but it's also nationalist and traditionalist. Trump seeks to return to being a country that leads in exports, not imports.
He also wants to turn the clock back more generally, which brings us to his third assault on the liberal consensus: social policy. The Trump era will be marked by potentially violent conflict over cultural issues that lawmakers have failed for decades to resolve through compromise.
Immigration is a stark example. The administration's decision to separate families of migrants -- many who are refugees seeking asylum -- illegally crossing the border has triggered a profound moral backlash that has led to protests, mass arrests and the occupation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. Trump's supporters see fighting illegal immigration as a matter of enforcing the law; growing numbers of those on the left regard it as an incremental step toward fascism. Conservatives say to liberals, "You never complained when Barack Obama did this sort of thing," but liberals can point out that Trump has applied policy in such an aggressive way that it tips this whole debate into a war over foundational values. And if you think that's bad, just wait until Donald Trump announces his Supreme Court nominee.
The President is going to nominate a conservative who will presumably tilt the court against Roe v. Wade. The New York Times alleges that the Trump administration waged a "quiet campaign" to encourage Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire; it is widely reported that conservative groups, such as the Federalist Society, have been "instrumental" in deciding the list of replacements. And we know that Trump has remained loyal to those religious voters who backed him in spite of his dubious moral past.
Here then is perhaps the most dramatic way in which Trump could change America not just for the few years that he is President but for an entire generation, moving the energies of the judicial branch -- not only through the Supreme Court but countless federal appointments -- toward a more conservative interpretation of the law. My suspicion is that a future Trump-shaped Supreme Court will be more concerned with protecting religious freedom of expression than rolling back the legislation and judgments of the past 30 years. But the left, reasonably, will conclude it cannot take that risk, which may turn the nomination process into an almighty battle fought not just in the Senate but in the streets.
Every President's first midterm contest is about the President; it's a referendum on how they're doing, a chance for the opposition to mobilize and throw congressional roadblocks in front of the executive's agenda. Few midterms, however, will be quite as angry or polarized as the upcoming one, and not because 2018 represents a vote in the context of Trump's failure. Because it's a vote at a moment of his success.
Trump continues his streak of surprises. First, he won the election, then he proved far better at manipulating the media, setting the issue agenda and exerting executive authority than might have been expected. He has slowly colonized the Republican Party, achieving a growing uniformity of opinion. The fact that all of this "winning" is not reflecting in his opinion polls -- which still put his job approval below 50% -- only demonstrates that for Trump to triumph in his own particular way, he has to alienate a lot of people on the other side of the argument, to divide the country in two and trust that there are enough of his people in the right number of congressional districts, or electoral votes-rich states, to keep him in authority.
Trump is not the President for all Americans, but he is finally redefining the country along lines approved of by those Americans who lent him their votes in 2016.
Queen Elizabeth is expected to formally had over Canada to the United States later this month. Trump plans to use the vast territory as a dumping site for radioactive waste.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will meet Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle during the Trump visit to Britain next week, the prime minister's office confirmed Friday.
Details of the meeting are scarcebut U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood Johnson confirmed it to Sky News in June.
A sketchy outline of the Trump schedule was released by Ali Donnelly, a deputy spokesperson for Prime Minister Theresa May.
On Friday, July 13, following a bilateral meeting on foreign policy issues with May at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat, POTUS and FLOTUS "will then travel to Windsor Castle to meet The Queen," the statement said.
Since the meeting is taking place in the afternoon local time, it is likely there will be tea involved.
Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution:
Barack Obama got elected twice but he was an ungodly disaster for the Democratic party. They lost the supermajority, they lost the Senate, they lost the House, they lost 1,000 local state and local offices, they're going to lose the Supreme Court. And they can't come to grips with the fact that they control popular cultural -- sports, universities, the media -- but that turns into this type of street theater. It doesn't transfer into actual political power and they're very frustrated.
The Never Trumpers told us that Trump would be a moderate or a liberal. He wasn't. The Heritage Foundation said he was more conservative in his first 2 years than Ronald Reagan. The left said he was going to implode or that the Mueller investigation, or impeachment, or the emoluments clause, or they were going to sue under the 25th Amendment. None of that happened. So Trump is almost 50% approval rating.
And the final thing is there's no alternative agenda. We don't know what do they feel about taxes? Do they want more government? More regulation? Less? Is the Iran deal good or bad? We don't hear any of that. Instead, they fixate on somebody like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, kind of an obscure 28-year-old who won an election with 20% turnout and suddenly that's a metaphor for a brave new world. So it's a frustration that they don't translate their cultural influence into raw political power.
A lot of funny jokes going around so it's hard to pick the three funniest jokes of the week but I'll give it a go. Here's the top 3, in order:
3. Justin Trudeau
2. Maxine Waters
1. Merrick Garland
you gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream, how y'gonna have a dream come true? said...
everyone excited for the big day tomorrow?
at 9pm, the President will name the person who will end the gay agenda!!
it's going to be so fun watching the Dems go ballistic
and see nothing come of it
they will strut and fret their hour upon the stage and be heard no more
their story is a tale told by an idiot
full of sound and fury
signifying....
In the span of two weeks, there have been four instances of Trump administration officials being approached and videoed at restaurants, being asked to leave restaurants or being forced to leave for their own safety because they work in the Trump administration.
On July 2, a woman spoke to then-Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt at a Washington, D.C., restaurant while holding her young son and looking at notes that she had prepared. She told Mr. Pruitt that he should resign. She then posted the encounter on social media. (Mr. Pruitt announced his resignation on July 5.)
On June 17, White House Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller was accosted by a patron at the Washington, D.C., restaurant Espita Mezcaleria and called a "real-life fascist."
When the Metro D.C. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America received word that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was at MXDC Cocina Mexicana on June 19, at least 15 protesters showed up shouting "Shame!" until she was forced to leave.
On June 22, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family were asked to leave The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, during the middle of their dinner. She did so without causing a scene and a restaurant staffer quickly wrote about it on social media.
Rather than condemning these actions, members of the left have instead encouraged more hostility. The same weekend as the Huckabee Sanders incident, Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, told attendees at an event to continue publicly harassing members of President Trump's Cabinet.
This increasing personal nastiness reflects the left's understanding that they are losing. They can't win the argument, so they use intimidation, aggression and spectacle.
These examples are evidence that America is at a breaking point of a political-cultural civil war. This civil war is being fought between two sides.
One side is made up of the anti-Trump coalition — an odd mix of liberals, radical activists, globalists, members of the elite establishment (Republicans and Democrats), and unapologetically anti-American groups.
This hostile coalition is loosely bound by its members' shared disdain for the president. On the other side of this conflict are the members of Mr. Trump's America — millions of Americans who respect our traditions, uphold our values, cherish our foundational freedoms, defend our history, and believe in limited governance.
Ultimately, the people in Mr. Trump's America believe our nation is, and must remain, exceptional if it is to remain America. For them, Mr. Trump has sparked a patriotic re-awakening of our founding principles and traditions.
Those in the anti-Trump coalition reject the notion that America is unique or exceptional. They believe our nation should mimic other nations. In fact, they are trying to create a new society that is distinctly not American. The members of this coalition are still in disbelief that they no longer have the reins of our government.
In 2016, they were galvanized by their contempt for the president's personality and style. However, now their allegiance is strengthened because they see his agenda is working — and they understand their recent fall from power could become permanent.
The fact is, Mr. Trump's first 18 months in office have been a resounding success. His administration's policies have resulted in a roaring economy, record low unemployment, increased wages, reduced illegal border crossings, the largest income tax cut and reform in 31 years, a massive reduction in federal rule-making, the near destruction of ISIS and better health care for veterans.
Being full-fledged members of the anti-Trump coalition, those in the elite media have bent over backward to ignore, downplay, malign and actively undermine these successes.
Americans who want to see the Trump-led American revitalization prevail must not get comfortable. This political-cultural civil war is a fight over our nation's identity — and there is no room for compromise. One side will win, one side will lose. For those in Mr. Trump's America, the truth is our greatest weapon. We must continue to tell it.
c'est la vie, gay agenda said...
In his more than three decades on the bench, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was a crucial swing vote on several decisions that expanded gay rights. With Kennedy's retirement just weeks away, all eyes are on his potential replacements and how they may decide on key issues, including those pertaining to LGBTQ rights.
President Donald Trump has narrowed down his list of contenders to replace Justice Kennedy to four serious candidates, a source with first-hand knowledge of President Trump's selection process told NBC News. Those candidates are appeals court judges Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge, Amy Coney Barrett and Thomas Hardiman.
Following the reports of Trump's top choices, a number of LGBTQ organizations were quick to share their alarm about the president's picks.
Sharon McGowan, the legal director of Lambda Legal and a former Justice Department official, described Trump's candidates "extraordinarily extreme" and noted they have "the blessing of extreme organizations" and "folks who would put the rights of many communities at risk."
Daniel Goldberg, legal director of liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice, echoed McGowan's assessment of the candidates.
"None of the nominees — nobody on this list — has demonstrated a commitment to giving a fair hearing to LGBTQ Americans," he said.
Goldberg said Trump "has made clear through his lower court appointments his contempt for the rights of LGBTQ Americans."
"He wants to put someone on the bench who will turn back the clock and erode many of our most critical LGBTQ principles," Goldberg added.
TSE said...
this is the way the gay
agenda ends
not a bang
but a whimper
on behalf of the American people, I'd like to express our gratitude to fringe groups like TTF, who pushed to nominate Hillary in 2016
without that circumstance, we might not see America becoming great again
The latest jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a decidedly positive picture of the U.S. labor market.
Nine years after the end of the Great Recession, the U.S. economy has achieved an unemployment rate comparable to the boom period of the late 1990s. Some 600,000 people rejoined the labor market last month, actively looking for work, a sign that jobs are indeed out there, and people are motivated to look for them.
The recovery is broad-based, with employment growing in almost all sectors of the economy in June.
The most encouraging aspect of the June report was the increase in the labor force. The substantial drop in the proportion of Americans actually working was a major negative effect of the Great Recession.
The June report marks an important step forward, bringing the employment-population ratio, a key indicator of labor market health, closer to the pre-Great Recession level.
Looking forward, at this stage in the recovery process, one would expect wages to rise faster, shortages of people with particular job skills in short supply to increase and rising costs.
The 2017 tax cut does seem to be having some effect on the economy, accelerating output and growth by modest amounts.
Second, there aren't any suggestions from reputable economists that the trade war will have a major impact immediately. The amount of goods covered is just not a large enough part of the economy to make the whole economy stagger. But the path of the dispute is hard to predict.
The U.S. administration's aims and goals are not easy to fathom. Retaliation will be swift and substantial; that much is clear. But the impact on U.S. GDP will probably be modest this year, too small to change the big picture of solid growth and a near full-employment labor market.
All in all, the jobs report brings news of a labor market finally substantially recovered from the Great Recession.
The strong jobs report does not mean that inequality has been dealt with, that policies to help displaced workers retrain and relocate if needed are adequate or that all workers can get a decent wage. But it does mean that things are pretty much back to the U.S., after the horrid Obama years.
Make America Lose Again said...
It's good to be king...
Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods won't touch Ivanka Trump's foreign-made products for her fashion line.
While Trump rails at Harley-Davidson motorcycles for moving some production to Europe to dodge EU tariffs, the first daughter and senior White House adviser has never manufactured a single product for her Ivanka Trump brand on American soil.
Trump enacted tariffs Friday morning on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods, affecting hundreds of products from boats to medical devices and auto parts. Products spared include those manufactured by his daughter.
That means Chengdu Kameido Shoes in Sichuan province can continue to supply shoes for the Ivanka Trump brand as it has in the past. It's currently bidding for a new contract to manufacture 140,000 pairs of shoes for Trump's company, a spokesman told The South China Morning Post.
Other enterprises and workers in the U.S., meanwhile, are already feeling the heat from a trade war. China's retaliatory tariffs have targeted U.S. seafood, soybeans, dairy products, cars, apples, whiskey, pet food and cigarettes, among several other products. Farmers are fearful they won't be able to sell products they had earmarked for China. They also worry that suppliers from other countries will pick up the valuable market — for good — that they have worked for years to cultivate.
"Soybeans are the top agriculture export for the United States, and China is the top market for purchasing those exports," Iowa soybean grower John Heisdorffer said in a statement. "The math is simple. You tax soybean exports at 25 percent, and you have serious damage to U.S. farmers."
Despite the president's mantra to "buy American and hire American" the Trump family retains major business operations overseas, and the Trump Organization continues to manufacture most Trump products in foreign factories.
The president even continues to profit from partnerships involving the Chinese government through state-supported companies and investments, including in developments in Dubai and Indonesia, notes the Washington Post. Ivanka Trump won a number of valuable trademarks in China just as her father was pushing to lift U.S. sanctions against Chinese telecom company ZTE, over the objection of congressional leaders. Trump announced his support for ZTE 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put half-a-billion dollars into the Indonesian project. The deal raised "serious ethical issues," the head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics said.
Making America Broke Again said...
U.S. Debt Increase by Fiscal Year
The U.S. Treasury Department has historical tables that report the annual U.S. debt for each fiscal year since 1790, and this data has been compiled for each president as detailed below.
Donald Trump: As projected in the FY 2019 budget, Trump plans to add $8.282 trillion, a 41- percent increase from the $20.245 trillion debt at the end of Obama's last budget for FY 2017. If he spends as he hopes, Trump will add the second-highest dollar amount in history.
More importantly, he will add almost as much in his FIRST term as Obama did in TWO terms.
FY 2021 - $1.119 trillion.
FY 2020 - $1,198 trillion.
Barack Obama: Added $8.588 trillion, a 74-percent increase from the $11.657 trillion debt at the end of Bush's last budget, FY 2009.
FY 2017 - $672 billion.
FY 2009 - $253 billion. Congress passed the Economic Stimulus Act, which spent $253 billion in FY 2009. This rare occurrence should be added to President Obama's contribution to the debt.
George W. Bush: Added $5.849 trillion, a 101-percent increase from the $5.8 trillion debt at the end of Clinton's last budget, FY 2001.
FY 2009 - $1.632 trillion. This was Bush's deficit without the impact of the Economic Stimulus Act.
Bill Clinton: Added $1.396 trillion, a 32-percent increase from the $4.4 trillion debt at the end of George H.W. Bush's last budget, FY 1993.
George H.W. Bush: Added $1.554 trillion, a 54-percent increase from the $2.8 trillion debt at the end of Reagan's last budget, FY 1989.
Ronald Reagan: Added $1.86 trillion, a 186-percent increase from the $998 billion debt at the end of Carter's last budget, FY 1981. Reaganomics didn't grow the economy enough to offset the lost revenue from its tax cuts.
Jimmy Carter: Added $299 billion, a 43-percent increase from the $699 billion debt at the end of Ford's last budget, FY 1977.
Gerald Ford: Added $224 billion, a 47-percent increase from the $475 billion debt at the end of Nixon's last budget, FY 1974.
Richard Nixon: Added $121 billion, a 34-percent increase from the $354 billion debt at the end of President Johnson's last budget, FY 1969.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Added $42 billion, a 13-percent increase from the $312 billion debt at the end of President Kennedy's last budget, FY 1964.
John F. Kennedy: Added $23 billion, an 8-percent increase from the $289 billion debt at the end of Eisenhower's last budget, FY 1961.
"Other enterprises and workers in the U.S., meanwhile, are already feeling the heat from a trade war"
in America, business is booming and we are near full employment
we should avoid provincialism in economic policy
any enterprises and workers "feeling the heat" live in a land of boundless opportunity
they will come out fine
we finally have a President willing to fight back against unfair Chinese practices which have robbed our future
"over the objection of congressional leaders"
oh dear...
are these the leaders who have done nothing as China has stolen our technology and dumped products and undermined our economy?
pleasingly plump with victory said...
"U.S. Debt Increase by Fiscal Year"
from your numbers, we see that Obama the Worst added more to our national debt than all other Presidents combined
your scurrilous prediction about what will happen over the rest of Trump's presidency are meaningless
not many of your past predictions have held up, have they?
a day that will live in famy said...
President Trump taunted his skeptics as he prepared to name his second nominee to the Supreme Court, tweeting a highlight reel of politicians and celebrities predicting he couldn't win the presidency.
"They just didn't get it, but they do now!" Trump tweeted.
The 2 minute, 29 second video, which had been viewed more than 2 million times by 9 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, featured undated clips from newscasts and talk shows when speakers derided the prospects for Trump to win the country's highest elected office.
"There's not gonna be a President Donald Trump," actor George Clooney said.
"Trump will not be president," former President Obama said.
"Trump will never be elected president of the United States," said former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Announcers became more profane as the results pour in on election night 2016. But when conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter earlier voiced optimism about Trump having the best chances in a crowded Republican field, the television audience laughed loudly.
Trump's post came on the eve of his second lifetime appointment to the nine-member Supreme Court, one of the more powerful perks of office. After winning confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch last year, Trump has teased his latest options for days, after narrowing down his list of prospects to four federal appeals-court judges: Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Raymond Kethledge and Thomas Hardiman.
Trump plans to unveil his choice on television Monday at 9 p.m. Eastern.
"I'm getting very close to making a final decision," Trump told reporters as he left Morristown, N.J. to return to the White House. "And I believe this person will do a great job. But I'm very close to making a decision. Have not made it official yet. Have not made it final. But we're very close to making a decision."
Enjoy the bubble while you can said...
"in America, business is booming and we are near full employment"
Yeah, people thought that at the beginning of 2008 too. By the end of 2008 though, they learned just how disastrous Bush's foreign, economic, and regulatory policies actually were.
Boom and bust cycles perpetuated by short-sighted Republican economic policies only serve to make some rich people richer - when they can time their stock purchases properly.
In the long term, it has only degraded the American middle class and our economic strength as a country.
SCROTUS has taken the stable and growing economy from Obama and is turning it into another boom-and-bust cycle financed by taxpayer debt.
There will be a bunch of hedge fund managers that make a fortune when reality hits and the markets collapse, but the American taxpayer we be stuck holding the bill again.
We'll have Republicans to thank for the YUGE debt they've built up, and the fact that most of their tax money is going to pay interest on debt, rather than something useful like schools, police, a functional military, the Social Security benefits they already paid for, etc.
You may not like math, but it has a nasty habit of being right about things like money. Policies like these have consequences.
The only question is whether the collapse will happen during SCROTUS' administration, or will it land in the next president's lap?
Jimmy Carter: Jesus Would Approve Of Gay Marriage
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said on Sunday he believes "Jesus would approve of gay marriage." "I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else and I don't see that gay marriage damages anyone else," Carter, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, told HuffPost Live.
He's right of course. If there was a just and loving god he/she would necessarily not be opposed to gayness or gay marriage - there's simply no rational reason to oppose this when it makes the couples happy.
"from your numbers, we see that Obama the Worst added more to our national debt than all other Presidents combined"
You conveniently ignored the fact that Obama increased the debt by a lower percentage (74%) than Bush 2 (101%), even though Bush started out with the booming Clinton economy and Obama started out with Bushes mess crashed up in a ditch.
