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===Police Riots and Violence and harassment, ICE raids, CBP, surveillance, Genocide=== ===Police Riots and Violence and harassment, ICE raids, CBP, surveillance, Genocide===
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 +'These are his people': inside the elite border patrol unit Trump sent to Portland. Bortac, a quasi-militarised outfit some compare to the Navy Seals, has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. n January 2011, James Tomsheck, then a top internal affairs investigator inside US Customs and Border Protection, attended a meeting of about 100 senior CBP leaders in a hotel in Irvington, Virginia. Amid the sanitized splendor of the hotel ballroom, he vividly recalls hearing the nation’s then highest-ranking border patrol agent, David Aguilar, laying out his vision for the future. Border patrol, the former CBP deputy commissioner said, was to become the “marine corps of the US federal law enforcement community”. Another leading CBP figure remarked that border agents were not required to adhere to the same constitutional restraints on the use of force as other law enforcers. “We are not cops,” he said. the union’s president, Brandon Judd, declares that “President Trump is the right candidate for the safety and security of this great nation, not Joe Biden. Please join me in supporting President Trump.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/trump-border-patrol-troops-portland-bortac
National Guard commander says police suddenly moved on Lafayette Square protesters, used ‘excessive force’ before Trump visit. Guard major to testify before Congress that warnings couldn’t be heard, tear gas was used. A new statement by Adam DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who now serves as a major in the D.C. National Guard, also casts doubt on the claims by acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protesters spurred Park Police to clear the area at that time with unusually aggressive tactics. DeMarco said that “demonstrators were behaving peacefully” and that tear gas was deployed in an “excessive use of force.” DeMarco backs up law enforcement officials who told The Washington Post they believed the clearing operation would happen after the 7 p.m. curfew that night — but it was dramatically accelerated after Attorney General William P. Barr and others appeared in the park around 6 p.m. Monahan has said the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. DeMarco said the fencing materials did not arrive until 9 p.m. — hours after Barr told the Park Police to expand the perimeter -- and the fence wasn’t built until later that night. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-guard-commander-says-police-suddenly-moved-lafayette-square-protesters-used-excessive-force-clear-path-trump/ https://naturalresources.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Mr.%20Adam%20DeMarco%20-%20Written%20Testimony_.pdf National Guard commander says police suddenly moved on Lafayette Square protesters, used ‘excessive force’ before Trump visit. Guard major to testify before Congress that warnings couldn’t be heard, tear gas was used. A new statement by Adam DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who now serves as a major in the D.C. National Guard, also casts doubt on the claims by acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protesters spurred Park Police to clear the area at that time with unusually aggressive tactics. DeMarco said that “demonstrators were behaving peacefully” and that tear gas was deployed in an “excessive use of force.” DeMarco backs up law enforcement officials who told The Washington Post they believed the clearing operation would happen after the 7 p.m. curfew that night — but it was dramatically accelerated after Attorney General William P. Barr and others appeared in the park around 6 p.m. Monahan has said the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. DeMarco said the fencing materials did not arrive until 9 p.m. — hours after Barr told the Park Police to expand the perimeter -- and the fence wasn’t built until later that night. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-guard-commander-says-police-suddenly-moved-lafayette-square-protesters-used-excessive-force-clear-path-trump/ https://naturalresources.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Mr.%20Adam%20DeMarco%20-%20Written%20Testimony_.pdf

Revision as of 21:04, 28 July 2020


Contents

U.S. Constitution

U.S. Constitution Annotated. This edition of the Congressional Research Service's U.S. Constitution Annotated is a hypertext interpretation of the CRS text, updated to the currently published version. It links to Supreme Court opinions, the U.S. Code, and the Code of Federal Regulations, as well as enhancing navigation through search, breadcrumbs, linked footnotes and tables of contents. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan

2020 Elections

Polls, Models, Theories

With polls across the US showing Trump in trouble and Biden appearing comfortably ahead in Michigan, the state's battleground status is up in the air. June 12, 2020 https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/06/12/joe-biden-donald-trump-battleground-state/5334447002/

Biden is running ahead of Clinton's 2016 pace. Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN Updated 8:33 AM ET, Sun May 24, 2020. Biden's clearly outpacing Clinton's pace. 4 years ago this week, Clinton & Trump were tied. Clinton was at 39% in polls including Gary Johnson. Today, Biden's up 7. He's at 48%, which Clinton never hit in final 6 months. Much less room for Trump to move up Poll of the week: A new national Fox News poll finds former Vice President Joe Biden with a 48% to 40% lead over President Donald Trump. The average of all polls taken at least partially this week have Biden up by a 48% to 41% margin. What's the point: Almost any time I explain that Biden's leading Trump, someone will inevitably bring up "but what about 2016." That's why this week marks an important milestone for the Biden campaign. It's one of the first times during the election year that Biden was clearly running ahead of Hillary Clinton's 2016 pace in the matchup against Trump. Four years ago, Trump closed the national gap quickly with Clinton as he was vanquishing Republican rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the presidential race. Clinton's average lead shrank from 10 points during the first half of April to 6 points in the second half in April to 4 points in the first half in May to a mere 1 point in polls completed four years ago between May 16-May 23. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/24/politics/biden-clinton-polling-analysis/index.html

Conservative poll finds 23 percent of Republicans think GOP shouldn't nominate Trump. Republican voters widely expect President Trump to be their party’s nominee in the November presidential race, but nearly one in four said that they think the GOP should find “someone other than Trump” ahead of the election, according to a new survey. The conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports poll released Thursday found that 23 percent of likely Republican voters across the country think that their party should “find someone other than Trump to be their nominee,” according to the survey results. The poll found that 70 percent said the Republican Party should stick with Trump, while 7 percent were undecided. https://thehill.com/homenews/news/497868-conservative-poll-finds-23-percent-of-republicans-think-gop-shouldnt-nominate

Trump is getting trounced among a crucial constituency: The haters. President Donald Trump is losing a critical constituency: voters who see two choices on the ballot — and hate them both. Unlike in 2016, when a large group of voters who disliked both Trump and Hillary Clinton broke sharply for Trump, the opposite is happening now, according to public polling and private surveys conducted by Republicans and Democrats alike. https://politi.co/3fzEaiO via @politico

Column: Democratic turmoil and a long-term warning for the GOP. Stepping back from this momentum swing for the GOP was Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California and San Diego Republican parties. He took to social media on acquittal day to remind fellow Republicans — as he has regularly in recent years — that they need to focus on addressing long-term trends that do not favor the GOP. We’re at the top of the business cycle, borrowing $1T per year. How are we doing on reforming some big budget items to get that under control? Or are we just going to (scrap) the whole “fiscal responsibility” thing? https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2020-02-09/column-former-gop-leader-urges-party-to-take-the-long-view

Don’t Vote. Yet. https://wordsanddeedsblog.com/dont-vote-yet/ via @dougporter506 Check out my coverage of local and statewide candidates here. https://wordsanddeedsblog.com/104-candidate-profiles-for-city-county-state-judicial-and-federal-offices-youll-want-to-know-about/ The Indivisible San Diego Persist voter guide is here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT0CsO-3z92IXphdzkG6wEtvSAtNSh0zKuGO42SgE-pR2nDT09TE2mBswush7TomRKe28xgynxBf0rI/pub

An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter. Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020? And today her model tells her the Democrats are a near lock for the presidency in 2020, and are likely to gain House seats and have a decent shot at retaking the Senate. If she’s right, we are now in a post-economy, post-incumbency, post record-while-in-office era of politics. Her analysis, as Bitecofer puts it with characteristic immodesty, amounts to nothing less than “flipping giant paradigms of electoral theory upside down.” https://politi.co/2OMBgf5 via @politico

Poll: Large majorities of black, Hispanic voters say Trump has been bad for them. Just 4 percent of African Americans surveyed said that Trump's actions have been good for African Americans in general, while 81 percent said he’s made things worse. Sixty-nine percent of Hispanic respondents said Trump’s actions have been bad for Hispanics generally, while only 19 percent think they’ve been good. Both African Americans and Latinos also overwhelmingly said Trump's actions have been bad for each other, as well as Muslims and women. Among white Americans respondents, roughly a third said Trump’s actions have been good for black Americans, women and Hispanics, while about a quarter said they have been good for Muslims. Forty-seven percent said Trump’s actions have been bad for Hispanics, 44 percent said they’ve been bad for Muslims and 39 percent said they’ve been bad for women and black Americans. https://thehill.com/homenews/463741-poll-large-majorities-of-black-hispanic-voters-say-trump-has-been-bad-for-them

Poll: Record 69% of voters say they dislike Trump personally https://www.axios.com/poll-trump-dislike-approval-rating-2020-election-f3db749a-717c-4a91-9543-027d9deca386.html

Fox News Poll: Voters are frustrated with government, nervous about economy. Many voters are frustrated with how the federal government is working and a growing number are nervous about the economy -- yet ratings of economic conditions remain higher than before President Trump took office, according to the latest Fox News Poll. While 37 percent feel confident about the economy, 48 percent feel nervous. That’s up from a low of 43 percent nervous in March 2019. At the highest point, 70 percent felt nervous in 2010 when the question was first asked, and it was 61 percent as recently as 2016. https://fxn.ws/2NoxFo2 #FoxNews

Poll: Trump approval falls as majority of Americans brace for recession https://politi.co/2ZSnT3x

Registering by Party: Where the Democrats and Republicans Are Ahead. registered Democrats 40%, Republicans 29%, independents 28%. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_rhodes_cook/registering_by_party_where_the_democrats_and_republicans_are_ahead

Fox News poll shows Trump losing to Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/457645-fox-news-poll-shows-trump-losing-to-biden-warren-sanders-and-harris

Comfortable, happy and divided: What are these retirees arguing about? "I've got four grandsons — adult grandsons, millennials — and the absence of patriotism in that generation bothers me," Al said. "They've never been part of a war that could unite us." https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/brian-dickerson/2019/08/11/retirement-community-divided/1965137001/ via @freep

Right-wing outlets tout post-debate Drudge poll that 4chan users had gamed. Users of the far-right message board 4chan organized to rig a Drudge Report online poll following the July 30 Democratic presidential debate. Multiple right-wing outlets touted the results. 4chan users similarly rigged previous post-debate Drudge polls. After the first night of the CNN debate, users on 4chan’s “/pol/” message board shared the poll and urged others to vote for author and presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. http://mm4a.org/4tV

Trump: Republicans like Paul Ryan are 'weak, ineffective & stupid'. Trump followed up his latest attack on Ryan by touting his current approval rating among Republicans. "94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, an all time high. Ronald Reagan was 87%. Thank you!" Trump wrote in a follow up tweet. Trump is polling at 90 percent with Republicans according to the latest Gallup poll. According to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, Trump has an 85 percent approval rating among potential GOP primary voters. https://politi.co/2Lktw3M

Trump Campaign to Fire Pollsters After Poor Polling Numbers Leaked. The president, predictably, denied the poor numbers, calling them “fake polls” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-campaign-to-fire-pollstrse-848802/ via @RollingStone

Fox News poll shows Trump trailing Democrats in hypothetical matchups. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/fox-news-poll-trump-trailing-democrats.html via @slate

Biden leads Trump by 'landslide proportions' in new national poll. In a national head-to-head matchup, the poll found Biden taking 53 percent against 40 percent for Trump, with the poll's assistant director describing it as a "landslide" margin. Five other Democratic contenders also lead the president: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) hold healthy leads over Trump, with Sanders up by 9 points, Harris ahead by 8 and Warren leading by 7. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) lead Trump by 5 points, with each posting a 47 to 42 split. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447972-biden-leads-trump-by-landslide-proportions-in-new-national-poll

Trump lashes out at polls that show 2020 re-election bid in trouble https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/trump-2020-presidential-election-polling-results

Polls flash 2020 warning for Trump https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447163-polls-flash-2020-warning-for-trump

Some Obama-Trump voters abandon president https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/442811-cracks-appear-in-trumps-coalition

Populist economic frustration threatens Trump’s strongest reelection issue, Post-ABC poll finds. This sentiment runs the deepest among Democratic and independent registered voters, but also exists among a significant slice of Republicans. About 8 in 10 Democrats and more than 6 in 10 independents say the country’s economic system gives an advantage to those already in power, while nearly a third of Republicans share that view. https://wapo.st/2V07XKQ

Poll: 55 percent say they won't vote for Trump in 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/441103-poll-55-say-they-wouldnt-vote-for-trump-in-2020

We asked more than 1,800 young people what they think is the biggest issue facing America, and the most popular answer was Trump https://www.businessinsider.com/teens-worry-about-president-donald-trump-2019-3

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‘On Paper, the Election Is the Democrats’ to Lose’. The Rise of ‘No Religion’ Percentage of Americans by religious affiliation, or lack of one. https://nyti.ms/2UYM62u

Four-in-10 voters say they would vote to re-elect Trump next year. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/four-in-10-voters-vote-trump-2020.html via @slate

Most voters won't support Trump in 2020: PBS/NPR poll https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/425782-poll-most-voters-wont-support-trump-in-2020

Trump

Yankees surprised by Trump announcing plans to throw first pitch without invite: NYT. The New York Yankees were surprised when President Trump announced his plans to throw the first pitch at a game in August, The New York Times reported Monday. That's because the team hadn't invited the president, a person with knowledge of Trump's schedule told the Times. Trump's announcement, which reportedly also came as a surprise to White House staff, came hours before Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, threw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals' season opener against the Yankees. An official familiar with his reaction told the Times the president was annoyed about the media attention Fauci was receiving for the pitch. Trump directed staff to call Yankees officials to schedule a date for the first pitch, but a date wasn’t finalized. White House aides reportedly tried to inform Yankees officials that Trump was booked to throw the opening pitch on Aug 15. But the president ended up canceling his first pitch on Sunday, citing that he would be busy with meetings and other work related to the coronavirus pandemic. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/509291-yankees-surprised-by-trump-announcing-plans-to-throw-first-pitch

Trump will not visit Capitol to pay respects to civil rights icon John Lewis. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/509206-trump-will-not-visit-capitol-to-pay-respects-to-civil-rights-icon

Donald Trump says he won't attend John Lewis' memorial services. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/27/trump-says-he-wont-pay-respects-john-lewis-he-lies-state/5520694002/

Tear gas used to clear out peaceful protesters before Trump surprise church visit. The surprise visit to St. John’s Church near the White House came minutes after Trump threatened to send U.S. troops to cities to quell riots. June 1, 2020 https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/nation-world/trump-makes-surprise-visit-to-st-johns-church/507-7edacc53-c41a-4ae7-b5b6-e167d72e1ac4

Donald Trump's suburban horror show. If current numbers hold, the Republican Party will suffer its worst defeat in the suburbs in decades — with implications reaching far beyond November. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/25/trumps-suburban-nightmare-376823

Trump reportedly clashes with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile over spam texts. Campaign texts are annoying but legally murky territory. President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is reportedly fighting cellphone carriers over the right to send Americans unsolicited texts. According to Business Insider, the campaign’s lawyers are in active talks with phone companies after a third-party screening tool blocked Trump texts in early July. The campaign alleges that screening the texts amounts to suppressing political speech, while carriers fear allowing them will result in fines for violating anti-spam rules. The 2020 election has brought a wave of text messages from across the political spectrum, particularly with the pandemic limiting in-person outreach. Many users didn’t opt in to these missives, and it’s unclear whether they violate federal laws meant to curb unwanted texts. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has imposed steeper fines for spammy and illegal robocalls. That’s reportedly put carriers on edge despite Trump’s campaign contending it’s not illegally automating texts. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21335477/trump-att-verizon-tmobile-reelection-campaign-text-spam-clash-report

The Committee To Defend The President, a pro-Trump super PAC, is returning a $1,000 political contribution from Earl Holt III, a white nationalist whose racist web posts were cited by the white man who killed nine Black parishioners at a historic church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. A lawyer for the super PAC quickly said the funds were being returned after the group was alerted to the donation by NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/25/895196681/pro-trump-group-returns-donation-from-white-nationalist-after-media-inquiry

President Donald Trump resumed his coronavirus briefings on Tuesday, after having suspended them for weeks while the pandemic spread out of control across ever-wider swaths of the country. Unlike most of his performances during the first round of coronavirus briefings, this one featured no public health experts, corporate leaders, or other guest stars; it started only slightly late and was over in much less than an hour. After some pandemic discussion , one reporter changed the subject to ask about the accused child-sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the companion and reported accomplice of the late Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire on July 2 and faces multiple charges relating to enticing and transporting minor victims for criminal sex. Did the president expect her to implicate any powerful men, like Britain’s Prince Andrew, in Epstein’s sex crimes? “I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever is. I don’t know the situation with Prince Andrew, just don’t know. Not aware of it.” The president of the United States admitted to a longstanding relationship with an accused sex trafficker, and twice specified that he wished her well as she faces criminal charges. There were reportedly more than 1,000 new deaths nationally due to the coronavirus on Monday, the highest figure since the end of May. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/i-wish-her-well-trump-says-of-accused-child-sex-trafficker-ghislaine-maxwell.html

“I’ll Be Right Eventually”: The Most Ridiculous Comments From Trump’s Fox News Interview. From blaming Fauci for Trump’s own lies to refusing to commit to accepting the election results. https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/07/trump-fox-interview-chris-wallace-coronavirus/

Trump replaces campaign manager Brad Parscale, as polls show Biden ahead. Parscale will remain with the campaign as a senior adviser. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-replaces-campaign-manager-brad-parscale

Trump Called 'Cancel Culture' the Definition of Totalitarianism. But He's Tried to Cancel All These People and Businesses. Trump has a long history of calling for the firing or boycotting of anyone he doesn't like. Here are more than 50 examples. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3eyge/trump-called-cancel-culture-the-definition-of-totalitarianism-but-hes-tried-to-cancel-all-these-people-and-businesses

Trump, archived July 14, 2020

Trump's New Hampshire rally was canceled because of low attendance fears, say advisers. The Trump campaign canceled the president's planned rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire because of concerns that COVID-19 fears and a forecasted thunderstorm would lead to low attendance, people close to the campaign told NBC News. In its statement, the Trump campaign announcing the rally was being called off blamed a forecasted thunderstorm in the area and "safety reasons" for the decision. But officials told NBC that it was one of several factors that the campaign feared would lead to low attendance at the event, prompting the cancellation. "It's the perfect timing. The weather may have been dissuading people to attend, but many weren't coming to begin with because of the virus," an outside campaign adviser told the outlet. https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-new-hampshire-rally-cancelled-over-attendance-fears-report-2020-7

Twelve signs Trump would try to run a fascist dictatorship in a second term. “The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tweeted. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) — noting in an opinion column three days later that the president’s “attempt to use chaos to shred democratic safeguards and consolidate authoritarian power is deadly serious” — put it this way: “This is our own Reichstag fire and, yes, Trump is playing the role of would-be Fuehrer, proclaiming a ‘God-given signal’ to seize more power.” I first reported on Trump in 1982, when he conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 rich list. That Trump was just a younger version of this Trump, and now I worry that what happened in June was a mere prelude; he’s certainly capable of a far worse Reichstag-fire-like event that would allow him to steal the 2020 election. And if he does win a second term, legitimately or not, his words and actions of the past four years provide 12 indicators that he would seek to replace our democracy with a fascist dictatorship. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/fascist-dictatorship-trump-second-term/2020/07/10/63fdd938-c166-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html

Trump criticizes NASCAR ban on Confederate flags and attacks Black driver, NFL and MLB teams. The president’s tweet comes as Trump has embraced culture wars in an effort to revive his reelection prospects. “Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?” Trump wrote on Twitter. “That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/06/trump-nascar-bubba-wallace-confederate-flag-349730

Trump is going all in on divisive culture wars. That might not work this time. Trump’s Independence Day fear-mongering about “far-left fascism” shows he doesn’t get his own base. https://www.vox.com/2020/7/5/21313762/trump-mount-rushmore-speech-independence-day#

Trump returns to polarizing themes in Fourth of July address. President Donald Trump on Saturday railed against protesters, China and the media in an address marking America's Independence Day — typically a non-partisan celebration of national unity. Trump, whose address largely mimicked the tone of his stump speeches, continued his attacks on protesters he said are “lying” about American history by calling for the removal of statues and memorials celebrating slaveholders and colonial and Confederate figures. And similar to his speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday, Trump pledged to defend American monuments and the country’s “rich heritage.” “We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children or trample on our freedoms,” the president said, assailing protesters as “anarchist agitators” who “have absolutely no clue what they are doing.” Trump devoted a portion of his address to rail at the media, which he claimed without evidence “falsely and consistently label their opponents as racists.” “When you level these false charges, you not only slander me, you not only slander the American people, but you slander generations of heroes who gave their lives for America,” Trump said. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/04/trump-july-4-address-348807

The Five Most Outrageous Things Trump Said at Mt. Rushmore. On Friday night, the eve of July 4th, President Trump used another one of his incendiary campaign rallies to stoke the flames of a culture war. In his remarks at the foot of Mount Rushmore, Trump bashed a so-called “left-wing cultural revolution” and “new far-left fascism” while delivering lines that would have been virtually indistinguishable from a script for Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. Here’s are some the most absurd, explosive, and outrageous things he said during the speech:

  1. There is a “new far-left fascism” in “corporate boardrooms.”
  2. He wants 10-year prison minimums for anyone who defaces statues.
  3. “The great Andrew Jackson.”
  4. He stoked the culture war by railing against a “left-wing cultural revolution.”
  5. He didn’t even mention the coronavirus. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/the-five-most-outrageous-things-trump-said-at-mt-rushmore/

Trump celebrates July Fourth at Mount Rushmore. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-denounces-statue-toppling-during-july-fourth-celebration-mount-rushmore-n1232893

Eric Trump Deletes Tweet After Getting A Savage Reminder About His Father. Trump, a son of President Donald Trump, shared an image of former President Bill Clinton at the 2010 wedding of his daughter, Chelsea. Circled in the background was Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of late pedophile sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She was arrested Thursday. “Birds of a feather,” Trump wrote as he shared the image. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/eric-trump-ghislaine-maxwell-040717597.html

Every Version of the Russian Bounties Story Looks Terrible for Trump. No matter what the president knew, and when he knew it, this is inexcusable. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/russian-bounties-trump-intel.html

Trump rally youth: 'Aunt Jemima was canceled… She was the picture of the American dream'. You never know what sort of racist gobbledygook is gonna splurt out of the mouth of Donald Trump and his human props. https://boingboing.net/2020/06/23/trump-rally-youth-aunt-jem.html Trump uses racist 'Kung Flu' slur against Asians again, was 'coronavirus' too many syllables? On the day he gave this speech, 120,000 Americans have died of coronavirus. But he can't seem to say the word. Impeached and obviously unfit United States President Donald “Is it brain disease or Adderall?” Trump uses the term “Kung Flu” again, and says “COVID, COVID-19, COVID, I said what’s the 19. COVID-19, some people can’t explain the 19.” https://boingboing.net/2020/06/23/trump-uses-racist-kung-flu.html

Every once in a while, however, someone is able to break through the clutter -- and nail exactly what it is that makes Trump so unorthodox as president. Over the weekend, Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain's 2008 campaign for president, was that person in an interview on MSNBC. "Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don't say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness. "When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities. "It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk." https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/23/politics/steve-schmidt-donald-trump/index.html

Here’s Trump Trashing 12 Of His “Best People” Who Then Spoke Out Against Him. From Jeff Sessions to John Bolton, the president has insisted he only hires "the best people." He tends to change his mind and insult them when they leave. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/trump-praise-staff-criticize-bolton-sessions-mattis-kelly

After his Tulsa fizzle, Trump's Arizona rally is a disaster waiting to happen. Size matters to this president and after Saturday’s humiliation, Trump will be looking to Arizona to help him relaunch his faltering campaign. Doesn’t even matter that Trump will speaking not in an arena but a 3,000-seat north Phoenix church. Gov. Doug Ducey is on the list of Arizonans who will be special guests at the Students for Trump event, as are Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar. Curiously not on the list: Sen. Martha McSally, who is badly trailing in the polls to Democrat Mark Kelly. Meanwhile, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego has demonstrated similar spinal deficiencies as Ducey, telling reports on Sunday that the city won't be enforcing its mask requirement at Trump's event. “We are not going to be focused on enforcement during the rally,” Gallego told CNN. https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/2020/06/22/trump-rally-phoenix-disaster-making-coronavirus-darned/3235937001/

How Trump rallygoers explain Black Lives Matter protests to their children. As police cars surged down Boulder Avenue with sirens blaring, Joshua Brown, 12, hawked an assortment of flags rising from a cart on the sidewalk with his father, Jeff Brown, 56. One flag depicted Trump as a sleeveless soldier carrying a blazing machine gun, similar to Rambo. Another read, “Trump 2020: Make Liberals Cry Again.” The best seller of the night: an Oklahoma flag with the Osage Nation buffalo-skin shield mashed up with the Confederate flag. “We’re capitalists,” the elder Brown said. “We offend everybody equally.” He said he once believed the Confederate flag represented slavery, though his thinking has evolved. “I have since learned a lot of other variations of the history,” he said. “I think that it’s allowed for people to have their own interpretations from their family and their experience.” “But Joshua’s going to have to form his own opinions,” Brown said. “In our family, we use our brains.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/we-dont-see-color-trump-rallygoers-explain-black-lives-matter-protests-to-their-children/2020/06/21/79ee890c-b40c-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html

Trump supporters, protesters face off outside Oklahoma rally. Trump campaign officials said protesters prevented the president's supporters from entering the stadium. Three Associated Press journalists reporting in Tulsa for several hours leading up to the president's speaking did not see protesters block entry to the area where the rally was held. Hundreds of demonstrators flooded the city's downtown streets and blocked traffic at times, but police reported just a handful of arrests. Many of the marchers chanted, and some occasionally got into shouting matches with Trump supporters, who outnumbered them and yelled, "All lives matter." Later in the evening, a group of armed men began following the protesters. When the protesters blocked an intersection, a man wearing a Trump shirt got out of a truck and spattered them with pepper spray. A woman who was arrested on live television was seen sitting cross-legged on the ground in peaceful protest when officers pulled her away by the arms and later put her in handcuffs. She said her name was Sheila Buck and that she was from Tulsa. Police said in a news release the officers tried for several minutes to talk Buck into leaving and that she was taken into custody for obstruction after the Trump campaign asked police to remove her from the area. Buck was wearing a T-shirt that said "I Can't Breathe" — the dying words of George Floyd, whose death has inspired a global push for racial justice. She said she had a ticket to the Trump rally and was told she was being arrested for trespassing. She said she was not part of any organized group. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-supporters-protesters-face-off-outside-oklahoma-rally-1.634578

Trump supporters were scared off from rally, adviser says. Trump campaign adviser Mercedes Schlapp said Sunday that protesters created a hostile environment and blocked supporters from attending the president's Saturday evening rally, though reporters on the ground said they saw no such altercations. Speaking with “Fox News Sunday“ host Chris Wallace, Schlapp said families were scared to bring their children to the Tulsa, Okla., rally and that attendees were unable to get to the stadium where Trump was speaking. "There were protesters who blocked the paths, and so we saw that have an impact in terms of people coming to the rally," Schlapp said. "But what was amazing, Chris, was the fact that over 5.3 million people watched it on all of our digital media channels.” Reporters who were at the rally said attendees had no difficulty getting into the venue. Six staffers at the Trump rally tested positive for coronavirus in the hours before the event. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/21/trump-adviser-tulsa-rally-attendance-331556

Dejected President Trump takes The walk of shame returning to the Whitehouse. https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1274690372929818625

OVERNIGHT: Defeated President Trump returns to Joint Base Andrews from Tulsa. He is holding a 'Make America Great Again' hat. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1274701102374629376

Trump Defended His Ability To Walk Down A Ramp At His First Rally During The Pandemic. Trump took 14 minutes of his campaign rally in Tulsa, where COVID-19 rates are on the rise, to insist he can walk down a ramp and drink water out of a cup. President Donald Trump spent more than 10 minutes bragging about his ability to walk down a ramp and drink water out of a glass during his Saturday campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where COVID-19 infection rates are on the rise. The rally billed by the president's reelection campaign as a massive relaunch was instead marked by empty seats and familiar discursions. Ramps, though, have become a new fixation. "Anyway, that's a long story," Trump said after about 14 minutes of explaining what happened when he walked down a ramp after his speech to graduates at West Point the week before. "But here's the story. More the ramp than the water, but I have lived with the ramp and the water since I left West Point." Trump insisted in Tulsa that the conditions at West Point — namely the sun, the fatigue of saluting 600 cadets, and his leather shoes — were to blame for the viral video clips. About 13 minutes into his story, the president drank from a glass of water and was met with chants of "four more years" from a crowd far smaller than his campaign had advertised. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mattberman/trump-tulsa-rally-ramp

Six Trump campaign staffers working on Tulsa rally test positive for coronavirus. Just hours before the President is expected to arrive in the state, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement that "per safety protocols, campaign staff are tested for COVID-19 before events. Six members of the advance team tested positive out of hundreds of tests performed, and quarantine procedures were immediately implemented." "No COVID-positive staffers or anyone in immediate contact will be at today's rally or near attendees and elected officials," he said. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/20/politics/trump-campaign-staffers/index.html

Trump rally: President and Pence drop plans to address outdoor Tulsa crowds amid reports of low attendance https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/trump-rally-speech-tonight-tulsa-mike-pence-oklahoma-a9577556.html

Trump prepares for first campaign rally in months in Tulsa amid concerns about coronavirus, violence. President Trump on Saturday will head to Tulsa, Oklahoma to address what is likely to be a packed rally of supporters -- despite objections from local officials about the potential spread of the coronavirus, and fears that violence could break out as protesters as well as supporters flock to the event. https://fxn.ws/2NhkUKc

The autocracy of Donald J. Trump from the Washington Post. By Ann Telnaes JUNE 19, 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/19/autocracy-donald-j-trump/

The 7 most disturbing allegations about Trump in John Bolton’s forthcoming book. What we’ve learned from the flurry of excerpts released Wednesday. Trump had some issues with the Constitution. Bolton claims in the book that Trump told China’s Xi that Americans wanted him to get rid of the two-term limit imposed on presidents by the US Constitution. Bolton also claims that Trump, apparently mad about leaks to the media coming from inside his administration, complained in 2019 that journalists should be jailed. Bolton says Trump said: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags.” https://www.vox.com/2020/6/17/21294680/john-bolton-book-excerpts-trump-ukraine-china

Bolton, in book, accuses Trump of 'obstruction of justice as a way of life,' asking China's Xi for 2020 help. Former national security adviser John Bolton alleges in his upcoming 592-page memoir that President Trump regularly gives "personal favors to dictators he liked," backed the idea of more concentration camps in China, and asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him in the 2020 election, according to excerpts obtained and published by several media outlets. Meanwhile, the Justice Department wants a federal court to issue an order to Bolton “to notify his publisher that he was not authorized to disclose 'The Room Where It Happened.’" Bolton attorney Charles Cooper responded Tuesday night: “We are reviewing the government’s complaint, and will respond in due course.” The Trump administration has long contended that a manuscript of Bolton’s memoir contained classified information, but that the way the material was woven into the narrative would make a traditional “scrub” impossible. Sources told Fox News the classified information was “part and parcel” of the entire storyline. The memoir has been expected to claim that Trump’s “transgressions” went well beyond the Ukraine saga that led to his impeachment and alleged that “reelection calculations” drove the president’s major decisions, according to a press release for the book. “This is the book Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read,” the release stated. “Drawn from his personal participation in key events, and filled with perspective and humor, Bolton covers an array of topics -- chaos in the White House, sure, but also assessments of major players, the president’s inconsistent, scattershot decision-making process, and his dealings with allies and enemies alike, from China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Iran, the UK, France and Germany,” the book's publisher said in a statement. Fox News' John Roberts and Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report. https://fxn.ws/2Y7MvUi

I spoke to doctors and people close to Trump this week. We're right to worry about his health. Dr James Merikangas, a board-certified neurologist and clinical professor of neuropsychiatry, said he immediately noticed problems with Trump’s movements when he saw the video of the president descending a ramp. “I predict when all this is over, we're going to find out that there have been some health scares and some medical issues that will pop our f**king eyes out,” he said. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-health-ramp-walk-water-white-house-doctors-a9569531.html

At a Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday, President Trump told veterans and guests that they shouldn't believe what they're reading about his administration or seeing on the news. "Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening," Trump said. "Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news." https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/donald-trump-vfw-speech-kansas-city-what-youre-seeing-reading-not-whats-happening-20180724.html

THE SILENT MAJORITY IS STRONGER THAN EVER!!! Reeling from a CNN poll showing him trailing former vice president Joe Biden by 14 points, President Trump on Sunday and Monday resuscitated a core argument he made during the 2016 campaign. He’s supported by more than half of the country, Trump insists — but some of those supporters refuse to tell anyone about it. What’s remarkable about this claim isn’t only that it lacks any evidence. What’s remarkable is that Trump has never, on any metric, demonstrated any actual majority support. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/15/trump-has-never-had-majority-any-kind-silent-or-not/

Analysis: As US Reckons Over Race, Trump Becomes a Bystander. He wasn’t in the pews of churches in Minneapolis or Houston to memorialize George Floyd, the black man whose death sparked protests across the country. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the ways Floyd’s death during a police arrest has shaken the conscience of millions of Americans of all races. And he’s dismissed the notion of systemic racism in law enforcement, repeatedly putting himself firmly on the side of the police over protesters. To some of the president's critics, Trump's rhetoric, the policies he has sought to implement in office, and the very fact of his election are central to the discussions over racism that are coursing through the country. Trump, who notably talked about there being “good people on both sides” of a clash between white supremacists and counter protesters during 2017 demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, has indeed appeared to embolden racist elements in America, though he has said he disavows white supremacists. White House advisers have grappled with the president’s role in this moment, particularly given that so many of the statements he has made following Floyd’s death have only escalated tensions, including his threats to send the military into states to quell protests. Some aides contemplated a national address on race, but felt there was little the president could say of consequence in this moment. “An address that demonstrated empathy, compassion, listening, conciliation, a way forward ... that wouldn’t be too late at all,” said Meena Bose, a presidential historian at Hofstra University. “A speech that doesn’t do that is maybe worse than no speech at all.” Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, said a phone call from the president was “very brief” and the president “didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak.” Philonise Floyd praised a separate phone call he had with Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who also met with the Floyd family in person and recorded a video message that played at Tuesday’s funeral service. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/president-trump/analysis-as-us-reckons-over-race-trump-becomes-a-bystander/2344893/

Former Trump adviser Jason Miller to join reelection campaign. Former Trump campaign aide Jason Miller is joining the president's reelection bid, a campaign official confirmed to The Hill on Friday. Miller served as a top adviser to the president during Trump's 2016 campaign and went on to work as the spokesman for the presidential transition. He is expected to focus on overall strategy in his new role. Miller has in recent months had a prominent role among conservatives as a co-host of War Room, which started as a radio broadcast alongside former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon. It was meant to serve as an outside defense of the president during the impeachment trial. The show has since shifted its focus to the coronavirus pandemic. He has previously advised Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) presidential campaign and former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R). A.J. Delgado, a former Trump campaign senior adviser whose affair with then-co-worker Miller produced a child, alleged in court documents obtained by Splinter that Miller had another affair with a woman he met in a strip club. Court documents claimed once Miller learned the unknown woman was pregnant, he slipped her an abortion pill without her knowledge, which allegedly led to the termination of the pregnancy. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/501395-former-trump-adviser-jason-miller-to-join-reelection-campaign

George Conway group targets Trump over 'blatant racism' in new ad. The one-minute spot, titled “Flag of Treason,” accuses Trump of turning a blind eye to use of Confederate iconography in support of him. “The men who followed this flag 150 years ago knew what it meant — treason against their country. The death of the United States,” the spot’s narrator says over images of the Confederate flag and numerous Confederate generals. “America defeated the men who followed that flag. Those with honor surrendered and cast it aside forever. So why does it keep showing up today at events supporting Donald Trump?” “President Trump’s co-opting of the Confederate Flag and relationships with known white nationalists like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon and David Duke shows his true beliefs,” The Lincoln Project said in a statement. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/500428-george-conway-group-targets-trump-over-blatant-racism-in-new-ad

Trump campaign taps new deputy campaign manager. The campaign has also promoted Stephanie Alexander, a regional director for the campaign, to chief of staff. “Bill Stepien and Stephanie Alexander bring decades of experience in political campaigns and also relentless dedication to President Trump and all that he aims to accomplish for the American people,” Parscale said in a statement. “As we enter the most important stretch of the campaign, it is important to have seasoned and steady people on our leadership team, each with their own strengths, and each with an unwavering focus on victory. Bill and Stephanie are already respected by everyone on Team Trump and I look forward to their assistance as we lead the team toward President Trump’s re-election in November," he added. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/499510-trump-campaign-taps-new-deputy-campaign-manager https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-chief-of-staff-charged-with-campaign-finance-violations-2020-5

Trump faced fierce backlash for his praise of Henry Ford -- an influential anti-Semitic figure admired by Hitler -- as having "good bloodlines." The founder of Ford Motor Co. helped spread deeply anti-Semitic rhetoric and was considered by Hitler to be an inspiration. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-henry-ford-good-bloodlines_n_5ec70aecc5b63a1f62e49030 https://www.wonkette.com/donald-trump-henry-ford-good-bloodlines

'Obamagate' backfires: Documents show Biden, Obama acted properly. the evidence is abundantly clear: Obama — unlike Trump — was adamant about staying out of the FBI’s investigation into Flynn. Trump’s future acting attorney general remembered then-President Obama saying that he “did not want any additional information” on Flynn’s case. Even more to the point, Obama’s national security adviser noted that Obama was “not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective” regarding the Flynn probe. Instead, Obama told the FBI to proceed “by the book.” Obama, in essence, kept a wall of separation between the FBI and the presidency — as there should be. And just like that, unhinged conspiracy theories of a nefarious Obama-led, anti-Trump plot melt away. https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/498494-obamagate-backfires-documents-show-biden-obama-acted-properly

President Trump called Barack Obama a "grossly incompetent" president after Obama criticized U.S. officials' handling of the coronavirus crisis. The president claimed he hadn’t heard his predecessor’s remarks criticizing U.S. leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, however, repeatedly attacked Obama throughout his eight years in office, and has continued to do so since winning the 2016 election. Most recently, Trump has been obsessed with pushing the “Obamagate” conspiracy theory, claiming — without evidence — that Obama led a “coup” to sabotage his presidency. When a Washington Post reporter last week asked Trump to explain “Obamagate,” the president refused. “You know what the crime is,” Trump said. “The crime is obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-barack-obama-commencement-response_n_5ec18a70c5b6ccfb5fa319ca

Trump Loses His Mother’s Day Mind Topping 100 Twitter Shares So Far. Trump’s tweet binge included a subtle: “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!” message, blasting former president Obama and at least 100 more. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-loses-his-mothers-day-mind-topping-100-twitter-shares-997123/ via @RollingStone

A record number hold a strong opinion of Trump. Right now, most voters feel very strongly about Trump. We can see this in polls which ask voters whether they have a strongly favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or strongly unfavorable view of him. If you average polls from late March onward from Grinnell College/Selzer and Company, Fox News and Monmouth University, 27% of voters have a very favorable view of Trump and 42% have a very unfavorable view of him. All told, 69% of voters have either a strongly favorable or unfavorable view of the President. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/09/politics/trump-favorable-vs-unfavorable-opinion/index.html

Trump on 'Noble' Prize tweets: 'Does sarcasm ever work?' I said to my wife just now, "This guy confused the Nobel Prize with the Pulitzer, misspelled it and then misspelled Hamburger" and without missing a beat she said, "Trump right?" He's so dumb that he is instantly recognized when someone does something so dumb. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494748-trump-on-noble-prize-tweets-does-sarcasm-ever-work

Trump, archived Sunday, April 26, 2020

Home Alone at the White House: A Sour President, With TV His Constant Companion. As his administration grapples with reopening the economy and responding to the coronavirus crisis, President Trump worries about his re-election and how the news media is portraying him. Hope Hicks, a former communications director who rejoined the White House this year as counselor to the president, maintains his daily schedule. His former personal assistant, Johnny McEntee, now runs presidential personnel. Ms. Hicks and Mr. McEntee, along with Dan Scavino, the president’s social media guru who was promoted this week to deputy chief of staff for communications, provide Mr. Trump with a link to the better old days. The three are the ones outside advisers get in touch with to find out if it’s a good time to reach the president or pass on a message. Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s new chief of staff, is still finding his footing and adjusting to the nocturnal habits of Mr. Trump, who recently placed a call to Mr. Meadows, a senior administration official said, at 3:19 a.m. Mr. Meadows works closely with another trusted insider: Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and de facto chief of staff. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/politics/coronavirus-trump.html

New Polls in 5 Swing States Are Looking Scary for Trump. Voters in state after state say they trust their own governors a lot more than the president to decide how to handle the novel coronavirus. Trump narrowly won Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to pull off his 2016 victory, but he’s trailing in all five states right now, according to a number of polls released in the past 24 hours. And if he loses them, he’ll lose a second term in office. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dm7kq/new-polls-in-5-swing-states-are-looking-scary-for-trump

Liberal Karofsky wins Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. Dane County Circuit Judge Jill Karofsky defeated conservative Justice Dan Kelly to win a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in results released Monday from last week’s chaotic spring election. The race was officially nonpartisan, but the high court has become heavily politicized in recent years. Liberal groups poured more than $2.4 million into the race for Karofsky, while conservatives spent more than $2.5 million for Kelly — who also drew President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Karofsky’s victory narrows the court’s conservative majority to 4-3 and gives liberals a shot at seizing control when the next seat comes open in 2023. https://www.wsaw.com/content/news/Results-expected-in-bitter-Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-race-569603281.html

The briefings aren’t working: Trump’s approval rating takes a dip. Views of Trump’s coronavirus response are now breaking down along familiar lines of polarization. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/08/trump-approval-ratings-coronavirus-176105 via @politico

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Fred Guttenberg @fred_guttenberg Remember this @marcorubio? "For years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media & voters at large that are gonna be having to explain & justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Trump, because this is not gonna end well." VIDEO https://twitter.com/fred_guttenberg/status/1244311313922363394

Trump just comes out and says it: The GOP is hurt when it’s easier to vote. Trump, on expanding voting: “They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-voting-republicans/

Donald, I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to beat you and save our democracy. — Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) https://twitter.com/TomSteyer/status/1233997567286861825 >March 1, 2020
I would find it hard to believe that failed presidential candidates Tom Steyer, or Mini Mike Bloombeg, would contribute to the Democrat Party, even against me, after the way they have been treated - laughed at & mocked. The real politicians ate them up and spit them out! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Crazy, chaotic Democrat Debate last night. Fake News said Biden did well, even though he said half of our population was shot to death. Would be OVER for most. Mini Mike was weak and unsteady, but helped greatly by his many commercials (which are not supposed to be allowed....during a debate). Pocahontas was mean, & undisciplined, mostly aiming at Crazy Bernie and Mini Mike. They don’t know how to handle her, but I know she is a “chocker”. Steyer was a disaster who, along with Mini, are setting records in $’s per vote. Just give me an opponent! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232657640515342336 February 26, 2020

Trump mad that U.S. intel briefed lawmakers on Russian military attack on 2020 elections https://boingboing.net/2020/02/20/u-s-intelligence-briefed-lawm.html

READ: President Trump's State of the Union address February 04, 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/481564-read-president-trumps-state-of-the-union-address

Demolishing the Trump campaign's holiday guide to debating liberal 'snowflakes' https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/476005-demolishing-the-trump-campaigns-holiday-guide-to-debating-liberal-snowflakes

Trump Thinks Supporters Need Website to School ‘Liberal Snowflakes’ at Christmas. “This year, don’t let them get away with it,” Trump’s campaign manager tweeted. The site also wants Trump supporters to know that they understand how tough they have it, especially this time of year, writing, “Holidays are rough – especially when Democrats and liberal members of your family try and tell you fake news media spun lies about President Trump and his accomplishments.” The site reminds supporters that although there will be good times during their visits with family and friends, liberals in denial of Trump’s greatness will always be around to spoil things, writing, “Family holidays. Full of love. Full of laughter. And full of the inevitable conversations with the family liberal who just does not want to believe how great America is doing with President Trump in office.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-campaign-site-school-liberal-snowflakes-who-run-and-hide-during-christmas-argument-931216/ via @RollingStone

Trump campaign encourages supporters to confront their ‘snowflake’ relatives. A new website is intended to help his fans triumph in holiday arguments. “We know that at Christmas and holiday time, there’s always that liberal snowflake relative who starts an argument and then runs and hides,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted. “This year, don’t let them get away with it.” "Nothing says Merry Christmas like hurling insults at relatives," responded former DNC spokesman Mo Elleithee. https://politi.co/35QQcPA via @pol

Trump campaign plagued by groups raising tens of millions in his name. Outside entities are raising huge money in Trump's name, despite disavowals from the campaign, and spending little of it on 2020. The groups mimic Trump’s brand in the way they look and feel. They borrow the president’s Twitter avatar on Facebook pages, use clips of Trump’s voice in robocalls asking for “an emergency contribution to the campaign” and, in some cases, have been affiliated with former Trump aides, such as onetime deputy campaign manager David Bossie. But most are spending little money to help the president win in 2020, POLITICO found. https://politi.co/36ZeMOq via @politico

Trump has concluded his longest rally speech ever, which was also one of most bitter and most rambling. Tweet thread here: Trump is holding a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan. Quotes and fact checks in this thread. — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1207447789237624832 December 18, 2019

Trump on removal of protester at rally: 'We don't want to be politically correct'. Trump became noticeably frustrated after a woman wearing a black knit "#MeToo" hat and carrying a "grabbing power back" sign disrupted his speech. After stepping a way from the lectern, Trump returned to microphone and repeatedly stated, "get her out." Video shared on social media showed the woman walking around in circles and shouting as a security guard tried to contain her. Security eventually escorted her out of the arena. Footage showed one rally attendee attempting to snatch her sign as she neared an exit. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474012-trump-on-removal-of-protester-at-rally-we-dont-want-to-be

Trump in a landslide? This historically accurate model predicts exactly that. According to Moody’s Analytics, Trump is headed toward another four years in the White House. And, if the numbers are right, it won’t even be close. In fact, his Electoral College victory could very well be wider than the 304-227 margin he enjoyed over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Since 1980, Moody’s has managed to nail the outcome every time but once — like many, it didn’t see Trump coming. “Under the current Moody’s Analytics baseline economic outlook, which does not forecast any recession, the 2020 election looks like Trump’s to lose,” the authors wrote. “Democrats can still win if they are able to turn out the vote at record levels, but, under normal turnout conditions, the president is projected to win.” https://on.mktw.net/31jJcHO

Raw, angry, uncensored: Welcome to Trump's impeachment-era campaign. The president's latest rallies show a bare-knuckled approach the likes of which voters have never seen before. https://politi.co/31dtf6h via @politico

Trump campaign 'still hasn't paid security bills for rallies to at least six cities'. Events racked up more than $600,000 in outstanding bills for security and city services. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-rally-security-bills-minneapolis-cities-events-a9152391.html

Unpaid bills pile up in Trump rallies’ wake. Cities across the country say the president’s campaign has failed to reimburse them for law enforcement costs. https://politi.co/2p1B6Gs via @politico

'Welcome to Minneapolis': Trump rally roils liberal bastion, October 09, 2019 Trump traded Twitter insults with the Minneapolis mayor over who should pay more than $500,000 in security costs for Thursday’s rally at a downtown arena. He denounced Jacob Frey as a “Radical Left” lightweight and blasted the Democrat for a police policy banning officers from wearing their uniforms in support of political candidates. He sprinkled in a reference to his favorite foil — the city’s Rep. Ilhan Omar — just for good measure. “Yawn,” Frey tweeted back. “Welcome to Minneapolis where we pay our bills, we govern with integrity, and we love all of our neighbors.” It was just a warmup to Trump’s first campaign rally since being engulfed in the swirl of an impeachment investigation, an event expected to pack an extra punch. Heading to Omar’s home turf, a liberal outpost in the Midwest, Trump quickly stirred up passions and partisanship as few politicians can. https://apnews.com/3bec9d8af91149e7889e0cd21515aa1a

Unpaid bills pile up in Trump rallies’ wake. In city after city, across the nation, Trump has failed to pay local officials who provide thousands of dollars’ worth of security assistance to the president’s campaign during his Make America Great Again rallies. https://politi.co/2p1B6Gs via @politico

Donald Trump's Minneapolis rally to be met with mass protests: "'America First' is a racist lie" Members from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Anti-War Committee, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union will hold demonstrate against Trump's political rally in a protest at the Target Center from 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 10. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-minneapolis-rally-protest-minnesota-1463755

Trump re-election campaign targeted by Iran-linked hackers: sources https://reut.rs/2pOmP0p

‘The ground is shifting’: Arizona emerges as a 2020 trouble spot for Trump https://politi.co/2Ie9nce via @politico

At the California GOP convention this weekend President Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters that he believes “the Trumps will be a dynasty that lasts for decades. I think they’re all amazing people,” Brad Parscale said of Don Jr., Ivanka and Jared. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-trumps-will-be-a-dynasty-881447/ via @RollingStone

Think Trump Can’t Win In 2020? These Bikers Want To Change That. In the chaos of the 2016 election, Chris Cox forged a political machine out of an unlikely demographic — one that helped Trump reach the White House and is determined to keep him there. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jamespogue/bikers-for-trump-2020-campaign via @jhensonpogue

A crowd of dozens turned out for the president's son and Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jr-saddest-rally_n_5d68ab82e4b0488c0d122731

Trump 2020 press secretary: President has never lied to American people. President Donald Trump’s campaign press secretary got into a heated debate with CNN’s Chris Cuomo last night when she said she does not believe the president has ever told a lie. Leaving Cuomo stunned, Kayleigh McEnany said firmly and repeatedly that President Donald Trump 'doesn’t lie. The press lies.” “You don’t think this president has lied to the American people?” Cuomo pressed McEnany. “Let me finish, Chris.” McEnany said as the two talked over each other. “No, I don’t think the president has lied.” https://news.yahoo.com/trump-2020-press-secretary-president-150401960.html

This is the reporting that set Trump off August 28, 2019: 2020 Democratic hopefuls are down to the wire to meet the requirements to take the stage at the third debate Xochitl Hinojosa https://video.foxnews.com/v/6078446566001/

It appears to be the latest chapter in efforts to discredit news organizations. As the 2020 election heats up, President Donald Trump is reportedly getting a little help from a loose network of allies to target journalists who may write critical stories. In what appears to be the latest chapter of efforts by President Donald Trump’s allies to attack the messenger, the New York Times reports that conservative activists have compiled “dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at some of the country’s most prominent news organizations.” The group has already released some of the information but those familiar with the effort say that is only a small part of what they have on file, ready to release whenever it is convenient. And it isn’t just journalists who may be targeted, but also their family members. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/trump-allies-network-smear-journalists-dossiers-embarrassing.html via @slate

Trump mocks appearance of rally protester: 'That guy's got a serious weight problem'. "That guy’s got a serious weight problem. Go home, start exercising," Trump said as the individual who interrupted Trump's speech was escorted out of the arena. "Get him out of here please. Got a bigger problem than I do,” Trump quipped. “Got a bigger problem than all of us. Now he goes home and his mom says, 'What the hell have you just done?'" Cameras showed multiple protesters being escorted out of the arena after the crowd began booing and chanting "U.S.A." The interruption came as Trump slammed Democrats, accusing them of demeaning law enforcement and describing their opponents as "fascists and Nazis." https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/457652-trump-mocks-appearance-of-protester-that-guys-got-a-serious-weight-problem

Scaramucci: GOP may need to replace Trump for 2020. "We are now in the early episodes of 'Chernobyl' on HBO, where the reactor is melting down and the apparatchiks are trying to figure out whether to cover it up or start the clean-up process," Scaramucci, who was ousted from his job after 11 days, told the outlet. "A couple more weeks like this and 'country over party' is going to require the Republicans to replace the top of the ticket in 2020." Scaramucci, a prominent Republican donor, said that if Trump "doesn't reform his behavior, it will not just be me, but many others will be considering helping to find a replacement in 2020." "Right now, it's an unspeakable thing," he continued. "But if he keeps it up, it will no longer be unspeakable. The minute they start speaking of it, it will circulate and be socialized. We can't afford a full nuclear contamination site post 2020." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/457050-scaramucci-gop-may-need-to-replace-trump-for-2020

Trump urges rally attendees not to chant 'send her back'; he also says Harris had 'bad' debate night. President Trump told reporters outside the White House on Thursday that he hopes attendees at his evening rally in Cincinnati don't chant about sending members of Congress back to their home countries -- but added that the situation might be beyond his control. Last month, a Trump rally in North Carolina led to a "send her back" chant directed at Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. Trump said the next day he disagreed with the chant, and was "not happy with it." "I don't know that you can stop people," Trump said. "We'll see what we can do. I'd prefer that they don't. But if they do it, we'll have to make a decision then." https://fxn.ws/2yvRSiE #FoxNews

I Played Trump in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Debate Prep. Here’s What It Takes to Beat Him. https://politi.co/2GDCyop

Why White Working-Class Women Are Starting to Turn on Trump. It could be the 17 sexual assault allegations. Maybe it’s the open racism. Whatever the case, the women of the white working class are starting to change the channel. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-white-working-class-women-are-starting-to-turn-on-trump

FBI Director Wray: Russia intent on interfering with U.S. elections https://reut.rs/2GqofUh

Two Unofficial US Operatives Reporting To Trump’s Lawyer Privately Lobbied A Foreign Government In A Bid To Help The President Win In 2020. Reporting directly to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, two operators waged a brazen back-channel campaign that could thrust another foreign country to the center of the next US election. In a whirlwind of private meetings, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican campaigns and dined with the president — gathered repeatedly with top officials in Ukraine and set up meetings for Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani as they turned up information that could be weaponized in the 2020 presidential race. The two men urged prosecutors to investigate allegations against Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden. And they pushed for a probe into accusations that Ukrainian officials plotted to rig the 2016 election in Hillary Clinton’s favor by leaking evidence against Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair, in what became a cornerstone of the special counsel’s inquiry. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikesallah/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump-parnas-fruman via @BuzzFeedNews

The Republican Party is the Party for ALL Americans. We are the Party of the American Worker, the American Family & the American Dream. This is the proud banner the Republican Party will carry into the Republican National Convention next summer in the great city of Charlotte, NC! Make America White Again! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1151668590359265280 July 18, 2019

Omar responds to 'send her back' chant with Maya Angelou quote. “You may shoot me with your words,/You may cut me with your eyes,/You may kill me with your hatefulness,/But still, like air, I’ll rise,” Omar tweeted Wednesday. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/453646-omar-responds-to-send-her-back-chant-with-maya-angelou-quote

‘Send her back’: Trump batters Dem congresswomen on campaign trail. Trump's racist tweets distill into a 2020 campaign rallying cry. https://politi.co/2LWWKoQ

Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, has described Donald Trump’s takeover of the Fourth of July celebrations in Washington as “a taxpayer-funded campaign ad.” Walter Shaub complained that taxpayer dollars had been co-opted “for the benefit of a man whose idea of public service is the public serving him.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-ethics-chief-donald-trump-july-4-party_n_5d2097a4e4b01b834737691f features Whitehouse video

Trump predicted to lose reelection in model that forecasted Democratic takeover of House https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/451218-trump-predicted-to-lose-reelection-in-model-that-forecast-dem-takeover-of

Jimmy Carter: Investigation would show Trump lost 2016 election https://news.yahoo.com/jimmy-carter-donald-trump-illegitimate-president-russia-154336913.html

How Trump could have terrible economic timing. Signs of a slowdown are mounting with weaker job growth, reduced manufacturing activity and a nervous Federal Reserve hinting at slashing interest rates — suggesting that Trump could suffer from terrible economic timing. https://politi.co/31QRCb7

Trump says “probably not” prepared to lose in 2020, doesn’t believe he lost popular vote. President Donald Trump said he isn’t prepared to lose the 2020 presidential election. In the interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired Sunday, Trump also said he does not believe the official vote count of the 2016 election, illustrating how losing the popular vote is still a sore subject for the president. “No. Probably not,” Trump said when asked whether he was “prepared to lose” in 2020. “It would be much better if I said, ‘Yeah.’ It would be much easier for me to say, ‘Oh yes.’ No I’m probably not too prepared to lose. I don’t like losing. I haven’t lost very much in my life.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/trump-not-prepared-lose-reelection-lost-popular-vote.html via @slate

Trump Delivers a 'Bizarro World' Re-Election Speech https://politi.co/2WSfFrj

Please Stop Thinking This Will Be a Fair Election. President Trump declared his willingness to betray the country, and Republicans are ready to help https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-abc-interview-foreign-interference-849062/ via @RollingStone

Trump Said He Would Accept Dirt On 2020 Election Opponents From A Foreign Government. While the president suggested he hadn't called the FBI in his "whole life," Trump has in fact reached out to the federal law enforcement agency. Most notably in 1981, he contacted the FBI before opening a casino in Atlantic City over concerns about organized crime in the city, and offered to "cooperate" with FBI agents. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/trump-says-he-would-accept-dirt-on-2020-election-opponents via @salhernandez

Chris Coons: Going forward, if a foreign adversary offers a presidential candidate dirt on a competitor, should they immediately turn it over to the FBI?
Bill Barr: [long pause before answering] — Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1123644534053851136 May 1, 2019

Trump says he would accept dirt on political rivals from foreign governments. President Donald Trump says he would listen if a foreign government approached him with damaging information about a political rival -- and wouldn't necessarily report the contact to the FBI. "I think you might want to listen, there isn't anything wrong with listening," Trump said in an interview with ABC News that aired on Wednesday. "I think I'd want to hear it," Trump went on, downplaying the idea such a move by another country would amount to election interference. Asked Wednesday whether he would take opposition research being peddled by another government, Trump said he likely would. "It's not an interference, they have information -- I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI -- if I thought there was something wrong." "I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of things over my life. I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the FBI. In my whole life. You don't call the FBI," he said. "You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do." "Life doesn't work that way," Trump said. @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2WFxLNi

Poll: 60 percent say Trump should not be reelected https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444972-poll-60-percent-say-trump-should-not-be-reelected

Trump hits Fox News for 'wasting airtime' with coverage of Buttigieg https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444483-trump-hits-fox-for-wasting-airtime-on-coverage-of-pete-buttigieg

‘It’s entirely inappropriate’: Trump shot a political video on Air Force One. Seated behind a desk on Air Force One, the presidential seal over his left shoulder, President Trump shot a short video Thursday, blasting New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s entry into the 2020 race. “If you like high taxes and if you like crime, you can vote for him — but most people aren’t into that,” the president said to the camera. Trump’s use of taxpayer-funded transportation to post a political message raises some legal and ethics questions. But possibly the greatest crime, some experts say, is the breakdown of norms. “It’s entirely inappropriate, and it is against historical norms for a president to be campaigning from Air Force One,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “Most presidents have had enough respect for the office to try to separate campaigning from formal duties. Donald Trump is not such a president.” https://wapo.st/2QdgGUr

Trump mocks rivals at official event. Speaking at a liquified natural gas facility near Lake Charles, La., Trump singled out former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Boy, you got some beauties there. Three hundred fifty million people and that’s the best we can do. I don’t think so,” he quipped. Past presidents generally refrained from injecting partisan politics into official White House events paid for with public funds, but Trump has frequently broken that norm during his time in office. The president joked about the dynamic last August when he noted how many reporters traveled with him to Charlotte, N.C., for a bill signing during the lead-up to the midterm elections, saying “it's like a political event and you don't even have to pay for it.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/443689-trump-mocks-rivals-at-official-event

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Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: Looks to me like it’s going to be SleepyCreepy Joe over Crazy Bernie. Everyone else is fading fast!

Analysis | Nancy Pelosi is worried Trump won’t give up power if he loses in 2020. He just underscored why. Trump tweeted Sunday that his first two years were “stolen” (actually, he originally said they were “stollen” before he fixed his tweet) by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. And he reposted an inaccuracy-filled message from one of his supporters, conservative leader Jerry Falwell Jr., saying two years should be added to Trump’s term because Trump and his orbit had been investigated by the special counsel for his first two. “Reparations” is what Falwell called it, an idea Trump appeared to endorse by sharing it with his 60 million Twitter followers and then expounding on why he felt he deserved more time in office than the Constitution allows. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/06/nancy-pelosi-is-worried-trump-wont-give-up-power-he-just-underscored-why/

Trump crackdown on ‘3 stooges of socialism’ has 2020 thrust. On the 58th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton addressed a group of Cuban American veterans of the failed effort to topple Fidel Castro's regime and announced a series of crackdowns on Cuba and its allies.It was part of a call to arms to fight socialism abroad, but it was also a message for domestic consumption — particularly in Florida, the nation’s largest swing state and home to large Cuban American and Central and South American communities. In all, Bolton announced seven crackdowns and sanctions targeting the governments in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which he referred to as the “troika of tyranny.” Bolton nicknamed Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega “the three stooges of socialism.” But he also mentioned former U.S. President Barack Obama, whose Cuba rapprochement policies Trump has been rolling back, more than anyone else. https://politi.co/2PhV7Bv

Trump campaign punishes Don McGahn's law firm. But close Trump advisers say the decision also stems from disappointment with the White House’s former top attorney and current Jones Day partner, Don McGahn, whose behavior has irked the president and some of his family members. Taking business away from Jones Day is payback, these advisers say, for McGahn’s soured relationship with the Trump family and a handful articles in high-profile newspapers that the family blames, unfairly or not, on the former White House counsel. https://politi.co/2GpvSte via @politico

Trump predicts 'Crazy Bernie Sanders,' 'Sleepy Joe Biden' will be 2 Dem 'finalists' in 2020 race. I believe it will be Crazy Bernie Sanders vs. Sleepy Joe Biden as the two finalists to run against maybe the best Economy in the history of our Country (and MANY other great things)! I look forward to facing whoever it may be. May God Rest Their Soul! https://fxn.ws/2Xg9klt #FoxNews

Trump claims supporters were kept out of Fox News's Bernie Sanders town hall https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439235-trump-claims-supporters-were-kept-out-of-fox-newss-bernie-sanders

Right-wing evangelicals are using Pete Buttigieg to attack progressive Christians http://mm4a.org/4bd

Warner Bros files copyright claim after Trump shares video with music from 'Dark Knight' https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/438163-warner-bros-files-copyright-claim-after-trump-tweets-out-2020-video

Advisers urge Trump to defer 2020 rallies. https://politi.co/2NPFhNK

Biden

Historians agree that many presidents in the past either had racist beliefs, implemented racist policies, or both. Donald Trump has made multiple racist or offensive statements. Multiple early presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, enslaved Black people. Andrew Jackson forced Native Americans from their lands, causing migrations in which many died. Andrew Johnson sought to undermine Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson, a Southerner with nostalgia for the antebellum South, re-segregated the federal government. Still others privately used racial slurs or believed whites were the superior race. The most obvious category would be presidents who personally enslaved people. Historians generally consider 10 of the first 12 presidents to fall into this category. (The exceptions were John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts.) Most of these presidents were born in the slavery-era South. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler were born in and represented Virginia. Andrew Jackson was born in South Carolina and represented Tennessee; Zachary Taylor, who owned 100 people, was born in Virginia and resided in Louisiana; and James K. Polk was born in North Carolina and resided in Tennessee. Martin Van Buren was from New York, where slavery lingered after formal abolition. A later president who enslaved people, Andrew Jackson, also worked for the forced relocations of Native Americans, during which many died. Lesser known presidents like Millard Fillmore have racist pasts, too. Though he was a New Yorker who didn’t enslave anyone, Fillmore "said absolutely horrible things about Black people," Finkelman said. Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which "made it possible to literally kidnap free black people in the North, bring them before a compliant federal commissioner, and drag them into slavery," Finkelman said. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/27/joe-biden/long-history-racism-us-presidency/

Biden returns to DC to say farewell to John Lewis. Biden salutes the late civil rights icon and longtime congressman. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-returns-to-dc-to-say-farewell-to-lewis

Biden cranks up contrast with Trump. The former veep is getting out of his Wilmington basement and attempting to project a ‘stable and steady’ approach. Donald Trump told governors they could look like weak ‘jerks’ if they don’t “dominate” protesters, and called for ‘retribution.’ Joe Biden held an event with big-city mayors grappling with violent unrest to talk about their needs and pledged police reforms. While Trump went to a secure bunker below the White House when protesters gathered outside over the weekend, Biden intentionally chose to take an opposite tack, meeting Sunday with demonstrators near his Delaware home. Biden’s campaign aides pledged to bail out jailed protesters; on Twitter, Trump warned protesters about the prospect of ‘ominous weapons’ and ‘the most vicious dogs.’ In response to the violence and chaos that has erupted in many cities after last week’s killing of a black man under the knee of white Minneapolis police officer, Trump has largely adopted a defiant tone, repeatedly calling for harsh measures against protesters. Biden, however, used the moment to leave his self-imposed coronavirus quarantine and call for reconciliation. On Sunday, he met with demonstrators on the streets of Wilmington. On Monday, he met with black leaders in a church there before holding a virtual roundtable with the mayors of Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, St. Paul and Minneapolis — some of whom have criticized the president for using inflammatory rhetoric. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/01/biden-trump-contrast-2020-295150

Biden finally nicknames Trump — ‘President Tweety’ https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/biden-finally-nicknames-trump.html

‘Manipulative, deceitful, user’: Tara Reade left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances. A number of those who crossed paths with Biden’s accuser say they remember two things: She spoke favorably about her time working for Biden, and she left them feeling duped. https://politi.co/2Z6WgTB via @politico

Tara Reade calls for Biden to drop out of presidential race. Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, says she hopes that he will end his campaign for the White House. In her first televised interview since Biden publicly denied the allegations, Reade told journalist Megyn Kelly that she believes Biden should end his campaign. “I wish he would, but he won’t,” Reade said. “But I wish he would. That’s how I feel emotionally.” https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/496675-tara-reade-calls-for-biden-to-drop-out-of-presidential-race

The agonizing story of Tara Reade. In April 2019, a woman named Tara Reade reached out to me with a clear, consistent story to tell about her experience as a staffer in Joe Biden’s Senate office in 1993. I spent hours on the phone with her, and many more tracking down possible witnesses and documents, trying to confirm her account. Reade told me that a senior aide told her Biden liked her legs and that he wanted her to serve cocktails at a fundraiser for him, a request she found demeaning and declined. When she later complained to others in the office that Biden would put his hands on her shoulder, neck, and hair during meetings in ways that made her uncomfortable, she says she was blamed and told to dress more conservatively. Within a few months, she said, her responsibilities had been stripped and she felt she was being pushed out of the job. She went back home to California deflated. Reade told me that she wanted me to think of this story as being about abuse of power, “but not sexual misconduct.” Her emphasis was on how she was treated in Biden’s office by Senate aides, who she said retaliated against her for complaining about how Biden touched her in meetings. “I don’t know if [Biden] knew why I left,” she said. “He barely knew us by name.” https://www.vox.com/2020/5/7/21248713/tara-reade-joe-biden-sexual-assault-accusation

Democratic Primary

Column: 50th Congressional District candidates differ on Trump's clemency orders. Ammar Campa-Najjar, Carl DeMaio, Brian Jones and Darrell Issa. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2020-02-23/column-50th-congressional-district-differ-on-trumps-pardons

Every Event Bernie Sanders Did For Hillary Clinton in 2016 at least 40 times. https://youtu.be/qUE1cHe9GLY

Kucinich endorses Gabbard's 2020 bid https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/475743-kucinich-endorses-gabbards-2020-bid

Tulsi Gabbard born April 12, 1981 is an American politician and Hawaii Army National Guard major serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. Elected in 2012, she is the first practicing Hindu and the first Samoan-American member of Congress. Gabbard's announcement of her intention to seek the Democratic nomination in the 2020 US presidential election made her the first female combat veteran to run for president. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard say that she doesn’t control the Russian bots that support her, but she did control the hiring of Chris Cooper, the smear campaigner who was paid by Natalia Veselnitskaya and her Russian backed sponsors to smear me and try to repeal the Magnitsky Act in DC — Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/1185836541295415297 October 20, 2019

“It’s time to hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable.’ “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election,” the ad reads. “You’re probably shocked, and you might be thinking, ‘how could this possibly be true?’ Well, it’s not. (Sorry.)” The ad then goes on to state that Zuckerberg has “given Donald Trump free rein to lie on his platform.” Although television networks usually reject ads with blatant falsehoods, “Facebook just cashes Trump’s checks.” The presidential hopeful then goes on to say that Facebook “already helped elect Donald Trump once” and is now “deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people. It’s time to hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/elizabeth-warren-trolls-facebook-ad-zuckerberg-supports-trump.html via @slate

Sarah Huckabee Sanders predicts Warren will be the Democratic nominee https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/463522-huckabee-sanders-predicts-warren-will-be-the-democratic-nominee

Why Gillibrand crashed and burned. A last-minute spending push in Iowa wasn’t enough. Al Franken didn’t help either. https://politi.co/30JZZEq

Democratic Party embraces nonreligious voters, criticizes 'religious liberty' in new resolution. In 2012, the last election Democrats won, a headline from the convention read: "Democrats boo God." In 2016, attendees heckled a preacher during the opening prayer. And on Saturday, Democrats took a shot at believers who use "religious liberty" to threaten the civil rights of LGBTQ Americans. https://fxn.ws/2ZAMB8y

Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren cross paths and hug in Iowa. https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sisterhood

Gingrich amazed by 'level of anger' from Warren, Sanders: It's the 'opposite' of how presidency is won. “I watched the first night. It was amazing the level of anger that you got out of both Bernie Sanders and Senator Warren. I mean, these are really angry people. It was kind of amazing to watch them,” Gingrich told "America’s Newsroom," reacting to the Democratic primary debates earlier this week. “It’s the opposite of how people normally win the presidency. You go back and you watch Barack Obama with a big smile, you watch Ronald Reagan with a big smile. I don’t remember us electing an angry president literally in my lifetime. And yet you had these people who were almost in a rage,” he said. https://fxn.ws/2LXkRUZ #FoxNews

The facts behind Gabbard and Biden's attack on Kamala Harris' prosecutor record. “I am proud of the work we did. Work that has received national recognition for what has been the important work of reforming a criminal justice system and cleaning up the consequences of the bills that you passed when you were in the United States Senate for decades,” she told Biden as she jabbed at him for his role as a senator from Delaware crafting the now controversial 1994 crime bill. https://fxn.ws/2LUe66o #FoxNews

Elizabeth Warren summed up the Democratic debate in 9 seconds. There was no Joe Biden. So John Delaney would have to do. By the 80th minute of Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, Elizabeth Warren had finally had enough. “I don’t understand,” she said, “why someone would go through all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to tell us what we can’t do and what you won’t fight for.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/elizabeth-warren-summed-up-the-democratic-debate-in-9-seconds/ via @MotherJones

Here's the Pete Buttigieg Interview a Country Radio Station Doesn't Want You to Hear https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/43jjv3/heres-the-pete-buttigieg-interview-a-country-radio-station-doesnt-want-you-to-hear

Kamala Harris Shuts Down Meghan McCain for Siding With Joe Biden. Meghan McCain tried to pull a “gotcha” moment on “The View,” and Kamala Harris wasn’t having any of it. “Well, you know what?” Harris continued. “We’re on a debate stage, and if you have not prepared and you’re not ready for somebody to point out a difference of opinion about the history of segregation in our country and what was necessary to deal with that, which at that time was busing, then you’re probably not ready.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-shuts-down-the-views-meghan-mccain-for-siding-with-joe-biden

Kamala Harris Lays Out Trump’s ‘Rap Sheet’ in Fiery Speech. “We have in this White House a president who says he wants to make America great again. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean he wants to take us back to before schools were integrated? Does that mean he wants to take us back to before the Voting Rights Act was enacted? Does that mean he wants to take us back before the Civil Rights Act was enacted? Does he mean he wants to take us back before Roe v. Wade was enacted? Because we’re not going back. We’re not going back,” Harris said forcefully. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kamala-harris-trumps-rap-sheet-851501/ via @RollingStone

California's Democratic Party Is in Chaos. The California Democratic Party has been united on at least one thing since the 2016 election: defeating Trump in 2020. But they’re in a state of chaos over their own party’s priorities, and that made this year’s party chair election particularly loaded — and heated. Since Republicans are few and far between in the state legislature, the state's Democrats keep busy battling amongst themselves, particularly on issues like single-payer healthcare and the merits of impeachment. Activist candidate Kimberly Ellis wanted to push the party further to the left — which is likely why she lost to labor leader Rusty Hicks on Saturday for the coveted position. Before the election Ellis had harsh words about the party infighting, calling it a “toxic culture” rife with abuse, bullying, harassment, and retaliation. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/zmpwqj/californias-democratic-party-is-in-chaos

“Democrats who have moved to the left are in tune with Democratic Party," the longtime GOP pollster says. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/frank-luntz-bernie-sanders-prediction_n_5cd8d5dfe4b0705e47de69db

Sanders town hall audience cheers after Fox News host asks if they'd support 'Medicare for All' https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/439027-sanders-townhall-audience-cheers-after-fox-news-host-asks-if-theyd-support

Sanders takes on Fox — and emerges triumphant https://politi.co/2Pbcq7m via @politico

Karen Pence responds to Buttigieg: 'You shouldn't be attacked' for your religious beliefs https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/438132-karen-pence-responds-to-buttigieg-you-shouldnt-be-attacked-for

Senate

McConnell couldn't escape 'Moscow Mitch' at Kentucky's biggest political picnic https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2019/08/03/moscow-mitch-follows-mcconnell-kentucky-fancy-farm-picnic/1912758001/ via @courierjournal

Poll: McConnell is most unpopular senator. The results show McConnell leading the list of the country’s 10 most unpopular senators with a 50 percent job disapproval rating. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/453802-poll-mcconnell-is-most-unpopular-senator

Trump gives nod to vulnerable GOP Sen. McSally with bill signing. The Arizona Republican is running next year to serve the remaining two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) term. McSally was appointed to the Senate in December after McCain’s death in August, with former Sen. Jon Kyl (R) serving in the interim months. However, she was defeated by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in the 2018 race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R). Sinema’s victory made the Grand Canyon State a top priority for Democrats, who have successfully recruited a top-tier challenger in Kelly. Kelly announced earlier this month he raised a staggering $4 million in the first quarter of 2019, with the average online contribution amounting to $25. The Arizona Democrat also has high name recognition as a former astronaut and husband to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who narrowly survived a shooting in 2011. The two have since become high-profile advocates for gun control reform. McSally hauled in about $2 million in the first quarter of 2019, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. Republicans hope to defend their 53-47 Senate majority next year as a handful of GOP incumbents face tough Democratic challengers in states like Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, Iowa and Arizona. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/439217-trump-gives-nod-to-vulnerable-gop-sen-mcsally-with-bill-signing

Democrats could dodge messy Arizona primary after Gallego passes on Senate. Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego will not run for Senate next year, choosing not to enter a contentious primary that could have hurt Democrats' chances to flip the Republican-held seat. Gallego’s decision likely clears the way for Mark Kelly to become the party’s nominee to challenge Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who was appointed after losing the race for Arizona’s other Senate seat in 2018. Kelly — a former astronaut and Navy veteran who is considered Democrats' best Senate recruit so far this cycle — is the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in 2011 when she was in office. bid https://politi.co/2Os9mn1

House

Dems rebuke culture of sexism in defense of Ocasio-Cortez. "These are the things that happen to us all the time," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. More than a dozen House Democrats lined up Thursday to support Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the floor of the chamber, issuing a chain of blistering rebukes to Republican Rep. Ted Yoho for aggressively confronting the New York Democrat outside of the Capitol this week. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/democrats-sexism-rebuke-aoc-defense-379993

'He put his finger in my face': Ocasio-Cortez details 'rage' incident with House Republican https://news.yahoo.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-details-ted-yoho-capitol-steps-incident-165841436.html

Tensions flared on Capitol Hill this week when a Republican lawmaker challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on issues of crime and policing in an unusual — and decidedly personal — confrontation on the Capitol steps. Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) was coming down the steps on the east side of the Capitol on Monday, having just voted, when he approached Ocasio-Cortez, who was ascending into the building to cast a vote of her own. In a brief but heated exchange, which was overheard by a reporter, Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was "disgusting" for recently suggesting that poverty and unemployment are driving a spike in crime in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic. "You are out of your freaking mind," Yoho told her. Ocasio-Cortez shot back, telling Yoho he was being "rude." The two then parted ways. Ocasio-Cortez headed into the building, while Yoho, joined by Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), began descending toward the House office buildings. A few steps down, Yoho offered a parting thought to no one in particular. "Fucking bitch," he said. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/508259-ocaasio-cortez-accosted-by-gop-lawmaker-over-remarks-that-kind-of

New poll shows tight race in key California House race CA50 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/489961-new-poll-shows-tight-race-in-key-california-house-race

California’s 50th Congressional District: A 2020 Primary Preview https://wordsanddeedsblog.com/californias-50th-congressional-district-a-2020-primary-preview/

Republicans rattled after surge of retirements https://politi.co/2GEHpWl via @politico

Pro-Trump Republican aiming to unseat Ilhan Omar charged with felony theft. Exclusive: Danielle Stella, reported to support baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, held twice this year over alleged shoplifting https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/25/danielle-stella-republican-ilhan-omar-charged-felony-qanon-trump

Election Security, Dirty Tricks, RNC

Attorney General Barr Denies Claims Of Political Interference In DOJ
INSKEEP: Some people noticed when you raised concerns about the security of mail-in ballots, as the president also has very loudly and said without evidence that there's a lot of fraud or can be a lot of fraud. You raised a specific concern about foreign entities counterfeiting ballots and mailing them in.
BARR: I think there's a - well, I think there's a range of concerns about mail-in ballots. And let me just clarify here - I'm not talking about a mail-in ballot for a limited number of cases where somebody, you know, is going to be traveling around the world, and the way the state has provided for that is you mail in your ballot. I'm talking about a comprehensive rule where all the ballots are essentially mail-in, and there's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed. I think it would be very bad. But one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting.
INSKEEP: Did you have evidence to raise that specific concern?
BARR: No. It's obvious. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/26/883838490/attorney-general-barr-denies-claims-of-political-interference-in-doj

Four ways William Barr is already subverting the 2020 elections. Safeguarding the vote would be the top priority of a normal attorney general. It’s the opposite now. He isn’t just failing to take demonstrable steps to fight election-related disinformation; he’s actively spreading disinformation himself. He echoes Trump’s debunked claims that mail-in ballots — which will be crucial during the pandemic — somehow leave the country vulnerable to election fraud and interference. Barr recently told Fox News that these votes could “open the floodgates of potential fraud,” without providing any basis for the claim. In 2016, Americans faced disinformation predominantly from abroad. In 2020, it also comes from inside our own government. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/barr-attorney-general-election/2020/06/26/7ad4fc7e-b6fb-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html

Issa sues California over November mail-ballot election. Republican congressional candidate Darrell Issa and a conservative group are suing to block California’s move to an all-mail November election. They are legally challenging Gov. Gavin Newsom’s directive that elections officials mail every registered voter a ballot for the November election, making California the first state to switch to vote by mail due to coronavirus concerns. Newsom called the move a necessary response to the pandemic since voters at crowded vote centers could be exposed if they cast in-person ballots. Newsom's move won praise from Democrats last week, including former senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But Republicans have seized on the move as an attempt to interfere with the November election, and the Republican National Committee said it was weighing its legal options after Newsom's executive order. The conservative group Judicial Watch filed a challenge in Sacramento’s U.S. District Court to block Newsom’s executive order on behalf of plaintiffs that include Issa, a Republican former congressman vying this year to return to the House to represent a San Diego-area district. The complaint argues that Newsom’s order violates elections provisions of the Constitution and represents an “unlawful attempt to supersede and replace California election law” by creating “an entirely new system” that does not conform with an existing state law, the Voter’s Choice Act, which lays out requirements for counties that wish to mail ballots to all voters. https://politi.co/2LQQuNW

California becomes the first state to send all voters mail-in ballots for November election. In response to Covid-19, California will allow everyone to vote by mail. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/9/21252974/california-voter-mail-covid-19-november-2020-election

Critical U.S. Election Systems Have Been Left Exposed Online Despite Official Denials. The top voting machine company in the country insists that its election systems are never connected to the internet. But researchers found 35 of the systems have been connected to the internet for months and possibly years, including in some swing states. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxzk9/exclusive-critical-us-election-systems-have-been-left-exposed-online-despite-official-denials

RNC chair defends GOP donor platform in tense meeting. Ronna Romney McDaniel choked up as she addressed rumors surrounding the rollout of WinRed, the Trump-endorsed online donor platform. Republican leaders are determined to make WinRed the sole online donation platform for the party, and they are taking an uncompromising approach with those who’ve been reluctant to get on board with the new program — which has rankled segments of the party rank and file. https://politi.co/2ZpfxNe

Militias Capitalizing on GOP Rhetoric Heading Into Election Season. These militias have seized on the words and policies of lawmakers, some of whom welcome their assistance, to further their cause. This campaign season will likely offer more of these opportunities for an entrenched network of far-right extremists. “Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” Sen. Brian Boquist threatened upon hearing of Oregon Gov. Kate Brown hinting at dispatching state police to round up and return him along with the other missing legislators. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon.” Boquist’s remarks imply that state police officers would be met with lethal violence and warn that only officers without spouses should be dispatched. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/07/31/militias-capitalizing-gop-rhetoric-heading-election-season

Meet the GOP operatives who aim to smear the 2020 Democrats — but keep bungling it. It matters little whether Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl's claims are proved — they hardly ever are. But in an era when notions about truth and fiction have been upended, it's now a more dangerous game. https://wapo.st/2IgbkUS

Gerrymandering

Republicans are freaking out over a deceased gerrymandering expert's potentially damning files. North Carolina Republican lawmakers, seeking to suppress potentially damaging files from a former GOP redistricting guru, accused the expert’s daughter Monday of committing larceny when she obtained them. The accusation came in a blistering filing in state court over the information on the hard drives, which may contain explosive information about how the operative, Thomas Hofeller, gerrymandered on behalf of Republicans in North Carolina and across the country. Those files have the potential to shake up multiple contentious legal battles, including a case over whether the Trump administration can add a question about citizenship to the Census, and whether North Carolina Republican lawmakers lied to federal judges about gerrymandering based on racial data. Now, Republicans are trying to keep the files private. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/north-carolina-thomas-hofeller-files_n_5d093423e4b06ad4d257460c

2019 Elections

Cyclist fired after seen flipping off Trump's motorcade wins seat on local county board of supervisors. A woman who drew widespread attention in 2017 after she was seen flipping off President Trump's motorcade while riding on a bicycle has won a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in northern Virginia. Democrat Juli Briskman, who announced last year that she would be challenging Suzanne Volpe (R) for the seat, won the race to represent the Algonkian District on Tuesday night, The Washington Post reports. Briskman had received more than 54 percent of the vote to Volpe's roughly 46 percent with more than 91 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Virginia Department of Elections' website. Briskman rose to prominence during Trump's first year in office after a photo of her went viral showing her flashing her middle finger at the president’s motorcade in Sterling, Va. At the time, Trump was leaving from his golf course in the area when Briskman said her "blood just started to boil” as his motorcade passed her on her bike. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/469166-cyclist-fired-after-seen-flipping-off-trumps-motorcade-wins-seat-on

Historic campaign finance controversy

1996 United States campaign finance controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy

H. Rept. 105-829 - INVESTIGATION OF POLITICAL FUNDRAISING IMPROPRIETIES AND POSSIBLE VIOLATIONS OF LAW INTERIM REPORT November 5, 1998 https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/105th-congress/house-report/829/1

THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: CAMPAIGN FINANCE; Longtime Fund-Raiser for Gore Convicted in Donation Scheme https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/03/us/2000-campaign-campaign-finance-longtime-fund-raiser-for-gore-convicted-donation.html

Historical information

As the nation observes the 400th anniversary of slavery, a Chicago documentary filmmaker tweeted about the painting Declaration of Independence, which hangs in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. The painting depicts a moment in 1776 showing 47 men, including Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and Ben Franklin, most of whom were signers of the declaration. "This is one of the most famous paintings in American history: Declaration of Independence," Arlen Parsa wrote above an image of the 1818 oil by John Trumbull. "I decided to put red dots on all the men who held slaves. Next time someone puts them on a pedestal and says we can't question their judgement on guns or whatever, show them this image." So, Parsa claims that 34 of the 47 founding fathers shown in the painting were slaveholders. Here are the 34 men in the painting we found to be slaveholders, in alphabetical order by last name: Josiah Bartlett, Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, Abraham Clark, George Clinton, John Dickinson, William Floyd, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Benjamin Harrison, Joseph Hewes, Thomas Heyward Jr., William Hooper, Stephen Hopkins, Francis Hopkinson, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee. And Francis Lewis, Philip Livingston, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Lynch, Arthur Middleton, Lewis Morris, Robert Morris, William Paca, George Read, Benjamin Rush, Edward Rutledge, Richard Stockton, William Whipple, Thomas Willing, John Witherspoon, Oliver Wolcott and George Wythe. The men who did not own slaves also tended to be well-to-do. Here are the 13 who apparently did not own slaves: John Adams, Samuel Adams, George Clymer, William Ellery, Elbridge Gerry, Samuel Huntington, Thomas McKean, Robert Treat Paine, Roger Sherman, Charles Thomson, George Walton, William Williams and James Willson. Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz noted that at least three men in the painting, including Franklin, were or later became abolitionists. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/sep/10/arlen-parsa/evidence-shows-most-47-men-famous-declaration-inde/

116th Congress, 2019-2020

116th Congress, 2019-2020

News, voting records

Hate Goes to Washington. Meet the members of Congress who traffic in hate and extremism. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2019/hate-goes-washington

https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/H001048-duncan-d-hunter

Leadership

Republican
  1. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
  2. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) senior United States Senator from Iowa, first elected in 1980, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley
  3. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee rumored gay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Graham
  4. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) Assumed office January 3, 2013 chair of the Freedom Caucus. Member of the House Oversight Committee
  5. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) Assumed office January 3, 2007 Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee
Democratic
  1. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) Maryland's 7th district elected April 16, 1996 Chair of the House Oversight Committee
  2. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) California's 43rd elected 1990, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee
  3. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) California's 28th congressional district elected 2000 House Intelligence Committee Chairman

House

Judiciary. Committee
https://judiciary.house.gov
Chair: Jerrold Nadler (D); Since January 3, 2019 NY 8th District
Ranking member: Doug Collins (R); Since January 3, 2019 GA 9th District
Vice chair: Mary Gay Scanlon (D); Since January 3, 2019 PA 5th District

House Republicans staged a bizarre rally and barged into a secure room where impeachment testimony was being given privately. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whose chief of staff sent an email to Republican legislators’ offices last week about entering the guarded committee room, led the group of roughly 30 lawmakers into the Intelligence Committee’s secure area. And because the Republicans, who are not members of the committee, brought phones and other electronics into the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), Democrats said the room would now have to be “sanitized.” “They not only brought in their unauthorized bodies, they may have brought in the Russians and the Chinese,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the Intelligence Committee. Swalwell added that some Republican members held onto their phones even after the Sergeant at Arms asked that they remove them from the area. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) later reported that he personally collected phones from Republicans and took them out of the SCIF. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republicans-impeachment-scif_n_5db08980e4b0131fa998661f

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was targeted by a conservative news outlet for spending $300 on her hair at a salon. The congresswoman clapped back while others on Twitter noted the outlet didn't know the actual cost of women's haircuts. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-washington-times-haircut_n_5d9f2ff0e4b087efdba97481

Fox News Host Steve Hilton Blasts Liz Cheney: Your Dad ‘Literally’ Killed Millions. “Her father literally was responsible for not just the thousands of deaths that she rightly attributes to the Taliban, millions of deaths, billions of dollars wasted,” he said. Declaring that he was “very angry” with all of “these establishment types” wondering how Trump could invite the Taliban to Camp David, Hilton claimed the president is “actually trying to clean up the mess that all these establishment people with their military-industrial complex cronies” created. “And please spare us,” Hilton exclaimed, referencing Cheney. “She talks about death. Her father literally was responsible for not just the thousands of deaths that she rightly attributes to the Taliban, millions of deaths, billions of dollars wasted going into the company that he was the CEO of.” Cheney’s father, of course, is former Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is seen as the chief architect of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 9/11 terror attacks. Prior to becoming vice-president, Dick Cheney was the CEO of multinational oil-field service company Halliburton, which received a $7-billion no-bid government contract in the run-up to the Iraq War. “The corruption of this military-industrial complex, the establishment that supported them led to all these problems that Donald Trump is trying to clear out,” Hilton concluded. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-host-steve-hilton-blasts-liz-cheney-your-dad-literally-killed-millions

Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Crenshaw clash on gun control: 'This is America outside NYC' https://fxn.ws/2ZO0BYH #FoxNews

A new day, a new friend 🐧✨ https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1165340309384908800

Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Were Headed for Palestine, Not Israel. Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, was planning to visit her grandma. Israel's Prime Minister now says he will "consider" her request. The congresswomen had no plans to visit Israel in their upcoming trip, but instead to witness the effects of the Israeli occupation firsthand in Palestinian cities like Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and East Jerusalem. They also planned to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque, among the holiest mosques in the world. But because Israel controls all international travel to the territories that it illegally occupies including the entire West Bank, the country has the power to prohibit both Omar and Tlaib from visiting Palestinian territories in addition to Israel. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, had also planned to extend her stay in the West Bank after the congressional trip in order to visit with relatives. Trump, who last month told Omar and Tlaib (along with Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) to “go back” to the countries they came from, has effectively made that very difficult for Tlaib. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjw8pm/rashida-tlaib-ilhan-omar-israel-palestine via @vice

AOC tells radicalized youth 'you're not more of a man with a gun. She also told young men that they weren't bolstering their masculinity by owning a gun. "This is not just about assault weapons," she said. "This is about gun violence in all of our communities. So, whether it's from misogyny, whether it's from racism, you're not more of a man with a gun. You're not more of a man if you are capable of violence. You are not stronger if you tear another life down," she added. https://fxn.ws/33nIGLt #FoxNews https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1158865079305039872

Ocasio-Cortez Speaks Directly To White Supremacists In Surprise Appeal. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) says it’s time to stop debating if President Donald Trump is a racist. “He is,” she said on Monday at a Brooklyn vigil for the victims of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. But then Ocasio-Cortez made a direct appeal to racists and white supremacists ― and her message was simple: “Come back.” She also called on those “radicalized in a funnel of vitriol” to turn away from hate, promising that they would be welcomed with love in return: “There is a mother waiting for you, I know it. I know there’s a teacher waiting for you, saying, ‘What happened to my kid? What happened to my friend?’ And we will always be here and hold space for you to come back. We will love you back. You are not too far gone.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-white-supremacists-091015953.html

Pelosi downplays divisions with Ocasio-Cortez after meeting https://thehill.com/homenews/house/454879-pelosi-downplays-divisions-with-ocasio-cortez-after-meeting

Crowd chanting 'welcome home Ilhan' greets Omar at airport https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/453822-crowd-chanting-welcome-home-ilhan-greets-omar-at-airport

The Squad: progressive Democrats reveal how they got their name. Congress member Ayanna Pressley told CBS This Morning on Wednesday. “It’s not just about dismantling – we’re also intentional about building and fostering,” the Massachusetts congresswoman explained. ‘Anyone who is interested in building a more equitable and just world is a part of the Squad,’ Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley said. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/17/the-squad-name-origins-aoc-ilhan-omar-ayanna-pressley-rashida-tlaib

Trump looks to squash Justin Amash https://politi.co/2IDL5Yu via @politico

Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) objected to passing the bill by voice vote. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who derailed the same measure earlier this week, was by Rose's side. https://politi.co/2HMZz9A via @politico

Why Pelosi is so good at infuriating Trump. Trump handed Pelosi a huge gift, a priceless moment that helped unify the Democratic Caucus behind her at a crucial time. “She’s smarter than him, and she’s tougher than him, and I think that bothers him,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a Pelosi ally. “It's hard to get inside that head of his and figure out what drives him, other than an oversized ego and an undersized sense of ethics.” https://politi.co/2QjgyTC via @politico

Retired military colonel slams Liz Cheney's treason accusations, says her father committed a "war crime" https://www.newsweek.com/liz-cheney-treason-father-war-crime-1436732

Conservative blocks House passage of disaster relief bill. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, blocked a disaster relief bill in the House on Friday by objecting to a unanimous consent vote. The Texas Republican who previously worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), argued the House should not have recessed before debating the legislation and holding a vote. “I'm here today primarily because if I do not object, Congress will have passed into law a bill that spends $19 billion of taxpayer money without members of Congress being present in our nation's capital to vote on it,” he said on the floor. “Secondly, it's a bill that includes nothing to address the clear national emergency and humanitarian crisis we have at our southern border.” https://thehill.com/homenews/house/445407-conservative-blocks-house-passage-of-disaster-relief-bill

Fox and Trump claim Democrats have no legislative accomplishments. The House has passed over 150 bills. http://mm4a.org/4KT

Answer to What do you think of Adam Schiff's statement that he believes there is direct evidence of collusion? by Steven Papier https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-of-Adam-Schiffs-statement-that-he-believes-there-is-direct-evidence-of-collusion/answer/Steven-Papier

Here is the full video of Chairman Schiff laying in to Republicans, presenting all of the indisputable evidence that the Trump campaign did in fact collude with Russia. This is inspiring and patriotic. Bravo, Chairman Schiff. Well done. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/EmfnTo6jk1

GOP congressman quotes Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ to slam Trump’s adversaries as liars. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) took to the House floor on Monday to portray President Trump’s detractors as Nazis but ended up slurring them using an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory drawn verbatim from Adolf Hitler’s writings. Brooks, a five-term Republican, accused Democrats and members of the media of propagating a “big lie” about collusion. The expression was coined by Hitler to describe how Jews used their “unqualified capacity for falsehood” to blame a top German military commander for the country’s losses in World War I. A lie could be so big, Hitler claimed, that it perversely defied disbelief. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/26/gop-congressman-quotes-hitlers-mein-kampf-slam-trumps-adversaries-liars/

Poster linking Rep. Ilhan Omar to 9/11 sparks outrage, injuries in W.Va. state capitol https://www.stripes.com/news/us/poster-linking-rep-ilhan-omar-to-9-11-sparks-outrage-injuries-in-w-va-state-capitol-1.571055

Clip of Meadows saying send Obama back to 'Kenya or wherever' resurfaces after clash with Tlaib. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) https://thehill.com/homenews/house/431953-clip-of-meadows-saying-send-obama-back-to-kenya-or-wherever-resurfaced-after

Mark Meadows: “We’ll send (Obama) back home to Kenya or wherever it is.” https://t.co/VjDWwmuigf

The Suffocation of Democracy. If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/

Ocasio-Cortez knocks 'faux-outrage' over Dem's profane call to impeach Trump https://thehill.com/homenews/house/424007-ocasio-cortez-defends-tlaibs-motherf-er-comment-trump-admitting-to-sexual

House Democrats already have their list of Trump scandals to investigate. Here it is. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/democrats-trump-investigations/

Senate, Moscow Mitch MkkKonnell

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Senator Mitt Romney @SenatorRomney The firings of multiple Inspectors General is unprecedented; doing so without good cause chills the independence essential to their purpose. It is a threat to accountable democracy and a fissure in the constitutional balance of power. 4:22 PM · May 16, 2020·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/SenatorRomney/status/1261799211760222210

McConnell: Obama 'should have kept his mouth shut' on Trump's coronavirus response. "I think President Obama should have kept his mouth shut. President Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, during an online Trump campaign event, told McConnell that Obama "slammed" President Trump over his response to the coronavirus outbreak. You know, we know he doesn't like much this administration is doing. That's understandable. But I think it's a little bit classless frankly to critique an administration that comes after you," McConnell said. "You had your shot. You were there for eight years. I think the tradition that the Bushes set up of not critiquing the president who comes after you is a good tradition," McConnell added. Neither Lara Trump nor McConnell specified which Obama comments they were referring to. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/497239-mcconnell-obama-should-have-kept-his-mouth-shut-on-trumps-coronavirus

Rep. Cummings' pallbearer refuses to shake 'Moscow Mitch' McConnell's hand https://boingboing.net/2019/10/25/rep-cummings-pallbearer-ref.html

Mitch McConnell: The Man Who Sold America. Fittingly enough, it was hot as blazes in Kentucky when Mitch McConnell slunk back home for Congress’ annual summer recess. One week earlier, Robert Mueller had testified that Russia was meddling in the 2020 U.S. elections. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, responded by shooting down Democrats’ efforts to bring two election-security bills to a vote — bills that McConnell, in his familiar fashion, had previously sentenced to quiet deaths after they passed the House. In the hailstorm of opprobrium that followed, McConnell had been tagged by “Morning Joe” Scarborough with the indelible nickname “Moscow Mitch.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank called him a “Russian asset.” Twitter couldn’t decide whether he was #putinsbitch or #trumpsbitch. The Kentucky Democratic Party was selling red “Just Say Nyet to Moscow Mitch” T-shirts, emblazoned with an image of the senator’s jowly visage in a Cossack hat, as fast as they could print them up. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/mitch-mcconnell-man-who-sold-america-880799/ via @RollingStone

McConnell rejects mayors' demand for Senate action on gun bills, after shootings. McConnell said he has asked for bipartisan discussions on the matter, including possible restrictions on assault gun sales. “We’re going to have these bipartisan discussions and when we get back (from the recess), hopefully, be able to come together and actually pass something,” McConnell said in an interview with Kentucky radio station WHAS. “I want to make a law and not just see this kind of political sparring going on.” Asked about restrictions on assault weapons, McConnell said, “That will probably be discussed as well. It’s certainly one of the front and center issues.” But he said “background checks and red flags would probably lead the discussions.” https://reut.rs/2YSPtcz

Watch protestors interrupt Senator McConnell speech with "Moscow Mitch" taunts. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell earned the moniker "Moscow Mitch" for refusing to protect elections from Russian interference. You can't blame him - Russians want to help the GOP take over the USA, so why would he stand in their way? In his annual Fancy Farm Picnic speech in Kentucky, Mitch McConnell did his best to remind folks that he's nothing like those strange lifeforms in "California and New York," and is "guy who sticks up for middle America," but most of his soporific platitudes were drowned out by middle Americans who think he's a traitor. https://boingboing.net/2019/08/07/watch-protestors-interrupt-se.html

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reacts to Mitch McConnell supporters 'groping and choking' her cardboard cutout. “future federal judges of America.” davis.mcintire11 My friends and I sincerely apologize to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Senator McConnell, to our school, St. Jerome Parish, and our community for our insensitive actions at Fancy Farm this past weekend. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-mitch-mcconnell-groping-cardboard-cutout-155951285.html

Rand Paul to 'limit' August activities due to health https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/456152-rand-paul-to-limit-august-activities-due-to-health

Ex-McConnell staffers lobbied on Russian-backed Kentucky project. Democrats are pushing the Trump administration to review the project, and they say McConnell indirectly helped facilitate it.Two former top staffers to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have lobbied Congress and the Treasury Department on the development of a new Kentucky aluminum mill backed by the Russian aluminum giant Rusal, according to a new lobbying disclosure. https://politi.co/2GC9Ns4

Ocasio-Cortez pushes back on McConnell's claim of 'modern-day McCarthyism'. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday for comparing attacks against him to “modern-day McCarthyism.” “McCarthyism is the practice of baselessly accusing political opponents of being communists as unjust grounds for targeting & harassment,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “You are blocking action to protect US elections despite official DoJ pleas. That doesn’t make you a communist. It just makes you a bad leader.” https://thehill.com/homenews/house/455485-ocasio-cortez-pushes-back-on-mcconnells-claim-of-modern-day-mccarthyism

McConnell blasts 'modern-day McCarthyism,' defends blocking election bills. “I was called unpatriotic, un-American and essentially treasonous by a couple of left-wing pundits on the basis of bold-faced lies. I was accused of aiding and abetting the very man I’ve singled out as an adversary and opposed for nearly 20 years, Vladimir Putin,” McConnell said during a fiery speech from the Senate floor. He added that his critics, specifically pointing out The Washington Post and MSNBC, were using “unhinged smears,” adding “welcome to modern-day McCarthyism.” https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/455208-mcconnell-blasts-modern-day-mccarthyism-defends-blocking-election-bills#.XT-DwSkjMP4.twitter

Right-wing media figures and conspiracy theorists boosted a lie about Ilhan Omar that reached a US Senator. Multiple right-wing figures and supporters of the “QAnon” conspiracy theory on social media spread a deceptively edited video clip of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) -- who has been repeatedly targeted with false online smears -- reaching Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who tweeted it out. Since then, multiple Fox hosts have also pushed the false claim. http://mm4a.org/4tg

Sen. Moscow Marco Rubio (R-FL)

Analysis: Rubio cries "racist" after being duped by a misleading tweet and video Rubio shares edited interview clip, calls Omar 'racist'. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) shared an edited portion of an interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and accused the congresswoman's remarks of being “racist” against white people. The 40-second clip Rubio shared is part of a 10-minute interview Omar did with Al Jazeera in February 2018, when she was running for Congress. The edited clip Rubio shared was resurfaced by the Christian Broadcasting Network this week. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/454757-rubio-shares-edited-interview-clip-calls-omar-racist

Poll: McConnell is most unpopular senator. The results show McConnell leading the list of the country’s 10 most unpopular senators with a 50 percent job disapproval rating. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/453802-poll-mcconnell-is-most-unpopular-senator

McConnell shrugs off questions about preferential treatment by Chao. “I was complaining to her just last night, 169 projects and Kentucky got only five,” he deadpanned. “I hope we’ll do a lot better next year.” The agency has provided at last $78 million in grants for the state’s projects, according to the POLITICO report, which fueled a wave of criticism from ethics officials. https://politi.co/2IvIArm

Mitch McConnell has been described as "opaque," "drab," and even "dull." He is one of the least popular - and most polarizing - politicians in the country. So how did he win eight consecutive elections? And what does it tell us about how he operates? https://n.pr/2KqYwOh

McConnell pledges to be 'Grim Reaper' for progressive policies. "If I'm still the majority leader in the Senate think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff is going to pass," McConnell said while speaking to community leaders in Owensboro, Ky. "I guarantee you that if I'm the last man standing and I'm still the majority leader, it ain't happening. I can promise you," McConnell added. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/440041-mcconnell-pledges-to-be-grim-reaper-for-progressive-policies

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) blasts Romney: 'Makes me sick' that you could have been president https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/439809-mike-huckabee-blasts-mitt-romney-it-makes-me-sick-that-you-could-have-been

Romney 'sickened' by Trump's behavior in Mueller report. "I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President," Romney said in a statement posted to Twitter."Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders," Romney said Friday. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/439765-romney-sickened-by-trumps-behavior-in-mueller-report

Mitch McConnell is a step closer to blowing up Senate rules to confirm even more of Donald Trump's lifetime federal judges. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-rules-trump-judges-mitch-mcconnell_n_5ca3a71be4b0c32979614485

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Kyrsten Sinema swears in to Congress using copy of Constitution instead of religious book https://thehill.com/homenews/house/423813-kyrsten-sinema-swears-in-to-congress-using-law-book-instead-of-bible

States

Washington Lawmakers Call for Matt Shea to Step Down Amid Spying Claims. Washington representative Matt Shea (R) is facing renewed calls for his resignation from Republican and Democratic lawmakers amid allegations that Shea discussed spying on progressives in the state. Private investigators hired by the Democrat-dominated Legislature are looking to see whether Shea and three others discussed spying on liberals in Spokane, a progressive city in conservative eastern Washington. Shea reportedly named potential targets for surveillance, including a college professor and an organizer for the liberal group Indivisible. According to Signal encrypted chat messages published last month in The Guardian, one of Shea’s co-conspirators suggested “hoisting communists up flag poles.” A report by The Spokesman-Review, citing emails, showed that Shea compiled dossiers on liberal City Council members from Spokane, looked into buying GPS trackers, and wanted to “turn back the tide” of Islam in the United States. Shea lost a leadership position in the state House last year after admitting he distributed a manifesto that called for killing non-Christian males that don’t follow biblical law. https://www.thedailybeast.com/matt-shea-lawmakers-call-for-resignation-amid-spying-claims

UNSEEN AMERICA. FOUR STORIES FROM THE MISUNDERSTOOD MIDDLE OF OUR NATION. https://psmag.com/social-justice/unseen-america

Wisconsin Dem governor removes 82 Scott Walker appointees added during lame-duck session https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/435390-wisconsin-dem-governor-removes-82-scott-walker-appointees-added-during

Nixon, Reagan

Saturday Night Massacre refers to a series of events that took place in the United States on the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1973
President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox
Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately.
Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned.
Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox.
Bork carried out the dismissal as Nixon asked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Massacre
Nixon resigned on Friday, August 9, 1974

That racist Reagan recording just confirmed what my community already knew. I grew up in one of Reagan's so-called Drug Free Zones, where bricks of cocaine featuring his face were sold. Ronald Reagan was the first president I could remember, and though I was still in elementary school when he left office, his name lingered in my neighborhood for two reasons. The first came from my dad and uncles calling him “a racist clown who doesn’t deserve to be president” and the other came from the older street guys who praised the Reagan Administration for flooding the inner cities with cocaine. There’s never been a hiring boom from inner city black Baltimore. Selling cocaine, which eventually turned into the creation of the crack era, both fed and destroyed a countless amount of black families. How could a sitting U.S. president contribute to this wholesale destruction of communities? Sounds like a conspiracy, right? https://www.salon.com/2019/08/01/that-racist-reagan-recording-just-confirmed-what-my-community-already-knew/

The Reagan-Nixon “monkeys” tape fills the gap between what the Gipper said and what he meant. The Democratic president was referencing a speech Reagan had made to a nearly all-white crowd of 15,000 at Mississippi’s Neshoba County Fair. “I believe in states’ rights,” Reagan had said on Aug. 3, 1980, explaining that he intended to “restore to the states and local communities those functions that properly belong there.” Reagan’s appearance at the fair was part of a strategy, articulated by a Republican official in a 1979 letter, to send the eventual nominee to venues that might draw “George Wallace–inclined voters,” who had begun supporting Republicans as segregationist politicians left the Democratic Party. The Neshoba County Fair, the New York Times reported in 1980, was known for playing host to candidates who delivered “bitter racist diatribes.” It was also located just a few miles away from where civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in 1964. “Both before and after the killing of those three men,” I wrote in my book, The Queen, “political authorities in the state had invoked states’ rights as a kind of threat—a warning that integrationists and the federal government give the state leave to handle its own affairs.” A decade and a half later, it sounded like Reagan was whistling a similar tune. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/ronald-reagan-richard-nixon-racism-monkeys-tape-jimmy-carter.html via @slate

Reagan disparaged 'monkeys from those African countries' in call with Nixon in unearthed tapes. Reagan called Nixon in October 1971 — the day after a landmark United Nations vote to recognize the People’s Republic of China — and referenced how the Tanzanian delegation was dancing in the General Assembly after the vote, according to an audio clip of the exchange posted by The Atlantic. "Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan says. “Yeah,” Nixon cuts in. Reagan replies, laughing: "To see those, those monkeys from those African countries — damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes!" racist https://thehill.com/homenews/news/455482-reagan-disparaged-monkeys-from-those-african-countries-in-call-with-nixon-in