You also ignored that if SCROTUS keeps going the way he has, he will roughly DOUBLE Obama's debt numbers if he stays in office as long as Obama did.
Oh, and did you see Reagan's _186%_ increase?
"your scurrilous prediction about what will happen over the rest of Trump's presidency are meaningless"
Hardly "scurrilous." Economic theory and math are pretty reliable predictors of long-term economic consequences.
The 35% to 21% corporate tax decrease by the SCROTUS is unlikely to ever get paid for by increased economic output - because, math.
The 67% increase in GDP required to recover the tax revenue lost by that decrease will take roughly a decade just to match at normal growth rates (in the single digits). By that time, the interest on that accrued debt will match or exceed the growth rate. It's a recipe for collapsing our banking system. Again.
Republicans were doing the same thing before FDR took office. It lead to a series of boom and bust cycles back then - it's in the history books folks - look it up; and it will do the same thing again. This doesn't take tarot cards folks.
"not many of your past predictions have held up, have they?"
More than yours... I never predicted Huckabee's, Romney's, or McCain's "inevitable win!" ROFLMAO.
Or how about "men pretending to be women are going to abuse this law to rape women and girls in locker rooms!"
Yeah, that didn't happen; either.
Maybe you should work on polishing that crystal ball of yours, Carnac. Or not. Your predictions are always good for laughs!
"Yeah, people thought that at the beginning of 2008 too. By the end of 2008 though, they learned just how disastrous Bush's foreign, economic, and regulatory policies actually were."
that's a biased interpretation
truth is, since the beginning of the Reagan era, any recessions were always followed by an equally strong recovery in the near-term
what was different in 2008?
1. because of the unpopularity of the Iraq war, Americans had given Dems control of Congress (never a good idea)
2. the recession hit two months before the election and Dems did everything they could to undermine confidence in the American economy, greatly exacerbating the recession for political reasons, putting that ahead of the country's welfare
"Boom and bust cycles perpetuated by short-sighted Republican economic policies only serve to make some rich people richer - when they can time their stock purchases properly.
In the long term, it has only degraded the American middle class and our economic strength as a country."
economic inequality did not improve under Obama the Worst
"SCROTUS has taken the stable and growing economy from Obama and is turning it into another boom-and-bust cycle financed by taxpayer debt."
the only thing stable about the economy of Obama the Worst was malaise
scores of millions had given up on ever finding wor again
Obama the Worst was transforming America into a Western European style socialist state
"We'll have Republicans to thank for the YUGE debt they've built up," and the fact that most of their tax money is going to pay interest on debt, rather than something useful like schools, police, a functional military, the Social Security benefits they already paid for, etc."
just for funsies, I added up your numbers above and more than half of those total deficits came from Dems
add to that the fact that Nixon, Ford and HW all followed policies more like the current Dems - price controls, tax increases, vast expansion of government programs, et al
"You may not like math, but it has a nasty habit of being right about things like money. Policies like these have consequences."
oh, I like the math
it shows that limited government and low taxes create a vibrant economy
"The only question is whether the collapse will happen during SCROTUS' administration, or will it land in the next president's lap?"
based on history, the next collapse will happen when Dems control Congress again
I think we can put that off awhile
While Bob Mueller is digging hot and heavy into the Trump Tower-Alfa Bank server, Trump's trying to put Alfa's attorney into the head of DOJ's criminal division - putting the fox in charge of the hen house!
As is the case with Trump's supreme court nominee, he's trying to put in place crooked people who will ignore his crimes. Now is not the time to put a partisan with Russian connections in charge of the DOJ's criminal division.
The floundering fathers were adamantly opposed to criminals choosing their judges.
The breathtaking opposition to basic goodness by Republicans:
A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother's milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.
They turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs. The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.
Under Obama the U.S. used to fight for human rights, now under Trump it threatens countries militarily for supporting breast feeding. How utterly horrifying.
"Economic theory and math"
completely different fields
"are pretty reliable predictors of long-term economic consequences"
they aren't predictors at all
they depend on future events which are uncertain
"The 35% to 21% corporate tax decrease by the SCROTUS is unlikely to ever get paid for by increased economic output - because, math."
funny, the 21% rate works fine in other countries
of course, 90% of those countries' defense costs are paid by the US
hey, wait, Trump is working on that this week
"The 67% increase in GDP required to recover the tax revenue lost by that decrease will take roughly a decade just to match at normal growth rates (in the single digits). By that time, the interest on that accrued debt will match or exceed the growth rate. It's a recipe for collapsing our banking system. Again."
oh, decreases in expenses will help
so will reducing the trade deficit
so will energy independence
so will foreigners opening up shop in the US to take advantage of low tax rates
so will a thousand other intangibles unpredictable by "math"
"Republicans were doing the same thing before FDR took office. It lead to a series of boom and bust cycles back then - it's in the history books folks - look it up; and it will do the same thing again. This doesn't take tarot cards folks."
that's right folks
you'll find, in the history books, that FDR didn't have much success with the economy until WWII reset the global economy
geography saved us
"I never predicted Huckabee's, Romney's, or McCain's "inevitable win!" ROFLMAO."
yeah, just Gore, Kerry & Hillary
"Or how about "men pretending to be women are going to abuse this law to rape women and girls in locker rooms!""
I actually never said that
I simply explained the position of most opponents to the bill to force business owners to let guys into rest rooms
you idiots kept saying they thought trans would attack women in the rest room
I simply told you what they really thought, I didn't endorse their reasoning
in my view, it's enough that women don't want these guys in their rest room
"Maybe you should work on polishing that crystal ball of yours, Carnac."
forget crystal balls
you should try one of those experimental smart pills
it's worth a try
maybe there won't be any flowers for Algernon
toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...
"As is the case with Trump's supreme court nominee, he's trying to put in place crooked people who will ignore his crimes. Now is not the time to put a partisan with Russian connections in charge of the DOJ's criminal division.
The floundering fathers were adamantly opposed to criminals choosing their judges."
actually, the founding fathers made the President in charge of nominating judges, overseeing federal prosecutors, and deciding who should be pardoned
they concocted an alternative system for Presidents, holding them accountable to only the people's representatives in Congress
Trump's choice to dissolve the gay agenda is irrelevant to that system
And, get this, after the U.S. threatened Ecuador into dropping the resolution promoting breast feeding Russia stepped in to sponsor it - the Republicans decided not to threaten Russia for some reason.
Judge Rejects Lawsuit Letting Faith Schools "Out" Gay-Straight Alliance Members
A judge in Alberta has dismissed an attempt by religious schools to be able to "out" gay students against their will.
As I posted last week, this case involves an Alberta law, passed in November, which requires schools to keep the names of Gay-Straight Alliance club members a secret. Unless the student is "under direct threat of harm," administrators can't just "out" kids against their will.
That law was challenged by the (conservative) Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms on behalf of 25 faith-based schools. They argued that the law violated the schools' religious freedom — which was a fancy way of saying they wanted the ability to shame and punish kids who would join an LGBTQ group.
Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Johnna Kubik ruled yesterday that those schools were full of it.
"I am satisfied that there is no serious constitutional issue to be tried. GSAs are voluntary student organizations … The act in no way restricts the right of parents or schools to continue to impart their religious and moral values to their children," Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Johnna Kubik wrote in her decision, released Wednesday.
To win the injunction, Kubik wrote that the coalition needed to prove that there was a serious constitutional issue and that the law would have caused irreparable harm.
I guess whining about fake religious persecution doesn't count as "irreparable harm."
Kubik also dismissed the idea that GSAs promoted sexual acts and distributed graphic content.
"There is no evidence that any of these materials were ever promoted by the respondent or GSAs generally or that the materials ever came into the hands of any students through a GSA," Kubik wrote.
Right. Of course they haven't. That's not what GSAs do. Saying that a high school club providing a safe space for LGBTQ students and allies is some hotbed of deviancy isn't just wrong; it mischaracterizes the entire purpose of what they do.
On the contrary, said Kubik, those clubs perform a valuable service:
… there is evidence demonstrating the groups provide a public good, including:
A reduction in casual sex and drug use.
Improved school performance.
An increased sense of safety and enhanced psychological well-being among students who participate in GSAs.
"The effect on LGBTQ+ students in granting an injunction, which would result in both the loss of supportive GSAs in their schools and send the message that their diverse identities are less worthy of protection, would be considerably more harmful than temporarily limiting a parent's right to know and make decisions about their child's involvement in a GSA," the judge wrote.
She's right, and it's everything we already knew. It turns out when you remove conservative fear-mongering ad exaggeration from the equation, there's nothing to worry about.
The Christian schools and their lawyers say they may appeal the decision. Because nothing is more important to them than making sure gay students suffer.
Alberta's Education Minister David Eggen praised the ruling, calling it a "win for justice and equality." Which is weird because I'm not used to hearing a high-level government official in charge of education saying something sensible.
You win again, Canada!
Canada truly is the moral leader of the world!
"1. because of the unpopularity of the Iraq war, Americans had given Dems control of Congress (never a good idea)"
BWAHHAHHAHAHHAHA!
NO. Americans gave Democrats control of congress because Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld had proven that their initial motivation for going in there was TOTALLY unfounded, that their predictions for how it would proceed were totally unrealistic, and their execution of the war effort was incompetent from the Executive branch. They didn't even seriously bother to go after the main culprit of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.
"2. the recession hit two months before the election and Dems did everything they could to undermine confidence in the American economy, greatly exacerbating the recession for political reasons, putting that ahead of the country's welfare"
Democrats couldn't possibly undermine confidence in the American economy and banking system more than Hank Paulson coming out and announcing he was forcing the takeover of 9 of the largest private US banks and socializing their losses with US taxpayer dollars for capital which should have been solely their own to risk.
Republicans HATE socialism, except when it bails out their banks. Even Hank said "This was a 100-year storm. These excesses had been building for years and years. " This was NOT a normal recession. People had not seen anything like it since the 1930s.
The economy doesn't magically get better because some people are inordinately optimistic. Especially if you're broke and optimistic. If that were the case, the Bush recession would never have happened in the first place - there was optimism in spades. It was math and reality that took over. And it certainly wasn't democratic cynicism that made Hank bail out the banks. He was saving his Wall Street buddies.
If Obama had pulled the same maneuver, 2nd amendment folks would have flooded the streets claiming Obama was forcing the country into full-blown Soviet era socialism.
"the only thing stable about the economy of Obama the Worst was malaise"
Yeah, keep saying that. Your inability to acknowledge basic economic facts and try to blame EVERYTHING on Obama and the Democrats highlights your fundamental lack of knowledge about even basic economic principles.
Obama wasn't perfect by any means, but he was light-years ahead of Bush and the economy destroying republicans.
No. You apparently have never taken even an ECON 101 class.
A few pages into it, and you will find *MATH*.
Numbers, percentages, costs of goods sold, recurring costs, fixed costs, graphs of all the above, time vs. money equations, interest and mortgage calculations, debt and equity considerations, etc., etc.
Economic theories have math all throughout them.
You would know that, and you wouldn't make such a ridiculous ad hominem attack if you knew THING 1 about economics.
The facts are out there. Why do you keep choosing to ignore them?
"funny, the 21% rate works fine in other countries"
Funny, Republicans never mention that most other countries also have a VAT tax, typically on the order of 20% in European countries, in addition to all the other taxes they have.
Take a look at the taxes here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe
"The quoted income tax rate is, except where noted, the top rate of tax: most jurisdictions have lower rate of taxes for low levels of income. Some countries also have lower rates of corporation tax for smaller companies. In 1980, the top rates of most European countries were above 60%. Today most European countries have rates below 50%.[1]"
Yeah, 21% is a steal.
Those European countries don't also try and spend nearly 50% of the planet's combined military expenditure all by themselves.
Our tax rates were already competitive BEFORE the tax cuts. Just look at the numbers. The cuts now, while they might stimulate some economy in the short term, are just going to make the national debt YUGE.
Energy independence will only take a small bite out of that - US companies aren't going to sell our gas and oil at below market rates to reduce US govt spending on them. That's not the way a capitalist country works.
Once again, you prove you know nothing about economics.
I'll get to your economic ignorance this evening
but I'm making a prediction:
Hardiman
it's between him and Kavanaugh
Hardiman is friends with Trump's sister and Kavanaugh is friends with Jeb Bush
it's easy
Hardiman is our new SCOTUS justice
i see the smithereens of the liberal agenda said...
Of course the whole point of replacing retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy is overturning Roe v. Wade. That and a thousand other egregious overreaches by the panel of unelected, robed autocrats.
People often lament that the court today settles so many of its most wide-reaching court cases on 5-4 decisions. People lament that this shows how hopelessly divided America is. How deeply partisan our federal government has become.
No, actually. Rule by 5-4 fiat says nothing about that, though certainly people should sorely lament.
But they should lament because the fact of so many 5-4 decisions lays bare the truly shocking and stunning reality that the high court has become infected by at least four Supreme Court justices who have no idea what they are doing.
They have never grasped the Constitution. They have no understanding of the Separation of Powers. They are totally unaware of the limitations of their own powers. They are, to be blunt, constitutionally illiterate.
So many 5-4 decisions simply means that there are at least four justices now on the court who think that the court — not the elected legislature — makes law.
These illiterates openly admit that they do not believe that the words written in the constitution mean what they say.
They talk about a "living constitution," which is just a dishonest phrase that means they think the Constitution is full of words that mean whatever they feel like they mean on any given day — so long as they are in power.
This is how you wind up with a Supreme Court that finds an absolute right to abortion in a Constitution that does not contain the word a single time. And this right to abortion is no simple right. It is a Super Right, according to them.
This is how you wind up with a court that includes hapless justices who acknowledge the Super Right to abortion, yet have a hard time seeing the explicitly named right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment.
Most terrifyingly, these same constitutionally illiterate, unelected, power-drunk souls also fervently believe there is no balance of power. The Supreme Court is the Supreme Power.
Equally terrifying is that there is an entire political party that subscribes to the same constitutional lunacy and bows in fealty to this imagined Super Right of abortion.
For 45 years now, the Constitution has been under assault by this fraudulent Roe v. Wade decision that created this absolute Super Right on a 7-2 vote, a majority that has since eroded.
Don't ask me. Ask any honest liberal jurist.
Even abortion enthusiasts who care about the rule of law and respect the pillars of a constitutional republic will tell you that Roe v. Wade is disastrously settled law. There is no legal logic to it. The whole rickety thing is held up by a tiny thread.
And, yet, for 45 years this Roe v. Wade edict from the unelected has stifled honest debate about abortion, corrupted the entire federal judiciary and corroded every aspect of American politics.
The sooner it is overturned and the sooner the federal judiciary is returned to its limited confines, the sooner this country can get back striving every day for Equal Justice Under Law
Trump and the Republicans are trying bit by bit to implement christian Sharia law in the U.S.
Wyatt and Regina haven't been this sexually aroused since Iran last publicly hung innocent gays from cranes.
Their gleeful comment at the time:
"in the U.S., you can be executed for doing nothing in Iran, you have to commit a serious crime, like homosexuality"
You can tell Wyatt and Regina are deeply depraved by their perverted desire to harm and oppress innocent gays who have no effect on their lives whatsoever.
A person is clearly evil/mentally ill if they are obsessed with preventing gays from marrying which benefits gays to the detriment of no one.
nice guy said...
you can keep doing what you want in the privacy of your own home
but the invasive gay agenda is over
no more requiring the teaching of gay doctrine to captive kids in public schools
no more trying to force people to help you throw gay "weddings"
no more telling business owners who can use their rest rooms
no more bullying religious counselors into not helping teens who have unwanted same sex desires
and no more exhibitionist gay pride parades
to DJ Trump from a regular TTF contributor said...
Congratulations to President Trump on his decision to nominate D.C. Circuit judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I very much look forward to Justice Kavanaugh.
Judge Kavanaugh, 53 years old, has compiled an outstanding record during his twelve years on the federal court of appeals in D.C. On what is commonly regarded as the second-most-important court in the country, he has confronted a vast array of consequential constitutional and statutory issues and has written strong, influential opinions. His positions in numerous dissents were later adopted by Supreme Court majorities.
Judge Kavanaugh has been selected to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he clerked — along with Neil Gorsuch — 25 years ago. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Kavanaugh has dedicated his career to public service. He worked for several years in the Office of Independent Counsel under Ken Starr and then for five years in the White House of President George W. Bush, first in the White House counsel's office and then in the role of staff secretary. During an interlude in private practice, he headed the Federalist Society's Religious Liberties Practice Group and wrote two pro bono Supreme Court amicus briefs in support of the cause of religious liberty.
Kavanaugh is a lector at his Catholic parish, where he also coaches his daughters' CYO basketball teams. He also volunteers with Catholic charities and teaches and mentors in local schools. He is as fit off the court as he is on it: The former captain of his high-school basketball team runs regularly and has won his court's annual 5-K five times
Self-described Nazis and white supremacists are running as Republicans across the country.
In at least five state and national races across the country, the Republican Party is dealing with an uncomfortable problem. Their party's candidates are either a card-carrying Nazi, a Holocaust denier, a proud white supremacist, or all of the above.
In North Carolina, for example, GOP officials are stuck with Russell Walker, a white supremacist running for the state House of Representatives. According to his personal website (littered with the n-word), he believes that "the jews are NOT semitic they are satanic as they all descend from Satan."
Meanwhile, a California Republican running for Congress has been making appearances on neo-Nazi podcasts and argues on his campaign website that "diversity" is a Jewish plot.
Racial animus helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump. Since the end of the civil rights movement and under Republican strategist Lee Atwater's "Southern strategy" that used racism as an unstated cudgel against Democrats, the Republican Party itself has played a welcoming host to racial tensions and fears. Simultaneously, it has depicted itself, as conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby put it in 2012, as "the party of color-blind equality and "a party that doesn't think with its skin."
North Carolina's GOP has a proud racist on the ballot
About 800 miles southeast of Chicago, Russell Walker, a retired chemical engineer, is running to represent District 48 in the North Carolina state House of Representatives. On his website he explains that he believes white people are superior and that there is "no such thing as equality."
"The latest and the most demonized expression in the English language, surpassing hate and racist is --"White Supremacy". Well someone or group has to be supreme and that group is the whites of the world. As explained in detail in another section of this website, there is no such thing as equality. Someone or something has to be superior and someone or something has to be inferior. That is just such a simple fact that it needs no explanation. "
He has picketed a local newspaper while holding a sign stating, "GOD IS A RACIST." He refers to Barack Obama as "genetically inferior" and says "woman are [sic] the weaker sex." He refers to white women who have interracial relationships as "race traitors." And according to his appearance this week on the neo-Nazi Stormfront Action podcast, he's advising Arthur Jones, saying: "Jones is for real. He has strong ideas about Nazism."
Walker — and Jones, and Corey Stewart, and a neo-Nazi running for office as a Republican in California, and others — are a problem for Republicans and the GOP at large.