Corruption, Duncan Hunter

Duncan Hunter may delay prison term until 2021 due to coronavirus. Hunter was sentenced to 11 months earlier this year after the San Diego Republican pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law by spending campaign funds on personal matters. At the time of his March sentencing, U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan said Hunter was not required to surrender until May given the pervasive threat of infection. California has since gone into lockdown under a statewide order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and correctional facilities have tried to reduce their populations to control the spread of the coronavirus inside. Attorneys for Hunter and the government filed a motion on Tuesday to push back Hunter's report date until January 2021. In exchange, Hunter would not seek to modify his term or claim that his home confinement counted toward the 11-month prison stint. "The parties submit this extension is appropriate due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the unknown impacts the disease will have in the coming months," the filing says. https://politi.co/3b5ljc8

Sex, Lies and Credit Cards: Duncan Hunter’s Crimes, Courage Laid Out for Judge. includes links to all documents. https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2020/03/11/sex-lies-and-credit-cards-duncan-hunters-crimes-courage-laid-out-for-judge/

Prosecutors Use Photos, Receipts to Argue for Ex-Rep Hunter’s Longer Prison Sentence. Prosecutors said the Hunter family’s “profligate lifestyle” depleted their bank accounts and drove them deep into debt. According to the government’s sentencing memo, Hunter once had to ask his wife, Margaret, if they had enough money to buy a pair of nail clippers. “In order to support their spending and pay their bills, the Hunters turned to pilfering hundreds of thousands of dollars donated by citizens” that by law could only be used to fund his congressional campaigns. “Beginning as early as 2009, the Hunters used campaign funds to purchase items as inconsequential as fast food, movie tickets, and golf outings; as trivial as video games, beachwear and coffee; as mundane as groceries, utilities and garage doors; and as self-indulgent as luxury hotels, overseas vacations and designer face cream,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/prosecutors-ex-rep-hunters-crimes-cover-up-warrant-14-month-prison-term/2283553/

New details of misconduct by former Rep. Duncan Hunter emerge ahead of sentencing https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2020-03-11/new-details-of-crime-by-former-rep-duncan-hunter-emerge-ahead-of-sentencing

Donations to Rep. Duncan Hunter plummet following his guilty plea, latest campaign filing shows. “The campaign is in the process of concluding its operation,” Michael Harrison, a spokesman for Hunter wrote in a statement responding to the Union-Tribune’s questions on Friday. “As it does so, it will continue to adhere to all federal regulations and requirements, as well as work to meet its financial obligations.” https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2020-02-14/rep-duncan-hunter-campaign-makesbest-efforts-fails-identify-many-donors-jobs-and-employers

THE 50TH: A SCANDAL. A DYNASTY. AN ELECTION. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/the50th Duncan Hunter Country: Inside one of California's last Republican strong... https://youtu.be/4FIxwQqBplQ

Read Letters of Resignation by Rep. Duncan Hunter, Quitting Congress Jan. 13 https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2020/01/07/read-letters-of-resignation-by-rep-duncan-hunter-quitting-congress-jan-13/

Rep. Duncan Hunter tenders resignation, will resign from office Monday. Convicted congressman’s resignation enables Gov. Newsom to call for a special election. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-01-07/rep-duncan-hunter-tenders-resignation-will-resign-from-office-monday

Hunter will likely receive his taxpayer-funded congressional pension despite guilty plea. No member of Congress has been known to have their pension benefits taken away, and legal and policy experts doubt Hunter’s felony offense will warrant him being the first. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2020-01-06/hunter-will-likely-receive-his-taxpayer-funded-congressional-pension-despite-guilty-plea

House Ethics Committee warns Hunter to refrain from voting in light of guilty plea. Committee says Rep. Duncan Hunter violated House rules by voting while he faces a prison sentence that could be greater than two years. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2019-12-05/house-ethics-committee-warns-hunter-to-refrain-from-voting-in-light-of-guilty-plea

Issa says Trump clemency for Hunter could save imprisonment costs. DeMaio, another candidate for the congressman’s seat, calls a pardon ‘the wrong message to the American people’. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2019-12-05/trump-clemency-could-save-taxpayers-the-cost-of-imprisoning-rep-hunter-issa-says

Rep. Duncan Hunter pleads guilty to misusing campaign funds. The California congressman showed no emotion in the courtroom when he pleaded guilty to misusing campaign money. https://politi.co/34MxVm6 via @politico

Duncan Hunter used campaign funds for daughter's Irish dance competition trip, prosecutors say https://fxn.ws/2NKfNTU #FoxNews

Duncan Hunter Corruption Trial Pushed Back Till Late January. This is the second time U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan has delayed the trial. Both delays have to do with Hunter's attempt to have the case thrown out on constitutional grounds. The congressman claims his rights under the Constitution's speech or debate clause have been violated. He's argued in a motion that he cannot be prosecuted for actions that are considered part of his job as a legislator. Whelan dismissed the motion in July, saying the claim was "wholly without merit." https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/oct/07/rep-duncan-hunter-corruption-trial-pushed-back-til/ via @KPBSnews

Former Top Prosecutors Weigh In On Hunter Corruption Case. This week a federal judge pushed back to next January the trial date for Congressman Duncan Hunter's campaign finance corruption case, thus extending for months the debate over whether Hunter is guilty of misusing campaign cash or the victim of partisan politics. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/aug/15/former-top-prosecutors-weigh-hunter-corruption-cas/

Duncan Hunter's trial pushed back, pending appeal of ruling https://politi.co/2yV5B2n via @politico

Will Carl DeMaio run for Congress to unseat Rep. Duncan Hunter? “Too many Californians are thinking of fleeing our state because they cannot afford the cost of living and disagree with the extreme socialist agenda being advanced by the Democrats. I refuse to flee – I plan to fight. To take back our state, we need a new generation of California leaders who are willing to fight and have a record of getting reform done. The old guard of California Republican leaders have shown they aren’t willing or able to lead the fight to take back our state from the Democrats – or worse, like Mr. Hunter, they are tied up in court facing criminal charges. Can I best help lead the fight by winning this US Congressional seat or by remaining on the airwaves and chairing Reform California? I’m grateful to all who have reached out to me with their input and words of encouragement on this important question, and I'll explain my decision Monday.” http://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/will-carl-demaio-run-for-congress-to-unseat-rep-duncan-hunter/509-4e738aaf-d755-4f73-879b-993c3bd4b820 via @CBS8

Marines order Duncan Hunter to stop using Corps emblem in campaign. The California Republican used the Marine Corps emblem in a campaign mailer that tied his Democratic opponent and two Democratic congresswomen to terror. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/duncan-hunter-ordered-stop-using-marine-corps-emblem-campaign-n1030826 via @nbcnews

Duncan Hunter sends more Islamophobic campaign mailers in California. The incumbent Republican is set to stand trial for misusing campaign funds this fall.“Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ammar Campa-Najjar ... these three radical Democrats want you to forget their anti-semitism or family-terrorist ties!” a note from Hunter states on the back side of the mailer. “But as a Marine I’ll never forget the 1983 Beirut bombings and the 1972 Olympic murders!” Hunter’s campaign confirmed that it is distributing the mailer, which solicits contributions from donors. “It is a piece put out by Congressman Hunter’s campaign,” said Hunter spokesman Michael Harrison. “It’s a hard-hitting piece because these are significant issues that our opponent refuses to acknowledge. This is just yet another example of a full-time candidate doing anything to get some attention because after three straight years of campaigning, Ammar has failed to gain any traction on substantive issues that affect our district.” https://politi.co/2JFKhmI

‘White Power’ or ‘OK’ Sign? Duncan Hunter Raked for Man in July 4 Photo. the man in a “Trump 2020” T-shirt is Kristopher “Kris” Wyrick, recognizable for his goatee. https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2019/07/07/white-power-or-ok-sign-duncan-hunter-raked-for-man-in-july-4-photo/

Judge: Rep. Duncan Hunter's trial can detail alleged affairs https://apnews.com/1bf1ec89371547398ba41b21f762d187

An intimate look at everything Duncan Hunter allegedly bought with campaign money https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/an-intimate-look-at-everything-duncan-hunter-allegedly-bought-with-campaign-money/ via @MotherJones

A Republican Now Says He Spent Money During Booty Calls For A Legit “Political Purpose”. California Rep. Duncan Hunter told a court Friday he was actually working when he spent campaign money on weekend getaways, date nights, golf outings, bar tabs, and Uber rides during the affairs. “Mr. Hunter’s relationships with [the women] often served an overtly political purpose that would not have existed irrespective of his occupation,” Hunter’s lawyers argued in a Friday court filing, contending his relationship with these women “includes a professional aspect.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/duncan-hunter-affairs-charges-mixing-business-pleasure via @dominicholden

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter Used Campaign Funds to Cheat on His Wife: Feds. Prosecutors alleged the Republican congressman used campaign funds to woo three lobbyists and one aide to a member of the GOP leadership team. In Jan. 2010, Hunter flew to Lake Tahoe under the guise of attending an annual convention for a non-profit but with the alleged intention of a planned “ski vacation as one of [the pair’s] first solo getaways.” “Hunter’s flight landed at 2:10 p.m., and he rented a car from the airport Alamo, using $350 in campaign funds,” the DOJ’s motion said. “By 11:39 p.m. he had checked into their room at the Hyatt and visited the hotel’s Cutthroat’s Saloon for a Sam Adams (which he paid for with $7 in campaign funds).” By the time the two checked out three days later, Hunter had spent $1,008 “skiing, ordering room service, and enjoying the amenities of the full-service resort” using campaign funds. Three months later, Hunter allegedly took another unidentified lobbyist to Virginia Beach for “double date road trip” with another congressman. Prosecutors alleged that Hunter used hundreds in campaign funds to pay for a hotel bar tab and room. https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-duncan-hunter-used-campaign-funds-to-pursue-intimate-extramarital-affairs-feds

Prosecutors: Rep. Duncan Hunter used campaign funds to pursue affairs. this latest DoJ file reveals that Duncan Hunter had an affair with at least three different lobbyists, one of his own staff members, and an aide to a member of the GOP leadership team. https://politi.co/31VmTKj

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Rep. Duncan Hunter Scores 100 Percent on FRC Action's New Scorecard: http://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?i=PR18B16 @FRCAction

Hunter wants federal case dismissed because prosecutors attended Clinton event. Should a judge reject his plea to have the case thrown out, Hunter's attorneys are asking to have the local U.S. Attorney's office recused from the case. http://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/hunter-wants-federal-case-dismissed-because-prosecutors-attended-clinton-event/509-742bd75c-6e7b-44cc-9dac-89c60d64cf4b via @CBS8

Legal fight tougher for Marine vet Rep. Duncan Hunter as wife pleads guilty. But that argument got tougher Thursday for the former Marine and close ally of President Donald Trump after his wife, who worked as his campaign manager, pleaded guilty to a single corruption count and acknowledged being a co-conspirator with her husband in spending more than $200,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. Margaret Hunter accepted a plea deal that calls for 59 charges to be dismissed in exchange for her testimony, full cooperation with prosecutors and other concessions. The conspiracy charge to which she pleaded includes all the allegations contained in the 60-count indictment. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/legal-fight-tougher-for-marine-vet-rep-duncan-hunter-as-wife-pleads-guilty-1.585923

Hunter, who worked as her husband’s campaign manager, appeared in U.S. court and changed a previous not guilty plea. “I am deeply remorseful and I apologize,” she said. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/margaret-duncan-hunter-corruption-guilty_n_5d0292a7e4b0dc17ef063fe4

Rep. Duncan Hunter's wife to change plea in campaign spending fraud case http://via.kswbtv.com/wDhOW via @fox5sandiego

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter told a Ramona audience Saturday that he’s guilty of the same behavior that led to Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher being charged with war crimes — posing with a dead combatant. https://timesofsandiego.com/military/2019/05/25/rep-hunter-on-war-crimes-suspect-gallagher-im-guilty-of-same-bad-thing/

California congressman defends war crimes suspect. “Eddie did one bad thing that I’m guilty of too: Taking a picture of the body and saying something stupid,” the California Republican said at a border-issues forum in Ramona, Calif., according to the Times of San Diego. https://politi.co/2wkVPFs

Congressman Hunter attends meeting on Border security. Representative Duncan Hunter -R (CA-50) kicked off his Memorial Day weekend in Ramona, at a town hall-style meeting. He and his father, former Congressman Duncan Hunter Sr. - R were guest speakers at "The Border: Then and Now!" event, hosted by a conservative group, American Liberty Forum- Ramona. https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/congressman-duncan-hunter-attends-townhall-meeting-on-border-security-with-father

Rep. Duncan Hunter and father to talk immigration https://www.kusi.com/rep-duncan-hunter-and-father-to-talk-immigration/

Congressman vows to seek Trump pardon for accused Navy SEAL. Rep. Duncan Hunter says he will ask President Donald Trump to pardon a Navy SEAL if he is found guilty of murder in the stabbing of an Iraqi war prisoner. Hunter, R-Calif., screened combat footage collected from a helmet camera to a group of lawmakers Wednesday, saying the footage exonerates Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of one of the charges against him. "I wanted to give them an opportunity firsthand to see there is no case," Hunter told a small group of reporters after the screening. He said he believes Gallagher is innocent and a war hero and admonished the military justice system, calling it "absolutely broken" and "rigged." "I don't trust the Navy to give him a fair trial, but I think with all of the focus on this case that he stands more of a chance of getting a fair trial now," Hunter said. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/congressman-vows-to-seek-trump-pardon-for-accused-navy-seal-1.580228

Rep. Duncan Hunter Faked a Border Wall Crossing on Facebook https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/duncan-hunter-fake-border-crossing-825094/ via @RollingStone

Rep. Hunter Hops Border Barrier — But Not Into Mexico as Video Suggests https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2019/04/18/rep-hunter-hops-border-barrier-but-not-into-mexico-as-video-suggests/

Rep. Duncan Hunter posts video climbing over border fence https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/rep-duncan-hunter-posts-video-climbing-border-fence-did-he-go-to-mexico

Rep. Hunter pretends to cross the Mexico border and gets called out for violating ‘parole’ https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/rep-hunter-campa-najjar-bicker-over-congressmans-faux-border-crossing-video via @RollCall

Duncan Hunter visits border in Yuma after mayor declares emergency http://via.kswbtv.com/dwG6s via @fox5sandiego

Congressman Duncan Hunter Revives Hate Campaign for 2020 https://wordsanddeedsblog.com/congressman-duncan-hunter-revives-hate-campaign-for-2020/ via @dougporter506

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore campaign, PAC spend 6 figures on ‘constituent outreach’ https://lvrj.com/post/1619778 via @reviewjournal

One of the craziest House races of 2018 is already headed for a rematch https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/ammar-campa-najjar-is-ready-for-a-rematch-against-indicted-rep-duncan-hunter/ via @MotherJones

Campaign for Rep. Duncan Hunter spends at theme park, disputes drone charges https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-drones-20190206-story.html

'They basically have nothing to do’: Trio of Republicans face life in exile https://politi.co/2SxR9Jq

Congressman Duncan Hunter turns up pressure on Navy in SEAL war crimes case https://timesofsandiego.com/military/2019/01/30/navy-seals-war-crimes-trial-may-be-delayed-till-november-hunter-letter-says/

Twenty House Republicans Donated to Duncan Hunter's Islamophobic Campaign https://readsludge.com/2019/01/17/20-house-republicans-donated-to-duncan-hunters-islamophobic-campaign/ via @readsludge

Trump should stop court-martial of Navy SEAL accused of murdering ISIS prisoner, Hunter says. "South American criminal illegal aliens are provided with better access to legal representation than our nation’s elite warriors because bureaucratic lawyers in the Navy justice system see this situation as an opportunity to make their name and advance their career." The charge sheet said that Gallagher "did ... with premeditation, murder a wounded male person" under his care by "stabbing him in the neck and body with a knife" while battling ISIS in Mosul in May 2017. http://via.kswbtv.com/aNP7v via @fox5sandiego

Terrorism, persistent ISIS threat, White-Nationalist Trump terrorism

Jihadist plots used to be U.S. and Europe's biggest terrorist threat. Now it's the far right. An increasing percentage of plans and attacks in the U.S. are linked to far-right activity, said Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jihadist-plots-used-be-u-s-europe-s-biggest-terrorist-n1234840

'Disrupt and destroy MS-13': DOJ announces first-ever terrorism charges in nationwide gang crackdown. The announcement came a day after grand juries in New York City and Nevada handed up new charges against nearly two dozen MS-13 members. "It's about the honor of being the most savage, bloodthirsty person you can be and building up a reputation as a killer," Barr said, adding, " That honor is reserved for me, the President and members of the police force." https://www.foxnews.com/us/ms13-doj-first-terrorism-charges-gang-crackdown

White supremacist extremists receive higher threat level rating than ISIS in New Jersey. The change comes amid increased rates of crimes linked to white supremacist groups, such as a New Jersey man who allegedly conspired with members of a neo-Nazi network to vandalize synagogues in the Midwest. "The threat from white supremacist extremists is also high due to the number of threats, plots, and attacks in 2019," the report read. "In 2020, white supremacist extremists are likely to cite accelerationism as a motivation for future violent acts, and recruitment efforts promoting extremist ideology continue throughout the State." The report gave anarchist, anti-government, black separatist, militia and sovereign citizen extremists a moderate threat level. It gave Islamic terror groups such as al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS a low threat level, though the report said that ISIS's inspiration of supporters in the U.S. "makes homegrown violent extremists a consistently high threat." https://thehill.com/homenews/news/484178-new-jersey-raises-terror-threat-level-for-white-supremacist-extremists-to-high

The FBI Makes a Bizarre Claim About Pro-Choice Terrorism. The bureau revamped its homegrown-terror efforts to include “people on either side” of the abortion debate. But there’s almost no evidence of pro-choice violence. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fbi-makes-a-bizarre-claim-about-pro-choice-terrorism

The Department of Homeland Security says that the threat of white supremacy is increasing in the U.S., and it's breeding online. “Similar to how ISIS inspired and connected with potential radical Islamist terrorists, white supremacist violent extremists connect with like-minded individuals online,” the report read. “In addition to mainstream social media platforms, white supremacist violent extremists use lesser-known sites like Gab, 8chan, and EndChan, as well as encrypted channels. Celebration of violence and conspiracy theories about the ‘ethnic replacement’ of whites as the majority ethnicity in various Western countries are prominent in their online circles.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/homeland-security-white-supremacy-extremism-online_n_5d867bb5e4b070d468cd9553 https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0920_plcy_strategic-framework-countering-terrorism-targeted-violence.pdf

DHS Just Finally Recognized White Nationalism as a Major Terror Threat. Its the first time the department has placed major emphasis on countering the threat of white nationalism coming from inside the U.S. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5yjkb/dhs-just-finally-recognized-white-nationalism-as-a-major-terror-threat

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There could have been three more mass shootings if these men weren't stopped, authorities say. In Connecticut, 22-year-old Brandon Wagshol was arrested after authorities said he had expressed interest in committing a mass shooting on Facebook, according to a statement from the FBI and the Norwalk Police Department. Tristan Scott Wix of Daytona Beach, Florida, was arrested in a Winn-Dixie parking lot on Friday after he sent his ex-girlfriend a series of disturbing texts in which he allegedly threatened to commit a mass shooting, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said. The ex-girlfriend alerted authorities. In the messages, the 25-year-old said he wanted to open fire on a large crowd of people, the sheriff's office said in a news release. "A good 100 kills would be nice," one message allegedly read. Wix also said he already had a location in mind, according to the sheriff's office. And in Ohio, 20-year-old James Patrick Reardon was arrested for allegedly threatening to carry out a shooting at a Youngstown Jewish community center. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/18/us/three-potential-attacks-foiled/index.html

Us Records of Even One. Four days after asking for information on the FBI’s claims of 90 domestic terrorism arrests, we are still waiting. And, frankly, it got kind of weird. The spokeswoman, saying she was speaking “on background,” and thus not to be identified, later suggested that we go on the Department of Justice’s public affairs website and “see what pops up.” So we did. When we typed in domestic terrorism arrests for the past nine months, five cases came up. But only one of the cases actually involved an American arrested for seeking to harm others in the U.S. — Cesar Sayoc, the man recently sentenced to 20 years for mailing 16 explosive devices to a variety of current and former government officials and the philanthropist George Soros. https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-domestic-terrorism-arrest-data

Trump's DOJ hid shocking report on growing terror threat from white supremacists. The report by New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security Preparedness was distributed throughout DHS and to federal agencies like the FBI earlier this year before it was obtained by Yahoo News. The document includes data Congress has sought from the Trump administration but the Justice Department has been “unable or unwilling” to provide. The report shows that 25 of 46 suspects in 32 domestic terrorism incidents were identified as white supremacists. The 25 suspected white supremacist suspects were responsible for all “race-based” incidents while others were deemed “anti-government extremists” and “single-issue extremists.” “This map reflects 32 domestic terrorist attacks, disrupted plots, threats of violence, and weapons stockpiling by individuals with a radical political or social agenda who lack direction or influence from foreign terrorist organizations in 2018,” the report said. https://www.salon.com/2019/08/09/trumps-doj-hid-shocking-report-on-growing-terror-threat-from-white-supremacists/

Tucker Carlson says white supremacy is a hoax. He’s wrong. As a social ill, white supremacy is difficult to quantify — despite Carlson’s suggestion that a headcount is easily obtainable. But the available data suggests a more pressing story than Carlson's take. While the FBI doesn’t code incidents as being committed by white nationalists, officials reported a 17 percent increase in hate crimes in 2017 over the previous year, and more than half were motivated by biases based on race, ethnicity or ancestry. White supremacists killed more people than any other domestic extremist group from 2000-16. An unclassified May 2017 intelligence bulletin, jointly authored by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, found that white supremacist extremists killed more people than any other domestic extremist movement from 2000 to 2016. The Anti-Defamation League reached findings that paralleled the federal agencies’. As a share of all killings committed by right-wing extremists in the United States over the last decade, 76 percent were committed by white supremacists, the Anti-Defamation League told PolitiFact. Last year, 39 of 50 domestic extremist killings were committed by white supremacists, the ADL’s head Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on Twitter in response to Carlson’s claim. https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2019/aug/07/tucker-carlson-says-white-supremacy-hoax-here-are-/ via @PunditFact

New Pentagon report blames Trump troop withdrawal for ISIS surge in Iraq and Syria https://thehill.com/policy/defense/456809-new-pentagon-report-blames-trump-for-return-of-isis-in-iraq-and-syria

A Reformed White-Nationalist Says the Worst Is Yet to Come. That’s the warning of a former violent extremist, Christian Picciolini, who joined a neo-Nazi movement 30 years ago and now tries to get people out of them. White-supremacist terrorists—the ones who have left dozens dead in attacks in Pittsburgh, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas, in recent months—aren’t just trying to outdo one another, he told us. They’re trying to outdo Timothy McVeigh, the anti-government terrorist who blew up an Oklahoma City federal building and killed more than 100 people in 1995—the worst terrorist attack in the United States before September 11, 2001. Christian Picciolini discusses the mainstreaming of white nationalism, what it takes to de-radicalize far-right extremists, and why the problem is metastasizing. https://t.co/3V2aNelzJA

Cruz: El Paso shooting an act of 'terrorism and white supremacy'. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Sunday condemned the recent mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, as "a heinous act of terrorism and white supremacy." “We must speak clearly to combat evil in any form it takes. What we saw yesterday was a heinous act of terrorism and white supremacy. There is no place for this in El Paso, in Texas, or anywhere across our nation,” Cruz tweeted Sunday. “We are all Americans and we are all standing united with El Paso.” He added that as a “son of a Cuban immigrant,” he is “deeply horrified by the hateful anti-Hispanic bigotry expressed in the shooter’s so-called ‘manifesto.’” “This ignorant racism is repulsive and profoundly anti-American,” he tweeted. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/456118-texas-gop-senators-respond-to-el-paso-shooting

FBI memo warns QAnon poses potential terror threat: report. An FBI document, first reported by Yahoo News, identifies conspiracy theories as potential domestic terrorism threats, specifically identifying QAnon, a group that believes there is a "deep state" working against President Trump, in the memo. The FBI specifically points to QAnon and Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory that claims Hillary Clinton and other top Democratic figures are running a child sex-trafficking ring beneath a pizza shop in Washington, D.C., as examples of groups whose messages could lead to “violent acts.” “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document, dated May 30, reads. Acts of violence or attempts thereof have already been tied to both of the conspiracy theories. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/fbi/455770-fbi-memo-warns-qanon-poses-a-potential-terror-threat-report

ISIS militants return to Iraq, continue fight. Islamic State militants who escaped the defeat of their self-described caliphate in Syria earlier this year have been slipping across the border into Iraq, bolstering a low-level insurgency the group is now waging across the central and northern part of the country, according to security officials. About 1,000 fighters have crossed into Iraq during the past eight months, most of them in the aftermath of the caliphate’s collapse in March, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a security analyst who advises Iraq’s government and foreign aid agencies. Those fighters, mostly Iraqis who followed ISIS into Syria, are now returning home to join militant cells that have been digging into rugged rural areas, sustained by intimate knowledge of the local terrain, including concealed tunnels and other hiding places. https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/isis-militants-return-to-iraq-continue-fight-1.591313#.XTZSeEYcqp8.twitter

California police release on bail man suspected of threatening to shoot a synagogue. California police arrested a man suspected of making online threats to shoot up a Jewish temple, saying he had a fascination with Adolf Hitler and planned to emulate mass shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and San Diego. Ross Farca, a 23-year-old from Concord, California, was charged with making criminal threats, possessing an illegal assault rifle and manufacturing an assault rifle, all felonies. Then, over the weekend, police said, Farca was freed on a $125,000 bond. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/18/california-police-release-man-suspected-of-threatening-to-shoot-a-synagogue

FBI Dives Into the 8chan Swamp the Poway Shooter Crawled Out of https://wordsanddeedsblog.com/fbi-dives-into-the-8chan-swamp-the-poway-shooter-crawled-out-of/ via @dougporter506

This hearing was wild.
First the FBI witness tried to say I was wrong. I tried to be generous + give benefit of doubt, but then we checked. I wasn’t.
Violence by Muslims is routinely treated as “terrorism,” White Supremacist violence isn’t.
Neo-Nazis are getting off the hook. https://t.co/RCjp4687by — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1136329869783117824 June 5, 2019

FBI has seen significant rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism in recent months @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2Qlf6zM

Federal response to white supremacist terror threat under scrutiny in wake of Poway attack. Data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League indicates of the 50 deaths in the U.S. last year attributed to extremists, 78 percent were attached to white supremacy or white nationalist ideology. Similarly, over a 10-year period, 313 people were killed by right-wing extremists from 2009 and 2018. Of those, 76 percent were affiliated with white supremacy, the research shows. "The data is overwhelming," Erroll Southers, a former San Diego FBI agent and counterterrorism official, told the Union-Tribune. "The last 10 years suggest our policies and our focus and our resources are all pointed in the wrong direction." But Life After Hate continues to find partners in federal government, particularly DHS and FBI. Agents can refer non-criminal cases to the nonprofit for possible intervention, and the nonprofit has developed a cultural competency training on the violent alt-right for law enforcement and mental health professionals. "There are people still helping us get things done," Rangel said, "even though they can't give us money." https://www.mcall.com/federal-response-to-white-supremacist-terror-under-scrutiny-in-wake-of-poway-attack-story.html

FBI uncovers homegrown terror training camp in Alabama. But this plot of land in Macon County, Alabama is described in an FBI search warrant as a "makeshift military-style obstacle course" belonging to a small group of terrorists led by Siraj Wahhaj who owned the property up a long dirt road but just a few miles from downtown Tuskegee. The property, similar to another compound in New Mexico the group is now linked to where federal prosecutors say Wahhaj and four other suspects were training children to carry out deadly terror attacks on American soil. FBI Assistant Director for the Counterterrorism Division Michael McGarrity told lawmakers on Capitol Hill there are 850 open domestic terrorism investigations, with 40% racially motivated violent extremism. In the Alabama case the group may not have carried out an attack, but the remains of a child believed to belong to Wahhaj, who is being charged with kidnapping were also found on the property in New Mexico. https://weartv.com/news/nation-world/fbi-uncovers-homegrown-terror-training-camp-in-alabama Terror in Alabama and the family connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing https://mynbc15.com/news/local/terror-in-alabama-and-the-family-connection-to-the-1993-world-trade-center-bombing Terror in Alabama: Why fringe groups shouldn't be discounted https://mynbc15.com/news/local/terror-in-alabama-why-fringe-groups-shouldnt-be-discounted

Democrats accuse Trump administration of trying to ‘obfuscate the white supremacist threat’ with new categories for domestic terrorism. A group of Democratic senators, including three 2020 presidential candidates, on Thursday called for the FBI to rescind a recent change to the way it classifies domestic terrorist incidents, arguing that the move plays down the threat of white supremacy. In the letter, the senators said the FBI has created a new category — “racially-motivated violent extremism” — that “inappropriately” combines white-supremacist incidents with those involving “Black identity extremists.” By doing so, the FBI has “shifted its approach to tracking domestic terrorism incidents to obfuscate the white supremacist threat,” the senators said. “Given the large number of white supremacist attacks, we are deeply concerned that this reclassification downplays the significance of the white supremacist threat,” they said. “If we do not understand the scope of the problem, we cannot effectively address it.” https://wapo.st/2vACpMw

This is an official press release from an elected senator in Australia. far-right independent Queensland Senator Fraser Anning said, “may have been the victims today, usually they are the perpetrators.” Today. https://t.co/CwqHjmAmqp Susan Carland (@SusanCarland) Right-wing Australian senator blames ‘immigration’ for New Zealand mosque attacks https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/03/15/right-wing-australian-senator-blames-immigration-new-zealand-mosque-attacks/

Report: ISIS in Syria could resurge within 6 to 12 months after US withdrawal https://www.stripes.com/news/report-isis-in-syria-could-resurge-within-6-to-12-months-after-us-withdrawal-1.567328

Experts warn of persistent ISIS threat after suicide bombing https://thehill.com/policy/defense/426117-experts-warn-of-persistent-isis-threat-after-suicide-bombing

Flawed Terrorism Report Shows Administration’s Skewed Priorities. While over-hyping terrorism committed by immigrants, DOJ is overlooking a bigger threat: terrorist violence from the far right. @brennancenter https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/flawed-terrorism-report-shows-administrations-skewed-priorities

Protest, Punch a Nazi, Free Speech

Followup: Here is the entirety of #NFAC leader #GrandmasterJay's speech at the #LouisvilleProtests. Video premiering now. He promised that in four weeks, if there aren't answers in the #BreonnaTaylor case, to "Burn the motherfucker down." https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1287450190337761281 https://youtu.be/kEQXbmlN5UY

With Trump threatening to deploy more agents to other U.S. cities, we should be paying close attention to what's been happening in Portland. Over the weekend I asked a friend up there, one who's been showing up for the protests regularly, what the scene is really like and if she knew what needed to be shared to a wider audience. The main message? Protesters are hoping people outside Portland understand that "this a fight for all of us." She also shared: Having the FEDS here is super scary for the state of our democracy (and a sign that Trump is a bloody fascist). The local cops have also been gassing and beating up protesters here for weeks with no oversight and little provocation. The clashes between protesters and police here on the ground is isolated to a small area and happens late at night — but the threat to our democracy is real and present. The cops — both local and Feds are brutalizing people, mostly young and dis-enfranchized folks like the houseless and mentally ill. They pepper spray and beat them every night. It is scary to see. https://boingboing.net/2020/07/21/what-portland-protesters-want.html

"It's just us normal people out there," he said. "There were a whole group of pregnant moms standing out there linking arms and they got gassed. You hear people like [President] Trump say it's just a bunch of wacko fringe people in liberal cities who are out there, but no way. We're all just normal people who think what's happening is wrong." https://www.stripes.com/news/us/a-navy-vet-asked-federal-officers-in-portland-to-remember-their-oaths-then-they-broke-his-hand-1.638124

Navy vet beaten by federal agents: ‘They came out to fight’. Today, David, who suffered two broken bones in his hand, finds himself a reluctant symbol of the protests taking place in Oregon’s largest city and the federal response to it. Militarized officers from a handful of agencies have been using tear gas, flash-bangs, pepper spray, “less-lethal” impact weapons and other munitions to disperse crowds. “It isn’t about me getting beat up. It’s about focusing back on the original intention of all of these protests, which is Black Lives Matter,” David said in a phone interview Monday with The Associated Press. David, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Navy veteran, was so disturbed by what he’d heard that he came to a protest site outside the federal building in downtown Portland on Saturday night. He put on a sweatshirt with “Navy” emblazoned across the chest and a Navy ballcap, figuring the federal officers would be, like him, a military veteran. He figured they’d listen as he reminded them “that you take the oath to the Constitution; you don’t take the oath to a particular person.” “What they were doing was unconstitutional,” David said. ”Sometimes I worry that people take the oath of office or the oath to the Constitution, and it’s just a set of words that mean nothing. They really don’t feel in their heart the weight of those words.” There was no talking. The federal officers, in full tactical gear, came charging out of the federal building. “They came out in this phalanx, running, and then they plowed into a bunch of protesters in the intersection of the street and knocked them over. They came out to fight,” David said. One officer pointed a semi-automatic weapon at David’s chest, he said, and video shows another shoving him backwards as he tried to talk with the officers. “I took a couple steps back, straightened up, and then just stood my ground right there, arms down by my side,” David recalled. One officer began whacking at David with the baton. When he doesn’t fall or even flinch, another officer sprays him full in the face. David then retreats a few steps while making an obscene gesture. “They are thugs and goons,” David said. “I couldn’t recognize anything tactically that they were attempting to do that was even remotely related to crowd control. It looked to me like a gang of guys with sticks.” https://apnews.com/4c521336d47c25d76d18000a3ea04511

Can we just recognize this absolute badass in a Navy sweater at the Portland Police Association protests. https://twitter.com/thechadallan/status/1284749219857760256

This Woman Lost Her Job For Sharing Art Showing Lynched KKK Members Because A Colleague Felt "Harassed". Madison Hartmann worked at SeaQuest in Utah, an aquarium and petting zoo, until she shared artistic images in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. "Is hate towards a hate group discrimination?" she asked. "I can’t be the only person that something like this has happened to this week." https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/woman-fired-aquarium-kkk-lynchings-seaquest

Trump-Loving California Couple Charged With Hate Crime For Brazen Vandalism Of Black Lives Matter Mural. The couple recorded defacing a Black Lives Matter mural that was painted in front of a California courthouse have been charged with three misdemeanors, including a hate crime, prosecutors today announced. David Nelson, 53, and Nicole Anderson, 42, are each facing misdemeanor charges in connection with a July 4 incident in Martinez, a city about 25 miles from San Francisco. The decision to charge the couple was made by officials with the Contra Costa County District Attorney's office. Nelson and Anderson are each charged with violation of civil rights, vandalism, and possession of tools to committ vandalism. If convicted of the charges, the defendants--who share a Martinez address--face up to a year in the county jail. Nelson and Anderson brazenly defaced the yellow BLM mural about an hour after it was painted Saturday afternoon. As seen in videos taken by onlookers, Anderson used a roller with black paint to cover the letters B and L. The mural, which was painted with the permission of city officials, was quickly restored after Saturday’s vandalism. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/black-lives-matter/blm-mural-defaced-275830

Black Lives Matter protesters proclaim not all free on Fourth of July. “Not everyone has freedom, not everyone has justice, not everyone is equal — that’s only for White people,” said Diona, an organizer of a march in El Cajon that turned out to be one of Saturday’s largest demonstrations. She declined to give her full name. More than 300 people — most wearing masks, many clad in black — gathered at Prescott Promenade Park in downtown El Cajon for the event, which called for the city to defund its Police Department. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/story/2020-07-04/black-lives-matter-protesters-proclaim-not-all-free-on-fourth-of-july

The president RTs a video in which a guy driving with Trump 2020 signs shouts “white power”. Seniors from The Villages in Florida protesting against each other: https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1276965068048158720 Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1277204969561755649

WARNING GRAPHIC: We Spent A Few Hours On Black Lives Matter Plaza — Here’s What It Looked Like. MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) were charged by a man wearing just a bra, underwear and long socks blocks from the White House on Wednesday. The man appeared to make contact with Holmes Norton, 83, before another man grabbed the individual and pulled him away. Daily Caller reporter Henry Rodgers captured the incident and posted it on Twitter. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/504301-mitchell-holmes-norton-charged-by-man-near-white-house https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/23/hours-inside-black-lives-matter-plaza-protests/

Wisconsin state senator attacked by protesters as demonstrations in Madison turn violent. Amid heated demonstrations that left two statues destroyed and windows smashed in Madison, Wis., a Democratic state senator was reportedly attacked by protesters near the state Capitol. State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had been heading to the State Capitol to work late Tuesday when he stopped to snap a photo of the protesters. “I don’t know what happened … all I did was stop and take a picture … and the next thing I’m getting five-six punches, getting kicked in the head,” said Carpenter, 60. Protesters, however, said the lawmaker provoked them, the Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea reported. In one photo of the melee, Carpenter, dressed in a blue T-shirt and shorts, is standing in the street and looks to be engaged in an animated conversation with at least two people. It is not clear what was said between Carpenter and the protesters before the situation turned violent. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/24/madison-police-protest-senator/

THE DEMANDS OF THE COLLECTIVE BLACK VOICES AT FREE CAPITOL HILL TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SEATTLE… by FreeCapitolHill. we demand that the use of armed force be banned entirely. No guns, no batons, no riot shields, no chemical weapons, especially against those exercising their First Amendment right as Americans to protest. https://link.medium.com/rf0tgDRJb7

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https://twitter.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1268363553087483905

FBI found "no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement" in May 31 violence, per FBI report leaked to me. That was the same day that Trump vowed to designate Antifa a terrorist organization. https://thenation.com/article/activism/antifa-trump-fbi/ https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1267964385147977728

This is CNN? Network apparently recently glorified ICE detention center attacker. The heavily promoted CNN show featured Bell explaining the “Redneck Revolt,” which he identified as gun-toting liberals who defend the Second Amendment and seek to battle the “alt-right” and neo-Nazis. Bell called them “good guys,” going to a gun range with members and even questioning why “more white people” don’t share their viewpoints. One of the men featured on the CNN special appears to be Van Spronsen -- who was armed with a rifle and incendiary devices when he launched his assault on the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma around 4 a.m. Saturday, according to the Tacoma Police Department. https://fxn.ws/32ue3n5 #FoxNews

Seven Questions With Patriot Prayer's Lawyer. Joey Gibson, the leader of local alt-right contingent Patriot Prayer, has asked the head of the Multnomah County Republican Party to defend him in a $1 million lawsuit. Portland pub Cider Riot sued Gibson in early May, after members of Patriot Prayer appeared at the SE Couch establishment looking to confront people associated with anti-fascist (antifa) groups on May 1. Video captured from the May Day incident shows Patriot Prayer members using insults and mace to harass Cider Riot patrons sitting outside. The visit escalated into a violent street fight, sending at least one person to the hospital. Gibson will be represented by Multnomah County Republican Party Chair James Buchal, a lawyer who specializes in civil litigation. Buchal is also representing a coalition of parents suing Portland Public Schools for allegedly using taxpayer dollars to support anti-gun protests. In the past decade, Buchal's unsuccessfully run for Oregon Attorney General and US Representative. He's opined on alt-right protests in the past. After a white nationalist—who participated in Patriot Prayer rallies—killed two men on the MAX who were trying to prevent his racist attack, Buchal said he feared for the GOP's safety. https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2019/07/05/26758038/seven-questions-with-joey-gibsons-lawyer

Tensions flared at dueling rallies in Washington on Saturday, but police kept Proud Boys and counterprotesters apart. In one effective nonviolent confrontation, members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence marching with hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out an interview by an unidentified right-wing reporter by surrounding her and loudly clacking their hand fans. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-all-out-dc-protests_n_5d215ec8e4b04c4814154714

The neo-fascist proud boys organized a "free speech" rally in DC today. It flopped. Gavin McInnes, founder of the neo-fascist group the Proud Boys, was struggling to break apart toy handcuffs he had brought onstage. He planned to use them as a metaphor for breaking the chains of what he considers to be the rampant stifling of free speech. “Okay, these are a lot stretchier than I thought they would be,” he confessed to the audience at Saturday’s Washington, DC, rally organized by the Proud Boys and the alt-right. He kept spreading the elastic handcuffs, but they wouldn’t break. McInnes’s botched metaphor took place during a free-speech rally that neo-fascists and members of the alt-right had gathered for at Freedom Plaza, just blocks away from the White House. But maybe his failed handcuff display did turn out to be a metaphor, albeit an unintentional one, for the rest of the generally lackluster event. Organizers had talked a big game before the rally, but it all lost momentum even before the official events began. Big names in the far-right internet community including Pizzagaters Jack Posobiec, Mike Cernovich, and the failed grifter and energetic troll Jacob Wohl, were all scheduled to speak but dropped out. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/the-neo-fascist-proud-boys-organized-a-free-speech-rally-in-dc-today-it-flopped/ via @MotherJones

Antifa counter-protest aims to drown out Proud Boys rally in Washington amid heavy police presence. Activists began rallying at Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington on Saturday morning, where they were met with a heavy police presence as they protested being blocked on social media because of their political views. About two dozens members of the Proud Boys, a self-proclaimed western-chauvinist fraternal group that believes in ending welfare and closing the borders, marched into the park shortly after 10 a.m. Police had shut many roads around the plaza and adjacent Pershing Park, where counter demonstrators gathered under the banner "All Out D.C." They are holding a dance and go-go party to drown out what they decry as "the face of white nationalism and supremacy." The area around Freedom Plaza was heavily barricaded but there was free access to Pershing Park. Among those expected to participate in the counter-rally: the Antifa, black-clad anti-fascists who police blame for violence and destruction in a swath of downtown during President Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/antifa-counter-protest-aims-to-drown-out-proud-boys-rally-in-washington-amid-heavy-police-presence-1.589222

White nationalist Planer sentenced in violent 2016 Capitol riot that left 10 hurt. Berkeley teacher-activist Yvonne Felarca; Brown Beret member Michael Williams, who provided security for the counterprotesters; and Porfirio Paz, remain free on bail awaiting Sacramento Superior Court hearings ahead of the September date. Attorneys for Felarca, Paz and Williams, known to their supporters as the “Sacramento 3,” have maintained the three were defending themselves from attack by the hate groups. “It should never be a felony to defend yourself against fascists,” Williams’ attorney Mark Reichel said in January. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article232270347.html

Witness says bloody attacks in Portland broke out after one man came to his aid https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/07/witness-says-bloody-attacks-in-portland-broke-out-after-one-man-came-to-his-aid.html

Ted Cruz Thinks the Portland Mayor Let Antifa Take Over His City. Here's What Really Happened. Antifa often damage property during protests and sometimes get into violent confrontations with police or the far-right — but to date they haven’t been linked to any killings. Rose City Antifa, Portland’s local antifascist chapter, organized a counterprotest Saturday in response to a planned rally by the Proud Boys, a far-right street-fighting gang. The Proud Boys’ rally was dubbed “The Battle of Portland Part Two”, and was planned almost exactly a year since a similar violent rally, which led to four arrests and four people transported to hospital with injuries. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/43jm7q/ted-cruz-thinks-the-portland-mayor-let-antifa-take-over-his-city-heres-what-really-happened

Proud Boys and Allies to Rally in D.C. to Capitalize on ‘Trumpstravaganza’. ‘We are expecting a lot of Trump supporters, and especially battle-ready Trump supporters,’ All Out D.C. organizer Jesse Sparks said. The event’s website lists a number of right-wing internet provocateurs, including conservative smear-pusher Jacob Wohl, anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, British far-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos, and former Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec. The bill also names a host of lesser-known social-media figures, including YouTube prankster-turned-congressional candidate Joey Salads and “Copper Cab,” the YouTuber who became famous in 2010 for the viral “gingers have souls” video. The rally, which will be held just blocks from the White House, is ostensibly about social-media companies banning right-wing figures like Loomer and Wohl. According to Proud Boy leader and event organizer Luke Rohfling, though, the event is also aimed at left-wing antifascist activists after Quillette writer Andy Ngo was attacked last weekend in Portland. While the Proud Boy event’s organizer says the event isn’t officially a Proud Boys rally, Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio is listed on the event’s permit as a supervisor. Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes is on the speakers’ list, as is Proud Boy and former Trump adviser Roger Stone. The rally organizers’ application for the Freedom Plaza space has been approved, according to a Park Police spokesperson. Just across the street from Freedom Plaza, antifascists and other counterprotesters organized in a coalition calling itself “All Out D.C.” plan to rally against the Proud Boys. “We are expecting a lot of Trump supporters, and especially battle-ready Trump supporters,” All Out D.C. organizer Jesse Sparks said. https://www.thedailybeast.com/proud-boys-and-allies-to-rally-in-dc-to-capitalize-on-trumpstravaganza

Todd Starnes: Portland’s mayor has turned his city over to Antifa thugs. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is blaming Mayor Wheeler for giving Antifa a free pass to terrorize the citizens of Portland. “To federal law enforcement: investigate & bring legal action against a Mayor who has, for political reasons, ordered his police officers to let citizens be attacked by domestic terrorists,” Cruz tweeted. https://fxn.ws/2NAq32G #FoxNews

Antifa attack blogger Andy Ngo amid violence at Portland Proud Boys protest https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/antifa-attack-portland-andy-ngo-portland-proud-boys-alt-right-a8981331.html

Violence erupts in Portland as Antifa clashes with Proud Boys. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/portland-clashes-antifa-proud-boys_n_5d183556e4b082e5536a7725

'White supremacy': popular knitting website Ravelry bans support for Trump https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/24/white-supremacy-popular-knitting-website-ravelry-bans-support-for-trump

Right-wing publications launder an anti-journalist smear campaign. On May 15, Eoin Lenihan, a far-right social media user presented what he said were excerpts from a data set that proved prominent reporters who cover extremist movements were “closely associated” with antifascist activists. He identified himself as an online extremism researcher, despite having no association with any previously known organization that researches extremism. In reality, Lenihan was already an established right-wing troll, now blanket banned for “violating rules against managing multiple Twitter accounts for abusive purposes.” Lenihan’s Twitter thread was met with enthusiasm on the right. His claims—among them that one writer is an “eco-extremist,” that a website that posts court documents is a “doxing site,” and that antifa is “often more violent” than right-wing fascist groups—were taken at face value by outlets including Breitbart, PJ Media, RedState, and Human Events, and RT. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/quillette-antifa-journalist-smear-campaign.php via @cjr

KKK group heavily outnumbered by counterprotesters at their own rally in Dayton https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/445560-kkk-group-heavily-outnumbered-by-counter-protesters-at-their

What campus free speech? Arizona case shows how far the right will go to stifle dissent https://www.salon.com/2019/04/07/what-campus-free-speech-arizona-case-shows-how-far-the-right-will-go-to-stifle-dissent/

War criminal and snowflake Erik Prince cancels Beloit College talk after student protests, threatens lawsuit https://boingboing.net/2019/03/29/oh-diddums-2.html

DA charges Oakland man with 3 felonies after attack on conservative activist at UC Berkeley http://www.ktvu.com/news/da-charges-oakland-man-with-3-felonies-after-attack-on-conservative-activist-at-uc-berkeley

Therese Patricia Okoumou Climbs Southwest Key Headquarters to Protest Child Detention. As with her famous Statue of Liberty ascension on the Fourth of July, her civil disobedience targeted abuse of immigrants by private and government interests in the United States (over the summer she hung a banner that read “Abolish ICE”). https://jezebel.com/therese-patricia-okoumou-climbs-southwest-key-headquart-1832792684

‘Pro-white’ rally in Georgia canceled, counter-protesters still plan to show up in force https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/427954-pro-white-rally-in-georgia-canceled-counter-protesters-still

Local group and counter protestors clash on migrant solidarity http://www.cbs8.com/story/39779957/local-group-and-counter-protestors-clash-on-migrant-solidarity

Police Riots and Violence and harassment, ICE raids, CBP, surveillance, Genocide

'These are his people': inside the elite border patrol unit Trump sent to Portland. Bortac, a quasi-militarised outfit some compare to the Navy Seals, has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. n January 2011, James Tomsheck, then a top internal affairs investigator inside US Customs and Border Protection, attended a meeting of about 100 senior CBP leaders in a hotel in Irvington, Virginia. Amid the sanitized splendor of the hotel ballroom, he vividly recalls hearing the nation’s then highest-ranking border patrol agent, David Aguilar, laying out his vision for the future. Border patrol, the former CBP deputy commissioner said, was to become the “marine corps of the US federal law enforcement community”. Another leading CBP figure remarked that border agents were not required to adhere to the same constitutional restraints on the use of force as other law enforcers. “We are not cops,” he said. the union’s president, Brandon Judd, declares that “President Trump is the right candidate for the safety and security of this great nation, not Joe Biden. Please join me in supporting President Trump.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/trump-border-patrol-troops-portland-bortac

National Guard commander says police suddenly moved on Lafayette Square protesters, used ‘excessive force’ before Trump visit. Guard major to testify before Congress that warnings couldn’t be heard, tear gas was used. A new statement by Adam DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who now serves as a major in the D.C. National Guard, also casts doubt on the claims by acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protesters spurred Park Police to clear the area at that time with unusually aggressive tactics. DeMarco said that “demonstrators were behaving peacefully” and that tear gas was deployed in an “excessive use of force.” DeMarco backs up law enforcement officials who told The Washington Post they believed the clearing operation would happen after the 7 p.m. curfew that night — but it was dramatically accelerated after Attorney General William P. Barr and others appeared in the park around 6 p.m. Monahan has said the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. DeMarco said the fencing materials did not arrive until 9 p.m. — hours after Barr told the Park Police to expand the perimeter -- and the fence wasn’t built until later that night. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-guard-commander-says-police-suddenly-moved-lafayette-square-protesters-used-excessive-force-clear-path-trump/ https://naturalresources.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Mr.%20Adam%20DeMarco%20-%20Written%20Testimony_.pdf

Peaceful protests were already happening for weeks when federal officers arrived on July 4. Our video shows how President Trump’s deployment ignited chaos. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000007243995/portland-protests-federal-government.html

Police Riots and Violence and harassment, ICE raids, CBP, archived July 27, 2020

Inside the Creepy Federal Crackdown on Portland Protesters. When Customs and Border Protection joined the protest crackdown in D.C., they were made into U.S. Marshals. In Portland, they’re using new powers provided by Trump. Federal agents in Oregon are operating under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security’s critical-infrastructure force, the Federal Protective Service, Customs and Border Protection said on Friday, after facing widespread outrage over an array of remarkable tactics. But there is no border-enforcement mission in Portland. Instead, the feds have been carrying out a crackdown on weeks of protests in favor of Black liberation and against racist police violence. CBP claims those protesters are violent, but a DHS timeline of “rampant long-lasting violence” committed by Portland protesters gave heavy emphasis to graffiti and superficial property damage. On Thursday night, protester Doug Brown watched a group of protesters peacefully trailing Portland Police officers near the federal courthouse downtown. Jaywalking was their only crime, Brown insisted. But that didn’t stop a group of federal officers in camouflage appearing and without warning shooting pepper balls at their feet, Brown told The Daily Beast. “Then they lined up, blocked the streets and started firing at people directly, no warning,” he said. “They’re nameless. There’s no accountability. They can just do what they want.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-spooky-right-now-inside-the-creepy-federal-crackdown-on-portland-protesters

These federal officers (?) just rushed up and arrested someone for no reason. https://twitter.com/matcha_chai/status/1283328232033411072

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Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe, the two cops who pushed over Martin Gugino and left him with brain damage that he will never recover from, go back on BPD’s payroll tomorrow. Share their faces, never let them live another day in peace. These men are scum. https://twitter.com/MichaelaHangen/status/1279818470989926401

Oregon State Police say trooper’s hand gesture in viral video was innocuous. https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/07/oregon-state-police-say-troopers-hand-gesture-in-viral-video-was-innocuous.html

UPDATE: OSP Denies Trooper Threw White Power Symbol At Black Lives Matter Event. http://clypian.com/2020/07/04/oregon-trooper-throws-white-power-symbol-at-black-lives-matter-event/

People, officers left trapped in vehicles by swarms of protesters -- but officials mute on how to handle. Protesters who have taken to streets around the country to demand a national reckoning on racial injustice since the death of George Floyd have used the tactic of blocking traffic – and in some instances captured on video – have swarmed cars, jumped on the hoods and even attacked drivers. Some have likened incidents to Charlottesville-style attempts at vehicular manslaughter, others see the protesters as the agitators putting everyday citizens at risk. A trucker seen barreling through a crowd of protesters in Minneapolis in late May was released from jail in Hennepin County just two days later without any charges against him pending further investigation. Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said the driver, identified as Bogdan Vechirko, 35, of Otsego, was speeding and "panicked, and he just kept barreling forward." He added that Vechirko did not breach any barriers put up to protect the protesters and was not aiming for anyone, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. https://fxn.ws/3eYBMkZ

Soldiers Mobilized To D.C. Protests Were Issued Bayonets: Report:The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has confirmed a report by The Associated Press that some of the service members who were mobilized to Washington, D.C., last month in response to civil unrest over the killing of George Floyd were issued bayonets. Defense documents obtained by the AP show some were not trained in riot response. Members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, which is based in D.C. and typically guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, were mobilized last month to respond to massive protests over the treatment of Black Americans and systemic issues of police brutality. But they were never actually sent to the protests after they arrived. The soldiers were issued bayonets for their June 2 deployment — but told they were to remain in their scabbards and not attached to their service rifles, Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark A. Milley wrote to two U.S. representatives in a letter that was obtained by the AP. The soldiers were also told no weapons were to enter the capital without clear orders and only after nonlethal options were first reviewed, he said.

Milley said the order to mobilize the troops came from Major Army Gen. Omar Jones, who serves as commander of the military district of Washington. His letter, dated June 26, was sent to two Democratic Congressmen, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, and Rep. Ted Lieu of California, who asked him for an explanation after the AP first reported on the use of bayonets on June 2. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/soldiers-mobilized-to-dc-protests-were-issued-bayonets-report_n_5efe4988c5b612083c593dbd

TONIGHT IN DETROIT. Warning sign. #PoliceBrutality as DPD plows through tons of protestors, roughly 3-5 injured includings leaders from @DETWILLBREATHE https://twitter.com/marcKlock/status/1277431080870727680

How cops are talking about George Floyd’s killing and the protests sweeping America. This country is changing its mind about the police. Over the past few years, Americans have watched countless videos of police brutality against Black people. They’ve witnessed, or participated in, the formation of a massive social movement dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Black lives. And their perception of police forces has shifted: A Monmouth University survey conducted at the end of May found, for the first time in polling history, that a majority (57 percent) of Americans and a plurality (49 percent) of white people think police officers “faced with a difficult or dangerous situation” are “more likely to use excessive force if the culprit is black.” That’s an increase of 24 points among all Americans and 23 points among white people since Monmouth’s 2014 poll in the wake of NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo’s killing of Eric Garner. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/george-floyd-police-protests-defund-conversations.html

Handy advice for dodging and disarming the sonic weapons used by militarized police. https://boingboing.net/2020/06/23/handy-advice-for-dodging-and-d.html

Brandon Harrison, an officer with the St. Joseph Police Department in Missouri, was assigned to administrative duties Monday after being filmed threatening a motorist. The video sailed to millions of views over the weekend, forcing officials to launch an investigation. https://boingboing.net/2020/06/23/off-duty-cop-off-the-streets-a.html

Videos of alleged police misconduct went viral. Then what happened? https://graphics.reuters.com/MINNEAPOLIS-POLICE/PROTESTS-VIDEOS/oakveazawvr/

A City Painted Over A Black Lives Matter Street Mural As Protests Continue. People pointed out the symbolism of the blue line of paint — but police said the paint is gray. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/claudiakoerner/florissant-black-lives-matter-paint-police

Nonwhite Minnesota corrections officers blocked from guarding Derek Chauvin: complaint. Eight minority corrections officers in Minnesota say they were sent to a separate floor of a county jail and barred from guarding fired Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin after his arrest in the death of George Floyd, according to a report. https://fxn.ws/3hNGAvl

Trump’s executive order on police reform, explained. The order, which is narrower than House Democrats’ reform bill, will create a national database of police misconduct, among other actions. “Many of these families lost their loved ones in deadly interactions with police,” Trump said. “To all of the hurting families, I want you to know that all Americans mourned by your side. Your loved ones will not have died in vain.” The president also discussed a variety of other topics over the course of his rambling remarks, including the status of a coronavirus vaccine, the recent performance of the stock market, and school choice. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/21292816/trump-police-reform-executive-order-explained

Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-safe-policing-safe-communities/

Officials familiar with Lafayette Square confrontation challenge Trump administration claim of what drove aggressive expulsion of protesters. During the nearly two weeks since authorities charged at peaceful protesters to push them from D.C. streets — about 30 minutes before President Trump walked through the area for a photo op — his aides, the attorney general and federal law enforcement officials have sought to shield the president from political fallout with a simple defense: One scene, they say, had nothing to do with the other. The notion that the street-clearing offensive around Lafayette Square was already planned, and separate from Trump’s decision to visit a nearby church, has emerged as the administration’s central explanation for scenes of federal officers shoving protesters with shields and firing pepper balls, chemical grenades and smoke bombs at retreating crowds on June 1. “This was not an operation to respond to that particular crowd. It was an operation to move the perimeter one block,” Attorney General William P. Barr told CBS News last week. However, the accounts of more than a half-dozen officials from federal law enforcement, D.C. public safety agencies and the National Guard who were familiar with planning for protests outside the White House that day challenge that explanation. The officials told The Washington Post they had no warning that U.S. Park Police, the agency that commanded the operation, planned to move the perimeter — and protesters — before a 7 p.m. citywide curfew, or that force would be used. Among them is D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, who said that while there had been discussions about possibly pushing the perimeter farther outward from the White House, there was not a confirmed time to do so. He noted that authorities did not actually secure the area with fencing until hours after protesters were cleared. “When they extended the perimeter, it was overnight,” he said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/officials-challenge-trump-administration-claim-of-what-drove-aggressive-expulsion-of-lafayette-square-protesters/2020/06/14/f2177e1e-acd4-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html

this arrest happened right after - cop reached into the crowd and body slammed a protestor. six cops on each of the 3 arrested - police captain said he “didn’t know why” they were arrested. nassau county pd, east meadow, ny https://twitter.com/xmoneymansavage/status/1272050254926487553

Peaceful protest in East Meadow, NY (Long Island): An officer abruptly stops so the protestor walking behind him bumps into the cop. Then the man is violently arrested. Bystanders: “they kneeled on his neck & had about 6 officers holding him down.” https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1271832001364979716

Protesters describe the excessive force they’ve seen police use in cities across the country. “The protesters had to deescalate the police”: Demonstrators are the ones defusing violence at protests. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21279619/protesters-police-violence-philadelphia-los-angeles-washington-dc

’His Brain Is Injured:’ Lawyer Updates on 75-Year-Old NY Protester Shoved by Police. The 75-year-old man hospitalized after he was pushed by a police officer during a peaceful protest last week in Buffalo, New York, suffered a brain injury as a result of the incident, his lawyer revealed Thursday. Kelly Zarcone said her client, activist Martin Gugino, "is starting physical therapy," which Zarcone called "a step in the right direction.” He is involved with the Western New York Peace Center and Latin American Solidarity Committee, whose executive director Vicki Ross, told The Associated Press Tuesday that Gugino is still hospitalized but out of intensive care. He has also been undergoing treatment for cancer, she said. Amid outcry over video of the incident, two Buffalo officers, Robert McCabe, 32, and Aaron Torgalski, 39, were suspended without pay then charged with second-degree assault. They have pleaded not guilty and 57 members of the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response team quit the task force in solidarity with their colleagues. Trump claimed on Twitter without any evidence Tuesday that Gugino "could be an ANTIFA provocateur," may have had a "scanner," and that he "fell harder than was pushed." Trump tagged his tweet with a reference to One America News, a right-wing media outlet that often amplifies conspiracies. Gugino could be seen holding a cell phone in the video, which a One America News segment focused on without attributing any evidence for the conspiracy. The bogus theory has its roots on an anonymous blog, NBC News reported. Religion News Services cited friends of Gugino as saying he is a Catholic retired scientist who has long advocated for the poor, disenfranchised and on behalf of Black Lives Matter. Buffalo's Mayor Brown also responded to Trump Tuesday, saying his city was "laser focused on healing, taking action against racial injustice and building a good future for our residents.” Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, the City of Buffalo is laser focused on healing, taking action against racial injustice and building a good future for our residents. We pray for a full recovery for Mr. Gugino and as I have repeatedly said, the two officers deserve due process. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the comments were "reprehensible" and called for Trump to apologize. “How reckless, how irresponsible, how mean, how crude," Cuomo said during a news conference. "I mean if there was ever a reprehensible, dumb comment from the president of the United States … at this moment of anguish and anger, what does he do? Pours gasoline on the fire. If he ever feels a moment of decency he should apologize for that tweet.” It wasn't just Democrats who took issue with the president's smear. The No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota, also criticized Trump's tweet. “It’s a serious accusation, which should only be made with facts and evidence. And I haven’t seen any yet,” Thune told reporters at the Capitol. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/75-year-old-buffalo-protester-hospitalized-after-cop-shove-suffered-brain-injury-lawyer/2457512/

Records Show Racial Disparities When San Diego Law Enforcement Uses Force. On a January morning in 2013, Raymond Goodlow was riding his bike on East Main Street in El Cajon when he was confronted by Roberto Bonilla, an officer with the El Cajon Police Department. Goodlow, who is African American, reached for his waistband and ducked behind a parked car, according to an internal department investigation. Bonilla then shot the unarmed 53-year-old six times. Miraculously, Goodlow survived the shooting. A KPBS analysis of nearly 130 records from police departments dating back to 2001 shows that when local police use force on a suspect, if the suspect is a person of color they're more likely to shoot. If the suspect is white, police are more likely to use alternative methods of force, including Tasers, beanbags, police dogs or tackling the suspect. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jun/10/records-show-racial-disparities-when-san-diego-law/

POLITICO spoke to 10 National Guardsmen who have taken part in the protest response across the country since the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. ‘What I saw was just absolutely wrong’: National Guardsmen struggle with their role in controlling protests. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/national-guard-protests-309932

Trump takes heat for suggesting man shoved by Buffalo police may be ‘ANTIFA provocateur’. President Trump on Tuesday questioned the motives of the elderly protester who was shoved by Buffalo police officers last week and hospitalized after he hit his head in the resulting fall -- drawing severe backlash from both sides of the aisle. "Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment," Trump tweeted Tuesday, citing the conservative TV channel OANN. "I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?” Officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault after they were caught on camera shoving Martin Gugino, who is 75, to the ground during protests in the city over the death of George Floyd. The officers have been suspended without pay and an internal affairs investigation was launched into the men. District Attorney John Flynn said the officers "crossed a line.” "My God this is a bad tweet," Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller posted. "There’s no evidence to support this and the guy looked like he fell as hard as he was pushed.” CNN White House correspondent John Harwood chimed in, saying that Trump is "repeating OANN kookery presented by a person who has also worked for Kremlin propaganda outlet, is disconnected from reality, humanity and common sense.” https://fxn.ws/3cPdSXa

Tensions Rise Between Protesters, So-Called ‘Defenders’ Outside Santee Target. As some protesters returned to their cars at a nearby Target, they said self-described "defenders" reportedly confronted them. A group had been posted outside the business, in their words, protecting it from looters. One demonstrator told NBC 7 the group mocked them as they walked by, some allegedly hurling racial slurs. Video shared with NBC 7 showed the moments after SDSO was called. About a couple dozen deputies ordered the crowd to disperse and stood, batons in hand, in a line between the two groups, facing demonstrators. Demonstrators can be heard shouting at the "defenders," who stood arms folded, some on benches, staring at the small crowd in the parking lot. The demonstrators said they believed that some of the so-called "defenders" were members of White Supremacy groups, and they were upset that it appeared as if the deputies were siding with the "defenders.” https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/tensions-rise-between-protesters-so-called-defenders-outside-santee-target/2342573/

San Diego Sheriff: ‘Nothing Could Be Further From Truth’ Than Approval Of Santee Vigilantes. In recent days, a group of armed vigilantes in Santee have stood watch outside local shopping centers. They said they’re responding to protests that have broken out in the area against police violence. After a protest in La Mesa on Saturday was followed by the looting and burning of stores and banks, two of these vigilantes posted video to social media, claiming the group has the backing of law enforcement. “Ya know, the thing is, this is about defending and protecting personal property and people, and hopefully it’ll be okay down here, but we’ve got permission by the Santee sheriff’s department to be down here,” says an unidentified speaker in the video posted to Facebook on Sunday. They also claim to be part of a private Facebook group with thousands of members. Santee itself has no Sheriff's or Police Department, but the San Diego County Sheriff's Department does have a station there. The Sheriff’s Department said it knows about the claims, but “nothing could be further from the truth,” according to a statement given to KPBS. Lieutenant Steve Bodine from the Sheriff's Department station in Santee told KPBS that the department has the resources to monitor protests, and that people are being told not to do the work of law enforcement. The city of Santee has been under a curfew since last Sunday. It has now been extended until Saturday morning at 6 a.m. A protest starting at the Santee YMCA is scheduled for Sunday. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jun/05/sheriff-backing-santee-vigilantes-not-true/

The crackdown before Trump’s photo op. What video and other records show about the clearing of protesters outside the White House. Late in the day on June 1, demonstrators gathered near the White House, on the edge of Lafayette Square, to protest police abuse following the death in custody of Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Similar protests had erupted across the country. Many were peaceful, but some included property destruction and clashes with police. Earlier in the day, President Trump berated local and state leaders as “weak” for not doing more to quell unrest, and in a call with governors he pledged decisive action. “We’re going to do something that people haven’t seen before,” he said, “but you got to have total domination, and then you have to put them in jail.” At about 6:30 p.m., just north of the White House, federal police in riot gear fired gas canisters and used grenades containing rubber pellets to scatter largely peaceful demonstrators. Their actions cleared the way for the president, surrounded by the nation’s top law enforcement and military leaders, to walk to the historic St. John’s Church for a three-minute photo op. Drawing on footage captured from dozens of cameras, as well as police radio communications and other records, The Washington Post reconstructed the events of this latest remarkable hour of Trump’s presidency, including of the roles of the agencies involved and the tactics and weaponry they used. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/06/08/timeline-trump-church-photo-op/?arc404=true

Six Ideas for a Cop-Free World. As public outrage at police brutality grows, we take a look at a few of the practicable, real-world alternatives to the modern police system.

  1. Unarmed mediation and intervention teams
  2. The decriminalization of almost every nonviolent crime
  3. Restorative Justice
  4. Direct democracy at the community level
  5. Community patrols
  6. Real mental-healthcare

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/police-brutality-cop-free-world-protest-199465/ - Six Ideas for a Cop-Free World

Police Officer's Oath: The widely used oath embraced by the International Association of Chiefs of Police reads,

"On my honor, I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character or the public trust. I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. I will always uphold the Constitution, my community, and the agency I serve."

Trump officials say there is no systemic racism problem in law enforcement. "That kind of thing is very uncommon now," HUD Secretary Ben Carson said of systemic racism Sunday. “That kind of thing is very uncommon now,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said of systemic racism Sunday. The comments come as President Donald Trump has repeatedly broadcast his support for law enforcement, even as police have been documented attacking journalists, protesters who have mostly remained peaceful, and bystanders at demonstrations. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/7/21283207/barr-wolf-carson-trump-officials-no-systemic-racism-in-law-enforcement

Graphic: What U.S. police are shooting at protesters. Police have used a range of weapons against peaceful protesters as well as members of the press during the demonstrations. Described as non-lethal, these weapons can seriously injure, disable and even kill. https://reut.rs/30ezMRe

Pentagon sends home all active-duty troops deployed near DC. The Pentagon on Friday sent home the remaining 900 active-duty soldiers that it had rapidly deployed to the Washington region this week in response to large protests in the city, the Army said. Those military police officers from Fort Drum, N.Y., and Fort Bragg, N.C., were on alert at Joint Base Andrews, Md., all week, but they never entered Washington before they were ordered home Friday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. They follow the roughly 700 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division who were sent back to Fort Bragg on Thursday. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Thursday sent a letter to Trump demanding removal of those troops and federal law enforcement officers deployed from outside the city. She said violence in the city has dropped and local police force and federal law enforcement agencies in Washington were “well equipped to handle large demonstrations and First Amendment activities.” National Guard troops in recent days have been photographed working alongside federal law enforcement officers and guarding national monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, which was vandalized over the weekend. The vast majority of the National Guard troops have not been carrying firearms, Pentagon officials have said. The Washington Post on Friday reported Esper had ordered none of those troops carry such weapons in a signal of “de-escalation,” citing an unnamed U.S. defense official. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/pentagon-sends-home-all-active-duty-troops-deployed-near-dc-1.632

Police Are Arresting Peaceful Black Protesters Using Force, And The Videos Are Alarming. "Because he was Black, they felt that they needed five cops to tackle him to the ground and drag him to behind the other cops." https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/clarissajanlim/videos-police-arrest-peaceful-black-protesters via @clarissajanlim

Police Violence at Protests Is Undeniable. All the Videos Are Right Here. In reaction to civilians and politicians in denial that cops are striking first at anti-racism protests, two activists are cataloguing every video they can find in a public spreadsheet. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kpbmy/police-violence-at-protests-is-undeniable-all-the-videos-are-right-here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1YmZeSxpz52qT-10tkCjWOwOGkQqle7Wd1P7ZM1wMW0E/htmlview

https://8cantwait.org

That the police version of this incident is "one person was injured when he tripped & fell" is why we need journalism. Elderly white man is shoved and falls striking his head. https://twitter.com/brookejarvis/status/1268726967668359168 https://twitter.com/JeffRussoWKBW/status/1268712651292643334

William Barr's Vast, Nameless Army Is Being Brought To Bear On D.C. Protesters. Federal law enforcement officers are operating on American streets without identification, which experts say breeds a culture of impunity. Just a few hundred feet north of the White House on Wednesday afternoon, armed agents of the federal government, dressed in a patchwork of colors and protective gear, stared down peaceful protesters demonstrating for Black lives. Yet what was perhaps most alarming was what was not visible on many of the officers: any insignia revealing their identity or even the name of the agency they work for. Some members of the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI stationed throughout downtown Washington wore outfits that at least identified their agency, even if they weren’t wearing name tags that identified them personally. But the police line just north of the White House on Wednesday afternoon featured a patchwork of colors and agents wearing generic outfits ― sometimes what appeared to be just T-shirts under their protective gear that gave no indication of even their department or military branch. Attorney General William Barr is leading this aggressive response that has brought in an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies to guard federal property and suppress unrest: FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the U.S. Marshals; and the federal Bureau of Prisons. Those Department of Justice forces join Homeland Security officers, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the Capitol Police, the Federal Protective Service, the Secret Service and the District of Columbia National Guard. At least some of the officers on the police line by the White House appeared to be with the Bureau of Prisons, which dispatched Special Operations Response Teams that the BOP told HuffPost are “highly trained tactical units capable of responding to prison disturbances” and “specialize in crowd control scenarios” behind bars. A senior Justice Department official credited Barr with the idea of bringing in federal prison corrections officers, calling it an example of Barr’s “outside the box” thinking. “He brought those people in,” the official said, because dealing with riots is “exactly what they do best.” The senior Justice Department official confirmed that the prison bureau officers were stationed near the White House, though the BOP declined to verify whether the armed men photographed facing off with peaceful demonstrators Wednesday did, in fact, work for BOP. Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/william-barr-justice-department-protests-trump_n_5ed8330ec5b6513fdffca21a

Police Riots and Violence and harassment, ICE raids, CBP, surveillance, Genocide ARCHIVED June 04, 2020

Breaking curfew is no excuse for senselessly beating someone on their way home @NYPDnews https://twitter.com/JulianCastro/status/1268381369668943872

Park Police chief insists tear gas wasn't used despite reports. The head of the U.S. Park Police (USPP) on Tuesday said police used pepper balls to move crowds demonstrating near the White House on Monday night, and took issue with reports that tear gas was used. Acting USPP Chief Gregory Monahan said in a statement that smoke canisters and pepper balls were used to combat “violent” protesters. “As many of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls,” Monahan said. “No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park,” he said. The National Guard and other police also took part in clearing the space on Monday. A number of reporters took issue with the assertion that tear gas was not used. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/500786-interior-department-faces-questions-over-response-to-lafayette

Why the policing problem isn’t about “a few bad apples” "The system was designed this way": A former prosecutor on the fundamental problem with law enforcement. I’m hearing this again in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. On Sunday, to take one example, National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien said, “We have got great law enforcement officers, not — not the few bad apples, like the officer [Derek Chauvin] that killed George Floyd. But we got a few bad apples that have given — given law enforcement a bad name.” When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if he thought systemic racism was a problem for law enforcement, O’Brien replied: “No, I don’t think there’s systemic racism.” Curiously, the people who recite this trope rarely reflect on the second half of the expression: “A few bad apples spoil the bunch.” But let’s set that aside. The point of policing the hood is to demonstrate that the police officer dominates. That he’s the man, regardless of gender, that the officer is the boss, and that everybody else is subordinate. The way that that message is communicated is with fear. Fear for your physical safety. I called this “torture lite” in my book Chokehold, and some people thought that that was extreme. But I was actually thinking about a specific thing in international human rights law, and a specific evolution of torture, from the horrible pulling out of your fingernails to the way it works now — which is to make people feel both humiliated and terrified that anything could happen to them at any moment. https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/6/2/21276799/george-floyd-protest-criminal-justice-paul-butler

8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000007159353/george-floyd-arrest-death-video.html

Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide. The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country teargassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane. Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/george-floyd-protests-police-violence.amp

Tear gas was deployed into a crowd outside the La Mesa Police headquarters yesterday. The protesters initially gathered at the police headquarters in the early afternoon and soon made their way to the streets. By 3:30 p.m. the protesters were blocked on Baltimore Drive by the California Highway Patrol as they tried to make their way onto Interstate 8. Crowds broke through multiple lines and walked on both sides of I-8 as police and CHP diverted traffic. At around 5 p.m. protesters seemed to back away from one of the blockades and go elsewhere. Here is a breakdown of what happened last night: http://on.nbc7.com/jXlB0yM.

A Decade Of Watching Black People Die https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die

The death of George Floyd: What video and other records show about his final minutes. On May 25, Minneapolis resident George Floyd was pinned facedown on the ground, in handcuffs, by a white police officer who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. He was unresponsive when paramedics arrived, and he was pronounced dead later. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/30/video-timeline-george-floyd-death/

Colin Kaepernick appeared to react to the death of George Floyd and the violent protests that came in the days after on social media Thursday. Floyd later died as a result of the incident. Protests ensued in the days following, with looting and several buildings burning Wednesday night. “When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction,” the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback tweeted. “The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.” | Fox News https://fxn.ws/2AlzoVS

The United States Customs Is Blocking Car Exports From New York. The DHS implemented this hold on exports in conjunction with other restrictions on New York, most notably on registration and renewal of Trusted Traveler programs like Global Entry, SENTRI, FAST, and NEXUS, many of which are used by New York residents crossing the state’s land border with Canada. In a press release, the DHS explained that both the Trust Traveler programs and the processing of vehicle exports require access to DMV records. In the case of the Trusted Traveler programs, the DHS claims that it uses the records to perform background checks to determine eligibility. In the case of exports, the data is used to verify ownership records. https://jalopnik.com/the-united-states-customs-is-blocking-car-exports-from-1841529467

Border stops for people of Iranian descent spark outrage. The reaction to the detentions at a Canadian crossing and a New York airport came after the U.S. killing of an Iranian military commander. Len Saunders, an immigration attorney in Blaine, said his contacts through CBP indicated that headquarters in Washington had ordered new vetting procedures, which appear to be directed toward people born in Iran, that require port directors to sign off on admitting anyone held for questioning. Sam Sadr, who lives in North Vancouver, said he was held for nearly nine hours at the Peace Arch border crossing on Saturday after the birthplace printed on his Canadian passport caught the attention of the U.S. customs officer. Sadr, who was born in Tehran, told POLITICO he was on his way to Seattle for the day with his family. The officer, he said, asked him to pull over and go into the border office to provide more information. https://politi.co/35sEcTw via @politico

Durbin mostly on track with claim on Illinois deportations. "You’re not going after dangerous people, you’re going after people who are here undocumented," Durbin told the agency’s associate director of enforcement and removal operations. "I can tell you the statistics in Illinois, where it turns out that fewer than 20% of those actually deported have been charged with any serious crime." https://www.politifact.com/illinois/statements/2019/oct/27/richard-durbin/durbin-mostly-track-claim-illinois-deportations/ via @BetterGov

These Allegations of Child Abuse Against Customs and Border Protection Go On for Tens of Thousands of Pages. One boy said he was threatened with rape if he didn't behave. Several others were allegedly beaten while handcuffed. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59nqq3/these-allegations-of-child-abuse-against-cbp-go-on-for-tens-of-thousands-of-pages

Texas officer charged with murder, resigns after shooting. Aaron Dean, 34, was booked into jail on a murder charge Monday afternoon. The police chief said earlier in the day that he acted without justification and would have been fired if he didn't quit. Police bodycam video showed Dean approaching the door of the home where Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was caring for her 8-year-old nephew early Saturday. He then walked around the side of the house, pushed through a gate into the fenced-off backyard and fired through the glass a split-second after shouting at Jefferson to show her hands. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/texas-officer-charged-with-murder-resigns-after-shooting-1.603103

Reporter says he was harassed by customs officer who insisted he writes 'propaganda' Defense One news editor Ben Watson said in an article published Friday that the confrontation happened the previous day at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, saying a CBP officer held onto his passport while repeatedly asking him about his profession. When Watson responded that he was a journalist, he said the the unnamed officer responded, "So you write propaganda, right?" The reporter says he responded "no," before the officer repeated his question. Watson said he again responded in the negative, adding: "No. I am in journalism. Covering national security. And homeland security. And with many of the same skills I used in the U.S. Army as a public affairs officer. Some would argue that’s propaganda.” The officer allegedly responded again, "So you write propaganda, right?" Watson then relented, replying "yes" to expedite the conversation. The officer then reportedly handed him his passport. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/464430-reporter-says-he-was-harassed-by-customs-officer-who-insisted-he-writes

'Trump is literally deporting kids with cancer': New immigration rule removes protections for migrants seeking life-saving medical care. US immigration services have informed families struggling with HIV, cancer, cerebral palsy and other conditions they must leave in 33 days https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-immigration-border-cancer-children-healthcare-deport-a9080601.html

‘Imported labor’: Canadian journalist for CBC refused entry to US. Carolyn Dunn, a national correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, said she had been told that her travel to Washington, D.C., was “entry into the labor" market and that she’d be “imported labor.” “I’ve never been pulled aside at a US border let alone refused entry,” she tweeted. https://washex.am/2Ztkkg2

'Our dad is dead': the families left behind after police shootings. This week, a police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner was fired. For most families of African American men killed by police, even partial closure proves terribly elusive https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/police-killings-families-ramarley-graham-terence-crutcher-tamir-rice

Journalist stopped by US border agent 'for being part of fake news media'. James Dyer, online editor-in-chief at Empire Magazine, said he was questioned by the Customs and Border Protection agent after he displayed his journalist visa at Los Angeles International Airport border control. “He wanted to know if I’d ever worked for CNN or MSNBC or other outlets that are ‘spreading lies to the American people’,” Mr Dyer tweeted of the incident on Thursday. “He aggressively told me that journalists are liars and are attacking their democracy.” CNN and MSNBC are cable news channels which receive particular scorn from the president. “Apparently the only truth now comes from YouTube and the president. All this said under a CBP sign that says ‘we are the face of our nation’. And with a framed picture of 45 staring down. In f***ing California!!! Welcome to Trump’s America!” Mr Dyer added. https://news.yahoo.com/journalist-stopped-us-border-agent-121920390.html writer detained by CBP

Corrections officer who drove truck through ICE protesters resigns. Capt. Thomas Woodworth, the man believed to be the driver of the vehicle, stepped down from the job a day after being placed on leave, a spokesman for the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility said in a statement Friday. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/corrections-officer-who-drove-truck-through-ice-protesters-placed-leave-n1043046 via @nbcnews

A Prison Guard Drove A Truck Through A Group Of Jewish ICE Protesters, Injuring Several. "If they're willing to do that to us, we can't imagine the violence the ICE detainees behind those walls may be subject to every day," an organizer said. Police did not intervene, and the man was not arrested, according to Regunberg. Officials at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility have placed a correctional officer on administrative leave after a pickup truck drove into protesters at the entrance to the facility’s employee parking lot Wednesday night. The officer is identified as Capt. Thomas Woodworth. Wyatt would not say whether he was the man driving the truck, but in video of the incident, protesters could be heard shouting his name. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/ice-prison-guard-never-again-action-drove-truck-jewish-ice via @juliareinstein Immigrant detention facility driver slams truck into protesters, causing serious injuries https://boingboing.net/2019/08/15/ice-detention-facility-driver.html Wyatt Detention Facility correctional officer put on leave after truck drives into protesters; 64-year-old Warren man seriously injured https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190815/wyatt-detention-facility-correctional-officer-put-on-leave-after-truck-drives-into-protesters-64-year-old-warren-man-seriously-injured

Correctional officer accused of driving truck into group of ICE protesters. Never Again Action, a Jewish advocacy organization that has organized against the Trump administration’s immigration policies and its treatment of migrants on the Southern border, shared a video of a Wednesday night protest outside the Wyatt Detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. A black pickup truck swerves into the group of protesters, who were blocking the entrance into the facility, and appears to stop before stepping on the gas and hitting several protesters. Two protesters were treated at a hospital nearby with non-life threatening injuries, Never Again Action told The Hill. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/457511-correctional-officer-accused-of-driving-truck-into-group-of-ice

Police shootings are a leading cause of death for young American men, new research shows. For this group, death by police officer is the sixth most common way to die https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/police-brutality-killing-shooting-death-us-study-rutgers-university-a9047066.html

ICE official on children left behind after Mississippi raids: We're 'not a social services agency'. An ICE official told NBC News on Friday that the agency is "a law enforcement agency, not a social services agency" after news reports revealed that many children of suspects detained this week were left homeless in the immediate aftermath of the raid, though local media reports indicate that all are now staying with family members. Still, the official added, the agency took precautions to prevent instances of children being left without legal guardians as much as possible. The remarks follow comments made by ICE acting Director Matthew Albence to The Washington Post, who said that the raid was conducted in a "textbook" manner. "This was a textbook operation, carried out in a safe manner, and done securely,” Albence said. “Officers were able to execute these warrants in a safe fashion.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/456864-ice-official-on-children-left-behind-after-mississippi-raids-were-not

Internal Watchdog Investigates Trump Administration’s Secret Database of Journalists, Activists, Lawyers. Homeland Security’s acting Inspector General Jennifer Costello confirmed in a letter that “criminal investigators, program analysts, and attorneys” are investigating the secret database, which was part of the Department of Defense’s so-called “Operation Security Line.” “We plan to review the leaked…document in order to determine why it was created, what it is used for, and what happened to the people named in it,” Costello wrote in the letter. “We also anticipate reviewing other specific allegations of targeting and/or harassment of lawyers, journalists, and advocates and evaluate whether [Customs and Border Protection’s] actions complied with law and policy.” https://shar.es/aXfdcv

The Judiciary Committee held a family separation hearing, and it was infinitely more impactful than the Mueller hearing, even if you haven’t heard about it. The 3-year-old in question was Sofi, a little girl who was separated from her grandmother after they arrived at a port of entry in El Paso, Texas, last June seeking asylum. She was separated from her family for 47 days, until the Trump administration was forced to reunite them by court order. Chief of Law Enforcement Operations for Customs and Border Protection Brian S. Hastings still isn’t sure if she posed a threat, he told Rep. Ted Lieu during the Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/cbp-chief-brian-hastings-family-separation-judiciary-hearing-not-mueller.html via @slate

An American Teen Held In Border Detention For 3 Weeks Lost 20 Pounds In "Inhumane" Conditions. An 18-year-old US citizen who was held in immigration detention for almost a month slept on the floor of a cell crowded with 60 men and lost 20 pounds from a lack of nutritious food — all while being denied access to a phone to call his family or a lawyer. Attorney Claudia Galan said the conditions that Francisco Galicia faced in Customs and Border Protection detention were so bad that he considered signing the paperwork that would deport him to Mexico just to get relief. The high school student was born in Dallas in December 2000, according to his birth certificate. "The officers were just telling him they didn't believe he was a US citizen, he was Mexican and should go back to Mexico," Galan told BuzzFeed News. "He said that it was inhumane, the worst experience ever. He doesn't wish that to anybody." On June 27, Galicia, his brother, and other friends were driving to a soccer recruiting event at Ranger College from their home in the border town of Edinburg when were stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/claudiakoerner/texas-teen-border-detention-conditions-inhumane via @claudiakoerner

Just 35 People Detained in ICE Raids Targeting Thousands of Migrants Last Week, Says Report https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-raids-just-35-people-detained-in-trump-raids-targeting-thousands-of-migrants-last-week-says-report

AOC to DHS chief: Border agents shared 'images of my violent rape' in secret Facebook group https://news.yahoo.com/aoc-dhs-chief-border-agents-215210812.html

@AOC</a> Do you think child separation contributed to a dehumanizing culture within CBP?
Acting DHS Sec: We don't have a dehumanizing culture at CBP.
AOC: So you don’t think having 10K officers in a violent racist group sharing rape memes of MOCs points to a dehumanized culture?
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1151929926108557313 July 18, 2019

A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like to Guard Migrant Children. With the agency under fire for holding children in deplorable conditions and over racist and misogynistic Facebook posts, one agent speaks about what it’s like to do his job. “Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal.” he turned away to return to his duties, the agent recalled feeling sorry for the lawyer. “I wanted to tell her the rest of us have given up.” https://www.propublica.org/article/a-border-patrol-agent-reveals-what-its-really-like-to-guard-migrant-children

62 border employees under internal investigation amid posts https://www.yahoo.com/news/62-border-employees-under-internal-190415512.html

Teens are filling Tiktok with memes deploring #Life360, a parenting app that tracks teens. Meanwhile, Life360 makes a lot of its money by selling your kids' private data to advertisers. And, ironically, Tiktok is also a surveillance-heavy app with ties to the Chinese state and military. https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/power-relationships.html

Border Patrol Agents Are Passing Around A Commemorative Coin Mocking Care for Migrant Kids. The coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a parade of migrants crossing the border. https://www.propublica.org/article/border-patrol-agents-are-passing-around-a-commemorative-coin-mocking-care-for-migrant-kids

Border Patrol chief Carla Provost was a member of secret Facebook group. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to the DHS Inspector General’s office last week specifically requesting that investigators examine whether Provost and acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan knew about or had previously addressed the problem of government personnel posting “violent, racist, misogynistic comments and pictures” in the “I’m 10-15” group. “This is why I have requested a full investigation into this matter,” Thompson said in a statement to The Intercept, after being informed of Provost’s participation in the group. “We need to know who in CBP leadership knew about these deplorable groups, when did they find out, and what action they took, if anything.” https://interc.pt/2G8AxAs by @rdevro

The Border Patrol Is the American SS https://jacobinmag.com/2019/07/border-patrol-concentration-camps-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/

At least one other social media group with an apparent nexus to Customs and Border Protection has been discovered to contain vulgar and sexually explicit posts, according to screenshots shared with two sources familiar with the Facebook pages. The secret Facebook group, "The Real CBP Nation," which has around 1,000 members, is host to an image that mocks separating migrant families, multiple demeaning memes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and other derisive images of Asians and African Americans. https://t.co/vcnZQT7blP

Border agency knew about secret Facebook group for years. Border Patrol leadership knew about photos posted to the group as far back as 2016, when agents reported them, according to a DHS official. https://politi.co/2NsPOCb

In her own words: AOC describes the "intentional cruelty" she saw inside a migrant detention center. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-border-migrant-centers-exclusive-mother-jones-podcast/ via @MotherJones

Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants and discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday. The three-year-old group shared derogatory comments about Latina lawmakers who plan to visit a controversial Texas detention facility on Monday, calling them “scum buckets” and “hoes.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/inside-the-secret-border-patrol-facebook-group-where-agents-joke-about-migrant-deaths-and-post-sexist-memes_n_5d1a424ee4b082e5536da6bf

Inside a Texas Building Where the Government Is Holding Immigrant Children. Hundreds of immigrant children who have been separated from their parents or family members are being held in dirty, neglectful, and dangerous conditions at Border Patrol facilities in Texas. This week, a team of lawyers interviewed more than fifty children at one of those facilities, in Clint, Texas, in order to monitor government compliance with the Flores settlement, which mandates that children must be held in safe and sanitary conditions and moved out of Border Patrol custody without unnecessary delays. The conditions the lawyers found were shocking: flu and lice outbreaks were going untreated, and children were filthy, sleeping on cold floors, and taking care of each other because of the lack of attention from guards. Some of them had been in the facility for weeks. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children

I’m a journalist but I didn’t fully realize the terrible power of U.S. border officials until they violated my rights and privacy. writer detained by CBP while returning to US from Mexico. https://interc.pt/2WXXoUG by Seth Harp

Trump defends and delays ICE raids as some major cities vow to resist http://s.oregonlive.com/sYRvBFD

ICE set to begin immigration raids in 10 cities on Sunday. Last year, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation's immigration courts, announced that it had begun tracking family cases filed by the Department of Homeland Security in 10 immigration court locations: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco. @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/31Py4Uw

Detroit police chief faces backlash over neo-Nazi protest at Pride event. James Craig was criticized after officers escorted National Socialist Movement members who carried weapons at Motor City Pride. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/14/detroit-pride-festival-neo-nazi-police-protection-backlash

The road to Ferguson: This 1980 bank robbery changed how American police are armed https://www.salon.com/2019/06/09/the-road-to-ferguson-this-1980-bank-robbery-changed-how-american-police-are-armed/

Trump administration seeks criminal crackdown on pipeline protests https://politi.co/2HSZxwH

China's defence minister says Tiananmen Square massacre was justified https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-tiananmen-square-anniversary-protests-wei-fenghe-speech-singapore-a8940591.html

Faced with an officer’s gun, a black man chose his best option: Show his hands and hit record https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/30/faced-with-cops-gun-black-man-did-only-thing-he-could-showed-his-hands-hit-record/

Number Of Families Trying To Cross U.S. Border Alarms ICE Agent Jack Staton, ICE special agent in charge of investigations for the El Paso sector, about a spike in apprehensions as families seeking asylum strain capacity to process cases. https://n.pr/2CJVwrB

Intelligence report appeared to endorse view leftwing protesters were 'terrorists'. Michael German, a former FBI agent who infiltrated far right groups in the 1990s, and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the report’s framing was wrong. “Somehow they have this set up almost like antifa is the antagonist, and anti-antifa has developed to resist it,” he said “What it seems to do is completely whitewash the history of white supremacist violence in this country.” German said that framing it this way belies the way in which “far-right groups use these public spectacles as the method to incite violence. And they come knowing that it will attract protest groups from the community.” Such groups “intentionally go to places to provoke protesters to come out, and they go armed for a real street fight”, German said. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/01/intelligence-law-enforcement-report-leftwing-terrorists-charlottesville

President Donald Trump this week issued a thinly veiled threat of violence against his opponents. The president regularly encourages his base to commit violence against protesters and his political enemies. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-encourages-violence-from-his-supporters-theyre-listening_n_5c8bb977e4b0db7da9f29e07

On Fox News, Dinesh D’Souza calls on Trump to use “force” and send the National Guard to college campuses to crack down on liberal protesters http://mm4a.org/4XQ

What We Know About a Portland Cop's Friendly Texts with a Far-Right Leader https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzd39y/what-we-know-about-a-portland-cops-friendly-texts-with-a-far-right-leader

Texts Between Portland Police and Patriot Prayer Ringleader Joey Gibson Show Warm Exchange http://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2019/02/14/texts-between-portland-police-and-patriot-prayer-ringleader-joey-gibson-show-warm-exchange/ https://twitter.com/katemshepherd/status/1096220092109443073

Activists making ‘water drops’ for migrants near border say government intimidation is rising https://wapo.st/2FXxCMw

Revealed: FBI investigated civil rights group as 'terrorism' threat and viewed KKK as victims https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/01/sacramento-rally-fbi-kkk-domestic-terrorism-california

How a California officer protected neo-Nazis and targeted their victims https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/25/california-police-neo-nazis-antifa-protest

NRA Mass shootings, School Shootings, Gun Violence, Gun Control

Thousands of Gun Rights Activists Are Taking a Victory Lap for Peaceful Rally in Virginia. An estimated 22,000 pro-gun activists rallied near the Virginia Capitol building Monday, but despite the city being on edge in fear of violence, the protest against gun control went off without a hitch. Many attendees were in tactical gear, heavily armed with rifles and ammo slung over their shoulders, wearing stickers saying “Guns Save Lives.” Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, had declared a state of emergency on Wednesday after law enforcement intercepted threats of violence he said echoed rhetoric leading up to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville two years ago. But Monday’s event, which took place on a bitterly cold morning, was ultimately peaceful. The only person arrested was a 21-year-old woman who wore a bandanna covering her face, in violation of Virginia law (plenty of other attendees were wearing bandannas and were not arrested). Riot police were not called in, and there were no scuffles. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7qvmy/thousands-of-gun-rights-activists-are-taking-a-victory-lap-for-peaceful-rally

Washington man accused of killing wife purportedly confessed to murder in tweets to NRA, Trump. A Twitter account purportedly owned by Kevin Heimsoth - a Bellingham man who is the main suspect in the shooting death of his wife Lynn Heimsoth - sent a series of four reply tweets shorting after 3 a.m. PT on Dec. 26 stating that the user shot and killed his “whole family.” In a reply to the NRA’s Merry Christmas tweet, the account wrote: “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” “Guns just make it a lot easier. AR-15 makes it super easy,” the post continued. “I jist (sic) killed my whole family, and i couldnt have done it without a gun! I’m too much of a coward, a knife would have been waaay too hard. So, thanks to everyone at the NRA.” https://fxn.ws/2ZvbsYV #FoxNews

Kellyanne Conway Blasts Background Check Supporters to Deflect From Trump’s About Face. “We’re not going to allow” people who commit mass shootings “to be the excuse for a bunch of liberals and socialists to confiscate firearms,” the White House counselor said. Conway continued, “I’m not going to allow people who are constantly maligning and deriding our law enforcement to be in charge of public safety and public policy.” Conway also said, “We want this to be bipartisan” and then proceeded to do the complete opposite with her attack. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kellyanne-conway-blasts-supporters-of-background-checks-884818/ via @RollingStone

Odessa mass shooting debunks argument against universal background checks. Ator, 36, never should have been able to buy a gun. He managed to obtain his AR-style rifle thanks to a loophole in the federal background-check system, anonymous law enforcement officials told The Associated Press and ABC News. A court had ruled him mentally unfit to purchase or own a firearm, so he was barred from buying a gun from a licensed dealer in 2014 after failing a federal background check. Ator simply purchased his rifle in a private sale not covered under federal law — a loophole that would be closed if Congress passed universal background checks favored by nine out of 10 Americans. Private sales, including those on the internet and at gun shows, are not covered under federal criminal background check requirements. https://www.yahoo.com/news/odessa-mass-shooting-debunks-argument-215400514.html

Gun Used in Texas Shooting Was Illegally Manufactured and Sold: Authorities believe the gun used in the drive-by shooting in Midland and Odessa, Texas this past weekend was illegally manufactured and sold by a Lubbock, Texas man, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is currently investigating a man who they believe illegally manufactured and sold the AR-15-style rifle that Seth Ator used to kill seven people and injure 22 more on Saturday, before he was shot and killed by police. https://news.yahoo.com/gun-used-texas-shooting-illegally-211956266.html

Right-wing media threaten violence in retaliation to gun safety proposals https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/right-wing-media-threaten-violence-retaliation-gun-safety-proposals

‘We Got One in a Ditch’: Inside the Odessa Shooting Rampage. Just under an hour after that first report, it was over. “We’re going to need one more ambulance,” a voice said. Seven people were killed and nearly 20 people were injured. Three cops had been wounded. The shooter was dead following a shootout with police. A supervisor announced on the radio, “DPS advises there’s no active shooter right now in Odessa.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/odessa-texas-shooting-police-dispatch-tapes-paint-picture-of-chaos-and-fear

Dick's reports increased earnings amid push to reduce gun offerings https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/458406-dicks-reports-increased-sales-after-reducing-gun-offerings

Michigan high school being built with places to hide in case of shooting. The school will be equipped with impact-resistant film on all classroom windows and is designed with curve hallways to have reduced sight lines for a potential shooter, Szymoniak said, adding that there are also barricades in the hallway for students to hide behind. "To cut down on sight lines further, it also gives an opportunity for students to hide back behind and hopefully get help from within the classroom," he said. "This building will be the safest, most secure building in the state of Michigan when it opens," he said. "Our ask is that our community be very understanding, keep the eyes on the prize because when our high school is done, it's going [to] be magnificent." https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/458501-michigan-high-school-being-built-with-places-to-hide-in-case-of-shooting

Americans Told Us How Their Lives Have Been Torn Apart By Gun Violence. Mass shootings have created a climate of fear, loss, and helplessness. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwez4a/americans-told-us-how-their-lives-have-been-torn-apart-by-gun-violence

Amnesty International issues travel advisory for the United States of America https://boingboing.net/2019/08/13/amnesty-international-issues-t.html

Between gun massacres, a routine, deadly seven days of U.S. shootings https://reut.rs/2Z06YHG

The Post has a database tracking every mass shooting since 1966. It includes a breakdown of the type of gun used in each shooting. wapo.st/2yQoP9v

McConnell taps GOP senators to mull bipartisan legislation after shootings. McConnell, in a statement, said he discussed Trump's speech on Monday with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). "I asked them to reflect on the subjects the president raised within their jurisdictions and encouraged them to engage in bipartisan discussions of potential solutions to help protect our communities without infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights," McConnell said. McConnell took a veiled shot at the Democratic rhetoric on Monday without directly responding to calls to reconvene the Senate. "Only serious, bipartisan, bicameral efforts will enable us to continue this important work and produce further legislation that can pass the Senate, pass the House, and earn the president’s signature," he said. "Partisan theatrics and campaign-trail rhetoric will only take us farther away from the progress all Americans deserve," he added. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/456272-mcconnell-taps-gop-senators-to-mull-bipartisan-legislation-after-shootings

The Fallout from Parkland Isn't Over Yet for Florida Law Enforcement. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office got its accreditation yanked last week over mishaps surrounding the 2018 Parkland school shooting, according to the Sun Sentinel. Florida’s state panel chose not to renew accreditation for Broward, one of the largest law enforcement groups in the state, over it mishandling of the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and another shooting that killed five people at the Fort Lauderdale airport in 2017. The sheriff’s department has yet to make a statement, but the accreditation process is totally voluntary — it’s just something police departments do to show they’re following the best practices and guidelines. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/8xz3d3/the-fallout-from-parkland-isnt-over-yet-for-florida-law-enforcement

Ex-colleagues: Army vet who opened fire at Dallas courthouse came from military family https://www.stripes.com/news/us/ex-colleagues-army-vet-who-opened-fire-at-dallas-courthouse-came-from-military-family-1.586494

Dallas courthouse shooter’s disturbing Facebook posts paint troubling picture as search for motive continues. 22-year-old Dallas shooter Brian Isaack Clyde. Prior to his time in school there, he served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army from August 2015 to February 2017. But individuals who say they served with him in the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell in Kentucky told WFAA that Clyde was discharged because he couldn’t pass physical training tests. https://fxn.ws/2WOY8M6 #FoxNews

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Active Shooter Killed in Dallas in Exchange of Gunfire With Federal Officers. The suspected gunman was identified by the FBI as 22-year-old white male Brian Isaack Clyde. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Shooting-Reported-Downtown-Dallas-511399661.html via @nbcdfw

Parkland survivor says Harvard revoked his admission over racist remarks. Kyle Kashuv, who became a pro-gun conservative activist, tweeted that decision was made over texts he made before the massacre. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/parkland-shooting-survivor-harvard-revokes-admission-kyle-kashuv

Leaked Documents Reveal ‘Mindboggling’ Spending at the National Rifle Association. National Rifle Association executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre is under fire for excessive "wardrobe" expenses after allegedly running up charges of $270,000 at a Beverly Hills boutique. Posted anonymously online, the documents have surfaced amid an increasingly public feud among NRA leadership, the gun group’s PR firm, Ackerman McQueen, and the NRA’s outside legal firm, run by William Brewer, III. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/mindboggling-spending-at-the-national-rifle-association-836980/ via @RollingStone

'I was gonna go down fighting,' says sixth-grader who grabbed a bat during school shooting. 6th grader Nate Holley survived the shooting at his school in CO. STEM School Highlands Ranch @CNN https://cnn.it/2VWtUtU

Secrecy, Self-Dealing, and Greed at the N.R.A. According to interviews and to documents that I obtained—federal tax forms, charity records, contracts, corporate filings, and internal communications—a small group of N.R.A. executives, contractors, and venders has extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the nonprofit’s budget, through gratuitous payments, sweetheart deals, and opaque financial arrangements. Memos created by a senior N.R.A. employee describe a workplace distinguished by secrecy, self-dealing, and greed, whose leaders have encouraged disastrous business ventures and questionable partnerships, and have marginalized those who object. Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s top executive NRATV, popular host Grant Stinchfield Dana Loesch, a former Breitbart News editor A lawyer and activist called Colion Noir, whose real name is Collins Idehen, Jr.Chris Cox, the organization’s top lobbyist. they are paid by Ackerman McQueen, a public-relations firm based in Oklahoma. Oliver North, the former Iran-Contra operative, who now serves as the N.R.A.’s president, is paid roughly a million dollars a year through Ackerman, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra

NRA Fundraising Letter: We Could Shutter ‘Very Soon’. “[R]ight now we’re facing an attack that’s unprecedented not just in the history of the NRA, but in the entire history of our country,” the letter began. “And if this attack succeeds, NRA will be forced to shut down forever.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/national-rifle-association-fundraising-letter-we-could-shutter-very-soon

How to sell a massacre: NRA's playbook revealed. The best method to handle media inquiries in the wake of a massacre was to “say nothing,” according to Catherine Mortensen, an NRA media liaison officer, on the video. But if the media inquiries about gun control persist, another NRA comms official, Lars Dalseide, said to “shame them to the whole idea,” adding: “If your policy, isn’t good enough to stand on itself, how dare you use their deaths to push that forward? How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?” @AJENews https://aje.io/eynp3

A year after Parkland, Republicans still don't want to fund gun violence research https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-year-after-parkland-republicans-still-dont-want-to-fund-gun-violence-research/ via @MotherJones

Climate change, Environment

The next mega disasters that could happen at any moment (and kill us all). Volcanos, earthquake, ocean rise, asteroid, contagion. https://fxn.ws/36bv7yw #FoxNews

Ex-truck driver gets prison for poisoning S. Carolina creek. Greene faced up to three years in prison for repeatedly dumping chemicals in 2017 in the Wateree River drainage basin, which flows past Congaree National Park. He would back up a tanker truck and dump polluted water containing chemicals such as mercury and lead. Greene said he was just “trying to save time.” - ABC News - https://abcn.ws/2OjP9BP via @ABC

What do evangelical Christians really think about climate change? Some evangelicals argue that global warming is of little concern when the end times are approaching. Indeed, it could even be proof of it. Bible verses are also pointed to as evidence humans are required to subdue Earth, that God is in control, and global warming is part of His plan. Others see it as liberal hoax and a means to push folks away from religion towards the government. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/what-do-evangelical-christians-really-think-about-climate-change/ via @MotherJones

Greta Thunberg just pulled an iconic move in front of Congress. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist who has inspired weekly school strikes for climate action around the world, dedicated her Wednesday morning Congressional testimony to the scientists who have outlined the irrefutable facts of climate change. Instead of delivering prepared remarks at the joint hearing between the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Energy, and the Environment and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, Thunberg submitted to lawmakers a copy of the 2018 report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the effects of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius. “I am submitting this report as my testimony, because I don’t want you to listen to me,” Thunberg said. “I want you to listen to the scientists, and I want you to unite behind the science, and then I want you to take real action.” https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/09/greta-thunberg-just-pulled-an-iconic-move-in-front-of-congress/ via @MotherJones

LA is going to get cheap nighttime power from a massive solar and battery array in the Mojave. LA's next source of energy: a massive solar panel and lithium battery array in the Mojave, operated by 8minute Solar Energy, and capable of supplying 6-7% of the city's energy budget, with four hours of nighttime use. It will cost an eye-poppingly low $0.03.3/kWh, cheaper than natural gas. The otherwise unambiguously good news has one sore-spot: it was opposed by LA Water and Power workers' unions, who are upset that the natural gas plants where their members work are being decommissioned by the city. It's a perfect example of why the Green New Deal is so right to put the emphasis on working with energy sector workers to ensure that they have good jobs through the green transition. Union workers don't want their kids to inherit a world blasted by climate change, but they also don't want their kids to grow up in poverty thanks to mass layoffs from changes in how we generate power. https://boingboing.net/2019/09/14/green-keynes.html

The Misogyny of Climate Deniers. Why do right-wing men hate Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez so much? Researchers have some troubling answers to that question. The connection has to do with a sense of group identity under threat, Hultman told me—an identity they perceive to be under threat from all sides. Besieged, as they see it, both by developing gender equality—Hultman pointed specifically to the shock some men felt at the #MeToo movement—and now climate activism’s challenge to their way of life, male reactionaries motivated by right-wing nationalism, anti-feminism, and climate denialism increasingly overlap, the three reactions feeding off of one another. “There is a package of values and behaviors connected to a form of masculinity that I call ‘industrial breadwinner masculinity.’ They see the world as separated between humans and nature. They believe humans are obliged to use nature and its resources to make products out of them. And they have a risk perception that nature will tolerate all types of waste. It’s a risk perception that doesn’t think of nature as vulnerable and as something that is possible to be destroyed. For them, economic growth is more important than the environment” Hultman told Deutsche Welle last year. https://newrepublic.com/article/154879/misogyny-climate-deniers

Trump absent from G-7 session on climate. The president was not in the room when reporters were allowed to observe part of the session, and his seat was empty. The heads of government of the other six nations that comprise the G-7 were there. "The President had scheduled meetings and bilaterals with Germany and India, so a senior member of the Administration attended in his stead," press secretary Stephanie Grisham later told reporters. Trump met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel a short time after the climate session and was asked if he had attended. "I'm going to. In fact, it's going to be our next session. I want clear air and clean water," Trump said. It was unclear if he heard a reporter who noted the session had just happened. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/458785-trump-absent-from-g-7-session-on-climate

Plan clears way for mining and drilling on land stripped from Utah monument. Management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante, downsized by Trump administration in 2017, criticized as ‘a giveaway to fossil fuel’ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/23/grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-management-plan-blm-oil-gas-drilling-trump

Automakers snub Trump to side with climate crisis, says Obama-era official. Companies are considering years of regulatory uncertainty when aligning with California’s mileage standards deal. Producing cars that use more gasoline could make it harder for American companies to compete in the US and abroad. And the recent deal with California is more favorable than the Obama rules. Under an agreement last month, four companies pledged to reach an average fuel economy for new cars and trucks of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2026. The state made some concessions to automakers, giving them an extra year to meet the standards and allowing more flexibility to get credit for electric vehicles. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/22/automakers-snub-trump-to-side-with-climate-crisis-says-obama-era-official