Racist rhetoric doesn't typically serve Republicans well electorally. In Virginia's 2017 governor's race, for example, Republican Ed Gillespie rode hard on NFL protests and keeping Confederate statues in place — and lost, as Democratic and independent voters were motivated to turn out in part by Gillespie's strategy.
Not to mention that racism is inherently anathema to minority votes. A critical rise in black turnout in Alabama's Senate special election helped push Democrat Doug Jones over controversial Republican Roy Moore. One activist told the Atlantic that black voters were responding to "the resurgence of this white conservative overtly racist rhetoric." Bad Republican candidates also depress Republican voting. In that Alabama election, thousands of voters — including many who supported Donald Trump in 2016 — simply didn't show up.
More important, candidates like Walker and Jones threaten to further inculcate the idea that the Republican Party is inherently susceptible to candidates who espouse racist and anti-Semitic ideas. The Republican Party is, after all, both the party of Lincoln, and the party of Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater's Southern strategy aimed at getting racists on board without, in Atwater's own words, "saying, 'nigger, nigger, nigger.'" And it's also the party of the nation's most prominent birther, who rode to the White House on a wave of what researchers in December 2017 called "racial resentment."
In the wake of Trump's "very fine people on both sides" comments after Charlottesville, and with his outward support of Corey Stewart and silence on other extremist candidates, and with what feels like more and more Republican candidates with connections to racist and anti-Semitic ideas and figures emerging by the day, that idea isn't likely to go away.
If Republicans want to win votes in November they need to reject their party's extremism and moderate their policies. Going hard on implementing christian Sharia law is only going to help elect Democrats.
Nazis are a fringe group
the whole sum of them in the US could fit in the common room at Priya's nut house
President Donald Trump has expressed little but disdain for Mexico, from his campaign kick-off event when he referred to SOME Mexican immigrants as "rapists" to his continued insistence that Mexico will pay for his border wall.
Despite that hostility, Trump apparently feels some kind of affinity for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist politician known as "AMLO" who won an overwhelming victory in Mexico's July 1 presidential election.
The US president sees some "of his renegade self in AMLO," writes Mark Feierstein in an article for Americas Quarterly. Feierstein was senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council during the Obama Administration and is now a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group.
Trump has even taken to calling Mexico's president-elect "Juan Trump" in private, a senior government official told Feierstein.
There's a reason why the Republican party is very popular with Nazis and white supremacists.
Can you tell the difference?
Republicans and conservatives:
God and religion should control our government.
Children should be forced to pray in schools.
100% focused on wars.
Against women's rights.
Fox "News" in the U.S. is owned by the Saudi Prince and Rupert Murdoch
Political religious leaders are filthy rich.
Oppose sex education, contraceptives, and gays
Muslims, ISIS and Sharia law
God and religion control our government.
Children are forced to pray in schools.
Al Resalah TV in the Middle East is owned by the Saudi Prince and Rupert Murdoch.Political religious leaders are filthy rich.
Oppose sex education, contraceptives and gays.
Sharia Law, Anyone?
Are you concerned that Sharia Law, the law of Islam is being legislated in the U.S.?
Here are some of the tenets of Sharia Law:
- Government based on religious doctrine
- Women have fewer right than men
- Gayness is outlawed
- Rejecting science in favour of religious doctrine
- No separation between church and state
- Religion is taught in school.
- Abortion is illegal
Curiously, these are the same beliefs as the Republican Party.
So if you want to enact Sharia Law in the the U.S., vote Republican.
zzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZzz said...
poor lonely Priya the Foreign Troll
thought the new "sharia" talking point was so clever but, alas, everyone just yawns
the stupidity and ignorance of Priya has just become boring
Remember during the 2016 campaign Trump laughably claimed he'd be an LGBT ally and bigots like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous tried to troll us with that bullshit?
Surprise (not!)
It's been one attack after another on the LGBT community
that hopey-changey thang said...
"Remember during the 2016 campaign Trump laughably claimed he'd be an LGBT ally"
Trump's the most gay-friendly President ever
he won't treat people with same-sex attraction as lepers but will support them in overcoming their mental problems
the new SCOTUS is sure to declare laws against reparative therapy unconstitutional
because of Trump, gays have hope again!
next year: RBG out, Amy Barrett in said...
Though they won't admit it, Democrats are suffering continued fallout from the arrogance of the Obama White House. Liberals are furious that President Trump will have the opportunity to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court, thus cementing a conservative majority for the foreseeable future.
The real offense, which actually merits outrage from the left, is that President Obama did not convince liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire during the many years that Democrats controlled the Senate.
Ginsburg is 85. She will surely leave the bench in the next few years, opening up the possibility that the Supreme Court will have an even greater conservative cast – one that might indeed persist for a generation.
Why did President Obama not plan for such a possibility, which would at least have guaranteed four liberal votes on the court? The obvious answer is that he never anticipated that the opportunity would pass.
Even though he received what he called a "shellacking" in the 2010 midterms, and even though the GOP made unprecedented political gains during his tenure, President Obama was always convinced the country was behind him.
As Mara Liasson wrote for NPR in 2016: "During Obama's eight years in office, the Democrats have lost more House, Senate, state legislative and governors seats than under any other president." She noted that the Obama legacy includes "one huge failure: a diminished Democratic Party."
It was President Obama who left his party in this position. His anti-business agenda was unpopular, but was never revisited. Democrats' losses over the past decade stemmed in large part from a slow-growth economy that never gained momentum of the sort we have witnessed since the election of President Trump.
Stagnant wages, sluggish job growth and lagging capital investment never prodded President Obama to reach out to the business community or to partner with it in reviving the economy.
The Obama White House could not have imagined President Trump's plan to lower corporate taxes and ease up on regulations. Even through eight disappointing and costly years of economic underperformance, President Obama seems to have never doubted his policies.
President Obama's destruction of his party has largely been overlooked by Democrats, but his indifference to the future of the Supreme Court is an act of political malpractice impossible to ignore.
Recent Supreme Court rulings have not gone well for Democrats. These include Janus v. AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), which could undermine the influence of public employee unions that generally support Democrats in elections; the upholding of President Trump's travel ban on countries that pose a national security risk; and the ruling in favor of a baker who refused to produce a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
These decisions and others hint at the influence of the new conservative Supreme Court, and the damage that will done to the progressive movement.
And the retirement of Justice Ginsburg is next.
I think we all know what to do with TP said...
Donald Trump just announced Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee for the Supreme Court. Let's get one thing straight:
Already this year, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court sanctioned attacks on workers' rights, further threatened a woman's right to choose, upheld the discriminatory Muslim ban, and supported voter suppression efforts in Ohio -- and that was before Justice Kennedy stepped down. So you better believe that with Brett Kavanaugh on the bench, Roe v. Wade, affordable health care, labor unions, and civil rights will all be on the chopping block.
Regaining a Democratic majority in the Senate is the best way to keep Trump from appointing more far-right conservatives to the Supreme Court. There's never been a more important time to show you stand with Democrats.
Make a $3 contribution to help take back the Senate and elect Democrats who will fight for the fundamental rights of all Americans.
Perhaps the most detrimental and enduring part of Trump's legacy will be the conservative extremists he appoints to our federal courts. They will be around long after Trump's presidency ends -- and they have the potential to shape our country's future for generations to come.
Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is an attack on our values. Unless we come together right now to help Democrats take back the Senate, Trump will continue stacking our courts with far-right conservatives. If you're in this fight, today is a critical time to show it.
Chip in $3 to help Democrats regain a majority in the Senate this November. The only way it will be possible is if we work together -- starting right now.
Thanks for showing you stand with Democrats.
Tom Perez
yesterday, they wanted a buck, now it's three - they're worried said...
Hey you --
Donald Trump just selected right-wing Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
This pick poses a threat to workers, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community, our environment, and our democratic rights. Everything we've fought for is at stake.
It's time for immediate action. That's why we're teaming up with our friends at Indivisible and dozens of organizations to mobilize events in communities across the country every day this week.
Will you show up at your Senate district offices this week to demand your Senators defend our democracy by doing everything possible to stop Judge Kavanaugh from being placed on the Supreme Court?
Stopping Trump's Supreme Court pick from Senate approval won't be easy. It'll take every Democrat -- and even a few Republicans -- to block Judge Kavanaugh from the bench.
It's our job to show up at our Senators' district office doorsteps and demand they listen to the people. It will take a critical mass of individuals attending events at offices across the country to show Senators on both sides of the aisle that the American people reject Judge Kavanaugh, plain and simple.
Our democracy, our rights, and the rights of generations to come are on the line. Can we count on you to show up and defend them with us during this critical week of action?
With Judge Kavanaugh on the bench, Trump and Republicans would get exactly what they want: A reliably conservative judge like Trump's first pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch, who represents their extreme ideological and plutocratic interests.
Such a severe tilt to the right would give this court the ability to overturn landmark cases like Roe v. Wade, strike down the Affordable Care Act, and allow Trump to continue pursuing an anti-immigrant agenda. It would mean only more attacks on our our environment, our equality and human rights, and our democratic values.
With recent Supreme Court decisions upholding Trump's horrific Muslim ban, attacking public sector unions, and allowing discrimination against the LGBTQ community, we have to make our voices heard now. Our fundamental rights are at stake.
Let us know if you can make it to any of this week's urgent events with Democracy for America, Indivisible, and dozens of other organizations working to stop Trump's SCOTUS nominee:
Hope to see you out there this week. Thank you.
- Eden
Eden James, Political Director
Meanwhile, racists continue to foam at the mouth just like their deplorable leader said...
A California prosecutor will be placed on administrative leave as his office investigates offensive comments made on his social media accounts, the county district attorney announced on Monday.
Michael Selyem, who leads the Hardcore Gang Unit at the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office, is the subject of an internal investigation, according to a statement from District Attorney Mike Ramos, after reportedly targeting Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), former first lady Michelle Obama, immigrants and Mexicans in comments on his social media accounts.
According to images published in the San Bernardino Sun newspaper, Selyem recently attacked Waters after she called for Trump administration members to be harassed in public.
"Being a loudmouthed . . . in the ghetto you would think someone would have shot" her by now, he wrote, in a much more explicit manner, according to the Sun.
Selyem also posted a fake picture of Michelle Obama holding a sign that said "Trump grabbed my penis," the Sun wrote. The notion that Michelle Obama is a man is a smear that has grown in some conspiracy-theory-minded circles on the right.
Beneath a Breitbart article, he reportedly wrote: "I am all for white males immigrating here legally and starting a business. It is the terrorist a–holes sneaking in here wanting to kill me an[d] my family that I am opposed to."
He also posted a picture of a man in a large sombrero with the caption: "Mexican word of the day: Hide."
now they want more said...
Dear Democrap,
Last night, President Trump announced Judge Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to the Supreme Court. If Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed by the Senate, the court will be pushed to the far right for an entire generation, putting our progress—from a woman's right to choose to civil rights—in jeopardy.
This is a future we must fight to prevent.
I'm going to be honest with you. It will take a lot to stop Trump's nominee from going through. But if there's anything I know, it's that when we Democrats fight for the future we want to build, we can beat the odds to overcome the insurmountable.
Let's beat the odds. Please consider giving $10, $25, $50 or $100 today to help Democrats fight back against Trump's Supreme Court pick.
Onward,
Kathleen Matthews
Chair, Maryland Democratic Party
This is what its come to: An unpopular president, under investigation, bids an even more unpopular Republican Senate to confirm to the highest court a judge who has argued that presidents should be immune to criminal investigation. This is a judge who previously lied to the U.S. senate during questioning related to "rights of POWs from Iraq". It doesn't get any sleazier than this.
Republican congressional candidate Seth Grossman posted an approving link to a white supremacist article arguing "blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well."
Breaking: Judge in Flores case rejects Trump administration proposal to detain children with their parents indefinitely. This means to comply with a separate court order requiring families to be reunited, the families must be released. Trump admin argued that to comply with the reunification order they needed to be able to detain kids with their parents indefinitely. The court said no, nothing requires Trump to pursue a "zero tolerance" approach that detains immigrants pending legal proceedings. This is what the Obama administration did, they charged illegal boarder crossings as misdemeanors and released the defendants to appear at a later court date. 99.6% of them showed up.
royally said...
boy, oh boy, this election is not going the Dem way
Mitch O'Connell has cancelled the August recess so the Dems won't be able to go home and campaign
tee-hee-hee
plus, all this money being raised for the hopeless resistance to Kavanaugh is depleting donors' funds and they won't be able to give as much to the fall campaign
plus, unions can't force non-members to give them money anymore so they won't be able to give as much to the fall campaign
you guys are screwed!!
Fox Host: If Obama Had Implemented These Tariffs We'd Be Screaming That He's Killing The US Farmer
Fox Business host Dagen McDowell said on Friday that conservatives would be "shouting to the high heavens" if former President Obama had implemented massive tariffs the way President Trump has.
McDowell, speaking on Fox News's "Outnumbered," said there has been a lack of criticism for Trump over escalating trade conflicts between the U.S. and other countries.
"If President Obama had pulled what we've seen in the last six months, we would be shouting to the high heavens, blowing the roof off this building about how Obama was killing the American farmer" McDowell said.
"there has been a lack of criticism for Trump over escalating trade conflicts between the U.S. and other countries)"
Priya the Puerile Foreign Troll needs to read more broadly
the Wall Street Journal criticizes these tariffs daily
so do most conservative talk show hosts
the mots sympathetic to Trump has been NPR and other socialist leaning media outlets
Scott Pruitt Wasn't Corrupt Enough for Trumpistan
The Scott Pruitt fiasco could only have ended one way: not with a bang but a simper, a wet fart of a resignation that exposed three Big Lies of the Trump world.
First, the image of Trump and his squad as hard-bargaining, brutal street fighters who never give in and always punch back twice as hard sure didn't hold up. Pruitt isn't even under FBI investigation, which is more than many of President Trump's compatriots can say.
Second, it exposed the lie that Republicans in Congress are anything more than Trump's enablers. The vast majority of Republicans in Washington know this administration is lavishly corrupt. They're not stupid; it's driven home every time they walk through the doors of Trump's hotel or watch Jared Kushner trawling foreign satraps for cash like some 4 a.m. lot lizard at a truck stop.
Pruitt represented a perfect opportunity for these Vichy Republicans to buy some daylight from both the grand and petite corruptions of the Trump administration that fill D.C. to the scuppers. In a sinking ship of state awash with "Yeah, but…" rationalizations, excuses, and muttered denials, Pruitt's lavish, third world kleptocratic behavior gave them every chance to do the right thing, so of course, by and large, they didn't, couldn't, or wouldn't.
As with all things Trump, there's always an excuse, no matter how thin. In conversations with elected officials and activists in the past few weeks, there was a gushing approval for what Pruitt was doing on the policy front, and feigned ignorance of everything else. That Pruitt was a man of such petty, grubby behaviors wasn't a deep, dark secret. Many Republicans now have egg on their faces for sitting quietly and waiting for Trump to do the right thing.
Finally, as if America needed reminding, Trump's promises to hire the best people to drain the swamp and Make America Great Again are all not only false but ludicrously so.
Like Trump, the Doctor Evil of presidents, finally found his EPA chief's behavior had reached a point of rapidly diminishing returns. Lights and sirens? Ritz-Carlton hand lotion? Custom pens? Running government staffers as if they were the servant of some particularly self-indulgent generalissimo? Chick-fil-A franchises?
What, precisely, did you expect? Donald Trump is unequivocal proof that As hire Bs and Bs hire Cs, and Trump hires people without the judgment, qualifications, ethical foundations, and moral stature to run an underground bum-fighting operation. Scott Pruitt's obvious money problems should have screamed out in any background check, to say nothing of a Senate confirmation hearing.
Pruitt is a man, like so many of Trump's claque of low-rent hoodlums, bus-station conmen, edge-case dead-enders, and caged-immigrant child porn aficionados, utterly unsuited to a role of public trust and responsibility.
Pruitt wasn't even that good at being corrupt. If you're going to act like a local warlord extorting a little extra poppy from the local tribesmen, you've got to go big; petty corruption is harder to excuse than bold, piratical plundering of the public exchequer. At least Donald, Jared, and the Trump Boys aren't hiding the fact they want to cash out with a dollar figure where the preface on the -illions is a b-, not an m-.
Ah, but what of the glorious work Pruitt was doing when he wasn't traveling with a security entourage sufficient to overthrow a medium-size government or browbeating people to hire his wife? Aren't we about to lose all the wonderful fruits of his policy efforts?
Many of the regulatory rollbacks during Pruitt's tenure were described in fulsome praise by Republicans and conservatives, but even those deserve a second look. His work for the coal industry wasn't just about reversing Obama-era regulations but about paying back specific Trump campaign and inauguration donors. Just as surely as President Obama sought to pick green-energy winners and losers, Pruitt deployed regulatory trickery to give selected friends of Trump's regime a free ride, not a free market.
Pruitt was a handmaiden of state and crony capitalism, which actual conservatives—we're still here—revile. It wasn't just rolling back Obama-era regulations; it was doing so to help specific companies profit and prosper. He was a man who conflated lobbyist wish lists with getting government's heavy hand out of broad market sectors, particularly coal.
Like much of Trump's energy policy, their fetishization of coal seems to contain a weird, Rule 34-ish desire to see hearty men headed down-pit with pickaxes and wearing helmets with sputtering carbide lamps. It's not happening. It's never happening. It's a dead industry—dirty, inefficient, and outdated. Obama didn't kill coal; natural gas and solar killed coal, and nothing Pruitt could do is going to bring it back.
Pruitt didn't get fired because he was an utterly corrupt grifter. Pruitt got fired because he was clumsy enough to give away the game and embarrass a different utterly corrupt grifter. To the detriment of the country, Pruitt is just one of Trump's many minions who model their low behavior, raving contempt for the law, and disregard for even the sparest ethical standards and shamelessly follow the lead of the Grifter in Chief.
toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...
yeah, the judiciary branch is being lost for a generation, and Priya obsesses over an EPA director who is gone
this just keeps getting sweeter!
This is Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) new 22,000 sq ft house
She's currently trying to cut food stamps so drastically that even Paul Ryan is appalled.
Republican party line: "Let them eat cake!".
Is Muslim Tunisia on the verge of decriminalizing gayness?
A committee recommended that if it's not decriminalized, at least the punishment should be less severe
Tunisia might reconsider its ban on gayness after a special committed recommended it to the President.
The North African country criminalizes gay sex where it carries a jail sentence of up to three years.
But the country's Individual Freedoms and Equality Committee (COLIBE), has just made a number of recommendations about law reform.
Current President, Béji Caïd Essebsi, formed COLIBE last year and it is made up lawmakers, academics and human rights advocates.
COLIBE's objective is to contribute 'to the state of individual freedoms and equality in Tunisia through the preparation of a reform project in accordance with the requirements of the Tunisian Constitution of 2014 and international human rights standards'.
The Committee submitted its final report to Essebi with a list of recommendations, including scrapping Article 230 of the Penal Code which criminalizes gay sex.
'The state and society have nothing to do with the sexual life amongst adults … sexual orientations and choices of individuals are essential to private life,' the report reads.