The Trump administration just gutted one of the most powerful environmental laws on the books. The Endangered Species Act has saved thousands of animals, plants, and insects from extinction. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/the-trump-administration-just-gutted-one-of-the-most-powerful-environmental-laws-on-the-books/ via @MotherJones

'Coal is over': the miners rooting for the Green New Deal, Appalachia’s main industry is dying and some workers are looking to a new economic promise after Trump’s proves empty. The coal industry in Appalachia is dying – something that people there know better than anyone. Some in this region are pinning their hopes on alternative solutions, including rising Democratic star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. “Coal is over. Forget coal,” said Jimmy Simpkins, who worked as a coalminer in the area for 29 years. “It can never be back to what it was in our heyday. It can’t happen. That coal is not there to mine.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/12/west-virginia-appalachia-miners-green-new-deal?CMP=share_btn_tw

Navy quietly shut down climate change task force. Since it started, the TFCC released several reports on the strategic challenge climate change poses, taking a close look at what the melting Arctic means for strategic planning, and the dangers sea-level rise and extreme weather pose to many naval installations. Alice Hill, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former senior director for resilience on the National Security Council under President Obama, said she created a Department of Homeland Security task force modeled on the one created by the Navy. "They did great work; they were the first task force within the Department of Defense," Hill said. "We viewed them as a model of how the government should initially focus on the problem of climate change." In an email, the Navy spokesperson said the TFCC was ended because its processes are "now duplicative as functions have been transitioned to existing business processes; therefore, the original components of the task force are no longer needed." https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060877355

'It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie'. A top climate scientist quit USDA, following others who say Trump has politicized science. One of the nation’s leading climate change scientists is quitting the Agriculture Department in protest over the Trump administration’s efforts to bury his groundbreaking study about how rice is losing nutrients because of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Lewis Ziska, a 62-year-old plant physiologist who’s worked at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service for more than two decades, told POLITICO he was alarmed when department officials not only questioned the findings of the study — which raised serious concerns for the 600 million people who depend on rice for most of their calories — but also tried to minimize media coverage of the paper, which was published in the journal Science Advances last year. https://politi.co/2yCQdYD

Trump Is Desperately Trying to Spin His Abysmal Record on the Environment. The president tapped a bait-and-tackle shop owner and an array of administration officials to help him argue that slashing emissions regulations is actually good for the planet. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-is-desperately-trying-to-spin-his-abysmal-record-on-the-environment-856318/ via @RollingStone

Trump touts environmental policies, but says nothing of climate change. “The Trump speech was a classic in Soviet-style up-is-down disinformation because the president's words are belied by the relentlessness with which his administration has gone about the task of rolling back scores of the rules that have been the engine driving the environmental progress America enjoyed before Trump took office,” said Joe Goffman, a former top official at EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation under Obama. “It is as if the Trump policy is to promote, rather than prevent, air and water pollution, toxic chemical exposure and the despoiling of America's natural resources.” Betsy Southerland, a former director in EPA’s Office of Water under Obama, argued Trump has done nothing to maintain any environmental protections that may have occurred under previous administrations. She also cast his environmental policies as changing at the whim of his political backers. A number of Trump’s biggest campaign donors were heads of fossil fuel industries. “His environmental policy is not based on ideology or based on the economic impacts of rules, it’s really just based on whatever his political donors ask him to do,” said Southerland. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/452077-trump-touts-environmental-policies-but-says-nothing-of-climate

If Climate Change Makes You Feel Hopeless, Maybe Religion Can Help. People suffering from climate despair are turning to spiritual leaders. This is the advice they get. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5w9yb/if-climate-change-makes-you-feel-hopeless-maybe-religion-can-help

USDA Scientists Are Quitting in Droves. That’s Really Bad News for Climate Research. “This is the ears and eyes of [presidential] administrations — on domestic policy, environmental policy, risk assessment, and technology adoption,” said David Zilberman, Chair of the University of California-Berkeley’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. But USDA employees fear all the agency’s work could be erased completely if the Trump administration follows through with plans to uproot the division — and all its scientists — and move them to Kansas City. The researchers’ union anticipates, after an unofficial count, that as many as 80 percent of the employees are planning to quit rather than move, and that will disrupt entire fields of study, ranging from honeybee pollination patterns to how crop prices fluctuate with changes in consumer demand. Their positions will take years to fill, if USDA staff recruits new hires at all. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/evy9ew/usda-scientists-are-quitting-in-droves-thats-really-bad-news-for-climate-research

US air quality is slipping after years of improvement https://apnews.com/d3515b79af1246d08f7978f026c9092b

"Freedom gas": The Trump administration's ridiculous new plan to rebrand fossil fuels. The Trump administration has rebranded natural gas with a new, patriotic-sounding name: “freedom gas.” In a Department of Energy press release on Tuesday, Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes talked about exporting US natural gas as “spreading freedom gas throughout the world.” you’ll find another official calling natural gas “molecules of US freedom.” https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/05/freedom-gas-the-trump-administrations-ridiculous-new-plan-to-rebrand-fossil-fuels/ via @MotherJones

The EPA's Lies About Air Pollution Are Killing Americans. In its latest move to protect industry, the government has ensured that we'll see more deaths from asthma, heart problems and cognitive degeneration. the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump has decided to pose an arbitrary threshold by which to define unhealthy air in order to protect fossil fuel companies and their unchecked emissions. Given that science has confirmed that no level of polluted air can be healthy, this will not only threaten us now, but for generations to come. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzm39e/the-epas-lies-about-air-pollution-are-killing-americans

A major coal company went bust. Its bankruptcy filing shows that it was funding climate change denialism. https://interc.pt/2Ehm6ZY by @lhfang

Watch: Why is an MIT alum in Congress pretending he doesn’t know climate change is real? “Are you serious?” former Secretary of State John Kerry asked Rep. Thomas Massie during a congressional hearing on Wednesday in which the Kentucky Republican seemingly tried to catch Kerry in a sort of “gotcha” moment about scientific credentials and climate change. Whether or not Massie, who holds two engineering degrees from MIT, was serious is actually a good question. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/12/18307727/thomas-massie-john-kerry-video-political-science

Several agencies refusing to take part in Trump's committee to reassess climate science: report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437967-several-agencies-refusing-to-take-part-in-trumps-committee-to

As White House questions climate change, US military is planning for it https://www.stripes.com/news/us/as-white-house-questions-climate-change-us-military-is-planning-for-it-1.576257

Congress sends Trump lands bill that would protect more than 2 million acres https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/26/lands-bill-passes-congress-protects-2-million-acres/2994457002/ via @usatoday

One climate scientist called the group a “a veritable dream team of climate change deniers, contrarians, and downplayers.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-climate-change-panel_n_5c7470c6e4b0bf16620250d4

Coronavirus crisis, tracking

Johns Hopkins Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, CSSE dashboard https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

This site was created by Avi Schiffmann. I am a high schooler in Washington State, USA. https://ncov2019.live/data

US Historical Data https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily

The COVID Tracking Project @COVID19Tracking https://covidtracking.com

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/index.html #!?sr=fbCNN050520index.html

Doubling time of coronavirus deaths, by state http://election.princeton.edu/doubling-time-of-coronavirus-deaths-by-state/

San Diego County coronavirus/COVID-19 cases by zip code, city http://www.cbs8.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/san-diego-county-coronaviruscovid-19-cases-by-zip-code/509-99b6fabb-7a6b-429d-abb2-a2eb7f84da13 via @CBS8

County https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/community_epidemiology/dc/2019-nCoV/status.html

★Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441 via @financialtimes

Here's when the coronavirus will peak in your state https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/490856-when-will-coronaviruses-cases-peak-in-your-state

Face Mask Pattern - Free Sewing Pattern • Craft Passion  - https://go.shr.lc/2U14c2S via @shareaholic

Official Face Mask Sewing Video Tutorial - With Pocket For Filter Media ... https://youtu.be/KBR98YKAr7w via @YouTube

Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare

COVID-19 patients will be ‘sent home to die’ if deemed too sick, Texas county says. Now Starr County is at a dangerous “tipping point,” reporting an alarming number of new cases each day, data show. Starr County Memorial Hospital — the county’s only hospital — is overflowing with COVID-19 patients. The county has been forced to form what is being compared to a so-called “death panel.” A county health board – which governs Starr Memorial – is set to authorize critical care guidelines Thursday that will help medical workers determine ways to allocate scarce medical resources on patients with the best chance to survive. A committee will deem which COVID-19 patients are likely to die and send them home with family, Jose Vasquez, the county health authority, said during a news conference Tuesday. Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article244443257.html

Every Decision Is A Risk. Every Risk Is A Decision. Right now, you can go online and find multiple charts that will visually categorize what were once the activities of daily life by risk level. Some of these charts are evidence based, compiled by experts and (in my opinion) genuinely helpful. I particularly liked the one designed by epidemiologist Saskia Popescu and bioethecist Ezekiel Emanuel because it lays out not just the risk levels of various behaviors — getting a haircut, visiting the dentist, buying a new shirt — but also the underlying factors that can make an activity more or less risky. In general, research has shown that indoors is riskier than outside, long visits riskier than short ones, crowds riskier than individuals — and, look, just avoid situations where you’re being sneezed, yelled, coughed or sung at. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/every-decision-is-a-risk-every-risk-is-a-decision/

Cholesterol-lowering drug could see coronavirus treated like common cold, study finds. The drug fenofibrate allowed lung cells to burn more fat therefore depriving the coronavirus of the conditions it needs to survive. https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/a231cd65-0f1c-31fb-bb2f-52a6ff32742f/cholesterol-lowering-drug.html

Sailors test positive for coronavirus after sharing firefighting gear during USS Bonhomme Richard fire. At least two sailors from the amphibious transport dock USS San Diego tested positive for COVID-19 after fighting the fire onboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, the Navy said Friday. At least 27 people who were in contact with them are quarantined. The Navy's statement came in response to questions raised by several USS San Diego sailors during interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune. According to the sailors, at least five sailors from their ship have tested positive in the last few days. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/sailors-test-positive-for-coronavirus-after-sharing-firefighting-gear-during-uss-bonhomme-richard-fire-1.637985#.XxRcWRhoiNo.twitter

This video is from a friend of one of my mom’s employees at a hospital in McAllen, Texas https://twitter.com/InAFantasyWorld/status/1283976325204566016

Congestion, runny nose, nausea and diarrhea are the four most recent COVID-19 symptoms that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added to its growing list of potential signs of the novel coronavirus. The CDC previously said symptoms include chills, fever, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and a new loss of taste or smell. The agency now lists 11 symptoms on its website. The additions come as health experts continue to learn more about the disease, and care for very ill COVID-19 patients is improving. Even so, the CDC states the current list doesn't include all possible symptoms for the virus. https://www.yahoo.com/news/cdc-adds-runny-nose-nausea-171508483.html

Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, archived July 14, 2020

How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States? https://boingboing.net/2020/07/13/how-can-a-disease-with-1-mort.html From Franklin Veaux's Quora post:
For every one person who dies:

  • 19 more require hospitalization.
  • 18 of those will have permanent heart damage for the rest of their lives.
  • 10 will have permanent lung damage.
  • 3 will have strokes.
  • 2 will have neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of coordination.
  • 2 will have neurological damage that leads to loss of cognitive function.

So now all of a sudden, that “but it’s only 1% fatal!” becomes:

  • 3,282,000 people dead.
  • 62,358,000 hospitalized.
  • 59,076,000 people with permanent heart damage.
  • 32,820,000 people with permanent lung damage.
  • 9,846,000 people with strokes.
  • 6,564,000 people with muscle weakness.
  • 6,564,000 people with loss of cognitive function.

His conclusion: "The choice is not 'ruin the economy to save 1%.' If we reopen the economy, it will be destroyed anyway. The US economy cannot survive everyone getting COVID-19."

COVID-19 and blood type: What's the link? Scientists are finding evidence that blood type may be a risk factor for COVID-19. In one study, people with Type A blood were more likely to be hospitalized. In this population, having Type A blood was associated with a 45% increased risk of having severe COVID-19. On the other hand, having Type O blood was associated with a 35% reduced risk of the disease. Those relationships held up whether the Italian and Spanish patients were analyzed separately or together. No other blood groups were associated with a greater or lesser risk of the disease. In addition, blood type did not seem to be linked to the risk of needing to be put on a mechanical ventilator. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-07-09/link-between-covid-19-and-blood-type

239 Experts With 1 Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne https://news.yahoo.com/239-experts-1-big-claim-151916602.html

Hydroxychloroquine helped save coronavirus patients, study shows; Trump campaign hails 'fantastic news’. Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have found that early administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die -- a finding that conservatives say validates President Trump's early statements on the drug, even as various media outlets mocked him for suggesting the treatment might be effective. The Food and Drug Administration halted the emergency use authorization for the drug earlier this month, saying preliminary data showed it wasn't effective. Research into its possible applications to treat coronavirus, however, has continued. https://fxn.ws/2BD9OwF

Coronavirus task force briefs — but not at White House. The briefing at the Department of Health and Human Services was held as the number of confirmed new coronavirus infections per day in the U.S. soared to an all-time high of 40,000 — higher even than during the deadliest stretch in April and May. In light of the new surge, task force briefers chose their words carefully to update the public about COVID-19, which has become both a public health and political issue. “I just encourage every American to continue to pray,” Pence said in closing. “Pray for all the families that have lost loved ones. Pray for our health care workers on the front lines. And just continue to pray that, by God’s grace, every single day we’ll each do our part to heal our land.” Back at the White House, Trump held a jobs-focused event in the East Room and offered this can-do message: “We have a little work to do and we’ll get it done. We’re having some very good numbers coming out in terms of the comeback, the comeback of our nation and I think it’s going very rapidly and it’s going to be very good.” https://apnews.com/6d3b7fbda1cfc2467bae335deafdb0a2

North Dakota governor in tears at split over face mask use in the US – video. Republican Doug Burgum was moved to tears over divisions in the US over wearing face masks during the coronavirus pandemic, in which some stores have turned customers away for wearing masks. 'This is a ... senseless dividing line,' he said. Emotive and dramatic ASL interpreter. https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/may/23/north-dakota-governor-in-tears-at-split-over-face-mask-use-in-the-us-video

The Trump Administration Paid Millions for Test Tubes—and Got Unusable Mini Soda Bottles. Since May, the Trump administration has paid a fledgling Texas company $7.3 million for test tubes needed in tracking the spread of the coronavirus nationwide. But, instead of the standard vials, Fillakit LLC has supplied plastic tubes made for bottling soda, which state health officials say are unusable. The state officials say that these “preforms,” which are designed to be expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles, don’t fit the racks used in laboratory analysis of test samples. Even if the bottles were the right size, experts say, the company’s process likely contaminated the tubes and could yield false test results. Fillakit employees, some not wearing masks, gathered the miniature soda bottles with snow shovels and dumped them into plastic bins before squirting saline into them, all in the open air, according to former employees and ProPublica’s observation of the company’s operations. https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/06/the-trump-administration-paid-millions-for-test-tubes-and-got-unusable-mini-soda-bottles/

FDA ends emergency use of hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus. The agency now believes that the suggested dosing regimens "are unlikely to produce an antiviral effect," FDA chief scientist Denise Hinton said in a letter. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/15/fda-ends-emergency-use-of-hydroxychloroquine-319872

White House pressure for a vaccine raises risk the U.S. will approve one that doesn’t work. President Donald Trump has promised that there will be a coronavirus vaccine before the year is out. But public health experts are growing increasingly worried that the White House will pressure regulators to approve the first vaccine candidate to show promise — without proof that it provides effective, reliable protection against the virus. Drugmakers and health agencies have already begun rewriting the rules of vaccine research, launching candidates into clinical trials at record speed in search of a pandemic-ending shot. Data on the vaccines’ safety is already trickling in. But no candidate is yet ready for the final step of the development process: a months-long trial in tens of thousands of volunteers to prove once and for all whether the shot works. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/15/pressure-coronavirus-vaccine-risk-approval-316094

White House pressure for a vaccine raises risk the U.S. will approve one that doesn’t work. Drugmakers and health agencies have already begun rewriting the rules of vaccine research. President Donald Trump has promised that there will be a coronavirus vaccine before the year is out. But public health experts are growing increasingly worried that the White House will pressure regulators to approve the first vaccine candidate to show promise — without proof that it provides effective, reliable protection against the virus. That tight timing, coupled with the high-pressure political environment, has experts concerned that the Food and Drug Administration could grant emergency-use authorization to one or more vaccines before clinical trials have definitively determined whether they can prevent infection. “There is a genuine concern, and a very understandable concern, from the vast majority of Americans on ‘Are we moving too quickly on this coronavirus vaccine?’” said Erica DeWald, director of advocacy at Vaccinate Your Family. “We need to do a better job of breaking down for people just what we’re accelerating.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/15/pressure-coronavirus-vaccine-risk-approval-316094

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Deciding to Go Out. Venturing Out? Be Prepared and Stay Safe. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/activities.html

Type O blood type may provide some coronavirus protection, study suggests. Preliminary results from an ongoing study suggest that certain blood types may be less likely to contract the novel coronavirus. “Preliminary data from 23andMe’s ongoing genetic study of COVID-19 appears to lend more evidence for the importance of a person’s blood type — determined by the ABO gene — in differences in the susceptibility to the virus,” the company said in a blog post regarding the findings. More specifically, type O blood may be protective against the novel virus. In fact, early results indicate that people with type O blood are between 9 and 18 percent less likely to test positive for COVID-19 when compared to the other blood types. https://fxn.ws/30n884B

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman touted a correlation between vitamin D deficiencies and COVID-19 deaths, suggesting the supplement may help combat the virus. Early research verifies that correlation, but more work needs to be done. Grothman emphasized that point and didn’t imply vitamin D is a cure for COVID-19. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/08/glenn-grothman/glenn-grothman-target-about-tie-between-vitamin-d-/

Fauci is 'optimistic' Moderna's coronavirus vaccine will work - despite criticism that early trials were 'over-hyped' to pad the pockets of execs . America's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, said he is 'cautiously optimistic' that one of several coronavirus vaccines being developed in the US will be ready in a 'reasonable period of time.’ Already, the 'reasonable' time frame for a coronavirus vaccine is most the start of next year for front line workers to receive it and longer for the average citizen. If everyone needs two doses within six months, that's twice as much vaccine to produce. The phase 2 trial for Moderna's shot, launched this week, will follow its participants for a year, but a phase 3 trial is planned for next month and the hope is that the vaccine's first batch could be ready by January. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8381985/Fauci-optimistic-Modernas-coronavirus-vaccine-work.html

Little Progress Made In Trump's Plan For Private Retailers To Test For Coronavirus. Twice now, on March 13 and again on April 27, President Trump gathered some of the country's top corporate executives — from test producers to lab processors to major retailers — to tout his plan to make COVID-19 testing widely available. His vision: Blanket the country in drive-through testing sites. The president, speaking from the White House Rose Garden, promised that "stores in virtually every location" would be rolling out testing, including some of the "greatest retailers anywhere in the world" that "cover this country in large part," such as CVS, Target, Walgreens and Walmart. The results have been modest at best. NPR reviewed the number of sites these retailers set up and found they are small in quantity compared to their national reach. On average, only four percent of the companies' stores are currently hosting drive-through testing sites:

  • Target has just a single COVID-19 testing site, in Chula Vista, Calif., out of 1,871 locations (0.05%)
  • Walgreens has opened 28 sites; it has 9,277 locations (0.3%)
  • Kroger is supporting 64 testing sites; it has 2,800 stores (2.3%)
  • Rite Aid has 71 testing sites; it has 2,464 locations (2.9%)
  • Walmart is hosting 180 testing sites among its 5,352 stores (3.4%)
  • CVS has 986 test sites plus five "rapid result" locations across its 9,900 stores (10%)

Collectively, these six companies have almost 32,000 locations nationwide, but only about 1,300 of those stores have COVID-19 testing sites, or an average of four percent, according to numbers obtained from the retailers. And the lion's share of those sites are from CVS alone, which has opened nearly 1,000 sites. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/865510819/little-progress-made-in-trumps-plan-for-private-retailers-to-test-for-coronaviru

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97,076 dead

Trump plays golf for 1st time since the coronavirus pandemic https://apnews.com/b882dcfd2c409d118013d6928e86c72e

The Trump administration is demanding that Planned Parenthood affiliates give back their PPP loans. Planned Parenthood says it’s politically motivated. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/23/21268539/planned-parenthood-80-million-ppp-loans-coronavirus

Trump administration decides to end National Guard deployments day before they can claim benefits. Democratic congressman Max Rose has criticised the Trump administration for deciding to end the National Guard‘s deployment a day before they could claim benefits. The Trump administration announced that the deployment of the National Guard in some states, amid the coronavirus outbreak, will be extended to 24 June, just one day before thousands of members would have qualified for early retirement and benefits. National Guard members have been receiving federal pay since they were deployed on 12 March, and would have been entitled to education and retirement benefits if the deployment was extended by an extra day. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-administration-national-guard-deployment-ends-max-rose-coronavirus-a9524866.html

Hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine linked to increased risk of death in hospitalized coronavirus patients, study finds. A study of hospitalized coronavirus patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine – the drug President Trump said he has been taking daily for about two weeks to stave off infection – as well as chloroquine, another drug recently touted as a possible COVID-19 antidote, found an increased risk of death associated with both medications. The findings, published in The Lancet on Friday, focused on exploring the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine both alone and in combination with a second-generation macrolide, and the associated safety and benefit in patients diagnosed with COVID-19. While the drugs are deemed generally safe when prescribed for patients with malaria or an autoimmune disease, little is known about the potential effects they may have in COVID-19 patients. https://fxn.ws/3bVLJxt #FoxNews

President Trump: Fox News is a propaganda outlet. President Donald Trump recognizes that Fox News’ purpose is to help elect Republicans, and he is dissatisfied with the right-wing network’s strategy for accomplishing that goal. Trump lashed out Thursday after something he saw while watching his favorite network during his flight to Michigan apparently upset him. On Twitter, he criticized Fox for “doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get re-elected on November 3rd,” particularly criticizing the network for hosting Democratic strategists and anchors who “repeat the worst of the Democrat speaking points, and lies.” https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/president-trump-fox-news-propaganda-outlet

Don’t forget to take your placebo! In the interview, Dr. Paul Offit is here. In the first part of his two-part interview, he and Mike discuss his new book, Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. They talk about why we should be skeptical of things like vitamin D and testosterone, and how we might not need to take painkillers for a fever. Tomorrow he and Mike will get into the Covid-19 crisis. https://slate.com/podcasts/the-gist/2020/05/paul-offit-overkill via @slate http://paul-offit.com

'You need to leave': Video shows Costco worker handle man berating him over mask https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-costco-worker-calmly-handling-customer-berating-him-over-n1211186 via @nbcnews

The Weird Saga of the Woman Who Supposedly Refused to Alter Florida's Covid-19 Data. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters Wednesday that the woman who designed Florida’s acclaimed covid-19 dashboard and was later fired was removed from her post, not for whistleblowing on alleged attempts to skew the state’s covid data, but rather insubordination—and, to make matters more complicated, is separately under “active criminal charges” for sexual cyber harassment. It’s unclear what story is accurate, but it’s certainly a clusterfuck. On Tuesday, Florida Today reported that Rebekah Jones, the architect behind the dashboard—a publicly accessible database tracking the covid-19's spread, casualties, and testing—was removed from her post at the Florida Department of Health. Jones told CBS12 in West Palm Beach, Florida that her termination was due to her refusal to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.” https://theslot.jezebel.com/the-weird-saga-of-the-woman-who-supposedly-refused-to-a-1843573103

Doctors raise alarm about health effects of continued coronavirus shutdown: 'Mass casualty incident'. More than 600 doctors signed onto a letter sent to President Trump Tuesday pushing him to end the "national shutdown" aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, calling the widespread state orders keeping businesses closed and kids home from school a "mass casualty incident" with "exponentially growing health consequences." The letter outlines a variety of consequences that the doctors have observed resulting from the coronavirus shutdowns, including patients missing routine checkups that could detect things like heart problems or cancer, increases in substance and alcohol abuse, and increases in financial instability that could lead to "[p]overty and financial uncertainty," which "is closely linked to poor health." The letter continues: "The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse. "Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise." The letter comes as the battle over when and how to lift coronavirus restrictions continues to rage on cable television, in the courts, in protests and among government officials. Those for lifting the restrictions have warned about the economic consequences of keeping the shutdowns in effect. Those advocating a more cautious approach say that having more people out and about will necessarily end with more people becoming infected, causing what National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci warned in a Senate hearing last week would be preventable "suffering and death." https://fxn.ws/2TEZZ7x #FoxNews

A White House economic adviser devised a head-scratching model that shows coronavirus deaths will hit 0 in just 10 days. ph Zeballos-Roig May 5, 2020, 8:24 AM. The White House is reportedly relying on a "cubic model" prepared by controversial White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett that shows coronavirus deaths plunging to zero by May 15 to help guide their economic decision-making during the pandemic.Wednesday May 20, 2020 a man just repeated this 10 day prediction to me. https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-economic-adviser-hassett-model-coronavirus-deaths-zero-10-days-2020-5

The Lancet fact-checks Trump's letter to WHO and Dr. Tedros. Medical journal The Lancet has issued this rapid response to comments made by impeached President Donald Trump in his letter to World Health Organization General Director Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to correct false statements about The Lancet by Trump. In this letter, The Lancet notes that they did not, as Trump falsely said, comment on the coronavirus crisis in late December 2019. Their first reports on the novel coronavirus were in mid-January. Chinese experts took part in its first two reports on COVID-19, the journal says, and Trump is “damaging... efforts to strengthen international cooperation to control this pandemic.” https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/the-lancet-fact-checks-trump.html

Nancy Pelosi says Trump is "morbidly obese". “I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group, and in his, shall we say, weight group: ‘Morbidly obese,’ they say,” says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Pres. Trump’s revelation he is taking hydroxychloroquine. https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/nancy-pelosi-says-trump-is-m.html

Is mask wearing more important than social distancing in fight against coronavirus? The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation adjusted its projection to roughly 143,000, a decrease of 3,000 from last week's projection. A key model that guides the White House and other decision makers are projecting not as many coronavirus-related deaths, and one scientist believes mask wearing might be the reason. https://www.newschannel5.com/news/coronavirus/is-mask-wearing-more-important-than-social-distancing-in-fight-against-coronavirus

Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths. For two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients “What the hell do you have to lose?” Growing evidence shows that, for many, the answer is their lives. Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the Trump-backed drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients. Evidence showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating covid-19 has been scant. Those two developments pushed the Food and Drug Administration to warn against the use of hydroxychloroquine outside of a hospital setting last month, just weeks after it approved an emergency use authorization for the drug. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/drug-promoted-by-trump-as-coronavirus-game-changer-increasingly-linked-to-deaths/2020/05/15/85d024fe-96bd-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html

Five USS Theodore Roosevelt sailors test positive a second time for the coronavirus, 18 others taken off the ship. The five sailors had developed flu-like symptoms this week and went to be medically evaluated, Cmdr. Myers Vasquez, a Navy spokesman, said in a statement. They were immediately removed from the ship and placed in quarantine. Additionally, 18 other sailors who had interacted closely with those five have been taken off the aircraft carrier, retested and are waiting for their results in quarantine, according to a U.S. defense official. https://www.stripes.com/news/navy/five-uss-theodore-roosevelt-sailors-test-positive-a-second-time-for-the-coronavirus-18-others-taken-off-the-ship-1.629831

Five takeaways as Senate panel hears from Fauci, Trump health officials. https://thehill.com/homenews/coronavirus-report/497432-five-takeaways-as-senate-panel-hears-from-fauci-trump-health

  1. Fauci issued a clear warning on reopening too quickly
  2. Republicans call for more testing
  3. Fauci warns a vaccine won’t be ready this fall
  4. Republicans ready to open the economy, but at different speeds
  5. Virtual hearing illustrates pros, cons

Trump abruptly ends news conference after fiery exchanges with CBS, CNN reporters. President Trump abruptly ended his Rose Garden news conference on Monday after a round of exchanges between CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang and CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins. In what ended up being the final question from the briefing, Jiang grilled Trump about his ongoing tout of coronavirus testing in the U.S. in comparison to other countries around the world. "You've said many times that the U.S. is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing. ... Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition to you if everyday Americans are still losing their lives and we're still seeing more cases every day?" Jiang asked. Trump responded by taking aim at China, a country that some suspect has not been releasing accurate data regarding its own coronavirus cases and deaths. "Well, they're losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that's a question you should ask China," Trump told Jiang. "Don't ask me, ask China, okay? When you ask them, you may get a very unusual answer." As the president attempted to move on to the next reporter, Jiang, who is Asian-American, pressed him on he was "saying that to me specifically," suggesting his comment was racially motivated. "I'm telling you -- I'm not saying that specifically to anybody, I'm saying it to anybody who would ask a nasty question like that," Trump responded. Trump then got into a dustup with CNN's Collins, who approached the microphone after he apparently had called on her, but he attempted to move on to another reporter since Collins "didn't respond." However, after Collins attempted to "let my colleague finish" and not step away from the microphone, Trump thanked the crowd and quickly walked away from the podium. https://fxn.ws/3dD0t5y #FoxNews

Trump abruptly ended his coronavirus press briefing after facing challenges from two female reporters. The abrupt ending came after Trump told an Asian reporter to “ask China” her question about COVID-19. Jiang has been on the receiving end of Trump’s frustration before. In early April, he got angry with her line of questioning and charged at her: “It’s such a basic, simple question, and you try to make it sound so bad. You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Trump said, calling her tone “very nasty.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-ends-coronavirus-briefing-female-reporters_n_5eb9c144c5b6a0e85a758f36

These photos of a pandemic drive-thru strip club are pure cyberpunk dystopia https://boingboing.net/2020/05/11/these-photos-of-a-pandemic-dri.html

Meet the woman who spearheaded California’s recent back-to-work protests. A group calling itself We Have Rights has recently started organizing large back-to-work protests throughout California, calling on state and local leaders to end social-distancing orders aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The group, which popped up in just the last two weeks, has a professional-looking website and growing social media presence, which provide details for upcoming events, instructions for dealing with the media, highly produced Instagram videos, as well as T-shirts and other branded merchandise for sale. The campaign — which turned out hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters from San Diego to Sacramento starting May 1 and continuing through this weekend — also has had a charismatic front woman with something of a controversial past: 38-year-old Vivienne Nicole Reign. Reign, who has been living with her husband in a $3 million home in Newport Beach, according to legal documents, is currently embroiled in legal challenges concerning several neuropathy treatment clinics she owns and operates with a chiropractor. The defendants have maintained their innocence, denying claims brought by former clients of medical negligence, financial elder abuse and fraud. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-05-10/woman-spearheaded-californias-back-to-work-protests

Pence stays away from White House after aide tests positive for coronavirus. A spokesman said the vice president tested negative on Sunday and planned to be at the White House on Monday. “Vice President Pence will continue to follow the advice of the White House Medical Unit and is not in quarantine,” Devin O’Malley, a Pence spokesman, said in a statement on Sunday evening. “Additionally, Vice President Pence has tested negative every single day and plans to be at the White House tomorrow.” So far, two White House staffers — one of President Donald Trump’s military valets, who serves him meals and drinks, and Katie Miller, Pence’s press secretary — have tested positive for the virus, launching it into Trump’s inner circle and the crowded halls of the West Wing. On a Sunday news program, senior adviser Kevin Hassett called the White House a “scary” place to go to work right now, given the recent diagnoses and the threat of the virus. The two infections come as the president has been nudging governors and states to reopen their economies as quickly as possible, despite the continuing spread of the disease throughout the U.S. https://politi.co/35PB3z2 via @politico

Trump hosted nearly 20 House Republicans for a meeting about the coronavirus pandemic -- and none of them wore marks or stayed far apart. Are these guys begging to get the coronavirus? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-republicans-coronavirus-masks_n_5eb5aeecc5b6a673354216b4

It’s not your imagination. Allergy season gets worse every year. Another intense allergy season is underway as the Covid-19 pandemic rages. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/7/21250550/allergy-season-2020-pollen-climate-change-coronavirus-pandemic

AP Exclusive: US shelves detailed guide to reopening country. The Trump administration has shelved a document created by the nation’s top disease investigators with step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places during the still-raging coronavirus outbreak. The 17-page report by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It was supposed to be published last Friday, but agency scientists were told the guidance “would never see the light of day,” according to a CDC official. The official was not authorized to talk to reporters and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. https://apnews.com/7a00d5fba3249e573d2ead4bd323a4d4 https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6883734/CDC-Business-Plans.pdf

Remdesivir helps coronavirus patients — but at what cost? https://politi.co/2W7mcwy via @politico

The coronavirus has mutated. Here's what that means. The dominant strain in much of the world is now a more contagious variant of the original virus. https://www.salon.com/2020/05/05/the-coronavirus-has-mutated-heres-what-that-means/

Mike Pence visited the Mayo Clinic without a mask, violating his own government’s guidance. The Mayo posted, then deleted a tweet noting Pence was warned about the hospital’s policy — but didn’t follow it. https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21240245/mike-pence-mayo-clinic-visit-mask

Coronavirus 'acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen,' say doctors https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/coronairus-acts-like-no-path.html

The drugs and treatments that could stop Covid-19 https://politi.co/2Y9C1Eo via @politico

Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare: archived Monday, April 27, 2020

President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat. U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials. The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html

Nightly news broadcasts covered protests against social distancing. They mostly ignored nurses protesting lack of PPE. ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news programs have frequently covered the right-wing protests against social distancing measures without giving necessary context from health experts that it would risk a resurgence of coronavirus infections. By contrast, the shows all but ignored a Tuesday protest at the White House by a major nurses union over the lack of protective personal equipment (PPE) that has put health care workers at risk. https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/nightly-news-broadcasts-covered-protests-against-social-distancing-they-mostly

What a government study suggests about sunlight and COVID-19. William N. Bryan, the department’s acting undersecretary for science and technology, summarized the "emerging results," which have not been published, from a Maryland federal lab. "Our most striking observation to date is the powerful effect that solar light appears to have on killing the virus, both on surfaces and in the air," he said. "We’ve seen a similar effect with both temperature and humidity as well, where increasing the temperature and humidity or both is generally less favorable to the virus." Showing slides with certain weather conditions, Bryan explained that scientists measure the decay of a virus by the amount of time it takes for the virus to be reduced by half (half-life). He shared a slide which showed that at a temperature of 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit, with 20% humidity and no sunlight, the half-life is 18 hours. But that half-life falls to one hour under 95 degrees and 80% humidity. "If you look at as the temperature increases, as the humidity increases, with no sun involved, you can see how drastically the half-life goes down on that virus," Bryan said. "So, the virus is dying at a much more rapid pace just from exposure to higher temperatures and just from exposure to humidity." The researchers also studied what the virus does in the air. They suspended the virus inside of a drum and exposed it to various temperatures, humidity levels and sunlight. The virus in saliva survives best indoors and in dry conditions, Bryan said. The virus "dies the quickest in the presence of direct sunlight." During the briefing, a reporter asked Bryan if people would be better off outdoors in the warm weather and sun than staying indoors. "It would be irresponsible for us to say that we feel that the summer is just going to totally kill the virus," Bryan said. https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/apr/24/what-government-study-suggests-about-sunlight-and-/

Revealed: leader of group peddling bleach as coronavirus 'cure' wrote to Trump this week. Mark Grenon wrote to Trump saying chlorine dioxide ‘can rid the body of Covid-19’ days before the president promoted disinfectant as treatment. The leader of the most prominent group in the US peddling potentially lethal industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus wrote to Donald Trump at the White House this week. In his letter, Mark Grenon told Trump that chlorine dioxide – a powerful bleach used in industrial processes such as textile manufacturing that can have fatal side-effects when drunk – is “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body”. He added that it “can rid the body of Covid-19”. A few days after Grenon dispatched his letter, Trump went on national TV at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on Thursday and promoted the idea that disinfectant could be used as a treatment for the virus. To the astonishment of medical experts, the US president said that disinfectant “knocks it out in a minute. One minute!” He went on to say: “Is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.” Grenon styles himself as “archbishop” of Genesis II – a Florida-based outfit that claims to be a church but which in fact is the largest producer and distributor of chlorine dioxide bleach as a “miracle cure” in the US. He brands the chemical as MMS, “miracle mineral solution”, and claims fraudulently that it can cure 99% of all illnesses including cancer, malaria, HIV/Aids as well as autism. Since the start of the pandemic, Genesis II has been marketing MMS as a cure to coronavirus. It advises users, including children, to mix three to six drops of bleach in water and drink it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus

Debacle of Trump's coronavirus disinfectant comments could be tipping point. The US president plans to ‘pare back’ his daily coronavirus briefings after falsely claiming his suggestion to ingest cleaning products had been ‘sarcastic’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/25/donald-trump-coronavirus-disinfectant-sarcastic-tipping-point

Trump Spitballs COVID-19 Remedies in Briefing: ‘Inject Disinfectant’ or ‘Hit the Body With Tremendous Light’. In a bizarre, even for Donald Trump, White House coronavirus daily briefing, the president pitched his ideas on whether disinfectants or ultraviolet light could be used to cure coronavirus patients. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-coronavirus-remedies-injecting-disinfectant-989263/ via @RollingStone

WHO data leak shows no benefit from Gilead coronavirus drug. A leading coronavirus drug candidate showed no benefit in results from a hotly anticipated clinical trial that were mistakenly posted to the World Health Organization's website today. The experimental drug, an antiviral called remdesivir, is being studied in several late-stage trials and has recently drawn praise from President Donald Trump after a sliver of early data from a different clinical trial leaked last week. The draft documents posted to the WHO website — and then quickly removed — suggest that the drug did not help patients enrolled in a randomized clinical trial in China, and caused significant side effects in several people that led them to end treatment. More participants who received remdesivir died compared to those in the control group, although the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant. https://politi.co/2yzEddw via @politico

Cuomo slams McConnell: States declaring bankruptcy is 'one of the really dumb ideas of all time' “Not to fund state and local governments is incredibly short-sighted. They want to fund small businesses, fund the airlines, I understand that, but state and local governments fund police and fire and teachers and schools. How do you not fund police and fire and teachers and schools in the midst of this crisis?” Cuomo added. He said if the federal government doesn't fund the states, the states can’t fund the vital services. Additional funding for state and local governments has turned into a point of contention as lawmakers negotiate federal coronavirus relief. The National Governors Association sent a letter to McConnell and other congressional leaders Tuesday asking Congress to approve $500 billion "in direct federal aid that allows for replacement of lost revenue." https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/494326-cuomo-slams-mcconnell-states-declaring-bankruptcy-is-one-of-the-really

A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported. A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported. The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday. https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday.

Nursing homes with COVID-19 outbreaks clustered in East County. Five of the 11 local nursing homes on the list are in El Cajon. Country Hills Post Acute in El Cajon reported the county’s highest number of patients, 19, who tested positive for COVID-19. Fewer than 11 staff members tested positive. FOX 5 contacted Country Hills Monday. Management releases a statement saying, in part, “Our primary concern is the health and well-being of residents and staff. Most of the residents show no symptoms or mild to moderate symptoms. The residents continue to reside at the facility and are in isolation.” https://fox5sandiego.com/news/nursing-homes-with-covid-19-outbreaks-clustered-in-east-county/

Conservative activist family behind 'grassroots' anti-quarantine Facebook events. The groups were set up by four brothers — Chris, Ben, Aaron and Matthew Dorr — and have amassed more than 200,000 members collectively, including in states where they don’t reside, according to an NBC News analysis based on public records searches and Facebook group registrations. The Dorr brothers are known in conservative circles for running pro-gun and anti-abortion rights Facebook groups that bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by antagonizing establishment conservative leaders and activists. Their usual method is to attack established conservative groups from the right, including the National Rifle Association, and then make money by selling memberships in their groups or selling mailing lists of those who sign up, according to some conservative politicians and activists who have labeled the efforts as scams. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021 via @nbcnews

A White House adviser said the demonstrators are “modern-day Rosa Parks.” Signs https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/protesters-chant-fire-fauci-demand-end-lockdown.html via @slate

There's an imperial ton of astroturfing going on, and it's quite visible in how those groups popped up literally overnight (hint-hint). The thing is that they targeted groups who were... how does one say... more receptive to the message who wouldn't be inclined to look any deeper into what they were joining. https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/i_simply_cannot_believe_that_people_are/fnstpyl/

Coronavirus Advice From Abroad: 7 Lessons America’s Governors Should Not Ignore as They Reopen Their Economies. We spoke to frontline experts from around the globe and have compiled a list of recommendations for reopening U.S. states. Their consensus? It’s tough to find policies that simultaneously save lives and livelihoods. https://www.propublica.org/article/coronavirus-advice-from-abroad-7-lessons-americas-governors-should-not-ignore-as-they-reopen-their-economies

Is the Virus on My Clothes? My Shoes? My Hair? My Newspaper? We asked the experts to answer questions about all the places coronavirus lurks (or doesn’t). You’ll feel better after reading this. For most of us who are practicing social distancing and making only occasional trips to the grocery store or pharmacy, experts agree that it’s not necessary to change clothes or take a shower when you return home. You should, however, always wash your hands.While it’s true that a sneeze or cough from an infected person can propel viral droplets and smaller particles through the air, most of them will drop to the ground. The risk of getting sick from handling mail or packages is extremely low and, at this point, only theoretical. There are no documented cases of someone getting sick from opening a package or reading a newspaper. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/well/live/coronavirus-contagion-spead-clothes-shoes-hair-newspaper-packages-mail-infectious.html

State lists 11 San Diego nursing homes with COVID-19 outbreaks. Country Hills Post Acute in El Cajon reported the county's highest number of patients, 19, who tested positive for COVID-19. Fewer than 11 staff members tested positive. http://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/san-diego-nursing-homes-with-covid-19/509-a9b62e72-ba2b-4e88-acce-5329693e20d4 via @CBS8

A DeVos-linked group helped promote the right-wing "Operation Gridlock" tantrum in Michigan. The protest, known as “Operation Gridlock,” featured a fair share of MAGA hats, Trump flags, at least one Confederate flag, chants of “Lock her up!” in reference to Whitmer, and far-right groups from the Proud Boys to the Michigan Liberty Militia. They clogged up the streets outside the state Capitol and defied Whitmer’s ban on public gatherings. The whole charade was facilitated by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, a conservative political group that doubles as a front for Michigan Trump Republicans, and promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a conservative group with ties to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a Michigan billionaire philanthropist power broker before she joined the Trump administration. The Detroit Free Press reported that the fund was listed as one of the protest’s hosts on Facebook. The organization also promoted the event on Facebook. https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/a-devos-linked-group-promoted-the-right-wing-operation-gridlock-tantrum-in-michigan/ via @MotherJones

These Pictures Show Huge Crowds Protesting Against Coronavirus Lockdowns At State Capitals. Conservative demonstrators gathered in the capitals of Michigan, Kentucky, and North Carolina to protest against stay-at-home orders during a pandemic that has already left more than 26,000 Americans dead. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/huge-crowds-protest-coronavirus-trump-coronavirus-pandemic via @guynamedgabe

What Doctors on the Front Lines Wish They’d Known a Month Ago. Ironclad emergency medical practices — about when to use ventilators, for example — have dissolved almost overnight. Medicine routinely remakes itself, generation by generation. For the disease that drives this pandemic, certain ironclad emergency medical practices have dissolved almost overnight. The biggest change: Instead of quickly sedating people who had shockingly low levels of oxygen and then putting them on mechanical ventilators, many doctors are now keeping patients conscious, having them roll over in bed, recline in chairs and continue to breathe on their own — with additional oxygen — for as long as possible. The idea is to get them off their backs and thereby make more lung available. A number of doctors are even trying patients on a special massage mattress designed for pregnant women because it has cutouts that ease the load on the belly and chest. Some patients, by taking oxygen and rolling onto their sides or on their bellies, have quickly returned to normal levels. The tactic is called proning. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus.html

10 times Trump and his administration were warned about coronavirus. President Trump's tone on the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically shifted in the last month as the illness has swept across the U.S., which has now reported more confirmed cases than any country in the world. Why it matters: Reporting from Axios, the New York Times, Washington Post, AP and other media outlets has revealed that Trump and his administration were repeatedly warned about the threat that the virus could pose to American lives and the economy. Earlier action could have curbed the spread. The state of play: The first case of COVID-19 reached the U.S. on Jan. 15. The World Health Organization declared it a pandemic on March 11. Trump declared the U.S. outbreak a national emergency on March 13. https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-warnings-46ea8006-2e19-4810-82c1-0f10f4f9aa97.html

Rolling Stone Timeline: Coronavirus in America. How the Trump administration failed to protect America, a chronicle of missed opportunities, denials and deception. In the middle of a crisis, it can be difficult to comprehend the full scope of the failures that brought the nation to its knees. To reframe the coronavirus pandemic, and the Trump administration’s catastrophic response, Rolling Stone presents here a timeline. It shows that the pandemic was not a “black swan” event — some unforeseeable tragedy. Rather, a global pandemic of this sort has been predicted for decades, and indeed previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, had sought to prepare the country for just such an outbreak. Yet upon taking office, the Trump administration consistently sought to defund and disarm America’s preparedness against a mass outbreak of a viral respiratory illness. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rolling-stone-timeline-coronavirus-america-982944/ via @RollingStone

Trump is odd man out as approval ratings soar for world leaders’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Heads of state are getting strong support by their citizens. Trump, on the other hand, is being panned for his lack of leadership. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-is-odd-man-out-as-approval-ratings-soar-for-world-leaders-handling-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-04-14

Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response https://www.justsecurity.org/69650/timeline-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-u-s-response/ via @just_security

Timeline: Trump’s efforts to downplay the coronavirus threat https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/12/trump-coronavirus-timeline/

States still baffled over how to get coronavirus supplies from Trump. The federal government’s haphazard approach to distributing its limited supplies has left states trying everything — filling out lengthy FEMA applications, calling Trump, contacting Pence, sending messages to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and trade adviser Peter Navarro, who are both leading different efforts to find supplies, according to local and states officials in more than a half-dozen states. They’re even asking mutual friends to call Trump or sending him signals on TV and Twitter. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. “This is not something that we should ever be faced with,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, said in an interview. “It really is the federal government's responsibility to build those stockpiles, and distribute those during the time of crisis.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/13/states-baffled-coronavirus-supplies-trump-179199 via @politico

Heart woes spur partial stop of malaria drug study for virus. Scientists in Brazil have stopped part of a study of a malaria drug touted as a possible coronavirus treatment after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested. Chloroquine and a newer, similar drug called hydroxychloroquine, have been pushed by President Donald Trump after some very small, early tests suggested the drugs might curb the virus from entering cells. But the drugs have long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death. https://apnews.com/f69fd1607a097d8a55bb1ad9fff78e7b

This reporting is both devastating and fair. Declaring an emergency March 13, the president made promises for fighting the pandemic. He thus set his own standards for what was vital for him to accomplish. @NPR paid attention. @timkmak reports on whether he achieved his own goals. THREAD: A month ago, Trump declared a Coronvairus national emergency in a Rose Garden address. NPR's investigations team went through every promise he made at that critical time and contacted all the groups. Barely any of the promises were fulfilled. https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1249741706846769152

A Month After Emergency Declaration, Trump's Promises Largely Unfulfilled https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/832797592/a-month-after-emergency-declaration-trumps-promises-largely-unfulfilled

Navarro gets slam dunked during 60 Minutes Overtime. He challenged 60 Minutes’ record - “Show me episodes during the Obama and Bush administrations that said the global pandemic was coming, and then you will have some credence in attacking the Trump Administration.” Watch: https://twitter.com/ChrisAlbertoLaw/status/1249544218063908864

He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus. An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response. https://nyti.ms/3ceNp5H

Inside America’s Two-Decade Failure to Prepare for Coronavirus. Top officials from three administrations describe how crucial lessons were learned and lost, programs launched and cancelled, and budgets funded and defunded. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/11/america-two-decade-failure-prepare-coronavirus-179574 via @politico

Trump’s ridiculous behavior at pandemic briefings baffles a watching world. While Trump has made every White House coronavirus briefing about himself, many of the world’s leaders let medical experts brief the public. https://interc.pt/2wAv0RG by @RobertMackey

Safe Handling & Decontamination Procedures for COVID-19 : 8 Steps (with Pictures) https://t.co/24yNvECMOy

Trump pointed to his head. “The metrics right here,” he said. Asked by a reporter at his administration’s daily briefing on the coronavirus pandemic what metrics he would use to determine when to reopen the economy, Trump pointed to his head. “The metrics right here,” he said. “That’s my metrics. That’s all I can do.” The president said he’s listening to coronavirus experts, but also cited repeatedly debunked claims and lies during his daily press conference. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-is-still-wrong-about-coronavirus-testing-in-the-us_n_5e90c5dfc5b672672149d1c3

Trump admitted he did not appreciate the severity of the threat until the last days of January — a month in which he scheduled only nine intelligence briefings. Even as his own experts grew increasingly alarmed, Trump did not have an intelligence briefing on his schedule until Jan. 6. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-virus-briefings_n_5e90db2dc5b60a1f31132ff8

Trump says he only gave Colorado 1% of the ventilators it needs after GOP senator asked for them. Longtime Colorado Democrat "outraged" Trump gave fraction of necessary equipment as favor to vulnerable Republican. https://www.salon.com/2020/04/09/trump-says-he-only-gave-colorado-1-of-the-ventilators-it-needs-after-gop-senator-asked-for-them/

Coronavirus now leading cause of death in US. COVID-19, which is caused by the coronavirus that is spreading across the globe, is now the deadliest disease in the U.S., causing more deaths per day than cancer or heart disease. A new graph published Tuesday by Maria Danilychev, a physician, showed COVID-19 is the cause of 1,970 deaths in the U.S. per day, according to Newsweek. It was only last week when Danilychev published a report showing COVID-19 as the third leading cause of death, taking the place of accidents, with fatalities averaging at around 748 per day. The rapid acceleration of coronavirus-related deaths began on March 22, when the daily average of fatalities for the virus rose above those related to flu, pneumonia, kidney disease, suicide and other leading causes. https://thehill.com/homenews/news/492053-coronavirus-now-leading-cause-of-death-in-us

VA spent $200,000 on controversial anti-malaria drug touted as coronavirus 'game-changer'. Department of Veterans Affairs officials said March 26 that it was “irresponsible” to suggest the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had any merit as a coronavirus treatment. The same day, the VA placed an emergency order for it. President Donald Trump held up hydroxychloroquine as a “game-changer” – a miracle cure for the virus that has killed thousands of Americans, infected more than 400,000 and changed everyday life. Experts aren’t so sure about the drug, which is used for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus but is an unproven treatment for the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease doctor in the United States, said on Fox News last week it would be a “majestic leap” to consider it a knockout drug for the virus. Some studies have suggested the drug was promising, especially for mild cases, but the studies were small and didn’t include control groups. One of the studies has since been discredited. “We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitively prove whether any intervention, not just this one ... is truly safe and effective,” Fauci said. https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/va-spent-200-000-on-controversial-anti-malaria-drug-touted-as-coronavirus-game-changer-1.625501

One Way to Potentially Track Covid-19? Sewage Surveillance. How many people have been infected with the new coronavirus? A group of Bay Area researchers aims to find out—by tracking what's in the local wastewater. https://www.wired.com/story/one-way-to-potentially-track-covid-19-sewage-surveillance/?

Some doctors moving away from ventilators for virus patients. But increasingly, physicians are trying other measures first. One is having patients lie in different positions — including on their stomachs — to allow different parts of the lung to aerate better. https://apnews.com/8ccd325c2be9bf454c2128dcb7bd616d

Trump Broke the Agencies That Were Supposed To Stop the Covid-19 Epidemic. The government agencies designed to protect us are riddled with vacancies and temporary officials. No wonder we’re facing a catastrophe. Adams’ metaphor of this as our new “9/11 moment” is more apt than he likely intended: Comparing the events is about more than just a story of casualties—it is also a story about government’s failure. Both Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks occurred, in part, because the U.S. government and intelligence failed to see the attacks looming. We were caught unprepared, and Americans paid for that mistake with their lives. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/07/trump-dismantled-the-very-jobs-meant-to-stop-the-covid-19-epidemic-173347 via @politico

Trump’s Aggressive Advocacy of Malaria Drug for Treating Coronavirus Divides Medical Community. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine. https://nyti.ms/3aQOpwi

More than 700 Henry Ford Health System employees tested positive for coronavirus. Beaumont Health said Monday that about 1,500 of its workers — including 500 nurses — are off the job because of coronavirus symptoms. The employees at Beaumont Health “have symptoms consistent with COVID-19,” said spokesman Mark Geary, though he did not disclose how many of those 1,500 sick workers actually tested positive for the disease. Beaumont and Henry Ford are among several metro Detroit hospitals to experience a surge in COVID-19 patients as the virus continues to spread in Michigan, pushing them to the brink of capacity. https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2020/04/06/more-than-600-henry-ford-employees-tested-positive-coronavirus/2958261001/ via @freep

Trump virus takes no responsibility https://twitter.com/TwlttersGarbage/status/1243712334205308928

Some 430,000 people flew from China to US after coronavirus first detected: report. About 430,000 people have flown on direct flights from China to the United States since Chinese officials first disclosed the outbreak of what is now the novel coronavirus to world health officials on New Year’s Eve, according to a new report published Saturday. Most of the travelers flew into airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Newark and Detroit in January. Thousands came directly from the city of Wuhan in the Chinese Hubei province, where the coronavirus originated, the New York Times reported. The report did not account for travelers who did not fly directly from China and may have come into the U.S. on a connecting flight from the country. https://fxn.ws/39JbVKo #FoxNews

The U.S.' top infectious disease specialist warned in early 2017 that the Trump administration at some point would face a “surprise outbreak.” “There is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration in the arena of infectious diseases,” he said in a speech titled “Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration” at Georgetown University Medical Center. He delivered it just days before Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017. Fauci, who has overseen the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, warned that looming health challenges would involve both chronic diseases ― ones already ongoing ― as well as “a surprise outbreak.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fauci-warned-of-trump-pandemic-2017_n_5e8a0548c5b6e7d76c65c8a4

George W. Bush in 2005: 'If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare'. In a November 2005 speech at the National Institutes of Health, Bush laid out proposals in granular detail -- describing with stunning prescience how a pandemic in the United States would unfold. Among those in the audience was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leader of the current crisis response, who was then and still is now the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/george-w-bush-2005-wait-pandemic-appear-too-080830555--abc-news-topstories.html

Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, archived April 05, 2020

Trump and the authoritarianism virus: What the coronavirus has revealed, again, about our president. Meanwhile, the trust-based system of the free world is failing under pressure. After three years of President Trump’s constant lies and extreme political polarization in the United States, the only people who believe anything Trump says do so mainly to spite their political enemies. This is a catastrophic scenario when coherent action is required for the greater good. A united appeal to science and citizenship could have saved lives, but such unity is unimaginable in Washington today. The poison of hyper-partisanship kills as surely as any virus. Incompetence is deadly enough on its own, but malice and corruption are never far behind in this administration. Trump has been waging war on American institutions and looking for ways to enrich himself and his cronies from the start, and this crisis will only open up more opportunities. https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-trump-and-the-authoritarianism-virus-20200404-oy4ot3iwivepfctgsukzszbowi-story.html

U.S. ‘wasted’ months before preparing for virus pandemic. As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment. A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers. By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains during a national emergency. https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc

Here's when the coronavirus will peak in your state https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/490856-when-will-coronaviruses-cases-peak-in-your-state

13 things to know for today about coronavirus Friday April 03, 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/491116-13-things-to-know-for-today-about-coronavirus

What Are The Best Materials for Making DIY Masks? https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/

Column: The suspect science behind Trump's chloroquine claims. There are scientific grounds for examining chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as possible treatments for COVID-19; dozens of clinical trials have been announced. Infectious disease experts consider the drugs to be promising, but there’s a lot more they’d like to know before certifying them for clinical use. One trial underway at the University of Minnesota aims to recruit 3,000 subjects from among healthcare workers and their household members who have been exposed to infected persons or are showing symptoms or been diagnosed with the disease. Half the subjects will be given chloroquine. Preliminary results may be available by April 21. Yet generally, the hype has run so far ahead of scientific knowledge that red lights should be flashing and danger sirens sounding. “We need to be really careful about not jumping the gun here,” Annie Luetkemeyer, an infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco, said in a March 24 video discussion in which she spoke of the need for more study. “We don’t have the data that we need to say that these drugs are effective for treatment or for prevention of the disease.” She warned that it is “premature...to be giving either of these medications widely to people” without knowing more about their efficacy or possible hazards. Chloroquine is dangerous when not taken under a doctor’s rigorous supervision, and its shortage can cause life-threatening consequences for lupus patients and serious health effects for rheumatoid or inflammatory arthritis patients. The bottom line is that evidence for chloroquine’s effectiveness in COVID-19 is unsubstantiated. It derives heavily from the work of a controversial French expert in infectious diseases, Didier Raoult, whose studies on the topic have been criticized as inconclusive, but who has been enthusiastically promoting chloroquine as the nearest thing to a miracle drug. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-04-01/trump-chloroquine-coronavirus-bad-science-hiltzik-column

Trump administration ended pandemic early-warning program to detect coronaviruses. Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/story/2020-04-03/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection

Trump administration ended pandemic early-warning program to detect coronaviruses. Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection

America shuts the barn door too late on the epidemic. Florida’s infection rate is way higher than Australia’s. Georgia overtook Japan 10 days ago. Texas only took the plunge on Tuesday. Even then, the stay-at-home order was riddled with holes. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, insisted on including churches in its list of “essential services”. One thing every pathogen loves is a congregation. As America’s south goes, so goes Brazil and Mexico, each of which is stubbornly ignoring the lessons from elsewhere. Mr DeSantis may have upheld spending numbers for March. But at what expense? One in four of Florida’s residents is over 65, which is 50 per cent higher than the national figure. Mr DeSantis, too, has deemed churches “essential services”. The cost to Florida of gratuitous deaths is surely higher than last month’s tourism receipts. That same miscalculation applies to the White House on a far larger scale. Donald Trump wasted weeks dismissing the virus in the vain hope of talking up the stock market. As a result, the US has now been forced to take far more economically damaging measures to contain it. https://www.ft.com/content/0dcf6d1b-c43f-485e-80b5-46337b70e6c0 via @financialtimes

11 times Donald Trump has 'belittled' coronavirus. Vice President Mike Pence said something truly unbelievable in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday. "I don't believe the President has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus," the vice president told Wolf. Which, even by Pence standards -- the VP is an unstinting, 100% supporter of President Donald Trump -- is pretty bad. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-mike-pence/index.html

Cluster of Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in East County. A county spokesperson confirmed with NBC 7 San Diego the cluster occurred at the PalmCare Pharmacy in El Cajon. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/cluster-of-coronavirus-cases-confirmed-in-east-county/2297053/

Fact-checking President Trump's marathon coronavirus briefing https://cnn.it/2JsS3QW President Donald Trump tried Tuesday to cast himself as the wise leader who rejected the advice of a "group" of people who had portrayed the coronavirus as a mere flu and had argued that life should go on as normal. He did not mention that he had been the most powerful member of that group. Trump's marathon coronavirus press conference included the usual barrage of specific false claims. But it was more notable for the dishonesty of the broad story he was telling -- an audacious attempt to erase the memory of his relentless efforts to suggest the coronavirus was not a crisis. Trump spoke frankly on Tuesday about projections that suggest 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from the virus even if people follow federal guidelines meant to slow its spread. But he also made a claim that he prevented a much higher death toll, as high as 2.2 million, by taking the virus much more seriously than some other intelligent people. "Think of what would have happened if we didn't do anything. I mean, I've had many friends -- businesspeople -- people with great, actually, common sense, they said, 'Why don't we ride it out?' A lot of people have said -- a lot of people have thought about it. 'Ride it out. Don't do anything, just ride it out and think of it as the flu.' But it's not the flu. It's vicious," he said. Trump himself repeatedly told Americans in January and February to think of the coronavirus as the flu.

3 mild symptoms could predict which coronavirus patients develop severe lung disease, research su... https://news.yahoo.com/3-mild-symptoms-could-predict-144000288.html

Stabbing of Asian-American 2-Year-Old and Her Family Was a Virus-Fueled Hate Crime: Feds https://news.yahoo.com/stabbing-asian-american-2-old-190324496.html

Rural-state governors tell Trump they need tests and medical supplies, too. In response to requests for more testing kits, Mr. Trump said, "I haven't heard about testing in weeks," according to an audio recording of the call between the president and governors obtained by CBS News. During the call, which lasted a little over an hour, Democratic and Republican governors detailed how they are struggling to obtain the protective equipment doctors and nurses will need to treat the sick and the test kits needed to determine whether sick residents are suffering from COVID-19. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rural-state-governors-tell-trump-they-need-tests-and-medical-supplies-too/ via @CBSPolitics

33 times Trump downplayed the coronavirus. March 27, 2020 | 5:00 PM EDT https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/33-times-trump-downplayed-the-coronavirus/2020/03/05/790f5afb-4dda-48bf-abe1-b7d152d5138c_video.html

Experts Say The Coronavirus Outlook Has Worsened, But The Trajectory Is Still Unclear. MAR. 26, 2020, AT 12:17 PM The expert consensus is that COVID-19 will cause 246,000 deaths in 2020, higher than last week’s estimate of 200,000 deaths. The consensus estimate ranges, though, between 36,000 and 1.1 million. That’s quite a span, with major implications for American society tucked into that uncertainty. https://53eig.ht/3alRSD1

Dr. Deborah Birx predicts up to 200,000 deaths ‘if we do things almost perfectly’ Joining TODAY from Washington, the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Deborah Birx, says, “We’re very worried about every city in the United States” and that “in some metro areas we were late in getting people to follow the 15-day guidelines.” She predicts that “if we do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities,” but adds, “we’re not sure all of America is responding in a uniform way.” https://www.today.com/video/dr-deborah-birx-predicts-up-to-200-000-deaths-if-we-do-things-almost-perfectly-81368133527 via @TODAYshow

FDA authorizes chloroquine for use in treating coronavirus. One way to read these op-eds is that you can prevent COVID-19 by treating yourself using off-the-shelf meds combined with dosage used in China or elsewhere, a dosage that’s plainly advertised in articles. That’s absolutely not the way about curing COVID-19. Separately, a report from France’s Le Point said on Monday that chloroquine use in coronavirus patients lead to cardiac toxicity and cardiac arrests. The report talks about several fatal cases, without providing any figures. If you don’t experience symptoms, keep respecting social distancing measures. If you do, then contact your doctor for guidance. https://bgr.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-vaccine-still-far-away-fda-approves-chloroquine-treatment/

Internal Emails Show How Chaos at the CDC Slowed the Early Response to Coronavirus. The CDC fumbled its communication with public health officials and underestimated the threat of the coronavirus even as it gained a foothold in the United States, according to hundreds of pages of documents ProPublica obtained. https://www.propublica.org/article/internal-emails-show-how-chaos-at-the-cdc-slowed-the-early-response-to-coronavirus

NRA Sues California for the Right to Spread COVID-19. More guns won’t make anybody safer; washing your hands will https://wordsanddeedsblog.com/nra-sues-california-for-the-right-to-spread-covid-19/ via @dougporter506

Presidential Signing Statement that would gag the Stimulus Bailout Inspector General and undermine congressional oversight. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-by-the-president-38/

Trump Wants You to Know He’s More Popular than ‘The Bachelor’ As the United States’ death toll from coronavirus surpassed 2,000 over the weekend, our reality show president took to Twitter on Sunday to inform everyone he was more popular than ABC’s The Bachelor. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-wants-you-to-know-he-is-more-popular-than-the-bachelor-974872/ via @RollingStone

Trump clashes with reporter during coronavirus briefing: 'Be nice'"PBS NewsHour" reporter Yamiche Alcindor questioned Trump during the briefing over recent comments he made during an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity about whether some requests from governors related to the outbreak were overblown or unnecessary. Trump responded by first denying that he had made the comments, which were reported by multiple news outlets at the time, before accusing Alcindor of acting "threatening" during the briefing. Alcindor asked Trump another question later in the press conference after CNN's Jeremy Diamond apparently passed the microphone to her, an act for which she thanked him on Twitter. Which health professionals are telling you that more people will die from the economic impact than coronavirus? https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/490093-trump-gets-in-back-and-forth-with-reporter-during-coronavirus

Mnuchin: Virus task force unanimously shunned Trump's quarantine idea. The White House coronavirus task force unanimously shunned President Donald Trump’s suggestion of a quarantine in the New York City area, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday. The president “did very seriously consider” the idea of locking down the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” But Trump was dissuaded after a meeting with the task force led by Vice President Mike Pence. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/29/trump-new-york-quarantine-mnuchin-coronavirus-153681 via @politico

Trump Brags About His TV Ratings as Coronavirus Death Toll Keeps Climbing “This is not a reality TV show,” wrote Valerie Jarrett. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/trump-brags-tv-ratings-coronavirus-death-toll-rises.html via @slate

Trump’s ‘Don’t Blame Me’ Message Is Going to Wear Terribly By Jonathan Chait Over the last 24 hours, President Trump has aggressively widened the circle of people or countries that are making it impossible for Donald Trump to handle the coronavirus. In a Thursday night interview with Sean Hannity, Trump complained about Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (“She is a new governor and it’s not been pleasant”), Washington governor Jay Inslee, and the demand by various hospital staff for more ventilator machines (“You know, you go to major hospitals, sometimes they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”). Friday, on Twitter, he added General Motors CEO Mary Barra (“Always a mess with Mary B.”) Trump happens to be enjoying his highest approval ratings at the moment. It is possible he will somehow maintain, or even enhance, his current standing. But his handling of the coronavirus — even from the narrow perspective of politics, which is how Trump himself views it — is doing almost everything to ensure that his bump is short-lived, and will eventually be followed by a long, steep decline. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/trumps-coronavirus-blame-responsibility-polls-election.html

How long will coronavirus last in the US? Americans shouldn’t expect life to be back to normal by Easter. Those infected with the virus are often contagious while they’re asymptomatic and the incubation period can last up to two weeks. Since many states only instituted stay-at-home orders just over a week ago, cases should be expected to increase over the next couple of weeks and data from any flattening of the curve won't be visible for weeks yet. https://fxn.ws/2Ulv3JU #FoxNews

Watch White House Coronavirus official Dr. Birx suck up to Dear Leader obsequiously https://boingboing.net/2020/03/27/watch-white-house-coronavirus.html

The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19. At the start of that crucial lost month, when his government could have rallied, the president was distracted by impeachment and dismissive of the threat to the public’s health or the nation’s economy. By the end of the month, Mr. Trump claimed the virus was about to dissipate in the United States, saying: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” By early March, after federal officials finally announced changes to allow more expansive testing, it was too late to escape serious harm. Now, the United States has more than 100,000 coronavirus cases, the most of any country in the world. Yet even with deaths on the rise, cities shuttered, the economy sputtering and everyday life upended, many Americans who come down with symptoms of Covid-19 still cannot get tested. https://nyti.ms/2JkLno5

San Diego D.A. reminds of domestic violence resources, risks amid quarantine http://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/san-diego-da-reminds-of-domestic-violence-resources-risks-amid-quarantine/509-83381157-f388-4cca-97b4-20b50226a6b3 via @CBS8

★Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441 via @financialtimes

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook. The 69-page document, finished in 2016, provided a step by step list of priorities – which were then ignored by the administration. The playbook was designed “so there wasn’t piecemeal thinking when trying to fight the next public health battle,” said one former official who contributed to the playbook, warning that “the fog of war” can lead to gaps in strategies. https://politi.co/3bvtLSj via @politico

Watch a doctor demonstrate how to safely bring groceries home during the coronavirus crisis https://www.dailykos.com/story/2020/3/25/1931140/-Watch-a-doctor-demonstrate-how-to-safely-bring-groceries-home-during-the-coronavirus-crisis

CNN's Jake Tapper spars with Trump on Twitter: 'Utter nonsense' https://thehill.com/homenews/media/489572-cnns-jake-tapper-spars-with-trump-on-twitter-utter-nonsense

Another Day, Another Meme to Debunk: Vaccines for the Bovine Coronavirus Will Not Cure COVID-19. According to the CDC, coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s. “Coronavirus” is a term for a group of diseases. Seven different kinds of human coronaviruses exist, including 229E, NL63, OC43 and HKU1. Most human coronaviruses cause “mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses,” similar to the common cold. In different species, coronaviruses can produce “a wide spectrum of disease syndromes.” The CDC mentions that: “Sometimes coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and make people sick and become a new human coronavirus. Three recent examples of this are 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV.” https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/bovine-coronavirus-vaccine-meme-debunk-facebook/ via @MotherJones

Sharp closing several locations amid coronavirus outbreak. Sharp said Tuesday that it was temporarily closing its La Mesa West and Point Loma locations beginning Thursday, March 26. Sharp's Chula Vista location will also be operating at "limited capacity, offering only occupational medicine, pharmacy and urgent care services starting Friday, March 27." Meanwhile, Sharp Healthcare is beginning a drive-though donation drive for personal protective equipment on Wednesday. Those who wish to donate can visit any of the hospital's locations in San Diego, La Mesa, Coronado and Chula Vista between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/sharp-closing-several-locations-amid-coronavirus-outbreak

"Romney's in isolation? Gee, that's too bad" -- Trump, sarcastically, on Mitt Romney going into quarantine over coronavirus concerns. #BeBest — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1241857374152949761

Intelligence officials' early alarms about possible pandemic went unheeded https://www.stripes.com/news/us/intelligence-officials-early-alarms-about-possible-pandemic-went-unheeded-1.623219

PolitiFact - Timeline: How Donald Trump responded to the coronavirus pandemic. By Jon Greenberg March 20, 2020 https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/mar/20/how-donald-trump-responded-coronavirus-pandemic/

Trump has made a lot of promises to Americans about the coronavirus outbreak. Many haven’t become reality. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/19/trumps-made-lot-promises-americans-about-coronavirus-outbreak-many-havent-become-reality/

How Long Will Americans Be Fighting the Coronavirus? https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/coronavirus/how-long-will-americans-be-fighting-the-coronavirus/2288828/

Trump said "I didn't know about" cutting pandemic response team. Here's a 2018 video of him talking about why he cut the team https://boingboing.net/2020/03/17/trump-said-i-didnt-know-ab.html

Latest coronavirus testing glitch: Not enough cotton swabs. Trump administration warns labs of supply "speed bumps" as testing expands. https://politi.co/2ITHlCZ via @politico

Before Trump’s inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influenza pandemic since 1918' In a tabletop exercise Jan. 13, 2017 days before an untested new president took power, officials briefed the incoming administration on a scenario remarkably like the one he faces now. https://politi.co/33yHYLT via @politico

Russia shutting borders with Poland and Norway over coronavirus. An exception is being made for citizens from neighboring Belarus, official delegations and holders of Russian residence permits, according to a statement from the Russian government. "We ask Russians to minimise travel. Limiting foreign business trips and mass events in all regions, including entertainment, sports and business events is recommended. We ask everyone to keep calm, since these are preventive measures," said Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Authorities said there were 14 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of infected people to 59, according to Russian media. https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-russia-poland-border/

What Trump’s Twitter Feed Tells Him About the Coronavirus. The president follows 47 accounts on Twitter. Here are the five main things they’re saying about the pandemic. https://politi.co/2xvG7v4 via @politico

History in a Crisis — Lessons for Covid-19 | NEJM https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2004361

A Map Of The Coronavirus Exposures In Trump’s Orbit In Just Two Weeks. Some of President Donald Trump’s closest aides and family members have interacted with people who have confirmed COVID-19 cases. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/coronavirus-map-trump-bolsanaro via @Zhirji28

Lessons in reducing the spread of the coronavirus from Trump's news conference: https://t.co/HWu8wiXH2o — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 14, 2020

I kid you not, Vice President Pence just now: “Mr President, this day should be an inspiration for every American. Your leadership has been extraordinary. We owe this all to you.” I give up. — Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1238554847747637249 March 13, 2020

Trump was caught saying 'oh f---' into a hot mic moments before he began his televised speech on. C-SPAN also caught the moments after Trump delivered his speech as the cameras were still rolling. "OK," Trump said with a sigh as he began to remove his mic from his lapel. The cameras continued rolling for another 10 seconds before the stream cut out. ... https://news.yahoo.com/trump-caught-saying-oh-f-032803437.html

No, the coronavirus isn't a flu. No, the virus isn't contained. No, not everybody who wants a test can get one. No, Obama didn't impede coronavirus testing and do nothing about swine flu. No, the number of cases wasn't going down to zero from 15. https://t.co/BsVJ2XRNW7 — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 11, 2020

President Trump’s address to the nation on coronavirus, annotated https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/11/trump-coronavirus-address-transcript/

Coronavirus is exposing Trump's unsuitability to handle a crisis. by Philip Klein | March 08, 2020 11:51 AM President Trump’s bombastic style has served him well through many stages of his political career, but as the coronavirus spreads rapidly throughout the United States, it is exposing how deeply unsuited he is to deal with a genuine crisis that he can’t bluff his way through. It’s one thing for Trump to insist he had a “perfect” phone call and have all his Republican minions fall in line. It’s another thing to downplay a growing epidemic as more and more Americans get sick. On February 26th, Trump patted himself on the back for the relatively low number of cases in the U.S. “You have 15 people, and the 15, within a couple of days, is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done," he said. By March 5, he was tweeting that the U.S. had “only 129.” Just a day later, he said there were 240 cases, portraying this as a low number relative to the seasonal flu. Sunday morning, he avoided stating any number in touting, “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!” As of this writing, Johns Hopkins has tracked 428 cases in the U.S. https://washex.am/38A4oNB The Washington Examiner is an American conservative news website and weekly magazine based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is owned by Philip Anschutz. In 2016, Klein left the Republican party in protest over the nomination of Donald Trump, tweeting out his announcement and the completed voter registration form on 3 May 2016.

Trump denies official coronavirus death rate as he has ‘hunch’ it is lower. President suggests hundreds of thousands could recover from potentially fatal virus 'just by sitting around'. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-coronavirus-death-rate-cases-symptoms-hannity-fox-news-a9376756.html

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Inside Trump’s frantic attempts to minimize the coronavirus crisis. “Well, I don’t think it’s inevitable,” Trump said, contradicting Messonnier and the health officials who spoke after him Wednesday. “It probably will, it possibly will. It could be at a very small level or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens, we’re totally prepared.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-frantic-attempts-to-minimize-the-coronavirus-crisis/2020/02/29/7ebc882a-5b25-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html

Faith-based health clinics spurn contraceptives under Trump rule. Obria Medical Clinics, which opposes contraception and teaches abstinence, recently became the first group of its kind to receive federal funding through a family planning program established by Congress in 1970 to support clinics and organizations providing low-income women with birth control and other reproductive health care services. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/454426-faith-based-health-clinics-spurn-contraceptives-under-trump-rule

Women Tell Us Why They Had Abortions in the Second Trimester https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vb9a4j/women-tell-us-why-they-had-abortions-in-their-second-trimester-i-will-choose-it-every-day

I was never planning a vote prior to the 2020 Election on the wonderful HealthCare package that some very talented people are now developing for me & the Republican Party. It will be on full display during the Election as a much better & less expensive alternative to ObamaCare... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1113432687757484032

...This will be a great campaign issue. I never asked Mitch McConnell for a vote before the Election as has been incorrectly reported (as usual) in the @nytimes, but only after the Election when we take back the House etc. Republicans will always support pre-existing conditions! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1113435291472277509

Media, Propaganda

Powerful short "America Wake Up" invokes George Carlin: "The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." https://boingboing.net/2020/07/27/powerful-short-america-wake.html

Media, Propaganda, archived July 27, 2020

The top writer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson has for years been using a pseudonym to post bigoted remarks on an online forum that is a hotbed for racist, sexist, and other offensive content, CNN Business learned this week. Just this week, the writer, Blake Neff, responded to a thread started by another user in 2018 with the subject line, "Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?" Neff wrote, "I wouldn't get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no." (The subject line was not censored on the forum.) On June 5, Neff wrote, "Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down." On June 24, Neff commented, "Honestly given how tired black people always claim to be, maybe the real crisis is their lack of sleep." On June 26, Neff wrote that the only people who care about changing the name of the NFL's Washington Redskins are "white libs and their university-'educated' pets." Neff worked at Fox News for nearly four years and was Carlson's top writer. Previously, he was a reporter at The Daily Caller, a conservative news outlet that Carlson co-founded. In a recent article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Neff said, "Anything [Carlson is] reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me." He also acknowledged the show's influence, telling the magazine, "We're very aware that we do have that power to sway the conversation, so we try to use it responsibly." https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/media/tucker-carlson-writer-blake-neff/index.html

NATIONAL REVIEW IS TRYING TO REWRITE ITS OWN RACIST HISTORY. Ryan Grim, July 5 2020, 5:00 a.m. STUART STEVENS, who has gone from running Mitt Romney’s campaign for president in 2012 to a perch as a leading Never Trumper, is out with a new book: his mea culpa of sorts, “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.” Some of Stevens’s former colleagues don’t like it, and one of them, Matthew Scully, savaged it in National Review. “Perhaps the most devastating book review you’ll ever read,” National Review editor Rich Lowry promised. The review is, to be sure, unfriendly, countering that Stevens is, in so many words, a clown, a hack, a liar, a grifter — and wrong. I’m not here to referee the bulk of their dispute, but one particular claim by Scully in his review merits a closer look. In his book, Stevens apologizes for his role in propping up a Republican Party he now considers to be little more than a “white grievance party” cynically exploiting racism in the pursuit of power. Scully objects to much of what Stevens has to say in the book, and he zeroes in on Stevens’s claim that, in hindsight, he should have seen all along that Republicans were getting ahead by exploiting racism. Stevens cites the rise of the New Right with Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964 straight through to President Donald Trump. Scully is appalled at such libel upon the GOP, and comes to the spirited defense of Goldwater and one of his chief advocates, William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley was a founder of the National Review and, in many respects, the modern conservative movement, who, Stevens wrote, was simply “a more articulate version of the same deep ugliness and bigotry that is the hallmark of Trumpism.” “As a rule of thumb,” Scully responds in the reportedly devastating review, “anyone so glib and presumptuous as to brush off as ‘ugliness and bigotry’ the enduring political and moral legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. has, for that reason alone, no business involving himself in Republican affairs.” https://theintercept.com/2020/07/05/national-review-william-buckley-racism/

Fox News publishes digitally altered and misleading images of Seattle demonstrations. Fox News published digitally altered and misleading images on its website's homepage Friday that made a demonstration in Seattle, in which a group of largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters have occupied six city blocks, appear violent and dangerous. The deceitful tactic was called out by The Seattle Times. The local newspaper reported that when it asked Fox News about the images, the network removed them. Fox News' depiction of the demonstration mirrors much of right-wing media's attempt to portray it as menacing. Protesters have declared a small slice of Seattle an "autonomous zone" after clashes with authorities led police to evacuate a precinct. While there have been some sightings of armed individuals, the area has remained largely peaceful with people gathering for food, speeches, and movie screenings. The narrative that took hold this week in right-wing circles was one in which armed members of Antifa seized a section of Seattle. City officials have said they have not interacted with members of Antifa, a network of loosely affiliated groups that have a history of violently clashing with right-wing organizations. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/13/media/seattle-fox-news-autonomous-zone-protest/index.html

Meet the Propagandists and Conspiracy Theorists Behind the One America News Network. The president has taken a shine to the far-right channel’s fictional pro-Trump reports. Over the last several weeks, President Trump has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy-mongering One American News Network on his Twitter feed and by regularly calling on its correspondent at White House news events. On Tuesday morning, he did so again by tweeting an unsubstantiated conspiracy that has been pushed by the network, citing its reporting to claim that a 75-year-old man who was knocked over and bloodied by Buffalo police while taking part in a protest after the death of George Floyd may have been “an ANTIFA provocateur” working to disrupt police communications. Kristian Rouz: Trump’s Tuesday morning tweet about Martin Gugino, the elderly activist manhandled by Buffalo police, referenced a segment reported by Rouz where he posits the incident of “so-called police brutality” may have been a “false flag provocation.” Jack Posobiec: Posobiec may be the channel’s flagship disinformer. The OAN host is notorious for being one of the most prominent pushers of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory; he once conducted a livestream“investigation” of the restaurant where the hoax pedophile ring was said to be occurring, during which he waltzed into a child’s birthday party being held in a back room. Since then, he acts as though he’s been locked in a John Wooden-esque competition with himself to outdo his greatest disinformation achievement. Chanel Rion: Rion, who is the channel’s White House reporter, may be supplanting Posobiec as OAN’s most well-known staff member due to Trump’s recent habit of calling on her during new conferences, where she can be relied upon to ask questions whose thrust is either helpful to the president or damaging to his opponents. Another unhinged conspiracy theorist, she has peddled theories including Pizzagate, that the Clinton’s were responsible for Seth Rich’s murder, anti-semitic tropes about liberal financier George Soros, and conspiracies about Joe Biden’s dealings in Ukraine. Robert Herring Sr.: Robert Herring Sr. founded OAN in 2013 with money he made in the circuit board industry. While Herring has not personally used OAN airtime to undertake overt and aggressive conspiracy-mongering, he owns a network that has hired a bunch of people that do. On Twitter, Herring boosts his own suspect theories (he’s been really into hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, which doctors are not yet confident in). According to the Washington Post, Herring banned polls that didn’t show Trump in first place during his last election. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/one-america-news-network-staff/

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette removes protest and police brutality stories from website following protests from union members. Late in the evening on June 5, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette removed two stories from its website that were shared earlier in the day on the paper’s social media platform. One story was written by P-G reporter Lauren Lee and summarized a march that snaked through Pittsburgh East End in honor of George Floyd, a Black man killed by Minneapolis police. The other was a story wrapping up statements from Pittsburgh City councilors for a discussion about police brutality and reforms. This story was written by P-G reporter Ashley Murray who tweeted that she reported the issue to the newsroom at 8:40 p.m. and still hadn’t heard back as of 11:30 p.m. As of late night on June 5, the stories were still posted on the paper’s social media platforms, but the links were dead. Sometime early in the morning of June 6, new links were created with the original headlines, but they contained no bylines. Pittsburgh City Paper editor Lisa Cunningham confirmed with Murray that the story she originally wrote was rewritten and that the lead photo was changed. P-G photographer Michael Santiago noted on Twitter that the stories pulled also meant that staff photographers would not have their images shown on the paper’s website. Today, Santiago, who is Black, tweeted that he was barred from covering protest related stories. He condemned P-G management for choosing to "silence two of its most prominent Black journalist[s] during one of the most important civil rights stories that is happening across the country!" An email obtained by CP between guild leadership members, likely confirms Santiago's removal from protest coverage. In fact, the Post-Gazette might be pulling all photographers off protest coverage entirely. https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/pittsburgh-post-gazette-removes-protest-and-police-brutality-stories-from-website-following-protests-from-union-members/Content

Fox News Edits Video to Remove Police With Guns Drawn, Cuffing Innocent Black People. The “news” network disappeared portions of a video that showed police using aggressive tactics on the wrong people. A local Fox affiliate ran a story about a family flagging down law enforcement to protect a business from looters, but when police arrived on the scene, the officers handcuffed them. Fox News, however, when broadcasting the affiliate’s report, removed the part of the footage where police drew their guns and put the family in handcuffs. On Monday night, a video of Los Angeles citizens and a local reporter flagging down police while trying to stop alleged looters went viral. The video showed several officers arriving on the scene and immediately drawing their guns. The police then handcuffed three people who had alerted the police to the situation in the first place, two of whom were black. Monet, the woman who was cuffed, told a Fox News local affiliate that she was surprised when the police put restraints on her, her husband and her brother-in-law, especially because the local reporter, Christina Gonzalez, who helped flag down the police, kept yelling to them that they had the wrong people. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/fox-news-edits-video-police-guns-drawn-cuffing-innocent-black-people-1009313/

Facebook Employees Stage Virtual Walkout to Protest Trump Posts. Dozens of Facebook employees, in rare public criticism on Monday of their own company, protested executives’ decision not to do anything about inflammatory posts that President Trump had placed on the giant social media platform over the last week. The employees, who took the day off by logging into Facebook’s systems and requesting time off to support protesters across the country, also added an automated message to their emails saying that they were out of the office in a show of protest. The group is one of many clusters of employees attempting to push back on executives. As of Monday morning, many employees continued to discuss a list of demands for management. While Twitter started labeling some of the president’s inflammatory posts, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has said his company should leave them alone. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/technology/facebook-employee-protest-trump.html

This viral video of Trump supporters screaming at a reporter is a Rorschach test of America right now. Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large Updated 12:42 PM ET, Sat May 16, 2020. On Thursday, a local reporter named Kevin Vesey covered a rally of people on Long Island protesting the ongoing closures in New York due to the coronavirus. He recorded almost 2 minutes of video of people calling him "fake news," cursing at him and refusing to allow him to do his job. He then posted it on Twitter with these words: "The level of anger directed at the media from these protestors was alarming. As always, I will tell a fair and unbiased story today." https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/16/politics/donald-trump-media-reporters/index.html

https://www.chamomileteaparty.com/posters/

Trump allies buy major stake in conspiracy theory-peddling OAN as president seeks propaganda “alternative” to Fox. Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman reported on May 4 that “an investor group aligned with” Donald Trump Jr. and the family of Republican National Committee co-chair Tommy Hicks has purchased “a major stake” in the pro-Trump propaganda outlet One America News Network. According to Sherman, President Donald Trump “loves that many Fox hosts are his loudest cheerleaders—but any deviation from Trumpian orthodoxy he views as betrayal. ... Trump’s view that Fox is insufficiently loyal has motivated him to look for a more reliable media partner." https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/trump-allies-buy-major-stake-conspiracy-theory-peddling-oan-president-seeks

Fox News cuts coverage the second the President’s answer devolves into a rant about ratings and The Bachelor. They cut audio until he’s done talking — Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1244401890047037440 March 29, 2020

The Trump campaign told TV stations they could lose their licenses for airing an ad criticizing the president’s actions in the coronavirus crisis. President Donald Trump’s campaign, in a letter on Wednesday, told stations in five battleground states to stop showing the ad from Priorities USA, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Failure to remove the ad “could put your station’s license in jeopardy” before the Federal Communications Commission, the campaign said in the letter. “Your station has an obligation to cease and desist from airing it immediately to comply with FCC licensing requirements.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/trump-campaign-s-threat-on-tv-licenses-may-be-mostly-bluster via @bpolitics

OAN White House correspondent accuses the media of “siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels” Trump responds: “It is fake news. It's more than fake news, it's corrupt news.” "major left wing news media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives, and they're claiming you are racist for making these claims about Chinese virus. Is it alarming that major media players, just to oppose you, are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels? And they work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team?" https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-white-house-correspondent-accuses-media-siding-foreign-state

The coronavirus pandemic lays bare pro-Trump media's singular goal: Protect Trump. No one has been rooting for a pandemic. https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-pandemic-lays-bare-pro-trump-medias-singular-goal-protect-trump

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What a damning indictment of Fox News from the Post video team here. https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1240131226268323842

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Megyn Kelly @megynkelly I’m so frustrated right now ... that we can’t trust the media to tell us the truth without inflaming it to hurt Trump ... that Trump has misled so many times we no longer know when to trust his word ... that even I as a journalist am not sure where to turn for real info on COVID.

President Trump Posts Altered Photos to Facebook and Instagram That Make Him Look Thinner https://gizmodo.com/president-trump-posts-altered-photos-to-facebook-and-in-1831909849

Fox Internal Documents: Hannity Regulars Spread ‘Disinformation’. In documents obtained by The Daily Beast, Fox’s research team advises colleagues to be wary of “disinformation” from several Trump-boosting on-air regulars, including Giuliani. Among those named in document are frequent guests Rudy Giuliani, John Solomon, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-internal-document-bashes-john-solomon-joe-digenova-and-rudy-giuliani-for-spreading-disinformation

Fox News guests spread 'disinformation' – says leaked internal memo. “Among those named in document are frequent guests Rudy Giuliani, John Solomon, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova” https://gu.com/p/d8f28/stw

In its own document, Fox News rips Fox News host Sean Hannity https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/07/its-own-document-fox-news-rips-fox-news-host-sean-hannity/

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National Archives exhibit blurs images critical of President Trump https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/national-archives-exhibit-blurs-images-critical-of-president-trump/2020/01/17/71d8e80c-37e3-11ea-9541-9107303481a4_story.html

The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth. — Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/808750564284702720 December 13, 2016

How a Veteran Reporter Worked with Giuliani’s Associates to Launch the Ukraine Conspiracy. Lev Parnas, recently indicted for foreign influence in U.S. elections, collaborated closely with The Hill’s John Solomon to fuel spurious allegations involving the Bidens and Ukraine. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-a-veteran-reporter-worked-with-giuliani-associates-to-launch-the-ukraine-conspiracy https://thehill.com/author/john-solomon https://thehill.com/person/john-solomon

The Rot on The Hill. John Solomon's role in laundering Trump's Ukraine scandal is just the latest black mark on the dodgy D.C. newspaper. https://newrepublic.com/article/155192/john-solomon-the-hill-ukraine-trump-scandal

Leaked Memo: Colleagues Unload on Journo Behind Ukraine Mess. The Trump-friendly scribe and his Biden-Ukraine conspiracies were cited multiple times in the whistleblower memo. Many of his co-workers are ashamed to be associated with him. https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaked-memo-colleagues-unload-on-john-solomon-the-reporter-who-kicked-off-trumps-ukraine-conspiracy

Radio host Todd Starnes out at Fox News. The radio host made headlines on Monday when a guest on his program claimed that Democrats do not believe in the Christian God and instead may worship Moloch, a pagan god synonymous with child sacrifice. Starnes also drew considerable backlash in July during an appearance on "Fox & Friends" when he instructed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to take a “one-way plane ticket back to whatever third-world hellhole you came from.” Omar, 37, is one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/464127-radio-host-todd-starnes-out-at-fox-news

CNN’s Corey Lewandowski catastrophe. Wednesday's interview shows that the network's model is broken. Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and a close ally to the White House, admitted in congressional testimony on Tuesday that he feels “no obligation to be honest with the media.” That should have come as little surprise for journalists -- lying to reporters is one of the things for which Lewandowski is best known, along with physically accosting them -- but it did present them with an interesting test: How do you report on someone who has admitted under oath that he lies to the press? Lewandowski’s admission of dishonesty didn’t keep him off of Fox News’ “news” or “opinion” shows after the hearing -- and in fact, both ignored that revelation, perhaps signaling that the network is eager for its audience to be lied to. Over the course of the 15-minute New Day spot, Lewandowski led co-host Alisyn Camerota in circles on whether he was bound by the Trump White House’s executive privilege claim and lied about the contents of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. Even as he lied, he repeatedly accused Camerota of being the “disingenuous” one. When Camerota finally raised Lewandowski’s testimony that he felt “no obligation” to tell the truth during an interview, he immediately pivoted to a harangue about the honesty of CNN and its employees. In a particularly nonsensical turn, having established that Lewandowski might be lying to her audience, she then asked him a series of fact-based questions as if anyone could have any confidence in the veracity of his answers. https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/cnns-corey-lewandowski-catastrophe

Who’s funding the controversial anti-AOC political ad? The half-minute ad featured former congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng, who lost her race against incumbent Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) last year. Heng, a daughter of Cambodian refugees, attacked the New York Democrat’s image as “the face of socialism and ignorance.” The group behind the ad — New Faces GOP PAC — is a recently formed super PAC funded mainly by Republican donors and little-known corporations, most of whom also gave money to Heng’s campaign. The group’s website says its goal is to “help elevate the next generation of Republicans so that we can not only survive as a party, but expand beyond the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves.” The group has received nearly $171,000 from 22 donors since January. It spent $71,800 — almost half of what it raised — airing the ad in the nation’s capital during and after the Thursday debate, according to Federal Communications Commission records in OpenSecrets’ political ad database. Venture capitalist Paul Martino, who founded San Francisco firm Bullpen Capital, wrote a $25,000 check to the new group. New York businessman Andrew Sabin, an active donor to both Republicans and conservation causes, contributed $10,000 to New Faces GOP. Tov Investments, LLC made the largest contribution of those companies at $25,000. The limited-liability corporation is a property investment company for Millbrae resident Karen Tov and other members of her family, according to California business records. Members of the Tov family gave $21,600 to Heng’s campaign in 2018. Hanna Trust DTD, a shell corporation affiliated with California businessman David Hanna, gave $10,000 to the group. Hanna, the son of legendary animator William Hanna, gave $5,400 to Heng last year. An active Republican donor, he gave a total of $175,000 to the once-mighty Karl Rove-affiliated American Crossroads super PAC between the 2012 and 2016 election cycles. Shiralian Enterprises — which gave $5,000 — is an umbrella company for gas stations and truck stops owned by Fresno businessman Shawn Shiralian, according to California business records. Shiralian contributed $2,700 to Heng in 2018 and is an active donor to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Another donor corporation, T Management Services, Inc, is an obscure consulting firm owned by Long Beach businessman Gary DeLong, according to California business records. DeLong, a former Long Beach city council member, ran unsuccessfully for California’s 47th District seat in 2012. He also gave $2,700 to Heng in 2018 and chipped in another $12,500 to the House Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC. Other donors to give $10,000 include the owner of a California onion farm and the senior advisor at a Los Angeles private equity firm. One of the group’s original largest donors, California businessman James Jameson, had his $25,000 contribution refunded in June. The former George H.W. Bush administration official gave $5,400 to Heng’s unsuccessful 2018 campaign and is a longtime donor to California Republicans. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/09/whos-funding-the-controversial-anti-aoc-political-ad/ via @OpenSecretsDC

Fox News has basically ignored stories related to Trump’s corruption https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/how-fox-news-ignores-stories-related-trumps-corruption

Nexstar TV stations to begin playing national anthem every day starting Labor Day. The 171 Nexstar television stations across the U.S. plan to start kicking off their daily broadcasts by playing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” according to a Friday announcement. Nexstar Media Group will partner with music rights company BMI and Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., for the new daily series, which will begin on Monday, Labor Day. “Nexstar’s core mission is to provide exceptional service to the local communities where we operate across America through our organization-wide commitment to localism, unbiased local broadcast journalism and telling the local stories that matter to our viewers and their families,” said Tim Busch, president of Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc., in a company release. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/459448-nexstar-tv-stations-to-begin-playing-national-anthem-every-day-starting-labor

YouTube takes down Infowars again. Infowars briefly returned to YouTube before being removed from the platform Thursday, a spokesperson for the video platform confirmed to The Hill. "The War Room," Infowars’ program for afternoon commuters, relaunched its YouTube channel on Wednesday, Vice News first reported. In the first video uploaded to the channel, "War Room" host Owen Shroyer reportedly read a portion of Wojcicki's letter in a video titled “Breaking! YouTube CEO says ‘Alex Jones’ and ‘Infowars Ban Is Over,'” according to Vice. Infowars was not directly mentioned in the letter. The channel was removed Thursday, but not before posting several more videos, Vice reported. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/459297-youtube-takes-down-infowars-again

Leaked Emails Show How White Nationalists Have Infiltrated Conservative Media. Conservative institutions in the Donald Trump era have often sought to portray themselves as shocked and appalled by the so-called “alt-right.” White nationalists have also engaged in their own efforts to differentiate themselves from the neoconservatives who dominated the GOP for decades. But neither narrative is true. The reality is that a host of supposedly veritable right-wing institutions have become a safe haven for the far-right. Indeed, there is a burgeoning underground network of group chats, message boards, and email chains serving as the breeding ground for incubating white nationalist ideas, and as a forum to strategize around how to launder those ideas through mainstream conservative publications. And, judging from a large series of messages from one of those email groups obtained by Splinter, it’s working. These endeavors are often tactical in nature. As Paul Gottfried, a far-right political theorist, observed in the 2008 speech that is widely credited as birthing the term “alternative right,” “we must try to do what is possible rather than what lies beyond our limited material resources.” This new right, Gottfried said, could only win by conquering the institutions that neoconservatives then dominated. It needed the institutions it sought to annihilate to thrive. (Gottfried, who once told a journalist that he co-created the term “alt-right” with Richard Spencer, has since sought to distance himself from his former collaborator, though he has also mounted defenses of the overall movement on far-right websites.) https://splinternews.com/leaked-emails-show-how-white-nationalists-have-infiltra-1837681245

Trump criticizes Fox, which 'isn't working for us anymore'. on Wednesday tweeted that Fox News has become too hospitable to Democrats and "isn't working for us anymore," arguing his supporters "have to start looking for a new News Outlet." Trump lashed out in a trio of tweets after a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) appeared on "America's Newsroom." The president cited her interview; the employment of former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile; Juan Williams, who is also a columnist for The Hill; and anchor Shepard Smith to claim the network is biased against him. "Just watched @FoxNews heavily promoting the Democrats through their DNC Communications Director, spewing out whatever she wanted with zero pushback by anchor, @SandraSmithFox. Terrible considering that Fox couldn’t even land a debate, the Dems give them NOTHING!" Trump tweeted. Trump blasted the network as "HOPELESS & CLUELESS" for hiring Brazile, Williams and Smith, each of whom have criticized the president at various times. "They should go all the way LEFT and I will still find a way to Win — That’s what I do, Win. Too Bad!" Trump continued. "I don’t want to Win for myself, I only want to Win for the people. The New @FoxNews is letting millions of GREAT people down! We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox isn’t working for us anymore!" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459105-trump-criticizes-fox-which-isnt-working-for-us-anymore

Media presented far-right grifter Andy Ngo as a credible journalist. He was just caught covering for far-right extremists as they plan violent attacks. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/media-presented-far-right-grifter-andy-ngo-credible-journalist-reporting-left-wing

Right-Wing Star Andy Ngo Exits Quillette After Damning Video Surfaces. The writer and photog is out of a job after being caught in incriminating undercover footage with right-wing activists. His former employer insists the two events aren’t related. But footage taken by an undercover liberal activist in May and described on Monday by the Portland Mercury showed Ngo witnessing activists from the far-right group Patriot Prayer planning a violent confrontation at a bar associated with left-wing activists. Ngo never reported on what he had seen the Patriot Prayer members planning, and some of the people involved in the attack at the bar now face felony riot charges. https://www.thedailybeast.com/andy-ngo-who-became-a-right-wing-star-leaves-quillette-after-incriminating-video-appears

Fox News outdraws liberal CNN, MSNBC again, extending win streak to 212 straight months. Fox News also topped all of basic cable during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET, averaging 2.4 million viewers while second-place MSNBC finished with 1.5 million. Despite finishing second, MSNBC has its lowest-rated primetime since President Trump took office. Fox News also finished as No. 1 in all key ad performance metrics for 2019 to-date, including likeability and ad, brand and message recall, according to Phoenix TV Brand Effect. “Hannity” was the most-watched program on cable news, averaging 3.3 million total viewers and “Tucker Carlson Tonight” finished second with an average of 3.1 million. “Hannity” and “Tucker” finished as the only two programs across all of cable news to surpass the three-million viewer plateau. https://fxn.ws/2ZuZsF1 #FoxNews

Media, Propaganda, archived August 27, 2019

Press coverage of Trump’s “chopper talk” is passing along his lies. But there’s another way that “chopper talk” benefits Trump: News outlets tend to cover those press gaggles by transmitting the president’s typical stream of falsehoods to the public unimpeded. Journalists are rushing to pass along Trump’s statements without trying to verify his claims in a way that surely leaves their audience more confused and less informed. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/press-coverage-trumps-chopper-talk-passing-along-his-lies

Of course Fox News hired Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Even at the White House, she was already effectively a Fox News contributor. https://www.mediamatters.org/sarah-huckabee-sanders/course-fox-news-hired-sarah-huckabee-sanders

James O’Keefe’s Google ‘Whistleblower’ Loves QAnon, Accused ‘Zionists’ of Running the Government. The former YouTube software engineer believes Google is now trying to “off” him. What O’Keefe’s video leaves out, though, is that his much-hyped insider is not as credible as he claims. On social media, Vorhies is an avid promoter of anti-Semitic slanders that banks, the media, and the United States government are controlled by “Zionists.” He’s also pushed conspiracy theories like QAnon, Pizzagate, and the discredited claim that vaccines cause autism. https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-okeefes-google-whistleblower-loves-qanon-accused-zionists-of-running-the-government

While Fox News remains quiet about the latest Tucker Carlson controversy, his show's commercial breaks explain what's really happening. Last year, Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” would feature more than 30 paid ads. In his Thursday show, there were only 13. Friday, there were just 11 ads. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-commercial-breaks-advertisements_n_5d4e23e1e4b0820e0af5ae8c

After the El Paso shooting, users on 4chan and 8chan say that Tucker Carlson has taken their talking points. Carlson has been mentioned on 4chan and 8chan more than 19,000 times this year. Just days after a gunman reportedly posted a white supremacist manifesto riddled with Fox News talking points on extremist message board 8chan and allegedly killed more than 20 people in El Paso, TX, Fox prime-time host Tucker Carlson said that the idea of white supremacy is a “hoax.” Meanwhile, users on 4chan and 8chan have praised Carlson since the shooting, arguing that the Fox host was taking his talking points from their message boards, which have been hot spots for white supremacy. On August 6, discussing the recent mass shooting in El Paso, Carlson claimed that the issue of white supremacy was “a hoax” and “not a real problem in America.” Carlson made these claims even though the shooter’s manifesto featured talking points ripped from Carlson’s own show. https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/after-el-paso-shooting-users-4chan-and-8chan-say-tucker-carlson-has-taken-their

Tucker Carlson "goes on vacation" after calling white supremacy concerns a "hoax" https://boingboing.net/2019/08/08/tucker-carlson-goes-on-vacat.html

Far-Right Accounts Retweeted by Trump Keep Getting Suspended. “Twitter’s always been fair to me,” said one Trump supporter. “Until the president of the United States retweeted me.” Nearly 10 percent of the unverified accounts retweeted by President Trump since his inauguration are currently suspended from Twitter for various violations of the platform’s policies, ranging from hate speech to running fake sockpuppet accounts, a Daily Beast analysis has found. The most recent occurrence was last week, when Twitter tapped the brakes on “LYNNTHO06607841” just hours after Trump retweeted the account’s proclamation that “DEMOCRATS ARE THE TRUE ENEMIES OF AMERICA!” Before it was boarded up, the account’s timeline was thick with all-caps conspiracy theories targeting prominent Democrats, including a recent tweet claiming Bill and Hillary Clinton “torture and sacrifice children” to get at “a drug that can only be found inside the human skull.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-retweet-can-be-a-death-sentence-on-far-right-twitter?source=twitter&via=desktop via @thedailybeast

You don't need to read the El Paso killer’s manifesto. Just turn on Fox News. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/you-dont-need-read-el-paso-killers-manifesto-just-turn-fox-news

Learn about Germany’s dark history at Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg. Just outside of the city center in Nuremberg, massive stone structures loom ominously over an idyllic park. This is where hundreds of thousands of Nazi Party supporters gathered between 1933 and 1938 in what were known as the Nuremberg Rallies. The Nazi Party held yearly rallies in Nuremberg to celebrate their elevation to power and the end of the democratic Weimar Republic, which preceded the Third Reich. This is where evil found some of its largest audiences, while Hitler repeatedly violated the treaty that ended World War I and the West appeased Hitler’s advances into other countries in the name of preventing another war — at least for a little while. If you’ve ever seen images showing Hitler observing a living sea of people beneath waving swastikas, they were likely at one of these rallies. https://www.stripes.com/learn-about-germany-s-dark-history-at-nazi-rally-grounds-in-nuremberg-1.592803

Right-wing outlets tout post-debate Drudge poll that 4chan users had gamed. Users of the far-right message board 4chan organized to rig a Drudge Report online poll following the July 30 Democratic presidential debate. Multiple right-wing outlets touted the results. 4chan users similarly rigged previous post-debate Drudge polls. After the first night of the CNN debate, users on 4chan’s “/pol/” message board shared the poll and urged others to vote for author and presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. http://mm4a.org/4tV

The Ultimate Fringe Trumpworld Conference. Plus, a QAnon rally in Washington, and a good podcast on the Seth Rich conspiracy theories. See what's happening with the extreme right wing. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ultimate-fringe-trumpworld-conference

What I’ve Learned From Collecting Stories of People Whose Loved Ones Were Transformed by Fox News. “When I found my dad dead in his armchair, fucking Fox News was on the TV,” this reader told me. “It’s likely the last thing he saw. ... He spent the last years of his life increasingly angry, bigoted, and paranoid.” http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/i-gathered-stories-of-people-transformed-by-fox-news.html

Marco Rubio's "gotcha" tweet about Ilhan Omar: Aid and comfort to white nationalism. It's a story that flared up the outrage cycle swiftly and will almost certainly die down as swiftly. On Thursday afternoon, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., retweeted a video that had appeared on Fox News, the Daily Caller and elsewhere, purporting to show Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., calling on Americans to be "more fearful of white men" and advocating "profiling, monitoring and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men." Rubio was clearly still angry that mainstream journalists correctly called it racist when Donald Trump told four congresswomen of color to "go back" to other countries (when three of the four were born in the United States). So the Florida senator tweeted, "I am sure the media will now hound every Democrat to denounce this statement as racist. Right?" The problem, of course, is the video was a fake, and not even a good one. It was deceptively edited to remove the language that made it quite clear that Omar was not calling for the profiling of white men, but in fact the opposite. She was using the absurdity of that idea — that all white men would be profiled simply because a handful of white men commit terrorist acts — to illustrate why it's unfair to treat Muslims that way. https://www.salon.com/2019/07/26/marco-rubios-gotcha-tweet-about-ilhan-omar-aid-and-comfort-to-white-nationalism/

The hosts of the president's favorite morning cable news show found his racist attack against Democratic congresswomen quite funny. The three Fox News personalities shared a good laugh about the president’s vitriolic remarks. “Comedian in chief,” Todd Piro said. Piro and Bila chuckled as Jenkins read the president’s vitriolic comments aloud. “Comedian in chief,” Piro said. “Someone’s feeling very comedic today,” Bila added. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-and-friends-trump-tweets_n_5d2b4378e4b02a5a5d5c88f4

Fox & Friends praises Trump's bigoted tweet telling Democratic congresswomen to leave the United States. Fox & Friends cohost Jedediah Bila says that Trump is "making an important point". While many commentators noted the open racism of Trump's remarks, Fox & Friends praised Trump for "making an important point," even laughing along as they read what he wrote. http://mm4a.org/4yi

This is from 2015 but still shocking treatment of Univision journalist Jorge Ramos #trump— Matty Edwards (@MattyEdwards23) https://twitter.com/MattyEdwards23/status/826989850515611648 February 2, 2017

Trump backs Gorka in fiery Rose Garden dust-up with Playboy reporter https://fxn.ws/2O7euAH #FoxNews

Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminates Trump Over 'He Died' Rant. “Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know what? He died. I was there,” Trump told a White House Social Media Summit, according to Yahoo News correspondent Hunter Walker. https://news.yahoo.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-donald-trump-dead-104353475.html

Sebastian Gorka at the center of Rose Garden ruckus following Trump event https://news.yahoo.com/sebastian-gorka-at-the-center-of-rose-garden-fracas-following-trump-event-002635804.html