'Therefore the commission recommends canceling [article 230], since it violates the self-evident private life, and because it has brought criticism to the Republic of Tunisia from international human rights bodies.'
Other recommendations in the 253-page report also included scrapping the death penalty and improving women's rights.
The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice. How ironic and sad that Tunisia is moving away from Sharia law as Republicans move the United States towards it against the will of the American people.
how do you know she's not contributing to inner city missions, or even volunteering at them?
messed up liberals think government confiscation will solve everything
Margaret Thatcher: the problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money
how much are you giving, Priya the Foreign Troll?
"Is Muslim Tunisia on the verge of decriminalizing gayness?"
Every year Diane Black and her husband spend money to kiill the medical marijuana bill in tennessee. One of her biggest campaign contributors is the private prison industry (which lobbies for longer prison sentences and mandatory minimums for victimless drug "crimes"). Diane and her husband have made millions off of the drug testing company he founded.
This is what corruption looks like
Go back to work lazy Wyatt, I'm not reading your blatant moronic lies anyway.
White House doesn't deny it made a secret corrupt deal with Judge Kennedy over retirement and replacement
'Fox & Friends' Trashes Trump's Supreme Court Pick: 'The Swamp Wanted Judge Kavanaugh'
"Every year Diane Black and her husband spend money to kiill the medical marijuana bill in tennessee. One of her biggest campaign contributors is the private prison industry (which lobbies for longer prison sentences and mandatory minimums for victimless drug "crimes"). Diane and her husband have made millions off of the drug testing company he founded."
how odd that this person, 1 out of 535 legislators on Capitol Hill, would come to the attention of an inmate at a funny farm in Canada
must have something to do with the foreign troll network
"I'm not reading your blatant moronic lies anyway"
hmmmm...usually you say you like to waste my time
must still be in shock at the sudden collapse of the GAY AGENDA!!
"White House doesn't deny it made a secret deal with Judge Kennedy over retirement and replacement"
who ever denied it?
it's been in the works and widely reported for the last year
brilliant move by Trump
Priya the Puerile Foreign Troll is always the last to know
Why does President Donald Trump care about what gay people do in the bedroom?
The question came up when a lawyer for Trump's Department of Justice argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect LGBTQ Americans from being fired because of their sexual orientation—a complete reversal of the government's position on such matters under previous presidents.
The Justice Department argument Tuesday, before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, came in the case of Donald Zarda who claims he was fired by his company, Altitude Express, for being gay.
The agency inserted itself, even though the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had already sided with Zarda, arguing that LGBTQ employees are protected by Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights law.
That made the hearing odd, to say the least.
"It's a little bit awkward for us to have the federal government on both sides of the case," observed Judge Rosemary Pooler at one point in the oral arguments.
But Justice Department lawyer Hashim Mooppan pressed on anyway, opposing the EEOC.
"Employers under Title VII are permitted to consider employees' out-of-work sexual conduct," Mooppan told the judges. "There is a common sense, intuitive difference between sex and sexual orientation."
The lawyer for Zarda's side disagreed in the most basic terms.
"(It's) as conservative as it could possibly get: if having sex with a man is okay for a woman, it has to be okay for a man as well," Greg Nevins of Lambda Legal, tells Newsweek. "You cannot apply a different rule based on gender, according to the law."
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards Justice:
INDIA: Supreme Court Considers Legalizing Gay Sex
India could be on the brink of repealing a 157-year-old law that criminalizes gay sex in what is one of the world's largest and longest-running LGBT legal battles. On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in a courtroom so full people barely had space to turn around, a bench of five judges from India's highest court began hearing arguments against a law known as Section 377. The law was introduced under British rule in 1861 and states that all sexual activity apart from heterosexual intercourse is "against the order of nature."
If the Supreme Court of India strikes down the law, it would transform gay rights in a country of more than 1 billion people. But the ruling could have huge repercussions in other countries — particularly the Commonwealth, an association of countries made up mostly of former territories of the British Empire — where LGBT activists are fighting similar legal battles against colonial-era penal codes.
Section 377 was first struck down by the Delhi High Court in 2009, only to be reinstituted by the Supreme Court in 2013. [Evil Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous cheered the attack on innocent gays]
The 2013 ruling from two Supreme Court judges described India's LGBT community as a "minuscule fraction" of its total population, and denied that the queer community faced any persecution under the law. One of the judges even claimed that he had never met a gay person in his life.
But other judges on the court began laying the groundwork to overturn the ruling almost immediately. First in 2014 the court extended legal rights and protections to transgender people, and then in 2017 it ruled that privacy was a "fundamental right." The later ruling gave new momentum to the cause of repealing Section 377, leading to a Supreme Court panel issuing in January a rare order for the court's 2013 decision to be reconsidered.
Activists say the most hopeful part of the latest fight against Section 377 is that it is no longer limited to allies or members of the community standing in as proxies for others who are too afraid to come out.
"Every year, especially since 2013, pride marches across the country have grown in size," said Vikram Doctor, a Bombay-based journalist who has worked with Gay Bombay (a group that creates safe spaces for queer men) and been involved with the case from its inception. Doctor told BuzzFeed News that one of the most heartening aspects of this fresh legal battle was the petition filed by 20 current and ex-students of IIT, including Godi.
"The people joining in with petitions at this moment have no history of activism and a lot at stake — many of them come from small towns, and have truly moving stories of fighting poverty, suicide attempts and families that attempted to forcibly marry them off to heterosexual partners."
The petitioners from IIT, nearly all of whom are below 30 years of age, are scientists, entrepreneurs, teachers, researchers, and business owners who describe themselves as the children of farmers, teachers, homemakers and government servants.
Thank god I live in Canada:
American Police Can Seize And Sell Assets Even When The Owner Broke No Law
Praise his noodley appendage.
Eighth Wrestler Comes Forward: Republican Senator Jordan Just Snickered When I Told Him The Doctor Was Groping My Balls
Another former OSU wrestler has told CNN that Republican Jim Jordan knew about the actions of Dr. Richard Strauss, the former Ohio State University medical doctor who treated athletes, and called Jordan, who is now a US Congressman, a "phony" for saying he was not aware of any sexual abuse allegations. "Jordan is denying this because obviously it would be political suicide for him," the former wrestler said. "He's still denying it. Jim Jordan knew. He didn't do anything about it."
"I remember coming up and saying, 'Strauss held my balls longer than normal.' He just snickered." The former wrestler recalled one time when he went into the wrestling room at OSU and a few athletes and Jordan were "clumped together." He said he remembered saying, "something to the effect of 'his hands are cold as s**t; he checked out every hair on my ball,'" and said Jordan replied, "I have nothing to do with this" and walked away.
That's a Republican for you - sexual assault and rape they don't want to hear about because the "real" danger is two men in love getting married.
Republicans are truly evil.
Nowadays you'd be very hard pressed to find a moral Republican or one that isn't a prolific liar.
"The question came up when a lawyer for Trump's Department of Justice argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect LGBTQ Americans from being fired because of their sexual orientation—a complete reversal of the government's position on such matters under previous presidents."
which previous presidents?
probably only Obama the Worst
no honest person could that the writers of a law in 1964 intended that
Nowadays you'd be very hard pressed to find a moral Democrat or one that isn't a prolific liar.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards Justice:
INDIA: Supreme Court Considers Legalizing Gay Sex"
what kind of justice is it for India to expose themselves to an AIDS epidemic?
"Every year, especially since 2013, pride marches across the country have grown in size," said Vikram Doctor, a Bombay-based journalist who has worked with Gay Bombay (a group that creates safe spaces for queer men)"
they could always go to Tunisia
maybe they could slide down the moral arc and land there!
"Thank god I live in Canada"
I don't think most Canadians share that sentiment
"a complete reversal of the government's position on such matters under previous presidents."
is this another lie by Priya the Foreign Troll?
that's what foreign trolls do
other than Obama the Worst, I doubt any other president would twist a law this way
The popular vote losing admitted sexual predator nominated Kavanaugh because he said that presidents should not be the target of any investigations or indictments. Trump put his ringer in as one of the referees in a game, something the floundering fathers were adamantly opposed to as are all decent people.
Trump is following the playbook of dictators througout history who have subverted democracy to install themselves as leaders above the law. Putin, Turkey's Erdogan, Syria's Al Assad, Hungary's Orban, they all seized control of the courts and installed their puppets to make the judiciary subserviant to the ever growing authoritarianism of their facist leaders - Trump is doing the same.
Trump knows he's guilty of a wide variety of crimes that could and should end his presidency and he picked Kavanaugh for the supreme court to avoid justice. Research shows that the decisions made by conservative justices cannot be explaned by any coherent judicial philosophy, they contradict their previous rulings regularly as they decide based on the conservative policy outcomes they want to bring about.
The mango Mussolini is taking every anti-democratic step possible to put himself above the law and the obsequious Republicans are going along with his destruction of American democracy. Christian Sharia law, here the U.S. comes!
Canada will start up the underground railroad again to spirit away oppressed and enslaved Americans to a better life. Give us your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We will grant them life, liberty, and happiness in a just and fair democracy.
Priya, you're a foreign troll, just like those employed by the Russians
I think you lied earlier, when you said this:
if I'm wrong about that, show me where any other President supported this bizarre notion
the clock is ticking
"The popular vote losing"
Trump has never run in an election by popular vote
but, if he had, he probably would have won
"admitted sexual predator"
oh, he's a disgusting lech but "predator" is way over the top
his partners were all consensual
"nominated Kavanaugh because he said that presidents should not be the target of any investigations or indictments"
he was nominated because his judicial philosophy is originalism
this was a topic during the 2016 election
and a big reason why Trump won
"Trump put his ringer in as one of the referees in a game,"
that's his prerogative, why shouldn't he?
"something the floundering fathers were adamantly opposed to as are all decent people."
are you lying again?
show us the quotes
"Trump is following the playbook of dictators througout history who have subverted democracy to install themselves as leaders above the law."
he's not above the law
he's subject to it in a different way
if Congress believes he has broken the law, they have a mechanism for removing him
once he's not president anymore, he can be tried
Congress, however, doesn't believe he's broken the law
"Putin, Turkey's Erdogan, Syria's Al Assad, Hungary's Orban, they all seized control of the courts and installed their puppets to make the judiciary"
he's followed the law every step of the way, and his actions show he seeks the support of Congress
the other you mentioned didn't
kind of like Obama the Worst
"subserviant"
YOU MISSPELLED AGAIN, YOU ASS!!
"Canada will start up the underground railroad again to spirit away oppressed and enslaved Americans to a better life. Give us your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
underground railroad?
there is no one stopping anyone from leaving
as a matter of fact, everyone was very excited when Ruth Bader Ginhead said she would leave if Trump was elected
the be-otch lied!!
"We will grant them life, liberty, and happiness in a just and fair democracy."
is that what you call a socialist republic with an inferior healthcare system, run by immature brat, with the Queen on the money?
So, BMW is planning on moving U.S. production to China to deal with Trump's trade war. Tesla has also announced that its building a 500,000 unit per year factory in China due to Trump's trade war. Are you sick of winning yet? lol!
If you were okay with a 4 year Benghazi investigation and a 2 year Hillary email investigation both of which ended in zero indictments but you have a problem with a 14 month Russia investigation that already has 23 indictments, YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE!
The bible says "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will come back a hundredfold." But who the hell wants a hundred loaves of wet bread?
"Wahh! Wahh! Why won't those mean liberals give Trump the same respect we gave that secret Kenyan Muslim traitor pal of terrorists and ISIS founder?"
Republican Tomi Lahren "Its not a gun problem, its a parenting problem.".
So, you're saying every other country has better parents than the U.S.?
Actually, she might be on to something there.
In an epic example of irony and weapons grade projection Trump has accused Germany of being "Totally controlled by Russia". Every irony meter on the planet just exploded!
Richard Stengal "Trump's borderline insane attack on Germany at NATO summit is a clear and present danger to the post-war order."
"It's diplomatic malpractice," says @RNicholasBurns, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
Edward Luce "Trump's tendency to project is a core personality trait. He calls Germany a "captive of Russia".
Clint Watts "Again, Putin getting a return on his investment in helping elect Trump. Projecting a falsehood onto Germany which more aptly describes him."
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbles "Accuse your enemies of that which you are guilty" (Also Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous's favourite tactic).
the finest hour said...
let's try some mature and civil decorum:
Senator Chuck Schumer says he knows why President Trump ended up picking Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. Mr. Schumer, according to the dispatch in the New York Post, is "worried" about Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's probe and reckons Judge Kavanaugh would be a "barrier" to the investigation. All we can say is that if it's true, it's the best of the many wonderful things people are saying about Judge Kavanaugh.
Senator Schumer is worried that President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Kavanaugh, might side against Special Counsel Robert Mueller. If Judge Kavanaugh does so, it would be for good reason, for he once cited as precedent Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in Morrison v. Olson that cast into question the very idea of an independent prosecutor.
The judge has certainly been in the thick of the fight to defend separated powers, which are so threatened by the very concept of independent (and special) counsels. Since the presidency of Richard Nixon, these extra-constitutional prosecutors have been used to harry the president, more often, it has seemed, Republicans. Abuses by such prosecutors and independent regulators, have, in our view, precipitated a crisis over separated powers as a foundation of our freedom.
Judge Kavanaugh gets this down to the ground. That may have something to do with the fact that he worked for the office of the independent counsel. That was back in the 1990s, when the independent counsel was Kenneth Starr. We view Judge Starr as a fine, high-integrity individual. Nonetheless we opposed his pursuit of President Clinton. Our view was — and is — that no prosecutor can target a president. That is impeachment, a power that belongs solely to the House.
The Supreme Court has so far been weak on this. In the 1980s, in a case called Morrison v. Olson, the Nine okayed the independent counsel act that was later used by Judge Starr to pursue Mr. Clinton. Justice Antonin Scalia, though, wrote a historic, if lone, dissent, in which he warned that unleashing a special prosecutor — with a vast team and unlimited budget to pursue a single target — risked affecting the "boldness of the president."
That, by the way, came to pass in the late 1990s, when President Clinton was being harried by the independent prosecutor or recovering from the impeachment the prosecutor precipitated. The 9/11 commission itself concluded that aides shrank from alerting Mr. Clinton to the chance to launch a preemptive strike against Osama bin Laden because the president was so distracted by troubles arising from the scandal Judge Starr used to try to oust him from office.
So why is Senator Schumer so worried about Judge Kavanaugh? It turns out that once Judge Kavanaugh acceded to the District of Columbia appeals circuit, he emerged as a defender of separated powers and a protector of the presidency as an constitutional concept. He was particularly strong in a case challenging the power of Congress to limit the reasons for which the president could dismiss the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In that case, Judge Kavanaugh pointedly cited Justice Scalia's dissent in Morrison. He did so with an audacity that was breathtaking (and at the time well marked by Stuart Benjamin in the Washington Post's law blog). It must be one of the few times in history that a dissent was cited as precedent. Judge Kavanaugh's opinion in that case was reversed by the full circuit, a reversal that will no doubt come up in his confirmation hearings.
Judge Kavanaugh was particularly effective, in the view of Mr. Benjamin, in attaching importance to the fact that when the independent counsel law came up for renewal there was, in the words of Judge Kavanaugh, "nearly universal consensus that the experiment had been a mistake and that Justice Scalia had been right back in 1988 to view the independent counsel system as an unconstitutional departure from historical practice and a serious threat to individual liberty."
It could be called Kavanaugh's finest hour. We are not privy to President Trump's motives. It, though, is clear as a bell to us that Justice Scalia was, and Judge Kavanaugh is, ahead of the constitutional curve. The thing for both sides to remember is that separated powers is a doctrine that protects both Democrats and Republicans, and Judge Kavanaugh's view will protect all presidents, from whatever party. No wonder Senator Schumer is so worried.
A Russian asbestos company is now stamping a picture of Trump on the side of its products along with the words "Approved by Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States".
The move follows the US Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision not to ban new asbestos products outright. The EPA said it would evaluate new uses of asbestos but environmental groups have criticized the agency for not going further by barring them on public health grounds.
Uralasbest, which is located in the mining city of Asbest in the Ural Mountains, is reported to have close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who Trump will meet for talks in Helsinki next week. Asbest was once known as the "dying city" due to its high rate of lung cancer and other asbestos-related health problems.
According to the company's Facebook post, Trump has declared asbestos to be "100% safe after application." The post also hails Scott Pruitt and boasts, "Donald is on our side!"
Republican voter: "Goddamn liberals trying to protect me from asbestos, I want the freedom to die of lung cancer!"
Trump: "I knew from the first moment I saw a piece of Russian asbestos that it was bigly safe. Trust me, I know asbestos! I know more than scientists on asbestos!"
Can you imagine if it was Obama's or Hillary's face on a Russian product? Republicans - the height of double standards.
One Million Moms Vs Snickers
Just in from hate group leader Monica Cole:
"In the newest Snickers' Espresso commercial a grandma says, "Yeah, I got it. What the hell is it?" They should not use the word hell in an advertisement. We all know children repeat what they hear.
Snickers' "Irritable Grandma" ad is irresponsible and offensive. This inappropriate advertisement is airing during primetime when children are likely watching. It is extremely destructive and damaging to impressionable children viewing the commercial."
Oh, and telling the children of same sex parents their parents are evil abominations who deserve to be and will be tortured eternally isn't "extremely destructive and damaging to impressionable children"?
This is how warped anti-gay christians are, they haven't the slightest concept of balance of rights or proportionality.
Study: Legal access to same-sex marriage improved gay men's health
Obviously there is no rational reason to ban gay marriage and plenty of reason to support gay marriage. While bigots like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous would have you believe gays aren't a part of society, society is made up of individuals which includes gays. To improve society you need to improve the life of individuals. Gay marriage improves the lives of individuals, harms no one, and therefore is something every society needs to do to maximize social health.
"Obviously there is no rational reason to ban gay marriage"
it's not a matter of "banning"
it's whether such a thing is endorsed and recognized by the state
every state can decide this for themselves
there is no rationale for it being a constitutional "right"
the ruling is not that old
it's subject to change
very subject
So, the brat Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous was defending who had his "Make America Gross Again" hat stolen was laughing and talking loudly about killing black people which provoked a man into taking his racist hat. In the meantime, a woman enabled by Trump's racist rhetoric attacked a visiting 91 year old Mexian man with a brick, breaking his jaw, cheekbones, and ribs while telling him to "get out of my country". These sorts of incidents have dramatically increased since Trump began his racist campaign for president. As I posted earlier, a study shows it was racism that motivated so many white people to vote for the popular vote losing admitted sexual predator.
greenmanTN • 2 hours ago
I read a book years ago called "Gender Wars" about the shit psychologists did to gender non-conforming kids in public schools, sometimes without their parents' knowledge or permission, and some of it would curl your hair. It was mostly about what they did to "sissy boys."
Here are some takeaways. They were sometimes successful at getting the little fairies to "man up."
Those kids, as demonstrated with psychological testing, showed higher levels of depression and anxiety than they did before "treatment."
They were less popular with their classmates (again, tested) than they were when they were their authentic selves.