Trump’s Social Media Summit Mortifies White House, Enrages Far-Right Allies. No one who is invited to the summit has actually been banned from social platforms. Notably, the group so far doesn’t appear to include anyone who has actually been banned from major social platforms, even though those bans have played a significant role in driving accusations on the right that the social giants are biased. Pro-Trump figures like anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Proud Boys men’s group founder Gavin McInnes, for example, don’t appear to have been invited. “What benefit would it be to anyone if Laura Loomer were in the same room with the president?” a senior Trump administration official familiar with the planning told The Daily Beast. “Why on earth would we do that? We aren’t that stupid. Come on.” “It’s just absolutely disgusting how poorly this summit was planned and how blatant the act was to keep banned individuals out,” Loomer wrote in a Telegram post. “I cannot believe that every single banned person was out of the summit.” But one would-be invitee has already proved too controversial even for Trump’s White House. Organizers initially invited pro-Trump cartoonist Ben Garrison, a prolific illustrator whose cartoons, which invariably depict a muscular Trump defeating his foes, frequently go viral on the right-wing internet. But after Garrison posted his invite on Twitter, critics pointed out that Garrison once created an anti-Semitic cartoon that featured a billionaire Democratic financier and the Rothschild family controlling American political figures. In a classic Trump move, Garrison blames the controversy on “fake news.” Even if he can’t visit the White House on Thursday, though, Garrison might get one thing out of it. Garrison tells The Daily Beast he’s considering making a cartoon about his thwarted White House visit. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-social-media-summit-mortifies-white-house-enrages-far-right-allies

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Trump social media summit attendees clash with reporters in Rose Garden. As reporters and other social media summit guests looked on, Gorka called Karem a "punk" and accused the journalist of threatening him as the two exchanged words. Fellow conservative personalities broke into a chant of "Gorka!" as they filmed the encounter. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/452731-trump-social-media-summit-attendees-clash-with-reporters-in-rose-garden

From his spelling skills to his ‘real’ hair: Trump goes on a riff at social media summit https://politi.co/2LgAwyw

Trump pushes government action against 'terrible bias' at social media summit https://politi.co/2JBNZO1

The White House's social media summit is just another stunt to game the refs
Human Events publisher Will Chamberlain
Tim Pool, youtube
Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk
pro-Trump meme creator known as Carpe Donktum
Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell
Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier
Ali Alexander (formerly known as Ali Akbar) is another right-wing media personality
James O’Keefe of Project Veritas
http://mm4a.org/4Cb

Trump Invites Fringe Social Media Company Popular With Nazis to the White House. Minds.com was invited to a social media summit (featuring several far-right figures), but not Facebook and Twitter. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv7q87/trump-invites-fringe-social-media-company-popular-with-nazis-to-the-white-house

Tucker Carlson: "Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country". Carlson: "Maybe we are importing people from places whose values are simply antithetical to ours. ... ​No country can import large numbers of people who hate it and expect to survive. Ilhan Omar has an awful lot to be grateful for, but she isn't grateful, not at all. After everything America has done for Omar and for her family, she hates this country more than ever." http://mm4a.org/4CY

Fox News breaks July 4 records with ratings for Trump's 'Salute to America'. Fox News had 4.8 million viewers for its coverage of President Trump's Fourth of July "Salute to America" speech, according to Nielsen Media Research, marking the highest ratings the network has registered on July 4 in its nearly 23-year history. The viewership topped NBC's prime-time coverage of the Fourth of July fireworks show from New York City, which averaged 3.8 million total viewers. CNN also carried Trump's speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington live and averaged 1.5 million viewers. In the 25- to 54-year-old demographic sought by advertisers, Fox News averaged 793,000 viewers during the president's remarks, while CNN averaged 353,000 in the category. The Fox coverage was anchored by chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/452180-fox-news-breaks-july-4-records-with-ratings-for-trumps-salute-to-america

Fox News Execs Couldn’t Figure Out Source of Retracted Seth Rich Story: Report. A Yahoo News investigation also found that, despite White House denials, one senior staffer—Steve Bannon—actively pushed the conspiracy theory at the time. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-execs-couldnt-figure-out-source-of-retracted-seth-rich-murder-story-report

Russian intel planted Seth Rich conspiracy theory: report. Conspiracy theories that former Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was murdered on the orders of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton originated with the Russian foreign intelligence service, according to a Yahoo News investigation. The SVR circulated a fake “bulletin” it passed off as a genuine intelligence report about Rich, who was killed in Washington, D.C., in July 2016 in what the D.C. Police Department have said was a botched robbery, Yahoo news reported on Tuesday. The document outlined the initial conspiracy theory, that Rich was killed on Clinton’s orders on his way to alert the FBI to corruption within the Clinton campaign. The same day, the details were reproduced on the website whatdoesitmean.com, which attributed them to “Russian intelligence.” https://thehill.com/homenews/media/452157-russias-foreign-intelligence-service-secretly-planted-fake-report-that-seth

Meghan McCain, Feeling Like an ‘Exhausted, Defeated .. Caged Animal,’ May Exit ‘The View’. Sources close to McCain tell The Daily Beast she feels like ‘a caged animal’ on the ABC talk show. ‘It’s getting to the point where it’s not worth the emotional toll every week.’ https://www.thedailybeast.com/meghan-mccain-feeling-like-an-exhausted-defeated-caged-animal-may-exit-the-view

Sebastian Gorka: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was "screaming like a harridan, like a witch at those CBP officers". Gorka: "You may not agree with everything Jack Posobiec does, but his sources are often very good ... she went in there to intimidate" http://mm4a.org/496

Political Cartooning Was Murdered. Here’s the Autopsy. http://rall.com/2019/07/01/death-of-editorial-political-cartooning-murdered

After losing NRA spokesperson job, Dana Loesch goes on Fox to falsely claim only 1% of Americans want stronger gun laws. Radio host and former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch went on Fox to falsely claim more Americans believe “9/11 was an inside job” and “the moon landing was faked” than support enacting gun stronger gun laws. http://mm4a.org/49Z

Tucker Carlson defends Trump for being "sincere" in liking Kim Jong Un and "realistic" about North Korean atrocities. there's no defending the North Korean regime, which is a monstrous regime, it's the last really Stalinist regime in the world. It's a disgusting place, obviously. So there's no defending it. On the other hand, you know, you got to be honest about what it means to lead a country, it means killing people. http://mm4a.org/49G

Rush Limbaugh rants for 7 minutes about how the Democrats are "the country’s biggest hate group" They are the biggest threat to civil liberties, they are the biggest threat to freedom of speech, they are the biggest threat to the second amendment, they are the biggest threat to the innocence of unborn life, they are the biggest threat to anybody who is not one of them. They are the biggest threat to prosperity. They represent the biggest threat to private property. They represent the biggest threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that exists in this country today. The Democrat Party is that. That is what they have become. They all hate us and they all want to relegate us to a status of nonexistence and irrelevancy, and their hatred for us is propelling them. They believe that there is more hatred for us than there is support for us. http://mm4a.org/49p

Thread: As Trump holds a re-election rally tonight in Orlando.. a look back at some of his most eye opening events in 2018. Something I write about in “The Enemy of the People.” Trump proudly retweeted a video of the hostile behavior we witnessed in Tampa. — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1140943294865825792 June 18, 2019

Sandy Hook lawyers say FBI notified after receiving child porn from Alex Jones https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/448960-sandy-hook-lawyers-say-fbi-notified-after-receiving-child-porn

@seanhannity's outrage over Nancy Pelosi's comments about putting President Trump in jail has some people calling the Fox News host a hypocrite. We look back at Hannity's past statements about putting Hillary Clinton behind bars. https://twitter.com/PolitiFact/status/1139634324804907008 June 14, 2019

InfoWars Agrees to Pay Pepe the Frog Creator $15,000 in Copyright Settlement https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb9x73/infowars-agrees-to-pay-pepe-the-frog-creator-dollar15000-in-copyright-settlement

‘The president's insane’: book by CNN's Jim Acosta charts Trump war on press https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/25/jim-acosta-cnn-white-house-trump-book-enemy-of-the-people

CNN's Jim Acosta claims Trump was just engaging in an 'act' when he called him 'fake news' https://fxn.ws/2Exia7f #FoxNews

Out-of-Control Sean Hannity Thumbs His Nose at Fox News Bosses. Despite reportedly being told to stop referring to dubious pundits as ‘investigative reporters,’ the prime-time star has continued to do so. Does anyone at Fox control Hannity? A blaring example of that is Hannity’s treatment of claims from guests whose dubious “reporting” would never pass muster on Fox’s hard news shows. The most commonly cited example of this is Trump-boosting Fox News contributor Sara Carter, whose news credibility is so questionable that, as Mediaite reported in March, Fox News executives allegedly told Hannity to stop calling her an “investigative reporter” on his show. https://www.thedailybeast.com/out-of-control-sean-hannity-thumbs-his-nose-at-fox-news-bosses

Nothing but the truth: the legacy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/19/legacy-george-orwell-nineteen-eighty-four

The Trump administration made a web survey. We have questions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/15/trump-web-survey-tech-bias

Trump ramps up war against 'political bias' with new social media reporting tool. The form urges users to post screenshots to back up claims of political bias and it also asks for the respondent's first and last name, zip code, phone number and their citizenship of residency status. - ABC News - https://abcn.ws/2JHb6s9

Fox News contributor: "The Democrats scare me. ... I mean, in like a Bill of Rights-shredding kind of way. They genuinely scare me." http://mm4a.org/4De

These are Fox News' leading advertisers http://mm4a.org/4p7

Drone-dropped swastika leaflets calling press ‘the enemy’ target Sacramento State, Ariana Grande concert https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article230019699.html

Trump warns he’ll 'monitor the censorship’ on social media after Facebook banned some far-right leaders https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/03/trump-jr-accuses-facebook-silencing-conservatives-day-after-it-bans-some-far-right-users/

Donald Trump Jr. really wishes that racist far-right extremists still had all the social media platforms to spew their hate. The purposeful & calculated silencing of conservatives by @facebook & the rest of the Big Tech monopoly men should terrify everyone. It appears they’re taking their censorship campaign to the next level. Ask yourself, how long before they come to purge you? We must fight back. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jr-far-right-extremists-facebook_n_5ccc65a8e4b0548b73597556

Facebook finally took action against extremist accounts. It didn't go great. The social network accused Alex Jones, host of right-wing conspiracy website InfoWars, its UK editor Paul Joseph Watson and ex-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos of hate speech. Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has expressed anti-Semitic views, will also be excluded. The banned group also includes Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist, and Laura Loomer, an anti-Islamic activist with a large social media presence. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/facebook-bans-milo-laura-loomer-alex-jones/ via @MotherJones https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48142098

Facebook bans Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones, other 'dangerous' figures https://thehill.com/policy/technology/441854-facebook-bans-dangerous-figures-including-milo-yiannopoulos-and-alex-jones

Major rappers are calling for Fox News to fire host Laura Ingraham following her insensitive coverage of Nipsey Hussle's death. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rappers-demand-fox-news-fire-laura-ingraham_n_5cb4d1c7e4b0ffefe3b4f5be

'Fox News brain': meet the families torn apart by toxic cable news https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/fox-news-brain-meet-the-families-torn-apart-by-toxic-cable-news

Twitter locked me out of my account for reporting on extremists - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/news/2019/04/05/twitter-locked-me-out-my-account-reporting-extremists#.XK35elLyr-M.twitter

What I’ve Learned From Collecting Stories of People Whose Loved Ones Were Transformed by Fox News. By Luke O'Neil http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/i-gathered-stories-of-people-transformed-by-fox-news.html

The Incredible Shrinking Fox News https://politi.co/2OYL3gN via @politicomag

The white nationalist influencers of Instagram http://mm4a.org/4LA

The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1114221533461790721

Analysis | Fox News contributor mocked for wearing ‘totally ridiculous’ body armor at the border https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/04/04/fox-news-contributor-wore-protective-vest-border-among-safest-spots-us/ wall

Inside the spectacular fall of the granddaddy of right-wing conspiracy sites. The site’s founder, Joseph Farah — a former newspaperman with a dense, jet-black mustache and a cloak-and-dagger mystique — boasted in 2010 that he was well on the way to generating $10 million a year in revenue. His Northern Virginia-headquartered news site, known by the acronym WND, was having its moment by stoking rumors about Obama. His daughter, Alyssa Farah — Vice President Pence’s press secretary — wrote for WND briefly in 2013 and 2014. https://wapo.st/2UeNa67

'Fox & Friends' apologizes for headline about '3 Mexican Countries' https://thehill.com/homenews/media/436612-fox-friends-displays-headline-about-3-mexican-countries

Son of Stormfront Founder Reveals His Family Watches Tucker Carlson for Tips on 'White Nationalist Talking Points' https://www.mediaite.com/tv/son-of-stormfront-founder-reveals-his-family-watches-tucker-carlson-for-tips-on-white-nationalist-talking-points/ via @mediaite

Snared by a cybercult queen. Hello, Dear Friends and White Knights. Blessings and love, Dove of Oneness. Shaini Goodwin's acolytes stood by theater doors, handing out sheets of paper headed with a mysterious acronym - NESARA. It stands for the secret law, the one Dove claims Congress passed four years ago. The one that abolishes income taxes, forgives mortgages, zeroes out credit cards and declares peace. https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/special-reports/article25855081.html

Lou Dobbs to Trump: Fire DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen or ‘Millions of Americans’ Will Die https://www.thedailybeast.com/lou-dobbs-to-trump-fire-dhs-secretary-kirstjen-nielsen-or-millions-of-americans-will-die

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Tonight in my monologue I will tell you why you should be angry after Mueller probe found no collusion between Trump and the Russians. We’ll expose how exactly the media and the Dems pushed their false narrative, and what should happen next. You won’t want to miss this. Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) href="https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1110346942289190913

Trump campaign urges networks to challenge top Trump detractors. President Donald Trump’s campaign on Monday urged major news networks to not allow on their shows several people, including Democratic lawmakers, who have been critical of the president, adding that the networks should report the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report as a “complete vindication” of Trump.Murtaugh called on the networks to refuse six commentators who claimed there was Russian collusion: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and former CIA Director John Brennan. https://politi.co/2TYjVnJ via @politico

Kellyanne Conway Says ‘Shut Up And Pray’ After New Zealand Massacre. The presidential counselor’s message was addressed to the media. Kellyanne Conway slammed the press during a Saturday interview, telling reporters to pipe down in their coverage of the New Zealand mosque massacres. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-new-zealand-shooting_n_5c8e59eae4b0d7f6b0f49e31

Tucker Carlson says he’s the victim of a powerful bully. Meet the 24-year-old who found the tapes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/03/14/tucker-carlson-says-hes-victim-powerful-bully-meet-year-old-who-found-tapes/

She exposed Russian trolling. Her award for her work was rescinded after she criticized Trump. For her journalism, Ms. Jessikka Aro was informed in January by the State Department that she was to be one of the winners of this year’s International Women of Courage Award, presented Thursday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and first lady Melania Trump. The award has been given since 2007 to women around the world who have “demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality, and women’s empowerment, often at great personal risk and sacrifice.” Ms. Aro got a formal invitation from the State Department on Feb. 12, and a tour around the United States was envisioned. However, according to Foreign Policy magazine, which broke the story, the State Department then wrote to Ms. Aro to rescind the award, saying there had been a “regrettable error.” In fact, Foreign Policy reported, the award was rescinded because Ms. Aro had criticized President Trump on social media. It wasn’t clear who made the decision. But it is in keeping with a president who has set the tone of prizing loyalty and personal sycophancy over wisdom and vision. Ms. Aro deserved the award. She should hold her head high for courage, unlike those who denied her the honor. https://wapo.st/2TGin0M

Leaked chat messages show members of white supremacist group Identity Evropa are obsessed with Tucker Carlson http://mm4a.org/4Xs

The Making of the Fox News White House. The Making of the Fox News White House. Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda? By Jane Mayer https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house

Trump threatens to block networks from hosting debates after Dems reject Fox https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432961-trump-threatens-to-block-networks-from-hosting-debates-after-dems

Dems won't let Fox News host primary debate https://thehill.com/homenews/media/432879-dems-wont-let-fox-news-host-primary-debate

How Has Fox News Changed In The Trump Era? https://53eig.ht/2IU4aJp

Highlights from Freedom House’s annual report on political rights and civil liberties https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Feb2019_FH_FITW_2019_Report_ForWeb-compressed.pdf

Opinion | Sarah Sanders says reporters are ‘angry’ in the briefing room. Here are 34 possible explanations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/31/sarah-sanders-says-reporters-are-angry-briefing-room-here-are-possible-explanations/

68 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List https://sharylattkisson.com

Judiciary

Brett Kavanaugh Fit In With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not. During the winter of her freshman year, a drunken dormitory party unsettled her deeply. She and some classmates had been drinking heavily when, she says, a freshman named Brett Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her, prompting her to swat it away and inadvertently touch it. Some of the onlookers, who had been passing around a fake penis earlier in the evening, laughed. To Ms. Ramirez it wasn’t funny at all. It was the nadir of her first year, when she often felt insufficiently rich, experienced or savvy to mingle with her more privileged classmates. At least seven people, including Ms. Ramirez’s mother, heard about the Yale incident long before Mr. Kavanaugh was a federal judge. Two of those people were classmates who learned of it just days after the party occurred, suggesting that it was discussed among students at the time. We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation. A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. (We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier.) https://nyti.ms/2LwEqCf

We released this a while back and it is still a mystery. Trump says something to Justice Kennedy that shocks him. Something's up. (No sound) — Eleven Films (@Eleven_Films) https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1166858169621966848

Only Congress can look into concerns about Justice Brett Kavanaugh now, but there's no indication it'll do so. According to many of the complaints, Kavanaugh violated codes of conduct set for federal judges by becoming angry and emotional during his confirmation hearings in September. A California woman, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, testified that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a party in high school. At least two other women then came forward with allegations against the then-nominee. Kavanaugh unleashed a partisan diatribe during the hearings. “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups,” he said at one point. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brett-kavanaugh-ethics-complaints-dismissed_n_5d4442a1e4b0acb57fcb6356

Judicial committee dismisses ethics complaints against Kavanaugh, citing Supreme Court position. A judicial committee on Thursday ruled in favor of dismissing ethics complaints filed against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, finding that his confirmation to the court excludes him from the ethics rules in question. The Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability found that they do not have the authority to review the claims against Kavanaugh because he is now a Supreme Court justice. The rules in question only apply to those on lower courts, like circuit, district, magistrate and bankruptcy judges. “As a Supreme Court Justice, Justice Kavanaugh is not a judge subject to the Act,” Thursday’s order states. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/455789-judicial-committee-dismisses-ethics-complaints-against-kavanaugh

New account of Kavanaugh confirmation reveals clashes behind scenes of historic hearing https://fxn.ws/2L7SaV9 #FoxNews

This moment was a foregone conclusion. And the rationalizations are going to be patently absurd. McConnell Says He’d Confirm an Election-Year Trump Supreme Court Nominee Because He’s a Republican and Obama Wasn’t https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/mcconnell-says-hed-confirm-a-trump-supreme-court-nominee-during-election-because-hes-a-republican-and-obama-wasnt.html via @slate

Clarence Thomas Shows How the Supreme Court Would End Roe v. Wade. Justice Thomas’ theory of stare decisis is like a roadmap for how to overrule decisions one disagrees with. First, frame the disagreement as one over “quality” rather than principle. Second, trivialize the ways in which people rely on the law as it stands. And third, with the stroke of a pen, wipe out constitutional rights that people like me mistakenly think we possess. https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-shows-how-supreme-court-would-overturn-roe-v-wade

Justice Clarence Thomas' moment may finally have arrived. Thomas is now the longest-serving member of a court that has recently gotten more conservative, putting him in a unique and potentially powerful position, and he's said he doesn't plan on retiring anytime soon. With President Donald Trump's nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh now on the court, conservatives are firmly in control as the justices take on divisive issues such as abortion, gun control and LGBT rights. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/justice-clarence-thomas-moment-may-finally-have-arrived-1.579757

DOJ

AG Barr says Trump has fired SDNY federal prosecutor who refused to leave; president says he's 'not involved’. Attorney General William Barr informed the District Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Saturday that President Trump has removed him from his post, a day after the federal prosecutor refused to step down. https://fxn.ws/3fGWg1v

Bureau of Prisons chief removed in wake of Epstein suicide. Attorney General William Barr removed the acting head of the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department said Monday, replacing the agency's top official in the wake of the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein earlier this month. In a statement, Barr said Hugh Hurwitz, who had served in the acting position since last year, would return to the assistant director position he formerly occupied. Dr. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who led the bureau from 1992 to 2003, will be the new director, Barr said. Barr has said he was "appalled" and "angry" to learn of the suicide, and cited "serious irregularities" at the Manhattan facility where Epstein had been detained. https://www.10news.com/news/national/bureau-of-prisons-chief-removed-in-wake-of-jeffrey-epstein-suicide

Pressley to introduce bill to end death penalty after DOJ decision. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) will introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty after the Department of Justice announced Thursday that it will resume capital punishment for the first time in nearly two decades. The bill seeks to “prohibit the use of the death penalty for any violation of federal law, and for other purposes.” It also calls for any person sentenced to death prior to law's enactment to be resentenced. “The death penalty has no place in a just society,” Pressley tweeted, along with an image of the legislation. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/454844-pressley-to-introduce-bill-to-end-death-penalty-after-doj-decision

Impeachment, House investigation of Trump, Rudy Giuliani

Trump’s campaign invited Russian help, made full use of it, then covered it up. Then, Trump sought more illicit help from Ukraine, leading to his impeachment and a bipartisan vote to convict. Read just released transcripts from our Russia investigation: https://intelligence.house.gov/russiainvestigation/

Senate Intel report confirms Russia aimed to help Trump in 2016. The report represents a confidence-booster to the country’s intelligence community. The intelligence community’s initial January 2017 assessment of Moscow’s influence campaign included “specific intelligence reporting to support the assessment that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russian government demonstrated a preference for candidate Trump,” the committee’s report says. The panel also found “specific intelligence” to support the conclusion that Putin “approved and directed aspects” of the Kremlin’s interference efforts. https://politi.co/3bswtIU via @politico

Trump fires intelligence community watchdog who defied him on whistleblower complaint. President Donald Trump has fired the intelligence community’s chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, who was the first to sound the alarm to Congress last September about an “urgent” complaint he received from an intelligence official involving Trump’s communications with Ukraine’s president. Atkinson's decision set in motion the congressional probe that culminated in Trump's impeachment and ultimate acquittal in a bruising political and legal drama that consumed Washington for months. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-fires-intelligence-community-inspector-general-164287 via @politico

OCT. 22, 2006 From the "60 Minutes" archives: Nancy Pelosi: 'Impeachment is off the table'https://youtu.be/1OBSX2BZ9ZA?t=752

We hired two comic creators from the world of DC and Marvel to tell the full story of why Donald Trump was impeached, and what he got away with https://www.insider.com/trump-impeachment-graphic-feature-comic-2020-2

Readers React: San Diego reacts to Trump's acquittal by GOP-led Senate https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2020-02-06/san-diego-reacts-to-trump-acquittal-by-gop-senate-utak

The full Trump-Ukraine impeachment timeline. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-impeachment-timeline/

AP FACT CHECK: Distortions in Trump's legal defense. President Donald Trump’s defense against impeachment charges, as laid out in his legal argument released Monday, has distortions at its core. https://apnews.com/edc86daef497ec66e87f86ffe5d5b1e4

Ken Starr Is America’s Most Poisonous Creep. His Clinton probe was one of the sleaziest episodes in recent American political history, at least until Trump came along. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ken-starr-remains-a-partisan-hack-and-a-poisonous-creep

Five lingering questions as impeachment heads to Senate https://thehill.com/homenews/house/477780-five-lingering-questions-as-impeachment-heads-to-senate

Damning Emails Show Trump Knew He Was Breaking the Law on Ukraine. Oh, and that the Department of Justice tried very hard to cover it up. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/donald-trump-ukraine-aid-emails

GOP Senators Are Avoiding Rudy Giuliani Ahead of Impeachment Trial. “I wouldn’t trust Rudy to represent me in a parking dispute so I’d say avoid,” one senior GOP Senate aide said when asked about any plans for a Ukraine briefing. “Rudy Giuliani long ago lost any shred of credibility, especially after the dossier he assembled for the State Department stunningly mirrored Russian propaganda,” Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) told The Daily Beast. “Knowing that, anyone that attempts to defend President Trump’s behavior by citing Rudy’s information over our own intelligence agencies is simply irresponsible, uninformed or willing to be that useful idiot the Kremlin desires.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-senators-are-avoiding-rudy-giuliani-ahead-of-impeachment-trial

When your alarmingly stupid friend sleeps with your boyfriend and then instead of apologizing writes you an angry 6-page email claiming that it's all your fault. — Heather Havrilesky (@hhavrilesky) December 17, 2019 https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Letter-from-President-Trump-final.pdf

White House rejects House Judiciary's invitation to participate in impeachment hearings. In a brief letter to the committee chairman, the White House counsel sharply attacked the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. "As you know, your impeachment inquiry is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness. Nevertheless, the Speaker of the House yesterday ordered House Democrats to proceed with articles of impeachment before your Committee has heard a single shred of evidence." https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/white-house-appears-dismiss-house-judiciary-s-invitation-participate-impeachment-n1097021 via @nbcnews

The Most Ridiculous Ways the GOP Tried to Defend Trump in Its Impeachment Report. Reality was not taken into consideration https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/gop-republicans-intelligence-committee-impeachment-inquiry-report-921396/ via @RollingStone

Key highlights from the Intelligence Committee's impeachment report https://politi.co/2P8wMyG via @politico

Full House Impeachment Report https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6566087/Full-House-Impeachment-Report.pdf

The GOP Stumbled Into the Most Damning Impeachment Moment So Far Against Trump. The GOP tried to put former National Security Council member Fiona Hill and diplomat David Holmes on the spot, but instead tripped into a series of face-plants that hurt President Trump as much as anything the Democrats had managed in a week-plus of public hearings that ended Thursday afternoon. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kzwj/the-gop-stumbled-into-the-most-damning-impeachment-moment-so-far-against-trump

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Devin Nunes Repeats Russian Talking Points At Impeachment Hearing https://www.politicususa.com/2019/11/19/devin-nunes-russian-talking-points.html via @politicususa https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/impeachment-hearing-11-15-19/h_edfcad085ac66e0ab615126bec8269a4

Trump impeachment witnesses leave a trail of tantalizing clues. They showed up, offered prepared remarks and answered hours of questions to lay out their side of the Ukraine-related impeachment inquiry now engulfing President Donald Trump. But the current and former U.S. officials — several of them experienced diplomats accustomed to documenting almost everything — also left a trail of clues for investigators to follow. The breadcrumbs — word of a cable here, mention of a meeting there — are scattered across what’s been made public from the testimonies. https://politi.co/364l1ki via @politico

Diplomat: Trump linked Ukraine aid to demand for probe. Taylor's appearance was among the most watched because of a text message, released by House investigators earlier in the probe, in which he called Trump's attempt to hold back military aid to Ukraine "crazy." Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said Taylor "drew a straight line" with documents, timelines and individual conversations in his records. "I do not know how you would listen to today's testimony from Ambassador Taylor and come to any other (conclusion) except that the president abused his power and withheld foreign aid," she said. https://news.yahoo.com/us-diplomat-drawn-trumps-ukraine-043650720.html

Support for impeachment reaches highest level in Fox News poll. The poll released Wednesday found 51 percent of respondents supported Trump's impeachment and removal from office. Four percent of participants said the president should be impeached but not removed, and 40 percent are completely against impeachment. Support for impeachment and removal has risen 9 points since July, increasing 11 points among Democrats, 5 points among Republicans and 3 points among independents. Voters in swing counties, defined as where Hillary Clinton and Trump were within 10 points in the 2016 election, supported impeachment at a rate of 52 percent, 10 points above a comparable population in July. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/465110-support-for-impeachment-reaches-highest-level-in-fox-news-poll

Trump’s Legal Position on Impeachment Is Bananas. President Trump’s White House declared war on the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry Tuesday evening, vowing a “full halt” to any cooperation going forward. But the letter Trump sent Congress to justify his stance hardly has the trappings of a serious legal memo: It reads more like a Trumpian rant that’s been translated into fancy lawyer speak by the White House counsel’s office, said legal experts who reviewed the document. “It’s a political argument dressed up in legalese,” said William Howell, an expert on the presidency and separation of powers at the University of Chicago. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwdpk/trumps-legal-position-on-impeachment-is-bananas?utm_campaign=sharebutton via @vice

Lawyers express concern for whistleblower's safety https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/463585-lawyers-whistleblower-concerned-safety-report

Trump spinmistress @KellyannePolls attended last night's State Dinner without her husband. This morning, @gtconway3d has co-authored an article saying the time to impeach his wife's boss is now: Opinion | Trump has done plenty to warrant impeachment. But the Ukraine allegations are over the top. Simply put, the framers viewed the president as a fiduciary, the government of the United States as a sacred trust and the people of the United States as the beneficiaries of that trust. Through the Constitution, the framers imposed upon the president the duty and obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and made him swear an oath that he would fulfill that duty of faithful execution. They believed that a president would break his oath if he engaged in self-dealing — if he used his powers to put his own interests above the nation’s. That would be the paradigmatic case for impeachment. https://wapo.st/2V5yaVc

House Judiciary panel preparing vote to define Trump impeachment probe. Dems hope that explicitly defining their impeachment inquiry will strengthen their leverage to compel testimony from witnesses. https://politi.co/2UDXUYD via @politico

Air Force crew made an odd stop on a routine trip: Trump’s Scottish resort. Now the layover is part of a broader House inquiry into military spending at and around the Trump property.In early Spring of this year, an Air National Guard crew made a routine trip from the U.S. to Kuwait to deliver supplies. What wasn’t routine was where the crew stopped along the way: President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort, about 50 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland. Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident. But they have yet to receive any answers from the Pentagon. The inquiry is part of a broader, previously unreported probe into U.S. military expenditures at and around the Trump property in Scotland. According to a letter the panel sent to the Pentagon in June, the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the Prestwick Airport — the closest airport to Trump Turnberry — since October 2017, fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a U.S. military base. The letter also cites a Guardian report that the airport provided cut-rate rooms and free rounds of golf at Turnberry for U.S. military members. Taken together, the incidents raise the possibility that the military has helped keep Trump’s Turnberry resort afloat — the property lost $4.5 million in 2017, but revenue went up $3 million in 2018. “The Defense Department has not produced a single document in this investigation,” said a senior Democratic aide on the oversight panel. “The committee will be forced to consider alternative steps if the Pentagon does not begin complying voluntarily in the coming days.” https://politi.co/2A1XDVG via @politico

The House just confirmed in court that it’s definitely, absolutely, 100% thinking about impeachment. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit in federal court to force former White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn to testify about potential episodes of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump that were outlined in the Mueller report. McGahn defied a subpoena in May at the request of White House lawyers, who claimed he was “absolutely immune” to orders to testify before Congress. In the complaint filed in the district court for the District of Columbia, the committee insisted that McGahn’s testimony was essential to move forward with any potential impeachment on obstruction of justice grounds. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/house-judiciary-committee-sues-don-mcgahn-donald-trump-impeachment.html via @slate

More than half of House Democrats on board with Trump impeachment inquiry. With fresh support for the inquiry from California Rep. Salud Carbajal, the number of House Democrats in favor reached 118 on Friday. That’s more than half of the 235 House Democrats. https://fxn.ws/2LWWSoX #FoxNews

Majority of House Democrats now support impeachment inquiry. Pelosi will now face increased pressure to back impeachment proceedings. https://politi.co/2GGqra3

A new pro-impeachment TV ad boils Mueller's 6 hours of testimony down to 32 seconds https://theweek.com/speedreads/855757/new-proimpeachment-tv-ad-boils-muellers-6-hours-testimony-down-32-seconds via @TheWeek

With Sunday surge, nearly half of House Democrats back impeachment inquiry https://politi.co/2GzI5ME

House Democratic leadership member backs impeachment inquiry. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) on Thursday became the highest-ranking member of House Democratic leadership to endorse an impeachment inquiry a day after former special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony before Congress. Clark, the House Democratic Caucus vice chair, ranks sixth in the leadership hierarchy. Like other Democrats who also have endorsed an impeachment inquiry, Clark said that it should be the path forward given the Trump administration's general refusal to cooperate with their investigations. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/454822-house-democratic-leadership-member-backs-impeachment-inquiry

Nadler: Substantial evidence President Trump 'guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors' contained in Mueller report https://fxn.ws/2JGNYK3 #FoxNews

Here are the 95 Democrats who voted to support impeachment https://thehill.com/homenews/house/453638-here-are-the-95-democrats-who-voted-to-support-impeachment

Are Calls For Impeachment Being Replaced With ‘Lock Him Up?’ Cicilline pushed it further, comparing the Speaker’s alleged comments to Trump’s constant refrain of “Lock her up” when speaking about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign saying, “It’s kind of rich to have the president complain about this when he began a campaign with ‘lock her up’ as his bumper sticker.” Also on Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was asked on ABC’s This Week if he agreed with Pelosi’s remarks and if he thinks the president committed crimes that could be prosecuted. O’Rourke said, “He did” commit crimes and went on to say, “I think that’s clear from what we have learned from the Mueller report. But I think those crimes might extend beyond what we’ve seen in the Mueller report.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/are-calls-for-impeachment-lock-him-up-846132/ via @RollingStone

The Supreme Court could intervene in attempt to remove Trump from office, Dershowitz says word salad gobbly gook. https://fxn.ws/2MiWVfQ #FoxNews

Amash battles MAGA supporter over impeachment during town hall https://fxn.ws/2I4JjQ8 #FoxNews

Amash gets standing ovation at first town hall after calling for Trump's impeachment https://thehill.com/homenews/house/445862-amash-gets-standing-ovation-at-first-town-hall-after-calling-for-trumps

Robert Mueller's remarks 'explosive,' sets up impeachment talk 'for foreseeable future,' says Andy McCarthy. “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller said about the obstruction of justice inquiry into President Trump. https://fxn.ws/2I8nUVY #FoxNews

Constituents at town hall praise Justin Amash for courage in taking on Donald Trump https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/05/28/justin-amash-donald-trump-impeachment-town-hall/1260471001/ via @freep

Trump rips Democrats' demands, impeachment talk: 'Witch Hunt continues!' https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444945-trump-rips-dems-demands-impeachment-talk-witch-hunt-continues

Confidential draft IRS memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless president invokes executive privilege. A confidential Internal Revenue Service legal memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless the president takes the rare step of asserting executive privilege, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post. The memo contradicts the Trump administration’s justification for denying lawmakers’ request for President Trump’s tax returns, exposing fissures in the executive branch. Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns but has not invoked executive privilege. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has instead denied the returns by arguing there is no legislative purpose for demanding them. https://wapo.st/2QhCkHm

Michael Cohen implicated at least 4 people in Trump's orbit during marathon House testimony. Cohen implicated at least four people close to the president in potential wrongdoing in his House testimony: Trump's defense lawyer, Jay Sekulow; Trump's lead defense attorney, Rudy Giuliani; Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; and an unnamed intermediary Cohen said is well connected to the White House. https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-house-intelligence-committee-testimony-takeaways-2019-5

House progressive: Pelosi 'has it right' on impeachment. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a leading House progressive, voiced support Tuesday for Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) handling of calls to impeach President Trump, with the Democratic leader opting to have committees conduct oversight investigations into the administration. “I think that she has it right. We have to build a case, we need to have witnesses come before Congress and most importantly we have to show the American people that we’re doing things to improve their lives and trying to find some common ground to get things done,” Khanna said on Fox News. “What she is saying is Congress needs to do its oversight functions, we need to have the committees investigate where there has been misconduct,” he continued. “She’s talking about rigorous government oversight, not making it about an impeachment of this president.” https://thehill.com/homenews/house/444907-house-progressive-pelosi-has-it-right-on-impeachment

Judge rules against Trump in fight over president’s financial records. Trump called the 41-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta of the District of Columbia “crazy” and said he would appeal, adding: “We think it’s totally the wrong decision by, obviously, an Obama-appointed judge.” https://wapo.st/2QcvR0h

Rep. Justin Amash: President Trump engaged in 'impeachable conduct'. In a series of tweets from his verified Twitter account, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, who is also an attorney and represents Michigan's third congressional district, said the report, which was released in April, revealed that various actions under the president "meet the threshold for impeachment." In addition, Amash said U.S. Attorney General William Barr deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report. https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/18/justin-amash-trump-mueller-report-impeachable-conduct/3724743002/ via @freep

GOP lawmaker says Trump’s conduct meets ‘threshold for impeachment’. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a critic of President Trump who has entertained a run against him in 2020, became the first Republican congressman to say the president “engaged in impeachable conduct” based on the Mueller report. The Michigan lawmaker, often the lone Trump dissenter on his side of the House aisle, shared his conclusions in a lengthy Twitter thread Saturday after reviewing the full report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. https://wapo.st/2QdeSKZ

This Courtroom Battle Could Reveal Trump's Finances and Open the Floodgates to His Other Secrets https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vb97m8/this-courtroom-battle-could-reveal-trumps-finances-and-open-the-floodgates-to-his-other-secrets

Dems feel growing pressure on impeachment https://thehill.com/homenews/house/432288-dems-feel-growing-pressure-on-impeachment

Michael Cohen, Special Counsel, FBI, Congress hearings, Russia, pee tape

US President Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen has been released from prison after a judge ruled he was sent back to jail in retaliation for writing a tell-all book. The judge ordering his release said the government was retaliating when it sent Cohen back to prison this month. He had been released in May over Covid-19 concerns. Cohen was serving a three-year sentence for charges including Trump campaign finance violations. Cohen is expected to be fitted with an ankle tag and will serve the rest of the sentence at home in New York City. "He looked exhausted, as one might think, when you come out of quarantine/solitary confinement," his attorney, Jeffrey Levine, told the Reuters news agency after speaking to Cohen over FaceTime from the car. "He hasn't slept in two weeks." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53530756

New Transcript Shows Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Colluding With Russia in 2016. Late Friday afternoon, the Trump administration released the transcript of that conversation. The timing itself does not indicate much confidence that the transcript would support Flynn’s interpretation (late Friday afternoons not being the customary time to drop favorable news stories). And indeed, the transcript makes Flynn’s call look even less innocent. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/05/transcript-michael-flynn-trump-russia-ambassador-collusion-sanctions.html

Graham: IG's report on Russia probe will be 'ugly and damning' for DOJ https://fxn.ws/2Z6AbRq #FoxNews

'I did meet with Putin': Dem report highlights Flynn exchange after 2015 trip. The Oversight Committee's new report describes rampant foreign influence seeping into decision-making inside the White House. An initial report on the matter in February described concerns among whistleblowers that corporate and foreign interests had circumvented traditional foreign policymaking in order to influence Trump's plans to share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia. The committee says it's received 60,000 additional pages of information since then that add substantial heft to those concerns. https://politi.co/2GBcx94

The Senate Intel Committee just released a report detailing Russia's "extensive" meddling in the 2016 elections. Senate Intel Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) each issued statements with the report’s release. Burr said that in 2016 the United States was “unprepared at all levels of government” for attacks on elections, and has improved in the time since. Burr noted that the Department of Homeland Security and state election officials have a much better working relationship than before, but that “much work remains to be done.” It’s unclear whether Burr considers elections security legislation as part of the work that remains to be done. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has prevented most of this type of legislation from coming to the floor, arguing that Congress has done enough and that pending election legislation is merely the Democrats’ effort to usurp states’ rights and bolster their chances at the polls. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/the-senate-intel-committee-just-released-a-report-detailing-russias-extensive-meddling-in-the-2016-elections/ via @MotherJones

Prostitution rumors or porn star payoffs: What was Hope Hicks really talking about? On the day after the release of audio in which Trump bragged that he could get away with grabbing women “by the the pussy,” he joined his lawyer and his spokesperson in a conversation that the FBI thought might be about secretly paying off a porn star who says she had sex with Trump while Trump’s wife was pregnant. But Hicks says the call was actually about claims that the Kremlin had caught Trump on video engaging in lewd activities with prostitutes. No evidence has ever emerged of the existence of the infamous “pee tape,” or even of a tape featuring more conventional interactions between Trump and prostitutes. Trump has long denied it exists. Still, it’s striking that the possible topics of this call are porn star or pee tape. No one’s claiming that the conversation was about tax policy. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/hope-hicks-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen/ via @MotherJones

UK ambassador vouched for 'legit' dossier author, said Trump killed Iran deal to spite Obama, leaks show. Darroch also reportedly told a U.S. official that Christopher Steele, the author of the discredited anti-Trump dossier that the FBI used to justify secretly monitoring members of the Trump team, was "absolutely legit." https://fxn.ws/2NV3cz5 #FoxNews

‘This wasn’t just a briefing’: Pompeo grilled CIA analysts on Russia findings. The DOJ is now reviewing those same findings after Mike Pompeo found no wrongdoing in how the agency concluded Russia wanted to help Trump in 2016. Just after Pompeo took over as CIA director in 2017, he conducted a personal review of the CIA’s findings, grilling analysts on their conclusions in a challenging and at times combative interview, these people said. He ultimately found no evidence of any wrongdoing, or that the analysts had been under political pressure to produce their findings. https://politi.co/2LjBASj

Here Are 11 Questions We’d Ask Robert Mueller https://politi.co/2LhzgLB via @politicomag

The special counsel will testify before Congress next week. He needs to answer for historic legal and factual errors. Jed Shugerman. Robert Mueller made a significant legal error and, based on the facts he found, he should have identified Trump campaign felonies. Mueller’s errors meant that, first, he failed to conclude that the Trump campaign criminally coordinated with Russia; second, he failed to indict campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for felony campaign coordination (see in a concise timeline below); third, the 10 acts of felony obstruction in Volume II fell flat among the general public because it lacked compelling context of these underlying crimes between the campaign and Russia. On top of these errors, the former special counsel said he deliberately wrote the report to be unclear because it would be unfair to make clear criminal accusations against a president. https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-mueller-missed-the-crime-trumps-campaign-coordinated-with-russia

Trump dossier author Steele gets 16-hour DOJ grilling. The interview was contentious at first, according to two people familiar with the matter, but investigators ultimately found his testimony credible and even surprising. The extensive interview with Steele, and the investigators’ sense that he offered new and important information, may dampen expectations among the president’s allies who’ve claimed that Steele’s sensational dossier was used improperly by the bureau to “spy” on the campaign. https://politi.co/2NY5sWD

New study: Russian propaganda may really have helped Trump in 2016. The study does not prove Russian interference swung the election to Trump. But it did find Trump's poll numbers improved when Russian trolls were active. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/new-study-shows-russian-propaganda-may-really-have-helped-trump-n1025306 via @nbcnews

'We R All on the Same Team': Paul Manafort and Sean Hannity's Private Messages Have Been Unsealed. Manafort also blamed the media for his troubles, saying, “The media is trying to split me with [Donald Trump] and family by lies and untruths.” He later said his “new lawyers” were “junk yard dogs and will undo a lot of this injustice.” “But I won’t give up. And I won’t sell out,” he told Hannity. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/paul-manafort-and-sean-hannitys-private-messages-have-been-unsealed-read/ via @lawcrimenews

Flynn ordered to appear in court with new Trump-approved lawyer. Michael Flynn appears to be sticking with his cooperation deal, despite speculation that his new attorney signaled an intent to cancel a previous guilty plea. https://politi.co/2MYteRQ

It’s time to certify Trump’s exoneration as a fraud. Barr Is Lying About Mueller’s Evidence. The attorney general’s falsehoods make his verdict in the Russia investigation worthless. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/barr-lying-mueller-report.html via @slate

This Seb Gorka video is not a parody. Really.
Seriously. Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) https://twitter.com/SykesCharlie/status/1131962850828857344

Liz Cheney: Statements by agents investigating Trump 'could well be treason'. She specifically went after texts exchanged by former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that were critical of Trump and have sparked a Republican effort to investigate potential bias within the Department of Justice against Trump, adding that officials needed to ascertain former FBI Director James Comey’s and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s roles in the investigation as well. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/445588-liz-cheney-statements-by-agents-investigating-trump-could-well-be

Trump: Why wasn't I told Flynn was under investigation? Then-President Barack Obama urged Trump not to hire Flynn in a meeting two days after the election, claiming he was problematic and prone to having crazy ideas, according to officials from both administrations. Sally Yates, Trump’s acting attorney general until he fired her days after taking office, testified to senators in 2017 that she had warned Trump that Flynn could be “compromised” by his ties to the Russians. https://politi.co/2JOnBSH via @politico

Roger Stone is relying on a debunked conspiracy theory to fight his criminal case. In a motion filed on Friday, Stone’s lawyers argued that evidence in his case should be thrown out because the government gathered it using search warrants that stated the FBI was investigating Stone for crimes, including conspiracy and wire fraud, that were based on “the assumption that the Russian state is responsible for hacking” the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. That is, Stone is suggesting Moscow was not behind the hack-and-dump operation against Democrats in 2016. And, in doing so, he is continuing to fuel a discredited conspiracy theory that exploited the tragic murder of 27-year old Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich to boost his legal case. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/roger-stone-is-relying-on-a-debunked-conspiracy-theory-to-fight-his-criminal-case/ via @MotherJones

Prosecutors: Person 'connected to' Congress tried to influence Flynn's cooperation with Mueller https://politi.co/2JmNFoJ

Steve Bannon sought alliance with FBI in 2017 White House meeting. Steve Bannon urged two senior FBI officials to put their differences with the White House “behind them” at a meeting in 2017, on the day after Donald Trump asked James Comey, the then head of the FBI, to pledge his loyalty to the president. The exchange, which occurred on 28 January 2017 and has never been publicly disclosed, offers new insights into the ways in which senior White House officials, including Bannon, Trump’s closest adviser at the time, sought to ensure the FBI saw itself as an ally of the White House. It also raises questions about why the incident was not included in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian influence during the 2016 election, which contained detailed allegations of the ways in which Trump sought to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the president and his campaign. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/14/steve-bannon-white-house-fbi-trump-meeting

Full Text of the Mueller Report's Executive Summaries http://www.lawfareblog.com/full-text-mueller-reports-executive-summaries

Steele's stunning pre-FISA confession: Informant needed to air Trump dirt before election. Kavalec’s notes do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee during its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). "They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it," Nunes told me. Senate and House Judiciary investigators told me they did not know about them, even though they investigated Steele’s behavior in 2017-18. David Bossie, head of Citizens United and an informal Trump adviser, said the documents suggest there was an illegal effort to “frame” the future president with bogus Russia collusion allegations. “This new information proves why the attorney general must conduct a thorough investigation of the investigators,” he said.