Many became bullies, ruthlessly enforcing gender roles in others.
[That must be what happened to Wyatt & Regina - they hate LGBT people who aren't suppressing who they are]
Republicans: "If Putin wants to interfere in the mid-term elections he will."
Translation: "We welcome Putin's meddling in our mid-term elections because we know he will help us get elected and we have no intention of doing anything to discourage or prevent this."
Trump/Republican collusion with Russia began in 2016 and continues to this day.
we have a Constitution that guarantees free speech
it applies to even Vladimir Putin
if you disagree with him, you have free speech to counter it
"I read a book years ago called "Gender Wars""
so, you've said
about ten times
no one cares about your propaganda
there's whiskey in the jar! said...
it's difficult to overstate how screwed the Dems are:
1. in addition to the drying up of campaign funds from Harvey Weinstein and other Hollywood hypocrites, the SCOTUS ruled that public sector unions can't force non-members to pay dues so unions will have a lot less money to throw to Dem campaigns
meanwhile, Citizens United keeps the GOP fully funded
2. Dem Senators in several states that Trump won are up for re-election and the SCOTUS looks like it will be a major campaign issue; look for the GOP to gain seats in the Senate
3. new justice Brett Kavanaugh will likely agree with a case coming down that Mueller's appointment was unconstitutional
Mueller has acted as a "principal officer" of the government but was not appointed by the President or approved by Congress and, thus, violates the appointments clause of the Constitution
any originalist will agree with this
4. the economy is doing great
5. Kinky Friedman says give Trump a chance
6. Hillary is making moves indicating she will run again in 2020
7. minority polls show some movement toward Trump
show a small crack will doom Dems
U.S. adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with President Donald Trump in 2006, was arrested in a strip club on Wednesday.
Daniels was arrested in a Columbus, Ohio, club for allowing a customer to touch her in a while on stage, lawyer Michael Avenatti said on Twitter.
Daniels was scheduled to perform at Sirens Gentlemen's Club on Wednesday and Thursday, according to its website.
Daniels has said she had sex with Trump in 2006 and that Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 to keep the encounter secret shortly before the presidential election.
Cohen has said he made the payment. In May, Trump said Daniels was paid to stop "false and extortionist accusations" she made about a sexual encounter with him.
Trump forcefully denied the affair
the biggest scandal they can dream up said...
Days after he was nominated for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh was found to have piled up thousands of dollars of credit card debt by buying baseball tickets.
The Washington Post reported the news Wednesday, citing White House spokesman Raj Shah in its report. Kavanaugh is apparently a big Washington Nationals fan. The tickets were said to be for him and several friends.
Not only did Kavanaugh pile up the credit card debt by buying Washington Nationals season tickets and tickets for playoff games for himself and friends, but he also incurred debt from home improvements, per the report.
He ran up between $60,000 and $200,000 in debt split among three cards and a personal loan. According to filings reported by the Post, the credit card debts were paid off in 2017.
your humble servant said...
President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday night, and on Wednesday he was feeding the homeless.
Despite Kavanaugh's grueling week leading up to his nomination, and spending the ensuing the two days since meeting with senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of his confirmation hearings, he managed uphold the prior commitment he made with with St. Maria's Meals program.
According to the Daily Caller, a passerby spotted the Supreme Court nominee on her way home from work Wednesday night.
She watched and snapped photos as Kavanaugh was serving meals to the homeless outside of Catholic Charities in downtown Washington, D.C.
One of his fellow volunteers confirmed the judge signed up for the event previously and honored his commitment.
St. Maria's Meals program serves hot dinners to the capital's poor. The judge frequently volunteers for the program
Meanwhile some Democrats say they will try to block Kavanaugh's confirmation, and his vetting process has just begun.
Earlier Wednesday his public disclosure forms for 2017 showed that the federal judge would come to the nation's highest court with only two investments, including a bank account, together worth a maximum of $65,000, along with the balance on a loan of $15,000 or less.
If confirmed, his modest means would rank him in the lower tier in personal finances among members of court. Some of his potential future colleagues list millions of dollars in investments. The next lowest would be Clarence Thomas, who is worth about 10 times that amount.
Since the popular vote losing admitted sexual predator was "elected" president tens of thousands of people have crossed the border into Canada from the United States. With the creeping implementation of christian Sharia law in the United States through actions such as appointing extremists Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the U.S. supreme court France is taking back the Statue of Liberty from the United States as Trump has made a mockery of it. The Statue of Liberty will be reloacted to Manitoba's southern border facing the U.S. This is where so many of those fleeing the United States have come into Canada seeking asylum.
FBI Agent Rages At Trey Gowdy: My Anti-Trump Texts Were In Response To His Disgusting Behavior
"Sir, I think it's important when you look at those texts that you understand the context in which they were made, and the things that were going on across America. In terms of the texts that, 'We will stop it.' You need to understand that that was written late at night, off-the-cuff and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero, and my presumption based on that horrible, disgusting behavior that the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.
"It was in no way, unequivocally, any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process, for any candidate. So I take great offense and I take great disagreement to your assertion of what that was or wasn't.
"As to the '100 million to one' that was clearly a statement made in jest and using hyperbole, I of course recognize that millions of Americans were likely to vote for candidate Trump. I acknowledge that is absolutely their right, that is what makes our democracy such a vibrant process that it is.
"But to suggest somehow that we can parse down the words of shorthand textual conversations like they're some contract for a car is simply not consistent with my or most people's use of text messaging. I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, at no time, in any of these texts, did those personal beliefs ever enter into the realm of any action I took.
"Furthermore, this isn't just me sitting here telling you you don't have to take my word for it. At every step, at every investigative decision, there are multiple layers of people above me, the assistant director, executive assistant director, deputy director and director of the FBI, and multiple layers of people below me, section chiefs, supervisors, unit chiefs, case agents and analysts, all of whom were involved in all of these decisions. They would not tolerate any improper behavior in me any more than I would tolerate it in them.
"That is who we are as the FBI. And the suggestion that I in some dark chamber somewhere in the FBI would somehow cast aside all of these procedures, all of these safeguards and somehow be able to do this is astounding to me. It simply couldn't happen. And the proposition that that is going on, that it might occur anywhere in the FBI, deeply corrodes what the FBI is in American society, the effectiveness of their mission, and it is deeply destructive." – FBI agent Peter Strzok, unloading on House Republicans during today's testimony.
Democrats Are Gaining Ground in House Midterms
"Enthusiasm, resources and an unpopular president are giving even long shots hope."
Not too long ago it looked like Republicans might be turning around the polls that had long favoured Democrats. But it gradually became obvious that Trump's summit with North Korea was a meaningless photo-op and the boost the president got from all the nonsense talk about him winning the Nobel Peace Prize faded away. Now with Trump having started a trade war that is already seeing companies move production from the States to Europe and China and which is harming his base of voters in particular its hard to see how Republicans can turn their listing ship around.
Trump's trade war is likely to continue on through the midterms and the pain he's inflicting on American companies and workers will become increasingly apparent by then. Combine that with the disasterous Trump foreign policy of weakening NATO and traditional U.S. allies to the benefit of its adversary Russia its not looking good for Republicans, fortunately for all Americans.
"Since the popular vote losing"
we didn't have a popular vote or Trump to lose
Priya the Foreign Troll is lying
he used the phrase "they let me" and no one has contradicted that
consensual sex is not predatory
"was "elected" president"
yes, he was elected
by a majority of states, over a broad cross-section of the nation
just as constitution requires
your quotation marks are lies
why did you feel the compulsion to lie so much?
"tens of thousands of people have crossed the border into Canada from the United States."
give us the stats comparing Obama's years and Trump's
hopefully, you aren't lying again
"With the creeping implementation of christian Sharia law in the United States through actions such as appointing extremists Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the U.S. supreme court"
again, Priya the Foreign Troll shows ignorance of our system of law
remember when Priya lied about how Priya explains American law to me, like, all the time?
the SCOTUS doesn't make law Priya, the legislature does
btw, religious freedom is the opposite of sharia
"France is taking back the Statue of Liberty from the United States"
how do those wusses propose to do that?
with their military might?
hahahahahaha!!
maybe Macron will come to the White House and hold Donald's hand again
btw, there's already a duplicate of the Statute of Liberty in a river in Paris
"as Trump has made a mockery of it. The Statue of Liberty will be reloacted"
"to Manitoba's southern border facing the U.S." This is where so many of those fleeing the United States have come into Canada seeking asylum."
open borders in Canada?
baby Justin might want to consider the fate of Merkel and May
they are both in huge trouble in their homeland because they put the interests of immigrants before the interest of their citizens
"It was in no way, unequivocally, any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process, for any candidate."
then, why did you do that, Peter?
"So I take great offense and I take great disagreement to your assertion of what that was or wasn't."
oh dear, now we've offended him
During a lecture at the Library of Conservatism in Germany, British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton described conservatism as a philosophy that recognizes and acknowledges that good things are easily destroyed but not easily created, such as law, peace, freedom, civility, the security of property and family life. He contends we depend on the cooperation of others for the aforementioned to exist because we have no means or ability to single handedly attain it. He states "the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating." "The work of creation is slow, laborious and dull."
African Americans are the quintessential example of it means to be conservative. Beyond the fact that a great majority are socially conservative, a great majority are also distrusting of the government because of hundreds of years of generational experience, and are skeptical of radical change because it typically negatively and disproportionately impacted them. If you dive deeper, beyond politics, it is our discipline, perseverance, and ingenuity since slavery, coupled with the need to preserve our tradition and culture as a community that is not intrinsic values of the radical progressive left but are the greatest examples of traditional conservatism.
The effectiveness of America's radical left and their uncanny ability to usurp African American's natural ideological instincts for their warped utopian views are the most significant threat to African American progress. Under the false pretense of cultural and identity politics, they have circumvented having to produce tangible results to holistically address the real concerns of African Americans.
From abortion to the destruction of the family unit and personal responsibility, to the marginalization of faith, to the expansion of government, to the emasculation of black men, the radical left have slowly but steadily attempted to transform black identity.
Liberalism is not inherent to the Black experience in America or the diaspora. However, liberals with the Democratic Party as their apparatus have portrayed themselves as the allies of African Americans in the midst of apparent Republican rejection, leaving African Americans with the unfortunate choice of voting for the left despite their values being disparate from their own.
Black Americans have not benefited from their loyalty to experimental and foreign beliefs of the left. When in power, the left has had the ability to focus on a range of issues that are put first, yet the interest of the Black community are put last, while the African American continues to put them first by giving 90 percent of their support.
Progressivism has not benefited African Americans. African Americans can no longer be indifferent to this failure and must return back to their conservative roots and be skeptical of both political parties, while spreading their influence with their vote to both parties, enabling the maximization of political power, while conserving and preserving their interest.
As Sir Scruton accurately stated, it is easy to destroy, but to create is a slow, arduous and dull process. It is a process that the slave embarked on that is still undertaking today with the children of the historically oppressed and African Americans must be careful not to become entrapped by a party whose values are not in sync with their own.
That is not to say that Republicans should automatically get the African American vote because that trust must be earned, but the African American can slowly dictate the future of the Republican Party by participating in selecting the best candidates who are representative of Conservatism that has the interest of African Americans. Undoubtedly, this will slowly turn the tide on the lily-white conservatism that has hijacked the Republicans Party for decades.
it's time for us to announce this week's jokes of the week:
3. Angela Merkel
2. Peter Strzok
3. Chuck Schumer
President Donald Trump's nomination of eminently qualified, mainstream conservative Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court -- combined with the predictable Democratic outrage machine -- has put red state Democratic US senators in a political box: side with their constituents or with the clown show that is the modern American left.
Trump's prime-time announcement of Kavanaugh's nomination on Monday was beautifully played by the White House.
The name did not leak, leaving liberal picketers to make protest signs for multiple possible nominees.
This made clear that protesters couldn't have cared less about the personnel, just that Donald Trump would be signing the nomination papers.
The protesters then ran Shannon Bream of Fox News off the street as she attempted to broadcast in front of the Supreme Court.
The liberal group "Women's March" slammed Trump's nominee in a press release that left the actual name of the nominee with "xx," an embarrassing prewritten screed that would have gone out no matter who Trump picked.
Shortly after the announcement, an editor for The Daily Beast tweeted an article with the message: "Forget abortion or same-sex marriage — contraception could be banned under Justice Kavanaugh."
Within minutes of Trump's choice, the left-leaning media would have people running to the drugstore to hoard condoms and birth control pills like a Kentuckian stocking up on milk and bread at the first sign of snow flurries.
The hysteria was in full bloom mere minutes after Trump's announcement.
Not to be outdone, liberal actor Ron Perlman tweeted an implication that Kavanaugh would plunge the United States into either "Medieval Values" or "Shariah Law."
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe took it a step further, tweeting that Kavanaugh's nomination will "threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come."
He did not address, however, how Americans who already died from tax cuts, (as one former Obama official threatened they would) or the United States pulling out of the Paris climate accords (a fatal mistake, as envisioned by a Vox writer), or the Obamacare repeal, (McAuliffe, once more) would perish again.
I kid, but apparently these Democrats, in all their hyperbole, do not.
Their "reporting" then set off a series of alarmist left-wing outrage tweets, which garnered thousands of retweets, as Charles C.W. Cooke of the National Review pointed out, before corrective tweets from Caldwell landed as quietly as a church mouse. The tinfoil hats were out in force, as they have been since Kennedy announced his retirement.
It is a near weekly occurrence during the Trump presidency; everyone sees the falsehood while few see the correction.
With the resistance in full meltdown, the people who really matter -- US senators -- are now charged with evaluating Kavanaugh and rendering a decision on confirmation. The Democratic senators to watch hail from red states: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. All are on the ballot this year, and all represent states Trump won easily in 2016. Their constituents, according to Republicans' internal polling, want Kavanaugh confirmed even as the left rages and demands resistance to all things -- and nominees -- born of Trump.
These Democrats are in quite a pickle. Three of them voted for Gorsuch in 2017 and Kavanaugh is as (or more) qualified and similarly conservative. Voting against Kavanaugh would signal to the folks back home that their votes are now controlled by the left-wing partisans described above — not a good look during a re-election campaign in states where Trump remains popular.
As long as Republican senators remain united, it is a safe bet Kavanaugh will get a handful of Democratic votes, making his lifetime appointment a bipartisan affair. For the red state Democrats, there's nothing to be gained from joining the loony left on this quixotic campaign, but there's much to lose by abandoning the desires of their center-right constituents who very much appreciate the President's qualified judicial appointments.
Long arc, huh?
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Welcome to Trumplandia where GOPers work for Putin so IQ45 can get his Moscow hotel built said...
"Russian interference in our elections constitutes a grave attack on our democracy. Most disturbingly, it has been wildly successful — sowing discord in our nation and shaking faith in our institutions. I have the utmost respect for Congress's oversight role, but I truly believe that [yesterday's] hearing is just another victory notch in [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's belt and another milestone in our enemies' campaign to tear America apart."
it's alright, cold beer on a friday night, tight jeans that fit just right, and the radio on talk shows said...
"Russian interference in our elections constitutes a grave attack on our democracy."
oh, please
what you call "interference" is simply pitching in on the conversation
true, their ads were mostly lies and they didn't identify themselves
but. they were just a drop in a raging river
it's a river called free speech
if you want to counter theirs, exercise your own
Peter Strzok's smarmy demeanor and smirking presence don't play well with any Americans paying attention
which were few, outside the beltway
Big Blue Wave said...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/12/fox-news-poll-democrats-ahead-in-election-enthusiasm-interest-and-vote.html
aren't they always?
we'll see what happens but the gains in the courts in favor of the Constitution should be consolidated by then so, absent some blatantly totalitarian moves by the Dems, everything should be alright
Liar in chief said...
Trump denies he said something that he said on a tape everyone has heard
Why the FBI is Obviously Not Biased Against Trump
A House committee interrogated FBI agent Peter Strzok for hour after hour yesterday in an embarrassing and desperate attempt to smear the entire FBI in order to undermine the integrity of the Mueller investigation and help Trump's public case against it (not his legal case, of course). But Strzok had the perfect answer to their absurd conspiracy theory in his opening statement:
"In the summer of 2016, I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign. This information had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind."
If, as the Republicans are claiming, Strzok was trying to use the power of the FBI to make sure Trump didn't get elected, why did he keep the existence of the then-fledgling investigation into Russian interference and possible Trump campaign knowledge or collusion a secret? And if the FBI was out to harm Trump, why did Comey release that letter to Congress regarding the new emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop just days before the election? Going public with possible –but not actual, in the end — evidence against Hillary Clinton while taking serious steps to make sure the investigation into Trump would not be made public is simply not consistent with their conspiracy theory.
Tennessee pastor allegedly rapes teen at worship center
A Tennessee pastor was arrested Saturday after he allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl at a worship center, police said.
James "Ronnie" Messer, 46, a pastor in Morristown, was taken into custody after the teenage girl's family reported the allegations.
Messer and the girl were initially supposed to go swimming, but their plans were put on hold because of bad conditions. Messer then took the girl to Crossway Worship Center, where he raped the 17-year-old in the men's bathroom, according to police.
He later told police he believed the encounter was consensual.
Trump's Feigned Powerlessness Against Russian Interference
As he left for the NATO summit and a meeting with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump revealed both his fecklessness and his cowardice with his answer to one simple question from the Washington Post's Phillip Rucker: What will you say or do if Putin denies interfering in the 2016 presidential election? His answer could have come from the mouth of Droopy Dog:
"I mean, look, he may. You know, what am I going to do if — he may deny it. I mean, it's one of those things. So all I can do is say, 'Did you?' and 'Don't do it again.' "
Really? That's all you can do? Funny, when it comes to our closest allies and wanting them to do what you demand, you'll lie about them, publicly embarrass them, threaten them, bully them. But when it comes to our greatest adversary, you think the only thing you can do is say "tsk tsk, don't do that again"? Really? You'll berate and intimidate our allies but bow and scrape before our adversaries, all while pretending to be the tough guy.
This is classic bully behavior. He has our NATO allies over a barrel. We're far bigger and stronger than any of them, so we have leverage and he's happy to use it, and to make a jackass of himself while doing it. He'll gladly, gleefully even, pick on those who are smaller than him. But Putin is an even bigger bully than he is. Putin is able to do what Trump only wishes he could do — kill his opponents and stay in power for as long as he wants while looting tens of billions of dollars from the citizens of that country. So Trump not only respects him, he envies him. He wants to be him. He's in awe of Putin. That's how bullies operate — they act all tough in the face of those they can beat up but cower before those who can't.
Trump cleared said...
The Justice Department announced indictments in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election against 12 Russian nationals, accusing them of engaging in a "sustained effort" to hack Democrats' emails and computer networks.
All 12 defendants are members of the GRU, a Russian federation intelligence agency within the main intelligence directorate of the Russian military, who were acting in "their official capacities."
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime," he said at a news conference. "There is no allegation that the conspiracy altered the vote count or changed any election result."
NYT Editorial Board
Someone Should Tell Donald Trump About America's High Tariffs
"In accusing other countries of cheating the United States, the president misleads the public about a complicated subject."
Do you know which other country [besides Canada] protects its dairy industry in a similar way? You guessed it: the United States. American dairy quotas and tariffs are so restrictive that the vast majority of the milk, cheese and butter families in the United States buy is made domestically. In fact, dairy producers in Wisconsin and other states sold $792 million in products to Canada in 2017, while Canadian producers sold just $149 million of dairy to the United States, according to the Brookings Institution.
And yet the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, doesn't bellyache incessantly on Twitter about unfair American dairy tariffs."
Trumps whining about Canada's "unfair" dairy production system is the centrepiece of his case for attacking us.
Scottish Newspaper: Donald Trump Is A Racist Liar
From today's full-page editorial in The Scotsman:
Donald Trump is a racist, a serial liar, and either a sex abuser or someone who falsely brags about being one in the apparent belief that this will impress other men in a metaphorical "locker room". To take each of these charges in turn, when black American football players protested against police shootings of innocent people of colour by refusing to stand for the national anthem, Trump said the players "maybe … shouldn't be in the country".
And when white supremacists, neo-Nazis and armed militia groups demonstrated in Charlottesville, Virginia, over plans to remove a statue of a Confederate general – and a counter-protester was killed and others injured as a car was driven deliberately into them – Mr Trump claimed there were "very fine people" on both sides.
Before his presidency, Trump was recorded saying he was able to grope women whenever he liked because "when you're a star they let you do it". When the tape emerged, Trump said his boast was untrue and just "locker room" talk. And when several women came forward to say he had done this to them, he insisted they were lying. So, as British politicians hide their distaste in an attempt to get a much-needed post-Brexit trade deal, we should all remember what kind of man Trump really is.
LONDON: Massive Crowds Turn Out To Protest Trump
Trump said in his Sun interview published today that the protests made him feel unwelcome in London. I wonder if he realizes that was the point...
Rod Rosenstein Unveils Indictments Of 12 Russian Military Officers For 2016 Hacking Of DNC
A similar situation occurred in February 2018, when Rosenstein called an unexpected press conference to announce the indictment of 13 Russian nationals and a Kremlin-linked internet firm on charges that they meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
The president is not free and clear either. President Trump faces at least four allegations of criminal misconduct. He and senior members of his campaign are under investigation for coordinating with Russians to win the 2016 election.
Wow, sure are a lot of indictments happening for an investigation that's a "hoax".
Drip, drip, drip... said...
Indictments show Russians targeted Hillary's email server hours after Trump begged them to.
Guiliani is absurdly asserting that because no Americans were indicted this proves no Americans were involved and Mueller should declare Trump and all his cronies innocent and end the investigation.
The truth is just because no indictments of Americans were announced today it doesn't mean Americans won't be indicted or that Trump is innocent. The investigation is ongoing and Mueller has kept a very tight lid on the evidence he's found. There may be a large amount of evidence implicating Trump and his people in crimes but we just don't know about it because it is Justice Department policy not to discuss ongoing investigations.
You gotta believe, hang on tight said...
"Trump cleared "
The 12 Russians indicted today probably also thought they'd been cleared when these other Russian people and entities were indicted back in February, but not them.
INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY LLC * A/K/A MEDIASINTEZ LLC A/K/A * GLAVSET LLC A/K/A MIXINFO * LLC A/K/A AZIMUT LLC A/K/A * NOVINFO LLC, *
CONCORD MANAGEMENT AND * CONSULTING LLC, * CONCORD CATERING, * YEVGENIY VIKTOROVICH * PRIGOZHIN, * MIKHAIL IVANOVICH BYSTROV, * MIKHAIL LEONIDOVICH BURCHIK * A/K/A MIKHAIL ABRAMOV, * ALEKSANDRA YURYEVNA * KRYLOVA, * ANNA VLADISLAVOVNA * BOGACHEV A, * SERGEY PAVLOVICH POLOZOV, * MARIA ANATOLYEVNA BOVDA * A/K/A MARIA ANATOLYEVNA * BELYAEVA, * ROBERT SERGEYEVICH BOVDA, * DZHEYKHUN NASIMI OGLY * ASLANOV A/K/A JAYHOON * ASLANOV A/K/A JAY ASLANOV, * VADIM VLADIMIROVICH * PODKOPAEV, * GLEB IGOREVICH VASILCHENKO, * IRINA VIKTOROVNA KAVERZINA, * and *
VLADIMIR VENKOV.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download
One thing we know about Mueller, he is thorough.
Mueller's New Indictment Points to Collusion With Russia said...
On July 27, 2016, Donald Trump denied Russia was the likely culprit in the email hacks, but also announced, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think that you'll be rewarded mightily by our press."
In what is possibly an astonishing coincidence, but probably not, that very night, according to the new indictments from the Department of Justice, Russian hackers "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or about the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign." Trump asked Russia to hack his opponent, and Russia did "[f]or the first time," as the indictment says.
Today's latest, and almost certainly not last, indictments in the Russia scandal concern 12 Russian intelligence figures. The charge that Russians carried out the email theft is not a terribly surprising one, nor does it by itself suggest serious legal jeopardy for President Trump or his associates. Robert Mueller can't arrest people in Russia, after all. The danger for Trump is the implication of collusion scattered throughout the indictments.
The indictment charges that the conspirators "received a request for stolen materials from a candidate for the U.S. Congress," and "sent the candidate stolen documents." The Wall Street Journal reported a year ago that "Guccifer 2.0," one of the Russian hackers, communicated with Florida-based Republican operative Aaron Nevins. Nevins is not named in this indictment, but the revelation that a candidate also communicated with Russian hackers indicates yet another point of contact in a conspiracy that went beyond Trump's campaign.
The most direct path to the Trump campaign indicated in this indictment runs through Roger Stone. The Republican dirty trickster officially left the Trump campaign in 2015, but remained in regular contact with Trump throughout the campaign.
Stone admittedly engaged in direct communication with one of the indicted Russian agents. The indictment cites Stone's contact with Guccifer 2.0:
"44. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also communicated with U.S. persons about the release of stolen documents. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, "thank u for writing back . . . do u find ant[h]ing interesting int the docs I posted?" On or about August 17, 2016, the Conspirators added, 'please tell me if i can help u anyhow . . . it would be a great pleasure to me." On or about September 9, 2016, the Conspirators, again psign as Guccifer 2.0, referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online and asked the person, "what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign." The psrson responded, "[p]retty standard.""
That certainly looks like acting as an accessory to a crime. Stone promises he will "never roll on Trump," unlike John Dean, who fingered President Nixon for crimes during Watergate. The promise and the analogy both suggest that Stone has evidence of culpability between Trump and Russia.
Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani writes, "The indictments Rod Rosenstein announced are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved. Time for Mueller to end this pursuit of the President and say President Trump is completely innocent." The absurdity of this defense is so palpable that it underscores the sheer desperation of Trump's legal defense. As Giuliani surely understands, the prosecution is building its case step by step, and the absence of formal charges against an individual in any one indictment hardly indicates they are in the clear. President Trump has been all but charged with collusion in this indictment.
Thirty-two witches found said...
...and counting!
With the new indictment, his office has filed charges against 32 people on crimes including hacking, money laundering and lying to the FBI. Twenty-six of those charged are Russians who are unlikely to ever be put on trial in the United States.
"With the new indictment, his office has filed charges against 32 people on crimes including hacking, money laundering and lying to the FBI. Twenty-six of those charged are Russians who are unlikely to ever be put on trial in the United States.
So far."
a-reb-a-reb
Mueller passed the prosecution of the hacking charges to the DOJ, which would indicate his work is complete
the only thing he has left is to say Trump obstructed Justice because he asked Comey not to prosecute Flynn
Trump will never be impeached on this ridiculous premise
now that the end is near, let's review Mueller's accomplishments:
money laundering and lying to the FBI are not grave threats to our union
money laundering is only a crime if it is in furtherance or to conceal a serious crime
the "lying to the FBI" charge against Flynn was scurrilous since the FBI agent who interviewed him said they thought his misstatement was inadvertent
the charge is a classic case of prosecutorial abuse
13 of the charges against Russian firms are for "conspiracy against the United State" because they lied about the election on Facebook
this is fictitious crime created by Mueller because he was getting desperate to come up with something
it is likely to be thrown out on constitutional grounds, if it ever goes to trial
lying about elections is protected free speech
Mueller filed these charges, feeling confident the Russians would evade trial because they weren't in the country
he was shocked when one of them expressed a desire to go to trial and Mueller immediately filed for a delay of trial
don't be surprised if the charges are eventually dropped
as for the new charges against KGB agents for hacking
yeah, it's a crime but it's pretty standard spy stuff
are you saying we don't hack computers in other countries?
if so, it explains why the CIA is so often misstaken
the Dems, who have hyped all this for the last year and a half, owe America an apology
Still drip drip dripping said...
"that's all folks!
Mueller passed the prosecution of the hacking charges to the DOJ, which would indicate his work is complete"
Oh you sure do wish that was the case, don't you?
However "Beyond the pages of this indictment, we already have other reports of Trump advisers connected to the Russian activities. For example, we know George Papadopoulos was in contact with various Russians and received information about Russians having emails that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton. We know Donald Trump Jr. and other top campaign officials took the meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 with Russians offering damaging information about Clinton. And we know that Stone, in addition to communicating with Guccifer 2.0, was reportedly in contact with WikiLeaks at the time it was releasing the hacked emails in the weeks leading up to the election.
Whether these or other contacts with the Russians were criminal will turn on the knowledge and intent of the Trump officials involved. Mueller has once again charged a conspiracy — the criminal-law version of "collusion." It's not surprising that no Americans were included in this indictment; there has never really been a suggestion that Americans were involved in the hacking itself. But if members of the Trump campaign engaged in a separate conspiracy with the Russian hackers to make use of the stolen information, they would be exposed to similar charges — including conspiracy to defraud the United States or conspiracy to violate federal election laws.
While the political maelstrom in Washington swirls, Mueller soldiers on with his meticulous investigation. He has largely written the story of the Russian interference with the election. Now we wait to see whether his next chapter includes any Trump officials in starring roles."
Full court press to "Deny" said...
A conservative crisis communications firm is pitching in to help Rep. Jim Jordan fight claims he turned a blind eye to alleged sexual abuse by a team doctor at Ohio State University three decades ago, while Jordan's House colleagues are stepping up their own defense of the outspoken conservative leader.
Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, based in Alexandria, Va., is known for representing conservative figures and nonprofits seeking to push their views in the national political debate. Its first major action on behalf of Jordan (R-Ohio) came Monday as the firm's president, Diana Banister, circulated a statement from former Ohio State wrestling coaches saying that if Jordan had known about alleged abuse, he would have taken action.
The firm on Tuesday sent the news media statements and reported quotes from 15 former wrestlers saying they believed Jordan when he said he knew nothing about alleged groping and other misconduct by Richard Strauss, who killed himself in 2005.
"I feel that Jim is a very honest and ethical person and always acted in the best interest of our teammates," said former OSU wrestler Lenny Schork. "I feel that trying to make this political in any way devalues even more the people who were personally affected by this."
It is unclear who is paying for the effort, which comes as a growing group of wrestlers says Jordan knew or must have known about Strauss's alleged behavior at Ohio State. Two former wrestlers have said they told Jordan about the problem. Others say it was widely discussed by wrestlers in the locker room when Jordan was present.
Jordan's campaign has not hired Shirley & Banister in the past, according to his campaign finance disclosure. Banister did not respond to emailed questions about who is paying for the campaign.
Tuesday's press release linked to a website — at standwithjimjordan.com — that was created Monday at 5:47 p.m., according to an online registry. The campaign also includes a Facebook page and a hashtag.
"Oh you sure do wish that was the case, don't you?"
I'm never heard anything to make me believe that the whole thing isn't a story invented by the Dems to rationalize their failure in 2016. While anything is possible, the most obvious explanation is generally true.
"However "Beyond the pages of this indictment, we already have other reports of Trump advisers connected to the Russian activities."
really? when?
"For example, we know George Papadopoulos was in contact with various Russians and received information about Russians having emails that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton."
he was a low-level employee that was set up by the CIA, as has been well-documented
in any case, receiving "emails that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton" is not a crime
and not even a bad thing, unless you're a partisan Clinton robot, like Strzok
"We know Donald Trump Jr. and other top campaign officials took the meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 with Russians offering damaging information about Clinton."
well worn fact
nothing at all wrong with that
political campaigns seek "damaging information" about their opponents
Clinton actually paid a foreign spy to use their contacts in the Kremlin to get "damaging information" about Trump
"And we know that Stone, in addition to communicating with Guccifer 2.0, was reportedly in contact with WikiLeaks at the time it was releasing the hacked emails in the weeks leading up to the election."
that was included in the report on Friday
Mueller chose not to indict for some reason
the reason is Stone didn't commit a crime
"Whether these or other contacts with the Russians were criminal will turn on the knowledge and intent of the Trump officials involved."
the only thing that would be criminal is if Trump officials participated in the hacking
no one has even suggested that as a possibility
"Mueller has once again charged a conspiracy — the criminal-law version of "collusion." It's not surprising that no Americans were included in this indictment; there has never really been a suggestion that Americans were involved in the hacking itself."
exactly, and that's the only that is criminal here
and, to keep from being hypocritical, we have to concede that our spies hack the emails of politicians in other countries
I don't see those countries indicting our spies
"But if members of the Trump campaign engaged in a separate conspiracy with the Russian hackers to make use of the stolen information,"
hacking is against the law but, legally, it's not theft
therefore, it's not illegal to receive hacked information
if it were, journalists across America would be in legal jeopardy
"they would be exposed to similar charges — including conspiracy to defraud the United States"
this bogus charge was previously only used when someone lied to get government benefits, like food stamp
to say political speech is illegal if the government deems it "fradulent" would turn us into a totalitarian state
you ass
"or conspiracy to violate federal election laws."
there is obviously no law against receiving "damaging information" about political opponents
"While the political maelstrom in Washington swirls, Mueller soldiers on with his meticulous investigation."
Mueller is obviously political
why else would he issue indictments while Trump was enroute to meet Putin?
disgraceful political move and grounds for Mueller's dismissal, interfering with a sensitive diplomatic negotiation
truth is, Mueller's role violates the appointments clause of the Constitution
he is acting as a principal officer of the government when he wasn't elected, or appointed by someone who was
"He has largely written the story of the Russian interference with the election. Now we wait to see whether his next chapter includes any Trump officials in starring roles."
he already discussed that on Friday and decided to hand the prosecution over to the DOJ without indicting any Trump officials alleged to have a role
it's time for Dems to wake up
their dream that their loss in 2016 has an explanation other than that America has rejected them
is over
You heard it here first kids! said...
Republicans finally admit what they want, what they really, really want.
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good kid with a gun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkXeMoBPSDk
Happy shooting kids!
Recreational weed must be legal where you are said...
"disgraceful political move and grounds for Mueller's dismissal, interfering with a sensitive diplomatic negotiation"
Please, whatever you're smokin', you gotta pass some of that stuff around!
"sensitive diplomatic negotiation"
You realize who you're talking about, don't you?
Please, my ribs are hurting! Stop making me laugh so hard!
The SCROTUS is about as sensitive a diplomatic negotiator as he is a sensitive crotch grabber.
Trump doesn't want anyone else in his meeting with Putin because he's getting his next batch of orders from his puppet master.
"You realize who you're talking about, don't you?"
he's the one we elected to do such things
"Please, my ribs are hurting! Stop making me laugh so hard!"
oh, it's probably good for you
you have to deal with the frustration you feel about the Dems' inability to win any power through fair elections
and now your end-around in the judiciary appears to be slipping away as well
the future is grim for Dems
might as well laugh it up
"The SCROTUS is about as sensitive a diplomatic negotiator as he is a sensitive crotch grabber."
he's likely to run rings around Putin just like he did with the guy in China
"Trump doesn't want anyone else in his meeting with Putin because he's getting his next batch of orders from his puppet master."
pressuring Western Europe into doubling their spending on defense
that plays right into Putin's hands
I'm just hoping your delusions persist through November
I love to see history made
and when the first mid-term election of a new presidency results in gains for his party, that's historic
you're in heapa trouble now, boy said...
An annual survey of FBI employees found a sharp decline in confidence in bureau leadership amid a series of scandals, results published Sunday indicate.
Although pride in working at the FBI remained about the same, faith in the "honesty and integrity" of senior executives plummeted this year at the FBI's 56 field offices.
The survey data was collected in February and March amid significant internal uncertainty about the fate of top leaders including then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI agent Peter Strzok.
Strzok, the former deputy assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, lead investigations of Hillary Clinton's private email server and possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia. He was removed last year from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe and remains under review for sending anti-Trump messages to former FBI attorney Lisa Page.
McCabe was fired in March after the Justice Department's inspector general found he lied to FBI agents and former FBI Director James Comey about authorizing a leak about the FBI's Clinton Foundation investigation.
But the survey suggests an even sharper erosion of faith in the FBI's director, currently Christopher Wray, who took office last year after Comey was fired by President Trump for alleged wrongdoing during the Clinton emails investigation.
Support for the director's "vision and ideas" tanked at the bureau's field offices, with only slightly less dramatic drop at FBI headquarters.
Comey was fired for inappropriate actions during the Clinton email probe -- including usurping the standard prosecutorial process to recommend against charges, and airing derogatory information about Clinton -- but Trump also noted in an interview he considered "this Russia thing" in making his decision.
The survey data was not voluntarily released this year, leading to a lawsuit filed by the group Protect Democracy on behalf of Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes. Wittes published the results Sunday.
is you is or is you ain't a maybe? said...
If you tuned in to cable news or Twitter last Monday night or Tuesday, half of the talk, it seemed, was reporters, television hosts, and their more openly liberal interlocutors lamenting the impending loss of Roe v. Wade. Supposedly straight news types transposed their own views to public opinion, stating that the public supports Roe.
This is false. Roe is roundly castigated by those who know it, and if it's supported by the public, that's only because the public doesn't know what it does.
"There is no ambivalence on abortion," one pollster said, "as men and women dig in and say, 'Hands off Roe v. Wade.'" Sure enough, 61 percent said they agree with Roe. Here's the thing: Most voters don't really understand what Roe did.
For instance, Roe prohibited states from passing abortion laws aimed at protecting unborn babies before 24 weeks. Quinnipiac polls show about half to 60 percent of the country would support a state or federal law barring abortion after 20 weeks.
On the constitutional matter, voters seem to reject Roe as well. Roe, again, took the matter of abortion totally out of the democratic process. There are some matters where our Constitution does that. For instance, states may not institute slavery or outlaw blasphemy. But only through absurd linguistic, philosophical, and legal contortions was the Roe court able to detect, emanating from the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, a right to abortion.
Most legal scholars who have spoken up on Roe contend it is horrific legal thinking. "As a matter of constitutional interpretation," wrote Harry Blackmun's clerk, Edward Lazarus, "even most liberal jurisprudes — if you administer truth serum — will tell you it is basically indefensible."
And the public thinks state legislatures, not a handful of justices, should set abortion policy.
The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List polled voters in five states with competitive Senate races — Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and West Virginia — and asked them who should make the law. Voters in Florida, for instance, were asked, "Do you think that the U.S. Supreme Court should decide abortion policy for Florida, or do you think abortion policy should be decided by the people of Florida through their elected officials?"
In all states, including the swing state of Florida, voters preferred letting their own legislatures handle the issue. In North Dakota, the ratio was two to one.
Voters, then, seem to reject Roe's expansive view of abortion rights and Roe's removal of abortion from the democratic process. In short, most voters don't support what Roe does in any regard.
If the Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh, and then if the conservative majority of the Supreme Court overturns Roe, it will in fact be arranging abortion policy — legally and constitutionally — as most people seem to prefer.
This may explain why Democrats have begun to move toward Obamacare's subsidies and away from Roe v. Wade as their main objection to Kavanaugh: They're afraid the public might find out what Roe actually did.
"you have to deal with the frustration you feel about the Dems' inability to win any power through fair elections
and now your end-around in the judiciary appears to be slipping away as well"
No. The Democrat's frustrations is with UNfair elections and an unfair judiciary. The voters didn't decide to put Bush II in, a conservatively biased Supreme court did.
The voters didn't put Trump in either. The electoral college system, put in place by rich white landowners to give themselves "legitimate" cover to overturn election results they didn't like, did it's job just like they planned.
An analysis of voting records shows that even though majorities of voters selected Democrats for congress, decades of slimy gerrymandering by slimy Republicans has resulted in more Republicans in office, not Democrats.
A Republican hasn't FIRST been ELECTED to the president's office by a voter majority since 1988. 30 years. And yet Democrats have only held the president's office for 16 of those years. Granted, those were positive years recovering from Republican economic mismanagement, but not all the years they deserved.
Today's press conference with Putin and Trump, and events last week with EU leaders shows Republicans are giving up on our NATO allies and sucking up to Putin. It seemed like a bit of a shock in 2001 when Bush said:
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."
Bush got it half right. Putin was absolutely committed to Russia and Russia's interests. But trustworthy? I think Bush's own CIA and FBI specialists would have told him to read his intelligence briefs more closely before opening his mouth.
But in today's briefing, Putin sounded like a standard Republican attack dog, going after perennial conservative targets George Soros, and of course Hillary Clinton. It is now clear that Putin and Republicans have been working together for years to undermine Democratic candidates for the benefit of the Republican party.
Fair elections my @$$.
can't stop the feelin' said...
"No. The Democrat's frustrations is with UNfair elections and an unfair judiciary. The voters didn't decide to put Bush II in, a conservatively biased Supreme court did."
there was nothing unfair in 2000
Dems have developed a mythology, irresponsibly encouraged by the loser of that election, that this election was stolen from them
the election was so close that it will always be impossible to be certain who won
but multiple recounts held it open more than a month
in the end, the SCOTUS said enough is enough
btw, in election night, Gore conceded defeat
"The voters didn't put Trump in either. The electoral college system, put in place by rich white landowners to give themselves "legitimate" cover to overturn election results they didn't like, did it's job just like they planned."
oh, so the electoral college is racist now?
anytime the Dems don't win they say everything needs to "fixed"
Dems are free to spread out across America and stop huddling in NY and California
they are also free to try to see a Constitutional amendment if they think a popular vote is fairer
but, if we had such a system, Trump would probably have won anyway
more of his supporters would have voted in California and New York
if Hillary couldn't win in the electoral system, which she might have if she had campaigned more in Wisconsin and less in Arizona, what makes you think she'd be smart enough to win in a popular vote system?
face it, she wasn't Presidential material
"An analysis of voting records shows that even though majorities of voters selected Democrats for congress, decades of slimy gerrymandering by slimy Republicans has resulted in more Republicans in office, not Democrats."
no matter how you set up the districts, there will be winners and losers
the GOP set it up because they won state-wide elections, where gerrymandering is irrelevant
any suggestions for a completely objective system?
"A Republican hasn't FIRST been ELECTED to the president's office by a voter majority since 1988. 30 years. And yet Democrats have only held the president's office for 16 of those years."
actually, no President ever was elected by a "voter majority"
we don't have compulsory voting and we have never held an election with the goal of determining a majority of votes cast
that happens on the state level
this isn't America
it's the United STATES of America
"Fair elections my @$$."
I'll tell you how the system actually favors Dems
the number of votes each state gets in the electoral college is determined by the census
but the census includes non-citizens, both legal and illegal
so California gets more electoral college votes because it has more illegal aliens
"Dems have developed a mythology, irresponsibly encouraged by the loser of that election, that this election was stolen from them"
"there was nothing unfair in 2000"
And THAT is the Republican mythology.
"I'll tell you how the system actually favors Dems
so California gets more electoral college votes because it has more illegal aliens"
You say that is if Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and a whole bunch of other (especially southern, Republican) states don't have a significant number of illegal aliens.
I'd bet those numbers pretty much come out in the wash.
I'll tell you have the electoral college system favors Republicans:
Number of times the electoral college selected one Democratic-Republican over another Democratic-Republican: 1 (ONE)
Number of times the electoral (or supreme court) college selected the Republican over the Democrat: 4 (FOUR)
Number of times the electoral college selected the Democrat over the Republican: 0 (*ZERO*)
There is absolutely NO evidence that the electoral college system favors democrats.
"face it, she wasn't Presidential material"
Face it. Neither is the Mango Mussolini. But at least Clinton doesn't lean fascist.
"no matter how you set up the districts, there will be winners and losers"
Wow, do you have any more useless factoids you want to share with us, like "the sky is usually blue?"
"the GOP set it up because they won state-wide elections, where gerrymandering is irrelevant"
The GOP did the gerrymandering to dilute the influence of democratic voters and get more reps in the House of Representatives, i.e. Congress.
"any suggestions for a completely objective system?"
Heck, how about just a reasonably objective system, like a non-partisan or bipartisan redistricting commission, rather than the current dominant party. This is already done in some states.
Or a computer algorithm that is set minimize the geographic area of all districts without regard to any political information.
This isn't rocket science folks. The problem is getting the current party power to agree to it.
"And THAT is the Republican mythology."
no, it's a fact
the election was too close to call by any precise method
that it was finally called is not in any way unfair to the loser
someone had to lose
in addition to mythology, the way the Dems have characterized it is pretty despicable
"You say that is if Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and a whole bunch of other (especially southern, Republican) states don't have a significant number of illegal aliens.
I'd bet those numbers pretty much come out in the wash."
maybe you're right
too bad we don't know for sure
"There is absolutely NO evidence that the electoral college system favors democrats."
I don't think the goal of our election system should be to make sure Dems win an equal share of elections
it should be to make sure everyone has representation
the electoral system does that much better than a popular vote would
Dems could easily win by endeavouring to address the needs of a wider range of citizens
ignoring the interests of the blue collar worker in the rust belt was never a good idea
neither was trampling on freedom of religious rights
"But at least Clinton doesn't lean fascist."
Hillary tended toward socialism and totalitarian thought control
"Wow, do you have any more useless factoids you want to share with us, like "the sky is usually blue?""
you might want to look up the definition of factoid
you obviously don't know it
"The GOP did the gerrymandering to dilute the influence of democratic voters and get more reps in the House of Representatives, i.e. Congress."
Dems have done the same when given the chance
they don't often get the chance because they rarely win statewide elections, which aren't gerrymandered
"Heck, how about just a reasonably objective system, like a non-partisan or bipartisan redistricting commission, rather than the current dominant party. This is already done in some states.
Or a computer algorithm that is set minimize the geographic area of all districts without regard to any political information."
"nonpartisans" are generally morons
they aren't informed enough to have an opinion
Pee-tape Putin Trumped tRump said...
John O. Brennan✔
@JohnBrennan
Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of "high crimes & misdemeanors." It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???
11:52 AM - Jul 16, 2018
Max Tani✔
@maxwelltani
Reaction on Varney's Fox Business show after the press conference is critical of Trump.
Guest Mark Weinberg: "Putin won. Trump missed the opportunity."
Fox Biz's Ashley Webster: "He outmaneuvered our president. I was very surprised. I thought Trump was going to push hard."
12:06 PM - Jul 16, 2018
Axios✔
@axios
Neil Cavuto of Fox Business calls Trump's press conference "disgusting", "That sets us back a lot."
Oliver Darcy✔
@oliverdarcy
DRUDGE: "PUTIN DOMINATES"
1:50 PM - Jul 16, 2018
Meghan McCain✔
@MeghanMcCain
I don't have anything quippy to tweet. I'm horrified - and have never been more proud of the fact that Putin hates my father so much he personally sanctioned him on Russia's enemies list.
Chris Donovan✔
@chrisdonovan
Former Republican Senator (and Defense Secretary under Obama) Chuck Hagel just now on CNN: "President Trump failed America today. He failed America, our interests today, in every way" // "Sad day for America. Sad day for the world"
"I don't think the goal of our election system should be to make sure Dems win an equal share of elections"
I never said it should make sure Dems should win an equal share of elections. I merely pointed out that there was no evidence that it favored Dems. In fact, given the 4 to 0 win ratio for Republicans, it appears to favor Republicans, if anyone. The sample size is small, but given the record of 2 Republicans selected out of the last 4 presidential races, it is not a promising trend.
"it should be to make sure everyone has representation
the electoral system does that much better than a popular vote would"
There is no better representation than 1 vote for 1 person. The electoral college vastly skews that ratio. Go ahead and try to "rationalize" otherwise. I'm in the mood for another good laugh.
they aren't informed enough to have an opinion"
As you generally believe that anyone who doesn't agree with you is a moron, and quickly dismiss everything they have to say, this is simply not a convincing argument.
"ignoring the interests of the blue collar worker in the rust belt was never a good idea
neither was trampling on freedom of religious rights"
Just because Christian dominionists didn't like gays being allowed to marry didn't mean their rights were trampled on. They can still marry the opposite sex person they want - except for those kiddies of course.
Blue collar workers won't realize how good they had it under Obama until Republicans finish undermining all the unions and take away the minimum wage laws. Blue collar workers will then find themselves working for a miserable pittance, and with rich corporations being "people" now, no way to vote themselves a better future. One has to wonder how much the plutocrats will be able to moderate the fascists going forward.
"you might want to look up the definition of factoid
you obviously don't know it"
Just for giggles, I did. Here it is:
1: a brief or trivial item of news or information.
2: an assumption or speculation that is reported and repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact.
Definition 1 is PRECISELY the idea I intended to convey.
On a related note, definition 2 has been the modus operandi of conservative republicans since Raygun took office - like "the tax cuts will pay for themselves!", "Obama isn't a US citizen!", "the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt!", and "I'm a very stable genius!"
It's amazing how much political power republicans have kept based on bumper sticker slogans and factoids that are demonstrably untrue.
At some point though, the reality of the republican party shifting ever more fascist is going to wake up enough people to vote them out of office.
I just hope it's sooner rather than later.
"I never said it should make sure Dems should win an equal share of elections. I merely pointed out that there was no evidence that it favored Dems. In fact, given the 4 to 0 win ratio for Republicans, it appears to favor Republicans, if anyone."
you were countering my statement that counting illegal aliens in the census favored Dems
you had a good point about California not being the only border state
but the fact that Dems have lost more elections where they got more overall votes doesn't prove that the system doesn't favor Dems
they could lose every election even if the system favored them
the margin would just be different
your presumption is a non seqitur
"There is no better representation than 1 vote for 1 person. The electoral college vastly skews that ratio. Go ahead and try to "rationalize" otherwise. I'm in the mood for another good laugh."
you need some considering the grim Dem future
we are a union of states not people without borders
in your way of thinking, New Jersey should rule Wyoming because they have more people and vote to dump all their trash there
"As you generally believe that anyone who doesn't agree with you is a moron, and quickly dismiss everything they have to say, this is simply not a convincing argument."
so you think people who can't form opinions are not morons?
"Just because Christian dominionists didn't like gays being allowed to marry didn't mean their rights were trampled on"
no, Christians, most of whom aren't dominionists, and most people of other religious faith, have their religious rights trampled on when the government tries to force them to participate in acts they consider immoral (cater homosexual "weddings" or provide contraception) or makes it illegal for religious counselors to encourage people to resist homosexual impulse
understand, now?
"Blue collar workers won't realize how good they had it under Obama"
they know quite well that the Dems put every other interest (environmental, international corps, illegal immigrants) above theirs
they won't soon forget that, especially if it doesn't change
"1: a brief or trivial item of news or information.
Definition 1 is PRECISELY the idea I intended to convey."
the fact I cited may have been obvious but it was hardly trivial and you were ignoring it
"It's amazing how much political power republicans have kept based on bumper sticker slogans and factoids that are demonstrably untrue."
virtually everything the media/dems say is untrue
how about the oft-repeated phrase "Russians hacked the election"?
completely misleading
"At some point though, the reality of the republican party shifting ever more fascist is going to wake up enough people to vote them out of office."
the trump administration has shown much more deference to other branches of government and has engaged a free media much more
nothing even remotely fascist going on
let us know what the hell you're talking about
"I just hope it's sooner rather than later."
What's 20 inches long and hangs between Vladimyr Putin's legs?
Donald Trump's tie.
Welcome to Truimplandia, it's not like we didn't know this disaster was coming said...
https://twitter.com/Casey_Clemmons?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E844732315653869572&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2018%2F7%2F16%2F1781063%2F-Hillary-Clinton-s-response-to-Trump-s-shameful-press-conference-just-might-break-Twitter
Still dripping said...
A gun rights advocate was just arrested and charged with acting as a Russian agent.On Monday afternoon, hours after President Trump sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies at a Helisnki press conference, the Department of Justice announced that Maria Butina, a 29-year-old Russian woman had been arrested and charged with "conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation." Her arrest comes days after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers, though it is not yet clear whether the special counsel's office played a role.
Butina worked closely with Russian banker Alexander Torshin—the two co-founded the Russian gun rights organization Right to Bear Arms. According to the indictment released on Monday, Butina also had close ties with Russian officials and she used ties with gun groups in the United States—most notably the National Rifle Association—to advance Russian interests. Between 2015-2017, Butina developed deep ties to the NRA, who not only welcomed her, but appear to have facilitated contact with Republican officials.
"31. On October 4, 2016, U.S. Person 1 sent an email to an acquaintance. The email covered a number of topics. With the email, U.S. Person 1 stated, "Unrelated to specific presidential campaigns, I've been involved in securing a VERY private line of communication between the Kremlin and key POLITICAL PARTY 1 leaders through, of all conduits, the [GUN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION]." Based on my training, experience, and familiarity with this investigation, I believe this email describes U. S. Person 1's involvement in BUTINA's efforts to establish a "back channel" communication for representatives of the Government of Russia.
Renato Mariotti✔
@renato_mariotti
Today Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina was charged with acting as an agent of the Russian government. Paragraph 31 of the criminal complaint quotes an explosive email about establishing a "VERY private line of communication" between the Kremlin and GOP via the NRA:
The arrest of Butina also changes the timeline of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. While the Kremlin has been deepening ties with the NRA (in an attempt to influence the GOP) for decades, Butina's alleged work as a Russian agent began months before Donald Trump entered the presidential race, while she contacted Republican officials, including Sheriff David Clarke, as far back as 2013. Although Russia clearly favored Trump—something Putin admitted in Monday's press conference—it now seems they began fishing for contact with Republicans years ago.
Senior Republican George Will on Trump behaving as Putin's lap dog:
"This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man...The president...put himself first as always and America last."
America divided over meeting between their leader and President Trump
AT HELSINKI SUMMIT, PUTIN RE-ENACTS THE JUNE 9 TRUMP TOWER MEETING said...
On top of the denials, from both sides, of Russian tampering in the election (and both sides' embrace of a joint cybersecurity working group), that re-enactment came in three ways.
First, when asked whether Russia tampered in our election, Putin issued a line that was sort of a non-sequitur, asserting that, "I was an intelligence officer myself. And I do know how dossiers are made of." The line — a reference both to the Steele dossier and Putin's more damaging kompromat on Trump — is pregnant with meaning (and probably was planned). When asked, later, whether he had any compromising information on Trump or his family, Putin said, "Now to kompromat. I did hear these allegations that we collected kompromat when he was in Moscow. I didn't even know he was in Moscow."
This is a reference to the pee tape, allegedly taped when he put on Miss Universe in Russia in 2013. But it's premised on a claim about which there is sworn counter-evidence in the US. Rob Goldstone — the guy who set up the June 9 meeting — described how Putin not only knew Trump was in Moscow, but was still trying to fit in a meeting with him.
"And it went down to the wire. It was on the day of the contest itself that maybe around 4:00 in the afternoon Emin called a few of us into a conference room at Crocus, and his Dad, Aras, was there. And we were told that a call was coming in through from a Mr. Peskov, who I know to be Dmitry Peskov, who I believe is a spokesman for Mr . Putin, and there'd be an answer. And the answer I think, as I may have stated the last time I saw you, was that due to the lateness o f the newly crowned King of Holland who'd been delayed in traffic, whether air or road traffic, Mr. Putin would not be able to meet with Mr. Trump. However, he invited him to Sochi, to the Olympics, and said he'd be happy to meet him here or at any future time. And that's how it was left, so there would be not meeting taking place."
So not only did Putin lie about whether there could be a pee tape (I don't think there is one, but I think the 2013 involves compromise in another way), but did so in a way that invoked the Agalrovs as Trump's handlers going back years.
And did you notice that he never denied having kompromat?
Then, in a response to one of the questions about Putin's tampering in the election, after he suggested that he'd be willing to have Mueller come to Russia to question the GRU officers who hacked Hillary, he demanded similar cooperation on his legal issues. He then raised Bill Browder (who is no longer a US citizen), complaining that
"For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 million [sic] in Russia. They never paid any taxes, neither in Russia nor in the United States. And yet the money escaped the country, they [sic] were transferred to the United States. They sent huge amount of money, $400 million, as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton."
Aside from being muddled, both in Putin's delivery and the translation, this is precisely the dangle that Natalia Veselnitskaya used to get into Trump's campaign back in 2016 to ask to have the Magnitsky sanctions overturned.
This was simply Putin laying out his receipts of Trump's compromise on the world stage...
...There's one other area where Putin simply showed off how badly he has compromised the President. His prepared talks emphasized cooperation on Syria, claiming it "could be first showcase example of joint work." As I have noted, that has been the operative plan since less than 15 hours after polls closed in November 2016. And it was known by someone who played a significant role in the Russian attack.
"Nov. 9, 2016 3:15PM
You likely don't want to hear this anymore than I did, I have it on very good intel (A 1 if you know humint ratings) that Flynn is speaking to Team Al-Assad in the next 48 hours.
Obviously that in of itself is disconcerting on a number of levels. You can probably figure out lot more than I can."
This meeting, then, is just Putin collecting on the receipts collected back on June 9, 2016.
Bail denied said...
Russian woman denied bail as feds allege covert political work for Moscow
https://www.ajc.com/news/national-govt--politics/russian-woman-denied-bail-feds-allege-covert-political-work-for-moscow/LWjQV9h1bqYrC6n8ogRnmM/
POP! goes the bubble said...
An unusually large number of House Republican incumbents were outraised by their Democratic opponents in the past three months, more stark evidence of GOP candidates' money woes, which continue to expand the number of seats susceptible to Democratic takeover.
Democrats in 56 House districts surpassed Republican incumbents in second-quarter fundraising, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings. Sixteen of those House Republicans finished the quarter with less cash in their campaign accounts than Democratic opponents, while no Democratic members lag their Republican challengers in cash
It's a financial trend line that has gotten worse for Republican candidates over the past year, even as megadonors pour millions into the House GOP super PAC — a reflection of Democratic intensity that has coursed through the party's donors and voters since President Donald Trump's election.
The picture is even grimmer for Republicans in open, battleground districts, where a slew of retirements has put even more seats up for grabs. More than two dozen Democratic candidates in those districts also topped GOP opponents in fundraising, and 19 of those Democrats also led in cash on hand.
Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing House Republicans, raised a record $51 million in the second quarter, which some strategists believe will help tilt battleground races their way in the fall. But others see the district-by-district money race as a mirror-image replay of the summer of 2010, when strong Republican fundraising heralded the House GOP wave four months later.
"If you allow yourself to be outraised, then you are inviting trouble," said Chris LaCivita, a Republican consultant. "In a midterm election with your party in power, trouble generally equates to defeat."
"These guys need to wake up and take a look in the mirror and decide — do they want to be reelected?" LaCivita added.
The list of outraised incumbents includes some of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country — such as Reps. Jason Lewis in Minnesota, Rod Blum in Iowa, Dana Rohrabacher in California and Leonard Lance in New Jersey — as well as members like Reps. Dave Brat of Virginia and Steve Chabot of Ohio, whose Richmond- and Cincinnati-based seats have looked more and more competitive over the past year.
Democratic challengers' fundraising performance in suburban districts around the country "is definitely a tailwind that's pushing them into play," said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant based in California.
Trump voter on CSPAN said...
Trump voter: "I'll try not ot sound too awful, but I want to thank the Russians for interfering with our election to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president."
CSPAN: "Do you think Russian interference was the reason that President Trump won in 2016?"
Trump voter: "Yes, because the Russians interfered. I mean what would we do with Hillary in that White House? That woman, she doesn't know what she was doing. What a mess she made of Benghazi. What she did with those emails to put a server in her living room or wherever she put it."
Typical:
Trump blatantly lies about NATO funding, claiming the U.S. pays "90 percent of the costs." (The U.S. pays 22 percent.)
Ex-CIA director suspects Trump repeated Putin's anti-NATO talking points on Fox
Ret. Gen. Michael Hayden on Wednesday said it was likely that President Donald Trump's bizarre remarks about the nation of Montenegro during a Fox News interview came directly from Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points.
During a CNN interview, host Alisyn Camerota played Hayden a clip of Trump discussing NATO member Montenegro with Fox News host Tucker Carlson in which he described the tiny nation as "very aggressive" and that could spark "World War III" if they decided to attack Russia.
Hayden, a former CIA director, said Trump's words about Montenegro sounded suspiciously like Russian propaganda used to describe the country.
"I would not be at all surprised that what you heard the president say to Tucker Carlson there last night is derived from what Vladimir Putin told him during the one-on-one discussions in Helsinki," Hayden said.
"That's troubling," Camerota said. "How will we know what happened in those one-on-one discussions?"
"I don't know," Hayden admitted.
Elsewhere in the segment, Hayden also criticized Trump for not understanding that NATO is most effective if its foes believe that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all NATO countries.
"The president just expressed his doubt and took on the core requirement of the North Atlantic Treaty," he said.
[Its likely that Trump is doing Putin's bidding on undermining NATO. Russia tried to overthrow Montenegro's government recently and several Russian agents are on trial there. Russia wants to take over Montenegro to have a port to the baltic sea.]
Mike Murphy:
"I'm furious R's are cowardly about Trump. But here is what they say in private. 1.)Trump is a disgrace. 2.)I give fiery press conference tomorrow saying that. 3.) Nothing changes, Trump remains nuts and remains president. 4.) A nut beats me in next primary. So how does my political suicide help?"
Dave Wasserman:
"Most Republican members are willing to admit POTUS doesn't operate in reality. but they know they're doomed in the next primary if they say so publicly. As long as that's true, we're headed for a world with zero accountability.
you can't handle the truth! said...
"An unusually large number of House Republican incumbents were outraised by their Democratic opponents in the past three months, more stark evidence of GOP candidates' money woes, which continue to expand the number of seats susceptible to Democratic takeover."
despite all evidence to the contrary, Dems continue to believe that money wins everything
you can't buy elections when you favor the abolishment of the agency that secures our borders and you oppose economic policies that have produced the lowest unemployment in decades and you want to do nothing while unfair trade practices have allowed China to decimate US industries and you want a confrontational foreign policy that risks global nuclear war and you think people should be forced to help put on homosexual "weddings" and you want to appoint justices that will pretend there is a constitutional right to kill children until the moment they are delivered
no one is going to vote for that
other than degenerates
Russia has routinely and persistently sought to influence elections here and around the world
so have other countries
the way to fight it is with counter-intelligence activities
because Dems lost the elections and because Russia, for once, favored the GOP candidate, Dems have sought to exploit this as a unique scandal
they have now indicted 12 KGB agents instead of the standard actions our intelligence agencies would take
so now, the Dems have given these KGB agents the protection of our legal systems and the government's position is that they are innocent until proven guilty
the only reason Russia favored Trump is because he favored normalizing relations with Russia
Trump's philosophy is to butter up dictators as a way to get close to them to manipulate them
he has successfully done this with China
his idea is that Russia is a second rate power but it is in the interest of the US to prevent the development of an evil axis alliance between Russia, China and Iran
that's open to criticism but the media and Dems have again overdone it with all the "treason" talk
they aren't winning over Americans
meanwhile, they have pushed the imbecilic idea that by pressuring other NATO allies to increase spending in order to push back against Russia, Trump is taking Russia's side against NATO
do Dems ever talk these things out or does it just come to them in a hallucinatory trance?
Welcome to Trumplandia, Comrade said...
The willingness of the White House to contemplate handing over a former U.S. ambassador for interrogation by the Kremlin drew ire and astonishment from current and former U.S. officials. Such a proposition is unheard of. So is the notion that the president may think he has the legal authority to turn anyone over to a foreign power on his own.
Former secretary of state John F. Kerry tweeted that the offer was "not something that should require a half second of consultation. Dangerous."
"The administration needs to make it unequivocally clear that in a million years this wouldn't be under consideration, period. Full stop," Kerry tweeted.
Allowing such questioning of Americans, particularly of a former ambassador who had diplomatic protections while in Moscow, would be an extraordinary move on the part of the Trump administration, experts and officials said.
"The entire country should be aware of this," tweeted Tom Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School. "If Putin can single out" McFaul, Nichols said, "he can single out anyone. The President's job is to protect us, not to even *consider* handing any of us over to an enemy government."
Even the State Department considers the idea "absolutely absurd," as department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said during a briefing when asked about the Russian government's desire to question 11 American citizens, including McFaul.
"We do not stand by those assertions that the Russian Government makes," Nauert said, acknowledging that the interrogation of American officials "would be a grave concern to our former colleagues here."
...FBI Director Christopher A. Wray also weighed in on Putin's proposal. Asked by NBC's Lester Holt during the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday to address the offer to send U.S. investigators to Russia to interview the indicted suspects, Wray said, "I never want to say never, but it's certainly not high on our list of investigative techniques."
Regarding Putin's quid pro quo to let Russian investigators come to the U.S. to interrogate Americans, Wray said, "That's probably even lower on our list of investigative techniques."
McFaul served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, a tumultuous period in relations between the two countries. President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law in 2012, prompting retaliation from Russia that included banning U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans. McFaul was often the target of anti-American attacks in the Russian media, and said he ended up being Putin's "personal foe."
"Putin has been harassing me for a long time. That he now wants to arrest me, however, takes it to a new level," tweeted McFaul, who is now a Hoover fellow at Stanford University and the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. "Even during the Stalin era, the Soviet government never had the audacity to try to arrest US government officials. Think about that."
"I hope the White House corrects the record and denounces in categorical terms this ridiculous request from Putin," McFaul wrote. "Not doing so creates moral equivalency" between a legitimate "US indictment of Russian intelligence officers and a crazy, completely fabricated story invented by Putin."
"The willingness of the White House to contemplate handing over a former U.S. ambassador for interrogation by the Kremlin drew ire"
typical a-hole comment by leftist
no one said anything "handing over"
the questioning would be in America under US supervision
even that won't happen though, unless McFaul consents, in some ruse we play with Russia
Trump was just trying to be diplomatic
he's a moron, but he's the best America can do
Could It Be More Obvious? 7 New Ways Trump Has Demonstrated His Loyalty To Russia said...
Now that President Donald Trump has met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, it's pretty safe to say we don't need to wait for the conclusions of Robert Mueller's special investigation to determine that the president is compromised. For a guy who knows that he's under suspicion for collusion and treason and you'd assume would want to act less friendly even if just for appearances, Trump took Putin's side at every turn, looking like a lackey for Russia rather than the leader of the American people.
Here are some of the more glaring instances in Helsinki:
1. GIVING PUTIN MORE CREDIT THAN U.S. INTELLIGENCE
When Putin and Trump stood together at a press conference, a reporter asked about Russia's meddling in the election and Trump balked at the chance to act tough against the American rival. Instead, Trump acknowledged that his own intelligence agents insist it's true, but he gives a lot of credence to Putin's own "strong and powerful… denial." Furthermore, he added that he can't think of "any reason" why Russia would try to mess with American elections.
I can think of one big reason, namely that Putin helped install an American leader whose willing to disregard the conclusions of his own government officials for a guy who wishes our country harm.
2. BLAME BOTH SIDES
Trump finds some of the worst occasions to decide that two opposing sides are on equal footing – most notably when he said there were "very fine people" amongst crowds of white nationalists and white nationalist protestors.
This happened again when he said, "I think we're all to blame" for the relations between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. may not have its hands clean in a lot of foreign matters, but in no way should be compared.
Specifically, he named the Mueller probe as a source of tension between the nations. That's right, he wants the investigation to go away not for personal reasons, but so he can mend an alliance with Trump.
3. OR JUST BLAME THE U.S.
The "funny" thing is when Trump does blame a side, it's that of the United States. In advance of the summit, Trump tweeted that the reason for the bad relationship with Russia is "many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity," passing the buck on previous American politicians for not cozying up to Putin.
Sure, the relationship with Russia has been strained, but that is primarily the result of hostile acts on the part of the Russian government. Trump makes a big thing of not being a weakling, but this is the adversary Trump thinks former presidents should have turned the other cheek for? Based on what, exactly?
To make matters worse, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the tweet with a simple "We agree." Indeed, they love a narrative where it's the U.S. that's at fault for all of the bad blood – especially when the U.S. president himself says it!
4. LET'S HAND OVER INTELLIGENCE DOCUMENTS TO RUSSIA
Following last week's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officials, Trump says Putin made him an "incredible offer" to have the Mueller team come to Russia to collaborate on the investigation and watch them interrogate the spies.
Of course the Kremlin would love to have the U.S. pass off all of the intelligence we've gathered on their spies – what better way for them to see what actions have been detected by the U.S. authorities and what is still being pulled off in secret?
That's not an "incredible offer," Trump, that's one you'd have to be either a total sucker or plant to accept.
5. NO STAFFERS/NO NOTES
Often, even in closed-door meetings between world leaders, there is some kind of record kept of the conversation, but Trump said he didn't want there to be any people present or any notes taken for their 90 minute private conversation. Not even his own staff can confidentially keep track or even listen in on what's discussed? That's beyond fishy!
6. PUTIN WANTED TRUMP TO WIN
For the first time, Putin went on record saying that he had hoped Trump would win the presidential election in order to normalize relations between their countries. Why would he think Trump would be good at that? There's nothing "normal" about what's going on between the nations at this point.
7. TRUMP STILL WANTS TO BE A DICTATOR
In the past, we've seen Trump speak glowingly of dictators in the past, and no amount of criticism has made him change his behavior. It's become increasingly clear that Trump would prefer to rule in a manner similar to Putin without pesky democratic checks-and-balances to interfere.
Well, at the summit, he just admitted as much again. Demanding more money for NATO, Trump became frustrated when other world leaders said they have to have the consent of their legislatures before committing. At that point, Trump fist bumped Recep Erdogan and said, "He does things the right way." What Erdogan's done is steal and consolidate power as leader – that's the "right" way?!
The American public has every reason to suspect their president is not working in their best interests.
"The American public has every reason to suspect their president is not working in their best interests."
every reason
other than the fact that he is pressing other countries for deals on trade and shared defense spending that are fairer to America
and the fact that he is pushing economic policies that have driven unemployment to the lowest level this century, lowest ever for minorities
and the fact that he is promoting American industry
and the fact that he is ramping up defense spending to protect us
and the fact that he is working to prevent illegal aliens from coming in and snapping up low level employment opportunities from our poorest citizens
and the fact that he is nominating judges to protect our Constitution
other than those facts, it looks like Trump is just like Obama, who told the Russians, when he thought no one could hear, that he'd be "flexible" to make concessions "after the election"
AND THEN DID IT!!
Republicans Tell White House To Reject Russia's 'Absurd' Request To Question Americans said...
Republican lawmakers are slamming the White House for considering Russian President Vladimir Putin's request to interview Americans who his government have accused of dubious crimes.
During his summit with President Donald Trump on Monday, Putin proposed allowing the U.S. to question the 12 Russian officials indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe in exchange for letting Russia interview 11 Americans. Trump called the proposal "an incredible offer."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted Thursday that "under no circumstances" should Putin officials be allowed to "'question' Americans on their list."
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that Trump was considering the exchange, despite swift backlash from diplomats and Democratic lawmakers.
"The president is going to meet with his team, and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that," Sanders said. "There was some conversation about it, but there wasn't a commitment made on behalf of the United States."
Among the 11 Americans on Putin's list are former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and financier Bill Browder, an outspoken Kremlin critic.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told CNN on Thursday that it would be "absurd" to allow Russia to question Americans over the unfounded charges.
"I don't think there is one member of Congress on either side of the aisle that believes it is remotely smart to require our former ambassador, Mr. Browder or any other person to submit to interviews by Putin's government," Graham said. "There is no rule of law in Russia ― there's just the rule of Putin."
"The concept of letting American citizens being investigated for crimes that are just, I think, jokes is absurd," he added. "The administration to even entertain this shows to me how naive they are about what's actually going on in Russia."
Browder spearheaded the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that bars Russian officials suspected of human rights abuses.
"Anything that begins that process is a death sentence for me," Browder told CNN on Thursday. "Putin is really, really mad and he really wants to get his hands on me."
How many right-wingers who are offended when an athlete kneels before a football game are going to be outraged that Trump kneels before Putin?
The saddest part of 2016 was seeing how many people believed the worst rumours about a woman while ignoring the worst facts about a man.
This is about more than Trump not trusting his intelligence community, its about more than Trump not trusting the intelligence communities assessment of the elections. He has now been in power for almost a year and a half. He's had national security experts from the intelligence community, from the State Department, from the Defence Department, from the FBI explaining to him the nature of the Russian regime - the Russian regime is doing everything it can to hurt the U.S. and to hurt its allies and so if at this point he still believes Vladimir Putin is a good guy there's something seriously wrong there. It means the disconnect between his supporters, his aides, the people who work in his administration, and everybody who is advising him and between what he believes is just almost pathological.
Trump Was Shown Proof of Putin Ordering Election Meddling Before Taking Office
The New York Times reports that two weeks before he was inaugurated, Donald Trump received a highly classified briefing from our intelligence agencies, including raw intel in the form of intercepted emails and text messages, showing that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered interference in our election in 2016.
The bottom line said...
tRump standing side by side with Putin singing his praises while poopooing his own intelligence agencies is all about tRump's desire to build his gleaming hotel in Moscow when only Russia will give him the money to do it.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous claim to be against gayness except when its Trump fellating Putin.
Americans are divided over the meeting between their leader and Donald Trump.
sayanora, gay agenda said...
"This is about more than Trump not trusting his intelligence community, its about more than Trump not trusting the intelligence communities assessment of the elections. He has now been in power for almost a year and a half. He's had national security experts from the intelligence community, from the State Department, from the Defence Department, from the FBI explaining to him the nature of the Russian regime - the Russian regime is doing everything it can to hurt the U.S. and to hurt its allies and so if at this point he still believes Vladimir Putin is a good guy there's something seriously wrong there. It means the disconnect between his supporters, his aides, the people who work in his administration, and everybody who is advising him and between what he believes is just almost pathological."
As Trump has said, he trusts his intelligence community. He has chosen, as a strategy, not to confront Putin about the election activities. They were not new in 2016 and they were ineffective.
Trump is resisting Russia in concrete ways, to the chagrin of leftists and liberals and Dems.
What he doesn't trust is Obama's intelligence community: Brennan, Comey, Strzok, et al, who have perjured themselves in Congressional testimony and done everything they can to make everyone think Trump worked with the Russians on the election.
It's a lie, it's despicable, and it's harmed the country.
The voters will hold them accountable.
Hillary was elected, Trump was selected.
She got 3 million more votes than the mango Mussolini.
There's really nothing more American than a white guy, having accomplished nothing in life beyond being born rich and failing up for 7+ decades, getting boosted into a job he didn't earn and then breaking everything like a petulant child while other white guys give him cover.
House Republicans have refused to renew election security funding. They know they need Russian help to win and don't want to prevent that.
Trump's Military Parade Estimated To Cost $12 Million
A five time draft dodger wants a military parade in his honour.
President Donald Trump's military parade in DC is likely to cost nearly as much as the now canceled military exercise with South Korea that Trump called "tremendously expensive" and said cost "a fortune," three US defense officials tell CNN. The parade, which is now scheduled to take place on November 10, is currently estimated to cost approximately $12 million, the officials said.
It is widely believed that Trump cancelled the joint military exercises with South Korea at the request of Vladimir Putin.
In an interview with CBS crooked Trump excoriated the media for not covering his private meeting with Putin "You didn't cover the private one-on-one meeting that lasted for two and a half hours". The truth is Trump wouldn't allow the media to attend and has since refused to let the interpreter reveal what was discussed - typical Trump, criticizing others for his own actions.
Trump fired the Federal Cyber Security Chief and won't be replacing him as he's eliminated the position.
Clearly Trump and the Republicans are inviting the Russians to tamper with the mid-term (and future) elections to help elect Republicans.
Trump and the Republicans are helping the Russians destroy American democracy in their lust for unbridled power.
Evangelicals are Trump's base and hold frequent meetings in Russia because they like Putin denying free speech to gays and cracking down on non-christian religions.
Welcome to christian Sharia law in the U.S.A.!
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