Sources tell me there also are handwritten notes from the meeting, with information about Steele’s political ties, that have not been given to Congress. “There’s a connection to Hillary Clinton in the notes,” said one source who has seen them. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/442592-steeles-stunning-pre-fisa-confession-informant-needed-to-air-trump-dirt

McConnell tried to shut the door on the Mueller report. Warren called to impeach Trump instead. In a blistering speech that included direct readings from the Mueller report, Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday called to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, arguing that the events described in the special counsel’s findings amounted to a crime. “There is no political inconvenience exception to the United States Constitution,” Warren said from the Senate floor. “If any other human being in this country had done what’s documented in the Mueller report, they’d be arrested and put in jail.” “We took an oath not to try and protect Donald Trump, we took an oath to protect and serve the Constitution of the United States of America, and the way we do that is we begin impeachment proceedings now against this president,” she continued. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-impeach-trump/ via @MotherJones

Trump move raises pressure on Barr. President Trump’s decision to publicly object to special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony has raised pressure on Attorney General William Barr while stoking a deepening feud with Capitol Hill over presidential power. Barr has maintained that he is willing to allow Mueller to testify, a position that now appears to put him at odds with the president. Until this weekend, Trump had expressed ambivalence over Mueller’s testimony, leaving the decision up to Barr. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/442376-trump-move-raises-pressure-on-barr

READ: Mueller's Letter Expressing Concern About Barr's Summary Of His Report. In a letter dated March 27, Mueller told Barr that the Justice Department's summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions." He urged the Justice Department to release selected materials immediately in an attempt to address "public confusion." https://n.pr/2vuCcub https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5984399-Mueller-Letter-to-Barr

What's missing? The clues to Barr's 1,000 Mueller report redactions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/19/mueller-report-redactions-whats-missing-clues

Hello to Our Unblinking, Unmoving Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein https://theslot.jezebel.com/hello-to-our-unblinking-unmoving-deputy-attorney-gener-1834145098

Mueller report sparks new DC war over Russia probe: Subpoenas, payback and more. The public release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Thursday marked the dramatic final note of a lengthy and contentious investigation, but also sparked a tinderbox of new calls for subpoenas, congressional testimony, resignations, and even impeachment proceedings -- all despite the probe's central finding that no evidence showed that President Trump's team "coordinated or conspired" with Russia. The whirlwind moments kept coming, even hours after the report's release, as more and more revelations from the 448-page document trickled out. The White House, for its part, claimed total victory and vindication for the president who, according to the report, once fretted that the special counsel's appointment marked the "end" of his presidency and that he was "f---ed" beyond the possibility of redemption. https://fxn.ws/2GuWBpo #FoxNews

Comparing Barr's summary of Mueller report to the redacted publicly released report https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/apr/18/context-comparing-bill-barrs-summary-mueller-repor/ via @PolitiFact

Jks56m0.jpg
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1118876219381026818 April 18, 2019

Here’s video of Roger Stone saying his friend in London recently met with Assange. Says "mother-load" is coming from Wikileaks & has "reason to believe that it is devastating.” Says “Assange has all of the emails." Dug up by >@TheDemCoalition. From 10/3/16. Scott Dworkin (@funder) https://twitter.com/funder/status/1116371443128918017 April 11, 2019

The single-sentence Russia bombshell that Attorney General Barr delivered to Congress https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/438136-the-single-sentence-russia-bombshell-that-attorney-general-barr-delivered

Rep. Adam Schiff on Russian Collusion & Resignation Calls House Intelligence Committee investigation. https://youtu.be/1OXKKtrP__I

McConnell blocks resolution calling for Mueller report to be released publicly https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/435703-mcconnell-blocks-resolution-calling-for-mueller-report-to-be-released

Republican Party Official Reacts To Mueller Conclusions. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Harmeet Dhillon, committeewoman for California's Republican National Committee, to get her reaction to the principal conclusions of Robert Mueller's investigation.DHILLON: Excuse me, don't interrupt me, please... MARTIN: Were they asked to conduct this investigation... DHILLON: I'm a guest on your show. MARTIN: I understand that. DHILLON: I'm a guest. Let me finish. Let me finish my comment. MARTIN: OK, OK. https://n.pr/2TtkqkS

Graham encouraged McCain to turn Trump-Russia dossier over to FBI @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2FAF7HW

Pelosi, Schumer: Barr's Mueller summary 'raises as many questions as it answers' https://thehill.com/homenews/house/435539-pelosi-schumer-barrs-mueller-summary-raises-as-many-questions-as-it-answers

We already know there was collusion https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/we-already-know-there-was-collusion/ via @MotherJones

A mysterious payment to Paul Manafort's lawyer reveals a hidden chapter of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign https://cnb.cx/2ToPAOW

Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election. Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump. https://nyti.ms/2IV6EpU

Blackwater founder Erik Prince admits to Trump Tower meeting in disastrous interview https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/erik-prince-trump-tower-meeting-blackwater-interview-mehdi-hasan-a8815446.html

Legal experts are losing their minds on Twitter over the Manafort sentencing https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-sentencing-analysis-what-legal-experts-are-saying-2019-3

The ‘Otherwise Blameless Life’ of Paul Manafort. Trump’s former campaign chair has always acted with impunity, as if the laws never applied to him. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/paul-manaforts-otherwise-blamess-life-crime/584419/

Opinion | New revelations implicate Donald Trump Jr. in his father’s nefarious schemes https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/06/new-revelations-implicate-trump-jr-daddys-nefarious-schemes/

House panel seeks Trump documents from 81 individuals and organizations https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/04/house-judiciary-committee-trump-documents-request

Week 93: Cohen Reveals Russia Scandal Gems Amid the Mudslinging https://politi.co/2NDjFEz

In context: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questions Michael Cohen during the House Oversight Committee https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/feb/28/context-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-questions-michael/ via @PolitiFact

House Democrats target Trump’s personal finances. House Democrats are planning to cross one of President Donald Trump’s red lines: investigating his personal finances. With special counsel Robert Mueller expected to wind up his probe soon, Democrats are launching an investigation to discover why Deutsche Bank was willing to lend The Trump Organization money when other banks weren't’t and whether Russia was involved. The German bank, which has been under scrutiny for its role in Russian money laundering, lent Trump hundreds of millions of dollars over the years for his property development ventures. The House Financial Services and Intelligence committees have been staffing up for their probes into the bank and Trump's alleged Russia ties. Democrats on the panels have said they are willing to pursue a key area with Deutsche Bank that Mueller might have avoided — by crossing what Trump sees as a red line into his personal finances. https://politi.co/2IxNI1r

Trump faces a legal reckoning – but are his worst troubles yet to come? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/24/trump-faces-a-legal-reckoning-this-week-but-are-his-worst-troubles-yet-to-come

A who’s-who of the many, many people in the Russia investigation’s orbit https://wapo.st/DrawingToAClose

Court records reveal a Mueller report right in plain view https://apnews.com/2b8513d4a4224a559d7048edb396cdfd

Mueller: Manafort deserves 19.5 to 24.5 years in prison for Virginia convictions https://politi.co/2NfUEz7 via @politico

Review | Andrew McCabe’s disturbing account of working for Sessions and Trump https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/andrew-mccabes-disturbing-account-of-working-for-sessions-and-trump/2019/02/14/91eba5a4-3081-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html

This Florida Man Destroying Roger Stone on Infowars Is So Satisfying https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbz788/man-calls-infowars-destroys-roger-stone-michael-from-florida-video-twitter-vgtrn

Newly unearthed footage shows Donald Trump ‘meeting with Russians in Moscow in 1995’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-video-meeting-moscow-tower-mall-underground-1995-report-footage-archive-a8764921.html

Opinion | How did Roger Stone survive Watergate? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/27/how-did-roger-stone-survive-watergate/

Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration https://nyti.ms/2HzbQ34

How CNN captured video of the Roger Stone raid @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2FP6eQM Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins That would be @davidgshortell. He said on air that he got to Stone's house early this morning after they noticed some unusual grand jury activity in Washington yesterday. https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1088780257954549761

Roger Stone says he's not guilty and won't testify against Trump https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/426984-roger-stone-i-will-plead-not-guilty-to-charges-in-mueller-probe

Mueller investigation could have classified communications intercepts proving Trump worked with Russia http://www.newsweek.com/mueller-investigation-could-have-classified-communications-intercepts-proving-1289142

What if the Obstruction Was the Collusion? On the New York Times’s Latest Bombshell http://www.lawfareblog.com/what-if-obstruction-was-collusion-new-york-timess-latest-bombshell

Economy, Jobs, Budget, Taxes, Trade

The latest batch of monthly job numbers is a mirage showing what a robust economic recovery might look like in a nation winning the war against the coronavirus. Alas, that is not the United States. Employers added 4.8 million jobs in June, on top of 2.7 million in May. Those 7.5 million new jobs might sound phenomenal, but they’re not. In February, there were 152.5 million workers earning a paycheck. There are now 137.8 million. We’ve still lost nearly 15 million jobs due to the pandemic and widespread business closures, and have repaired only about one-third of the damage to workers. President Trump is unconcerned. “Our economy is roaring back,” Trump said in a short address on July 2. “These are historic numbers in a time that a lot of people would have wilted. They would have wilted. But we didn’t wilt, and our country didn’t wilt.” The wilting is underway, however. The Labor Department’s jobs report is based on a monthly survey, which in this case concluded on June 12. At the time, there had been a steady decline in the number of coronavirus cases detected daily in the United States. A week later, the infection count began to climb, and it has now hit the highest levels yet, with nearly 53,000 new cases reported on July 1, the highest daily tally so far. That has forced states that had let businesses reopen early, like Texas and Florida, to close businesses all over again. If the coronavirus case count continued to go down, we might see more blowout job creation like we did in June. We’re now more likely to se the opposite, however, with job losses, rather than gains, possible in July, as reopening trends go in the wrong direction. The economy tracks the virus, and the resurgence of the virus probably foretells a retrenching in the economy. For these reasons, this week’s Trump-o-meter reads WEAK, the third lowest score. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/this-week-in-trumponomics-a-premature-victory-lap-193427010.html

There’s No Evidence That Opportunity Zones Benefit Low-Income Residents and Their Neighborhoods. This story was originally published by the Center for Public Integrity. AUSTIN, Texas—Real estate developer Jim Young moved to Austin more than 20 years ago and has watched the gentrification of its east side. Once home to mostly low-income Hispanic and African American families, the area now caters to millennials and young professionals with craft breweries, coffee houses and food trucks offering tacos, lobster and vegan fare. But wealthy investors, relying on the generous opportunity-zone tax breaks, don’t all share Young’s sentiment. Months before the novel coronavirus swept into Americans’ lives, hot real estate markets such as Austin had been the target of a big influx of cash from investors seeking to take advantage of the tax benefits allowed under the 2017 tax law signed by President Donald Trump. Nestled within the sweeping law is a provision that gave wealthy investors tax incentives, including profits free of any taxes, to put money into real estate projects and new businesses in needy neighborhoods. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/theres-no-evidence-that-opportunity-zones-benefit-low-income-residents-and-their-neighborhoods/

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What’s At Risk: An 18-Month View of a Post-COVID World. The WEF surveyed 347 risk analysts to uncover the most likely post-pandemic threats—and no area from the economy to the environment is untouched. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/whats-at-risk-an-18-month-view-of-a-post-covid-world/

The Auto Loan Crisis Isn't Here Yet But It Still Seems To Be Coming https://jalopnik.com/the-auto-loan-crisis-isnt-here-yet-but-it-still-seems-t-1843561839

Trump’s Live Reaction to Record Unemployment: Don’t Blame Me. Trump said that he “learned a lot” from the disgraced former president about not firing people, though noted there was “one big difference” between him and Nixon. “No. 1, [Nixon] may have been guilty and No. 2 he had tapes all over the place,” said Trump. “I wasn’t guilty, I did nothing wrong, and there are no tapes, but I wish there were tapes in my case. But I learned a lot from Richard Nixon.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-live-reaction-to-record-unemployment-dont-blame-me-4

Fed cuts interest rates to zero percent amid coronavirus fallout. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed’s monetary policymaking panel, announced Sunday it would cut its baseline interest rate range to 0 to 0.25 percent, drastically increase purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, and take several other steps to allow banks, businesses, and households weather a sharp economic downturn. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/487692-fed-cuts-interest-rates-to-0-percent-announces-700b-in-bond-purchases

Fed slashes rates by half a percentage point. “The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong,” the Fed’s rate-setting committee said in a statement on the cut, which is twice the size of the central bank’s typical rate moves, signaling a strong desire to reassure markets. “However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.” https://politi.co/38jIb60 via @politico

Economy, Jobs, Budget, Taxes, Trade, archived March 03, 2020

Real wage growth has slowed tremendously under Trump compared to Obama: study. Despite Trump's boasts of a "blue-collar boom," inflation-adjusted wage growth fell in 48 of 50 states. https://www.salon.com/2020/02/29/real-wage-growth-has-slowed-tremendously-under-trump-compared-to-obama-study/

The Coronavirus Stock Market Rollercoaster Isn’t Stopping Anytime Soon. Even if the virus faded tomorrow—and it won’t—the wheels are in motion. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-coronavirus-stock-market-rollercoaster-isnt-stopping-anytime-soon

Ponzi schemes hit highest level in a decade, hinting next ‘investor massacre’ may be near. Authorities uncovered 60 alleged Ponzi schemes last year with a total $3.25 billion in investor funds — the highest amount since around the time of the Great Recession, according to new data. Bernard Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a $65 billion scam affecting thousands of investors that came to light in 2008. A booming stock market and de-regulatory emphasis in Washington may be leading more criminals to engage in investment fraud. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/11/ponzi-schemes-hit-the-highest-level-in-10-years.html

Three theories of how this bull market will go off the rails. Theory No. 1: Concentration: The stock market has ceased to be a report card on the broad health of American commerce and is instead being hijacked by four or five monopoly-like companies that basically can’t keep rising. Wealth concentration in the market is well documented. Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc., and Facebook Inc. now make up 18% of the S&P 500, a record. Combined, they account for half of the S&P 500’s gain this year, and one-fifth of its 400% rise since March 2009. When they break, so will everything else. Theory No. 2: The Fed: The stock market has ceased to be a report card on the broad health of American commerce and instead is being manipulated by the Federal Reserve. Easy money and plentiful liquidity are the market’s drug, and when they’re taken away, withdrawal will be rough. Financial conditions are historically loose and monetary policy accommodative, and now the central bank is pumping billions of dollars worth of liquidity into financial markets to keep short-term funding markets tame. Theory No. 3: Passive funds: The stock market has ceased to be a report card on the broad health of American commerce and is more like a perpetual-motion experiment fueled by self-fulfilling deposits into passive funds. It’s a theory you hear a lot: that exchange-traded funds and other index products are fueling a bubble. ETFs from industry titans like Vanguard Group Inc. and BlackRock Inc. cost next to nothing to trade, are diversified similar to mutual funds, but are easier to jump in and out. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-16/stocks-bull-market

Trump’s First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obama’s Last 3. New Labor Department statistics show that despite Trump’s repeated boasts, job creation was a lot higher during Barack Obama’s final years Newly revised figures from Trump’s own Department of Labor show that 6.6 million new jobs were created in the first 36 months of Trump’s tenure, compared with 8.1 million in the final 36 months of Obama’s ― a decline of 19% under Trump, according to a HuffPost analysis. Economists say that the slowing of job creation is not surprising. There are fewer empty jobs and fewer unemployed people available to fill them as the economy gets closer to full employment. “I’m not a big fan of jobs numbers as a metric of success,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, once the top economic adviser to the late Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. He added, though, that Trump’s “hyperbole” notwithstanding, “the performance of the labor market has been nothing short of stunning.”. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-obama-jobs-created_n_5e419dc0c5b6bb0ffc169993

Trump says the economy is great. Millennials disagree. Trump's boasts about the economy aren't impressing millennials, many of whom are struggling and mired in debt. https://www.salon.com/2020/02/08/trump-says-the-economy-is-great-millennials-disagree/

Investors 'are really excited about the Donald Trump presidency continuing': top strategist https://finance.yahoo.com/news/investors-are-really-excited-about-the-donald-trump-presidency-continuing-strategist-155847732.html

It turns out that the economy never had a Trump bump. President Donald Trump has always exaggerated the strength of his jobs record, claiming to have brought about an unprecedented hiring boom when, in fact, payrolls have been growing at a somewhat slower pace than they had been during Barack Obama’s final years in office. But it turns out, the reality of it was even weaker than the official data let on. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest batch of employment numbers, along with its annual benchmark revisions adjusting its estimates from prior months. Before, the government believed that the U.S. had added 223,000 jobs per month in 2018, the year that the GOP’s tax cuts and new, higher spending levels took effect. It has now lowered that estimate to 193,000 per month, a significant drop. https://slate.com/business/2020/02/trumps-jobs-bls-obama-economy.html via @slate

Investors at home and abroad are piling into American government debt. Fiscal profligacy can continue for now, but is it economically sensible? Jan 25th 2020 In the good old days, America’s budget deficit yawned when the economy was weak and shrank when it was strong. It fell from 13% to 4% of gdp during Barack Obama’s presidency, as the economy recovered from the financial crisis of 2007-09. Today unemployment is at a 50-year low. Yet borrowing is rising fast. Tax cuts in 2017 and higher government spending have widened the deficit to 5.5% of gdp, according to imf data—the largest, by far, of any rich country. It could soon widen even further. President Donald Trump is thought to want a pre-election giveaway. Fox News is awash with rumours of “Tax Cuts 2.0”. This month the Treasury announced it would issue a 20-year bond, which would lengthen the average maturity of its debt and lock in low interest rates for longer. All this is quite a change for many Republicans, who once accused Mr Obama of profligacy, but now say that trillion-dollar deficits are no big deal. Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, are talking about Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. A new consensus on fiscal policy has descended on Washington. Can it hold? https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/01/25/investors-at-home-and-abroad-are-piling-into-american-government-debt

U.S. economic activity slumped in the fourth quarter, according to new data from Yelp. On-line listing firm forecasts weak first quarter in 2020 as well in new economic indicator. https://on.mktw.net/37m0QP1

Trump’s China Trade Deal Handwave http://dlvr.it/RN8R8b

Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay. Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Employment Situation report (better known as the “jobs report”) to outline latest state of the nation’s economy. And with it, of late, have been plenty of positive headlines—with unemployment hovering around 3.5%, a decade of job growth, and recent upticks in wages, the report’s numbers have mostly been good news. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Are these jobs any good? How much do they pay? Do workers make enough to live on? Here, the story is less rosy. In a recent analysis, we found that 53 million workers ages 18 to 64—or 44% of all workers—earn barely enough to live on. Their median earnings are $10.22 per hour, and about $18,000 per year. These low-wage workers are concentrated in a relatively small number of occupations, including retail sales, cooks, food and beverage servers, janitors and housekeepers, personal care and service workers (such as child care workers and patient care assistants), and various administrative positions. https://brook.gs/35tHupy via @BrookingsInst

How Trump’s Trade War Is Making Lobbyists Rich And Slamming Small Businesses. Washington’s influence industry, including former Trump officials and allies, has made big money helping companies get exemptions from tariffs — sometimes by undercutting small business owners like Mike Elrod. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-trump-trade-war-is-making-lobbyists-rich-and-slamming-small-businesses

The economies of nine U.S. states are expected to slide into contraction within six months -- the most since the financial crisis. Philadelphia Fed index adds Vermont, New Jersey, Kentucky. Economy will be a key issue in this year’s presidential race. West Virginia’s economy is forecast to shrink the most, while a decline in neighboring Pennsylvania is anticipated to be the most severe since May 2009 during the tail-end of the Great Recession, figures released this week show. A faltering economic outlook in coming months would likely cast a shadow over President Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Delaware, Montana and Oklahoma are still expected to face shrinking economies in the next six months, as predicted in the analysis for the prior month. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-02/nine-states-face-economic-contraction-most-since-2009-crisis via @markets

US manufacturing plunges deeper into recession. America's manufacturing downturn isn't letting up. Factory activity contracted for the fifth consecutive month in December, registering a worse drop than expected. The Institute of Supply Management's manufacturing purchasing managers' index logged its lowest level since June 2009 at 47.2, compared with the consensus forecast of 49. It stood at 48.1 in November. Any number below 50 denotes a contraction. Uncertainties surrounding the US-China trade war weighed on the sector last year. And while Washington and Beijing stand to sign a preliminary trade deal on January 15, economic data from December was still deflated because of the spat. "Global trade remains the most significant cross-industry issue, but there are signs that several industry sectors will improve as a result of the 'phase one' trade agreement between the US and China," said Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM manufacturing business survey committee. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/03/economy/december-manufacturing-downturn/index.html

Sales of Manhattan's priciest apartments plunge almost 40% in fourth quarter. The average sales price for Manhattan real estate fell 7.5% to $1.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The median sales price fell below $1 million. Total sales were down, discounts were up, and there is now an eight-month supply of unsold apartments. https://cnb.cx/2QjVn5o

Railroads are slashing workers, cheered on by Wall Street to stay profitable amid Trump’s trade war. While the U.S. economy overall is growing moderately, the railroad industry is a cautionary sign of the ongoing pain in the industrial sector and the deep structural changes underway in the economy that are eliminating middle-class jobs. President Trump’s trade war has hit agriculture and manufacturing hard, causing lower demand for companies that move freight. But railroad stocks soared in 2019 after rail executives embraced automation and cost-cutting to remain profitable, doubling down on the idea that rail’s future entails longer, faster trains and fewer workers. More than 20,000 rail workers have lost their jobs in the past year, the biggest layoffs in rail since the Great Recession and a nearly 10 percent decline in rail employment, according to Labor Department data through November. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/railroads-are-slashing-workers-cheered-on-by-wall-street-to-stay-profitable-amid-trumps-trade-war/2020/01/02/dc757ed4-1603-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html

‘Trump Money’ Is Buying Silence as Unprecedented Payments Go to Farmers. The amount sent to farmers tops the auto-industry bailout by billions, and was delivered without congressional approval. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-money-buying-silence-farmer-subsidies-933019/ via @RollingStone

Trump’s 2017 Tax Overhaul Was Even Worse Than We Thought. A New York Times report reveals how corporate lobbyists worked with the Treasury to reshape the tax code. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-tax-cut-corporate-lobbyists-932361/ via @RollingStone

Fed study: Trump tariffs backfired, caused job losses and higher prices. "We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices," the report by Fed economists Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce reads. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/476100-fed-study-trump-tariffs-backfired-caused-job-losses-and-higher-prices Fed study finds Trump tariffs backfired https://on.mktw.net/2EXAxSH

Don’t let the happy ending fool you. Economically, the 2010s were a wasted decade. https://slate.com/business/2019/12/the-four-mistakes-that-turned-the-2010s-into-an-economic-tragedy.html via @slate

Stock market bubble is forming and a 50% plunge is inevitable: strategist. One can’t help but to think the “everything rally” that is engulfing Wall Street right now is a classic asset bubble just waiting to explode sometime in 2020. “I think so,” AdvisorShares CEO Noah Hamman told Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade, referring to whether we are witnessing a bubble form across asset classes. “It will continue on for a while for as long as we see we have an indication that we could have lower rates ahead possibly though with a pause, but with an increasing Fed balance sheet.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-bubble-is-forming-and-a-50-plunge-is-inevitable-strategist-164718742.html

Recession or growth for San Diego? What economic indicators the experts are watching in 2020 https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2019-12-27/what-economic-indicators-are-the-experts-watching-2020

At each end of Pacific, skepticism over China farm purchases. From Beijing to America’s farm belt, skeptics are questioning just how much China has actually committed to buy — and whether U.S. farmers would be able anytime soon to export goods there in the outsize quantity that Trump has promised. It amounts to $40 billion a year, according to Trump’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. If you ask the exuberant president himself, though, the total is actually “much more than’’ $50 billion. To put that in perspective, U.S. farm exports to China have never topped $26 billion in any one year. https://apnews.com/ebf7a2646dda9371fe2762a5a3f1804f

US Steel closing mill, laying off 1,500 Detroit workers https://thehill.com/policy/finance/475529-us-steel-closing-mill-laying-off-1500-detroit-workers

U.S. economy shakes free of recession fears in striking turnaround since August. Steady, measured growth is expected because of lower interest rates and certainty after Trump’s trade deals. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/15/us-economy-shakes-free-recession-fears-striking-turnaround-since-august/

President Trump: "The China trade deal is dependent on one thing: do I want to make it?" Trump says no deadline for China trade deal https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/472731-trump-says-no-deadline-for-china-trade-deal

Mysterious traders may have made $3.5 billion off stock bets timed to Trump's trade-war comments, Vanity Fair finds - http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/1028610136

Trump hypes China trade deal as new doubts emerge. But Washington and Wall Street are reacting with caution to the announcement, following signals from Beijing that it still needs time to finalize the terms and amid criticism that the limited agreement does not touch on many of Trump’s top priorities for a broader trade deal. The trade pact, announced Friday, would freeze a planned increase of tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods from 25 percent to 30 percent. But it doesn’t address another round of tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese-made consumer goods scheduled for December. “The Chinese don’t want Xi to move forward with this initial phase or this initial detente if they don’t get rid of the December tariff threat as well,” said Stephen Myrow, managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors. “No matter what they sign, they don’t really trust Trump.” The deal’s most concrete achievement was Trump’s decision to scrap the planned tariff increase which was scheduled to take effect Tuesday. In return, China promised to purchase $40 billion to $50 billion worth of U.S. agriculture, as well as aircraft purchases from Boeing. Trade watchers note, though, that that portion of the deal has not been signed or finalized, and China has previously retreated from similar promises. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/465770-trump-hypes-china-trade-deal-as-new-doubts-emerge

Manufacturing is now officially in recession, despite Trump's vow to boost industry. As measured by the Federal Reserve, manufacturing output shrank over two straight quarters this year. That’s the common definition of recession. A separate, widely followed index drawn from purchasing managers showed September’s contraction in manufacturing was the steepest since June 2009, with production, inventories and new orders all falling. And after adding nearly half a million jobs in the prior two years, which Trump frequently stressed in hard-hat rallies throughout the Midwest, manufacturing employment has stalled. Instead of healthy job growth, layoff announcements have surged this year, especially in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Friday’s jobs report for September showed a slight drop in total factory jobs. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-09/despite-trump-vow-manufacturing-in-recession

There’s a 50% chance recession will hit in 2020, economist says. Economist and “Narrative Economics” author Robert Shiller is predicting a coin-flip as to whether a recession is on the horizon. “There will be another recession,” Shiller said on FOX Business’ "Cavuto: Coast to Coast." “I give it a 50% chance in 2020. We're on a tipping point now.” https://fxn.ws/33qkRSa #FoxBusiness

‘An existential political risk’: Trump manufactures a swing-state problem. “Manufacturing is in recession right now. This is what all the data show,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities. “And everywhere I go in the world, the fear I hear is that we are going to be driven deeper into recession because this is all about uncertainty caused by the trade war.” Broad national gauges of manufacturing are already troubling, countering some of the president’s claims of success. The Institute for Supply Management manufacturing survey — a widely followed indicator of factory health — has shown a declining sector two months in a row, recently hitting a level not seen since the end of the Great Recession due to a sharp drop in new export orders. Respondents to the survey blamed a trade war that has reduced export demand and increased costs for parts used in manufacturing. At the county and state level, the environment looks even darker for Trump. In Racine County, Wisc., where Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton, manufacturing had a 22.5 percent share of employment in 2016. The jobless rate in the county rose by three tenths of a percent from January 2018 to August 2019. https://politi.co/35fmlQW via @politico

The cost of Trump's tariffs has fallen 'entirely' on US businesses and households. The bank said in a note that consumer prices are higher partly because Chinese exporters have not lowered their prices to better compete in the US market. Trump has repeatedly — and inaccurately — claimed that China will pay for tariffs imposed by the U.S. Goldman https://cnb.cx/2KVc30O

Trade war damage is 'more significant than most Americans ever realized The U.S.-China trade war has dealt heavy blows to the American economy, and President Trump has indicated that the U.S. will not back down. Yet as the tensions between the two countries carry on and the tit-for-tat tariffs continue, the economic consequences are apparent in various sectors across the U.S., from agriculture to manufacturing to even lumber. “Remember, we were told that the trade wars are easy to win,” Doug Barry, senior director of communications and publications for the U.S.-China Business Council (USBC), told Yahoo Finance. “That was just as they were beginning a year ago. We found that not to be true, they’re not easy to win.” Barry added that “not only aren’t they easy to win, but the unintended costs of a trade war are far more significant than most Americans ever realized. That’s the wake-up call — when you start engaging in this kind of conflict, there doesn’t seem to be a bottom to it.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trade-war-us-china-cost-160123386.html

US manufacturing survey shows worst reading in a decade. A gauge of U.S. manufacturing showed the lowest reading in more than 10 years in September as exports dived amid the escalated trade war. The U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers’ index from the Institute for Supply Management came in at 47.8% in September, the lowest since June 2009, marking the second consecutive month of contraction. Any figure below 50% signals a contraction. The new export orders index was only 41%, the lowest level since March 2009, down from the August reading of 43.3%, ISM data showed. “We have now tariffed our way into a manufacturing recession in the U.S. and globally,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. https://cnb.cx/2o950s2

Farm aid from Trump’s trade war has cost more than double the 2009 auto bailout https://www.axios.com/trump-trade-war-farm-aid-subsidies-auto-bailout-c6eaf580-381b-422f-8c3d-886f3f9e6115.html

Trump's farmer bailout is already more than twice as expensive as Obama's automaker bailout https://theweek.com/speedreads/866567/trumps-farmer-bailout-already-more-than-twice-expensive-obamas-automaker-bailout via @TheWeek

A quarter of NYC's post-2013 luxury condos are unsold. The real estate bubble is in trouble: London's luxury housing market has been in freefall for years, and New York's retail vacancy has been soaring, even as global super-luxe housing is also tanking. Now, analysis from Streeteasy finds that at least a quarter of the luxury condos built in NYC since 2013 are unsold and vacant, even as the city labors under a brutal, destabilizing chronic shortage of affordable housing. Worst hit are "ultraluxury" homes, especially those around "Billionaire's Row" around 57th St in midtown. The numbers are probably much worse, as they don't count the glut of luxury unites count about to hit the market, nor the ones that developers have strategically withheld from listing to keep from revealing the depth of the problem. Developers are quietly boosting sales commissions and offering discounts to buyers, and mooting the idea of bulk sales to vulture funds at massive discounts. https://boingboing.net/2019/09/14/towering-inferos-r-us.html

Yes, stocks are up again. No, recession worries aren't gone https://apnews.com/15f381856ee64276bb11bc8489359419

Analysis | Trump’s misleading claims about China’s economy https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/11/fact-checking-trumps-claims-about-chinas-economy/?tid=ss_tw

JPMorgan creates 'Volfefe index' to measure Trump tweets' impact on market https://thehill.com/policy/finance/460452-jp-morgan-creates-volfefe-index-to-measure-trumps-tweets-impact-on-the-market

President Trump is at war with American companies, toy firm CEO says. Jay Foreman The author is the CEO of Basic Fun, which produces toys such as K’nex, Lite-Brite and Cuteitos. Mr. President, you are “the great deal maker” and “that’s what you do,” but I’m trying to figure out why, after two and a half years and numerous meetings, you haven’t been able to make a trade deal with China. You also haven’t been able to make a nuclear deal with North Korea, pass effective immigration laws, pass meaningful gun background checks or pass a dynamic infrastructure bill. The fact is you are just not that good at making deals. Maybe if you would just stop tweeting you would figure out we’ve been winning all along. https://cnb.cx/2UwNz0r

Manufacturing Shrinks For 1st Time In 3 Years On Trade Tensions. Manufacturing activity shifted into reverse in August for the first time in three years, as factory owners adjusted to the ongoing trade wars. An index compiled by the Institute for Supply Management showed a decline in nearly every measure, including new orders, production and employment. The index had been signaling a slowdown in manufacturing since April, but the August reading is the first to show an actual contraction of the factory sector since August of 2016. "Trade remains the most significant issue," said ISM's Timothy Fiore, who compiled the index. Ongoing tensions with China and other trading partners led to a sharp drop in export orders, while also disrupting supply chains for factories that produce for customers here at home. "While business is strong, there is an undercurrent of fear and alarm regarding the trade wars," one manufacturer in the chemical industry told ISM. "Tariffs continue to be a strain on the supply chain and the economy overall," added a survey respondent in the electronics business. https://n.pr/2LnH6ku

August was a volatile month for stocks, but September could be worse. “August was a burst of volatility for most investors, and we expect that to continue in September,” LPL Financial senior market strategist Ryan Detrick said in an analyst note on Friday. Markets enter the month expecting a second rate cut by the Federal Reserve but weighed down by uncertainties surrounding the U.S.-China trade war, as well as fears that slowing global growth could spill over into the U.S. August, the worst month for the major indexes since May, was already tumultuous for investors. The volatility began Aug. 1, when President Trump announced his administration intended to impose a 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, the latest escalation in the year-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Amid the heightened tensions, both countries continued to hit back at each other with tariffs over the course of the month. https://fxn.ws/2ZwS2Fz

Factbox: Next rounds of Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods to hit consumers. U.S. President Donald Trump’s next round of tariffs on Chinese imports is scheduled to take effect starting on Sunday, escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies with a big hit to consumer goods. Trump has targeted some $300 billion in annual goods imports from China for 15% tariffs in two parts, on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. If fully imposed, virtually all Chinese imports - worth about $550 billion - would be subject to punitive U.S. tariffs imposed since July 2018. https://reut.rs/2ZojCWa

New China tariffs a 'job killer,' US industry tells Trump. More than 200 footwear manufacturers and retailers, including major brands such as Nike and Foot Locker, signed onto the letter alerting that the new tariffs could cost US consumers an additional $4 billion a year and increase the chances of an economic downturn. A broad array of 160 other trade groups -- including software and electronics manufacturers, as well as retailers, liquor producers and others -- also warned Trump of higher prices and damaged consumer confidence and urged him to abandon the tariff strategy. "We've been telling the White House since the beginning that tariffs will be paid by Americans in the form of higher prices, and that due to our already high import taxes, this will be a job killer," Matt Priest, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said in a statement. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-tariffs-job-killer-us-footwear-industry-tells-191647906--finance.html

Billionaire developer Stephen Ross on the housing market: 'There will be a slowdown'. “I mean, I think real estate today is probably in the eighth inning, you know?” said Ross, chairman and founder of the global real estate firm Related Companies. “We're certainly not starting something fresh. You know, we're at a point now where I think there will be a slowdown because it has to happen,” said Ross, who stopped short of saying that there’s a housing bubble. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stephen-ross-hudson-yards-housing-110300406.html

No cushion for the Trump recession: Why this one could be worse than 2008. Even a mild downturn could hit Americans harder — the "recovery" from 2008 left too many people on the margins. The stark reality is that in the last decade or so the rich have gotten richer as the rest of the country has sunk deeper and deeper into debt, with little to show for it except rent receipts. As we head into the next downturn, whenever it happens, tens of millions of American families are hanging on the edge of economic oblivion. Thanks to the Trump tax cut, their government will be too much in debt to throw them a lifeline. https://www.salon.com/2019/08/25/no-cushion-for-the-trump-recession-why-this-one-could-be-worse-than-2008/

New data challenges Trump's economic narrative. But a slew of recent data suggests the Trump economy has fared no differently than other expansions at this stage. And those same numbers indicate the president's economy may be headed toward a downturn. “I would actually say it’s been a weaker recovery than what we’ve seen previously, particular in comparison to the expansions of the '80s and '90s,” said PNC Bank Chief Economist Gus Faucher. That viewpoint has been shaped by figures like the ones released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday. The agency issued a downward revision showing the economy added 500,000 fewer jobs from January 2018 through March 2019. What was once an impressive 223,000 jobs added each month last year, on average, may have been closer to 191,000, according to the new data. Even before the revision, average monthly job growth since Trump took office has been 193,000, below the 208,000 average in former President Obama's second term. The recent revision puts Trump's overall monthly average at 177,000. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/458634-new-data-challenges-trumps-economic-narrative

Economy, Jobs, Budget, Taxes, Trade, archived August 25, 2019

Is a global recession coming? Here are seven warning signs. The US-China trade war, jitters in Germany and Brexit uncertainty point to a slump.

  1. Escalation in US-China tariff war
  2. Slowing US growth
  3. US GDP slowed to 2.1% annualised growth in the second quarter
  4. Long recession in Germany
  5. German GDP shrank by 0.1% in the second quarter
  6. Chinese debt crisis
  7. China's monthly industrial production growth is at a 30-year low
  8. Brexit
  9. UK GDP contracted by 0.2% between April and June to its level since the fourth quarter of 2012
  10. Argentina, Iran, South Africa, Turkey and Venezuela. A string of countries are currently in recession or have recently suffered a contraction.
  11. Turkey was in recession between the second and fourth quarter of 2018
  12. Financial market jitters
  13. The Dow Jones industrial average remains at historically high levels

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/25/is-a-global-recession-coming-here-are-seven-warning-signs

EU leaders round on Trump over trade at G7 https://news.yahoo.com/protests-greet-g7-leaders-discuss-amazon-fires-trade-020344830.html

'It's devastating'. End of GM in Ohio town as Trump fails to bring back midwest jobs. Closing of Chevrolet plant is latest blow in a slow, painful decline in Lordstown – an area that has suffered more than most from the outsourcing of jobs overseas. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/23/general-motors-factory-ohio-lordstown

Intellectual Property and China: Is China Stealing American IP? According to a 2017 report by the United States Trade Representative, Chinese theft of American IP currently costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually. How extensive is IP theft in China? Why does it happen, and how can it be stopped? In this Q&A, Stanford Law School Professor Paul Goldstein discusses the issues. https://law.stanford.edu/2018/04/10/intellectual-property-china-china-stealing-american-ip/ via @StanfordLaw

Here are 5 cases where the U.S. says Chinese companies and workers stole American trade secrets

  1. Chinese tech giant Huawei stole trade secrets from U.S. cellphone company T-Mobile and offered bonuses to employees who managed to swipe technology from other companies.
  2. Apple would collect less revenue without China, the country where its iPhone is assembled and the market that accounts for the most sales of that device outside the U.S. But a secretive project that could become a future gold mine has been infiltrated by thieves trying to steal driverless car technology for a Chinese company, according to criminal charges filed in Silicon Valley. The FBI seized the latest suspect, Apple engineer Jizhong Chen, this month after he bought a plane ticket to China.
  3. Micron Technology the Chinese hoped to break into the market for a technology called dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, that's used in computer electronics.
  4. AMSC, formerly known as American Superconductor Inc. Sinovel Wind Group, was convicted in a federal court in Wisconsin of stealing technology —the electronic brains that run wind turbines.
  5. DuPont Pioneer security guards had caught Mo and other Chinese men digging in a cornfield that contained test plots of new seed corn varieties.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-us-china-trade-war-ip-theft-20190221-story.html

He said the United States would raise its tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to 30% from the current 25% beginning October 1. The president said his decision is retaliation for China imposing tariffs on U.S. exports. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-china-tariffs-trade-war_n_5d6056a9e4b0dfcbd48d4de5

As global economic picture dims, solutions seem out of reach. As global leaders gather on two continents to take account of a darkening economic outlook, this is the picture they face: Factories are slumping, many businesses are paralyzed, global growth is sputtering and the world’s two mightiest economies are in the grip of a dangerous trade war. Barely a year after most of the world’s major countries were enjoying an unusual moment of shared prosperity, the global economy may be at risk of returning to the rut it tumbled into after the financial crisis of 2007-2009. https://apnews.com/6ba54ba727174eb79ba9b289637798e5

Manufacturing sector contracts for the first time in nearly a decade. U.S. manufacturer growth slowed to the lowest level in almost 10 years in August, the latest sign that the trade war may be exacerbating the economic slowdown. The U.S. manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) was 49.9 in August, down from 50.4 in July and below the neutral 50.0 threshold for the first time since September 2009, according to IHS Markit. Any reading below 50 signals a contraction. The survey is an initial reading for the month of August. The final figure will be released Sept. 3. But this fresh survey showed new orders received by manufacturers dropped the most in 10 years, while the data also showed export sales tanked to the lowest level since August 2009. https://cnb.cx/2NlUpo5

Donald Trump incorrect that U.S. dollar is strongest it's ever been. "Yesterday we had the strongest dollar in the history of our country." — Donald Trump on Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 in remarks at the White House. That’s not the case — the overall dollar index and one-to-one comparisons with the Euro, the yen and the yuan have all been stronger for the United States for long stretches of time in recent years. We rate the statement False. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/aug/22/donald-trump/donald-trump-incorrect-us-dollar-strongest-its-eve/

The U.S. job market isn’t quite as strong as originally believed, revised figures from the Labor Department show. New Labor Department revisions complicate the Trump administration’s message of a strong economy. The U.S. job market isn’t quite as strong as originally believed — with revised figures showing that the economy had 501,000 fewer total jobs this March than initially reported. The Labor Department said Wednesday that nearly two-thirds of the downward revision came from the retail and leisure and hospitality sectors, the industries most associated with consumer spending. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-fewer-jobs-added-labor-department_n_5d5ece71e4b02cc97c8a4624

U.S. Steel plans to lay off hundreds of workers in Michigan https://reut.rs/2Z3U5RW

Trump phoned bank CEOs as stock market plunged Wednesday: report. People with knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg that Trump’s call with J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan and Citigroup’s Michael Corbat came as the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked 800 points, or 3 percent, its worst drop of the year. The three executives were already in Washington for a previously scheduled meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The president conducted the phone call from his resort in Bedminster, N.J. People familiar with the matter told CNBC that the executives informed Trump that the ongoing trade war with China was hindering consumer and corporate spending. The president was reportedly receptive to the idea that the trade dispute is harming corporate confidence. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/457752-trump-phoned-bank-ceos-as-stock-market-plunged-wednesday-report

Kudlow: 'There's no recession on the horizon'. The White House adviser demurred when asked by "Fox News Sunday" guest host Dana Perino whether the Trump administration is considering concrete steps to stave off a potential recession after short-term U.S. treasury bonds last week fell below yields for longer-term bonds. The development, which is can signal a forthcoming recession, sparked the worst single-day losses for stocks of 2019. “The Trump pro-growth program, which I believe has been succeeding, we’re going to stay with that,” Kudlow told Perino. “There’s no recession on the horizon," he added. "What’s wrong with a little optimism?” https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/457849-kudlow-theres-no-recession-on-the-horizon

The guy who figured out Bernie Madoff's scam now says GE is about to go bankrupt. Well before the collapse of Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme -- the largest in world history! -- accounting investigator Harry Markopolos had publicly accused Madoff of running a scam; now he says that General Electric is "one recession away" from bankruptcy, with a "balance sheet in tatters." Markopolos and his team just released a 175-page report called GENERAL ELECTRIC, A BIGGER FRAUD THAN ENRON, which accuses the firm of using accounting tricks to paper over $40b in liabilities and to disguise problems with the company's stake in oil services firm Baker Hughes. GE does not dispute that it has $71b in assets and $106b in debt, but says that it "expects to make significant progress" reducing its debts next year. https://boingboing.net/2019/08/16/worse-than-enron.html

Farmer breaks down talking about Trump's trade war, says "I stay up at night worrying about the future". Trump's attempt to renegotiate trade relations with China has driven consumer prices up, generated global economic uncertainty and forced businesses to alter long-standing relations. Farmers, who sent $5.9 billion worth of farm product exports to China in 2018 and $19.5 billion worth in 2017, have been particularly impacted, as China has leveled retaliatory tariffs against U.S. agricultural products. After Trump announced earlier this month that he intended to levy new tariffs against China on September 1 in an escalation of his trade war, Beijing responded by halting all agricultural imports from the U.S. The rising escalation of the trade war with China has worried some farmers, who have expressed concerns about the impact on their financial stability. Even though Trump has offered $28 billion in bailouts to farmers, the leaders of some prominent farm organizations have said that Trump is causing lasting damage to their industry. https://www.newsweek.com/farmer-breaks-down-talking-about-trumps-trade-war-i-stay-night-worrying-about-future-1454555

The Next Recession Is Going to Be Brutal. The economy is showing signs of turning, and the people who saw the least benefit from the latest boom are now the most vulnerable ahead of the next bust. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/recession-yield-curve-poverty-tax-cuts-trump-871198/ via @RollingStone

Wilbur Ross: No date for next round of U.S.-China talks. "I don’t believe a date has been set," Ross said in an interview on CNBC. Instead, the next step in the long-running negotiations is "perhaps another phone call in a couple of weeks." https://politi.co/2OVqmGl

Trump just acknowledged that tariffs are paid by Americans, footwear trade group CEO says "The announcement today that the Trump Administration will be delaying the additional 10% tariff on some footwear until December 1 is an acknowledgment that tariffs are indeed paid by Americans,” the group’s president and CEO Matt Priest said in a statement. “It is no coincidence that the Administration is allowing certain shoes to come in without raising taxes in hopes that prices do not rise at retail during the holidays. Our industry's loud unified voice left a clear impression that shoe tariffs are already extremely high, upwards of 67.5%, and any further tariffs would directly raise costs on consumers and cost footwear jobs." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/footwear-distributors-retailers-america-trump-delay-tariffs-211032604.html

Trump is driving us toward a big recession: It will be ghastly — but is it deliberate? A 2008-style crash may not be far away. It could even be worse — and once again, Republican delusions are to blame. Worst of all, Trump has clumsily staggered beyond the ludicrous economic policies of the Bush years to further destabilize financial markets, including your 401k accounts and the future security of your employment. Specifically, the president’s trade war of choice against China has turned a steadily rising Dow Jones average, through 2017, into an unstable sawtooth pattern with massive single-day declines that are now tempting a full-on 2008-style collapse. If you don’t believe me, check out the markets from January to March of 2018, during the months immediately following Trump’s tax cut. Normally, a tax cut would drive the financial markets upward. But in March of 2018, just a few months after the bill was signed, Trump stupidly launched his trade war by announcing 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum, applied to all of our trading partners. From those months onward — including today, as I write this article — the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq have been unstable messes. https://www.salon.com/2019/08/13/donald-trump-is-driving-america-off-an-economic-cliff-but-is-it-deliberate/

Trump blinks as trade war threatens consumers. The White House said it would delay 10 percent tariffs slated to take effect Sept. 1 on certain consumer goods from China while exempting other products — less than two weeks after Trump announced the new import taxes. Postponing the tariffs until Dec. 15 is expected to temporarily cool U.S. trade tensions with China while also shielding consumers and American businesses from higher costs. Financial markets also rallied on the news after weeks of anxiety over a global slowdown. But narrowing the scope and delaying the impact of the trade war suggests dwindling odds of striking a broader agreement with China. Trump insisted Tuesday that he maintains the upper hand in his battle with China, arguing that Chinese President Xi Jinping is eager to make a deal. Even so, Trump conceded that he decided to hold off on additional tariffs because of the potential harm to consumers. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/trade/457316-trump-blinks-as-trade-war-threatens-consumers

Wall Street sees risk of recession rising. Stock-market volatility is growing and fears of a slowdown are mounting as Trump ramps up his reelection efforts.Wall Street is getting seriously gloomy about the economy, with recession warnings mounting and stock-market volatility rising just as President Donald Trump prepares to fire up his reelection campaign machine. Over just the last few days, economists at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America all warned that Trump’s bitter trade war with China is taking a bigger bite out of economic growth than expected. The warnings came as stocks suffered another big dip on Monday with the Dow closing off nearly 400 points, or 1.5 percent, putting the blue-chip index at 25,897, over 700 points lower than it was in January of 2018 before Trump’s trade fights began in earnest. Stocks bounced back Tuesday after the Trump administration’s announcement about postponing some tariffs that had been set to take effect next month, continuing a long track record of market volatility tied to trade policy. The collective wisdom now spreading across Wall Street is that no trade deal will be struck with China before the 2020 election; business investment will continue to sag; and a series of interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve won’t be enough to juice more growth out of an economy now in its tenth year of expansion — the longest stretch in American history. https://politi.co/2OW86MS

The rural America death spiral. Many of the nation's current pathologies are taking a heavy toll on the majority-white population living in rural America, which was severely impacted by the opioid crisis and has dealt with falling populations, job losses and rising suicide rates. Why it matters: The malaise and discontent that President Trump has tapped into goes beyond the racism we've seen over the past few weeks, and includes anger at a changing world and frustration at dwindling opportunities close to home. These trends are further entrenching the rural-urban schism that came to light in the 2016 election. The big picture: Political and economic power is shifting to the cities, and 20% of the population — 46 million people — is being left behind in the middle of America. These communities face increasingly difficult barriers to education, wealth and health. https://www.axios.com/the-rural-america-death-spiral-7c177126-638f-4270-8987-59ab8bf76faa.html

Goldman Sachs economists say fears rise that U.S.-China trade war leading to recession. Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) said on Sunday that fears of the U.S.-China trade war leading to a recession are increasing and that Goldman no longer expects a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies before the 2020 U.S. presidential election. “We expect tariffs targeting the remaining $300bn of US imports from China to go into effect,” the bank said in a note sent to clients. https://reut.rs/2Z1jRBo

'Trump is ruining our markets': Struggling farmers are losing a huge customer to the trade war — China. U.S. farmers lost their fourth largest customer this week after China officially cancelled all purchases of U.S. agricultural products, a retaliatory move following President Donald Trump’s pledge to slap 10% tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports. https://cnb.cx/2TjjmS6

Bleak Financial Outlook for US Fracking Industry https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/bleak-financial-outlook-for-us-fracking-industry.html

Wisconsin commissioned an independent report on how to fix the Foxconn deal. Result: it can't be done. https://boingboing.net/2019/08/08/ey-foxconn-trump-walker.html

Here are all the Recession Warning Signals That Have Already Gone Off https://fortune.com/2019/07/11/next-recession-warning-signs-yield-curve-confidence-manufacturing/

Neoliberalism: Political Success, Economic Failure. By Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect. Since the late 1970s, we’ve had a grand experiment to test the claim that free markets really do work best. This resurrection occurred despite the practical failure of laissez-faire in the 1930s, the resulting humiliation of free-market theory, and the contrasting success of managed capitalism during the three-decade postwar boom. Yet when growth faltered in the 1970s, libertarian economic theory got another turn at bat. This revival proved extremely convenient for the conservatives who came to power in the 1980s. The neoliberal counterrevolution, in theory and policy, has reversed or undermined nearly every aspect of managed capitalism—from progressive taxation, welfare transfers, and antitrust, to the empowerment of workers and the regulation of banks and other major industries. Neoliberalism’s premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy’s winners and rewarding its losers. So government should get out of the market’s way. By the 1990s, even moderate liberals had been converted to the belief that social objectives can be achieved by harnessing the power of markets. Intermittent periods of governance by Democratic presidents slowed but did not reverse the slide to neoliberal policy and doctrine. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party approved. Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies has failed, even on their own terms. Enterprise has been richly rewarded, taxes have been cut, and regulation reduced or privatized. The economy is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower and more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism. Deregulation has produced not salutary competition, but market concentration. Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/neoliberalism-political-success-economic-failure.html

Fox News Host Neil Cavuto Tells Viewers Trump Is Wrong: ‘China Isn’t Paying These Tariffs. You Are.’ While taking questions on the White House lawn Friday afternoon, the president insisted Americans farmers are fully behind his trade war and support his latest tariffs on $300 billion worth of goods from China. “Remember this, our country is taking in billions and billions of dollars from China,” Trump exclaimed. “We never took in ten cents from China. Out of that many billions of dollars, we’re taking a part of it and giving it to the farmers because they’ve been targeted by China. The farmers, they come out totally whole.” Right away, Cavuto cut away from the president’s impromptu press gaggle to point out that, once again, Trump was not telling the truth when it came to who pays for tariffs. “I don’t know where to begin here,” the Fox News host said. “Just to be clarifying, China isn’t paying these tariffs. You are. You know, indirectly and sometimes directly.” https://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-host-neil-cavuto-211251762.html

S&P 500, Nasdaq close out worst week since December on trade worries. Wall Street extended its sell-off on Friday on renewed trade fears as the benchmark S&P 500 index and Nasdaq saw their worst weekly percentage plunges since December, when investors were spooked by the prospect of a looming recession. https://reut.rs/2MJYOkz

China threatens retaliation for Trump's planned tariff hike. China on Friday threatened retaliation if U.S. President Donald Trump's planned tariff hikes go ahead, while the renewed acrimony between the two biggest global economies sent stock markets tumbling. China's government accused Trump of violating his June agreement with President Xi Jinping to revive negotiations aimed at ending a costly fight over Beijing's trade surplus and technology ambitions. Trump rattled financial markets with Thursday's surprise announcement of 10% tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports, effective Sept. 1. That would extend punitive duties to everything the United States buys from China. If that goes ahead, "China will have to take necessary countermeasures to resolutely defend its core interests," said a foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-threatens-countermeasures-trump-hikes-081241209.html

With Jobs Numbers Like These, It's Hard To See Why The Economy Is Slowing https://n.pr/2Zs2zhY

Oil plunges the most in 4 years after Trump's new China tariffs raise fears of a global slowdown. Crude oil plunged on concerns the global economy would weaken further after President Donald Trump ended a tariff ceasefire with China. The president said additional tariffs of 10% on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese goods would be added in September. Futures for WTI crude dropped 7.9% to $53.95. WTI broke a 5-day winning streak with its worst daily performance in more than 4 years. “The oil market has been the highest hit asset around from the trade war and this only exacerbates the situation,” said John Kilduff Founding Partner of Again Capital. https://cnb.cx/2yAYUCp

Trump Announces New 10 Percent Tariff on $300 Billion in Chinese Goods. President Trump announced Thursday that he will impose a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion in Chinese goods beginning September 1, further escalating the ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. at a crucial moment in their relationship. Trump announced the latest tariffs on Twitter days after high-level talks between Chinese and American negotiations resumed in Shanghai following a nearly two-month hiatus. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-announces-ten-percent-tariff-180752302.html

Fed draws Trump rebuke after rate cut: 'Powell let us down' https://politi.co/2Zna2ij via @politico

American farmer: Trump 'took away all of our markets'. “This trade thing is what’s brought on by the president and it’s really frustrating because he took away all of our markets,” Bob Nuylen, a farmer from North Dakota who grows spring wheat and sunflowers, told Yahoo Finance. “We live in an area where we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. It costs us a lot of money — over $1 a bushel to get our grain to markets.” Since trade tensions began in 2018, farmers have faced major financial challenges, since China was once a major U.S. agriculture buyer. And losing customers has become a major issue. Soybean farmers have been dealing with this, as China has turned to other countries like Brazil for soybeans. Nuylen said this is also happening for wheat farmers, as China has begun importing wheat from Russian regions. “All these countries went to different countries to get their grain,” Nuylen said. “How are we going to get the relations back with them to buy our grain again and be our customers?” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trade-war-farmers-trump-markets-154935903.html

Trump warns China deal will get worse 'if & when' he's reelected. "The problem with them waiting ... is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now ... or no deal at all," Trump wrote on Twitter. "We have all the cards, our past leaders never got it!""We do not expect a written agreement between the two countries that would result in a reduction of existing tariffs until 2021, after the U.S. presidential election," Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at The Economist Intelligence Unit, said Tuesday in an analytical note. "I think if China had their wish, they'd wait until after the election. They'll pray that Trump loses, and then they'll make a deal with a stiff — somebody that doesn’t know what they're doing," Trump said, referring to one of his Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, and past presidents, including Barack Obama. https://politi.co/2GClzTt

Friday’s GDP report totally demolished Trump’s narrative about how he supposedly saved the economy. It turns out we didn’t reach 3 percent growth after all. In its annual data revisions, which also dropped Friday, the Commerce Department reported that the economy grew by just 2.5 percent or 2.9 percent in 2018, depending on exactly how you measure it. It also turns out that growth never actually hit 4 percent in the second quarter of 2018, which—despite being sort of meaningless—had been a point of pride for Trump. In short, goodbye, bragging rights. https://slate.com/business/2019/07/trump-gdp-report-economy.html via @slate

What's the deal with the U.S. dollar? From presidential tweets to corporate earnings reports, the U.S. dollar has been getting a lot of mentions recently. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. should “MATCH” the “currency manipulation game” he said China and Europe were playing in order to compete with U.S. companies. Members of the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin and Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow, have been repeatedly asked about the dollar in interviews. Meanwhile, many U.S. companies said the strong U.S. dollar cut into their profits last quarter. https://www.marketplace.org/2019/07/26/whats-the-deal-with-the-u-s-dollar/

Economy still growing, but at a slower pace. The US economy grew at an annual rate of 2.1% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department announced Friday. That's better than economists had expected, but slower than the 3.1% pace in the first quarter . https://www.10news.com/news/national/economy-still-growing-but-at-a-slower-pace

Economic forecasting: Yield curves help predict economic growth across the rich world https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/07/27/yield-curves-help-predict-economic-growth-across-the-rich-world via @TheEconomist

Winners and losers in the Trump-Pelosi budget deal. President Trump tweeted Monday night he was “pleased” to announce a budget deal that raises the debt ceiling and sets federal spending caps for the next two years. The $320 billion deal followed months of posturing and behind-the-scenes talks. It will add hundreds of billions to the deficit and represents the latest piece of evidence that Washington policymakers in both parties have turned away from any worries about the debt. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/454414-winners-and-losers-in-the-trump-pelosi-budget-deal

California housing market officially now ‘weak.’ Is it an early warning of recession? The once red-hot California housing sales market is officially now “weak,” state analysts say, but the year-long flattening does not necessarily suggest the state is headed toward an economic downturn. In a brief report issued Monday, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office weighed in on the latest California home sales trends, noting that homes sales statewide in June were down from the same month last year, and notably lower than historic norms. “Home sales were on a clear downward trend during the second half of 2018 and the beginning of 2019,” analysts wrote. “Sales seem to have stabilized in recent months and are no longer declining from month to month. https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article232996597.html

Elizabeth Warren predicts economic recession 'maybe even by the end of 2020'. With an economy this vulnerable, we need to reduce the odds of the potential shocks that can send us into another downturn. That means Congress should eliminate the debt ceiling & the Trump administration should replace its trade-war-by-tweet with China with a coherent strategy. "The warning lights are flashing. Whether it’s this year or next year, the odds of another economic downturn are high. This time, though, we can head it off. Congress and regulators should act immediately," the senator from Massachusetts and Democratic 2020 presidential candidate tweeted Monday. https://washex.am/2JI0Q2y

If the economy is so good, why are some truckers doing so poorly? Is the economy to blame? Sure. But there’s something else behind the trucking industry’s woes: mismanagement. “With the drop in May, we see the shipments index as going from ‘warning of a potential slowdown’ to “signaling an economic contraction,” Donald Broughton, the author of the Cass Freight Index wrote in his study. “Bottom line, more and more data is indicating that this is the beginning of an economic contraction.” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/21/if-the-economy-is-so-good-why-are-some-truckers-doing-so-poorly

Rush Limbaugh admits GOP's fiscal attacks on Obama were "bogus," defends Trump's deficit. Death of the deficit hawks: "Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore," says host who drove the Tea Party uprising. https://www.salon.com/2019/07/19/rush-limbaugh-admits-gops-fiscal-attacks-on-obama-were-bogus-defends-trumps-deficit/

Economy, Jobs, Budget, Taxes, Trade, archived July 19, 2019

KEY INSIGHTS:

  • Fundamental economic underpinnings do not support substantially higher equity moves.
  • Global economic conditions remain fragile despite ongoing central bank interventions.
  • Bond market pessimism may be more predictive than equity market enthusiasm.
  • Asset prices are untethered from economic fundamentals and are driven by central bank rhetoric and presidential tweets.
  • Risk asset rally may be a signal to rebalance portfolios to strategic allocations.
  • Continuing trade tensions create multiple economic and geopolitical risks.

https://www.unionbank.com/campaigns/perspectives/q3-market-commentary-0719.jsp

The world's super wealthy just collectively lost $US2 trillion – and Trump's trade war is to blame (via @BIAUS) https://www.businessinsider.com.au/super-rich-wealth-decline-2019-7

U.S. government posts $8 billion deficit in June https://reut.rs/30v4QJm

Minnesota trucking company abruptly closes, hundreds of employees left without work. "They said, 'come back' and I said 'why' and they said 'can't tell you, just come back," he said. "Then they said, 'we're done, get your stuff and go home.'" Habeck noted he was supposed to get paid on Friday but wasn't. He says he is owed about $2,400 still from the company in total. "I have a new truck I just bought. Don't know how I'm going to pay that," Habeck said. "I have car insurance, a family to feed and no health insurance now. I'd like to know what happened and give me my money I am owed. I worked for it-- it's stealing from me, basically." https://kstp.com/business/minnesota-trucking-company-lme-inc-abruptly-closes-hundreds-of-employees-without-jobs/5421344/

Bank of America just slashed its forecast for global economic growth — and it's blaming Trump's trade war - http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/1028349662

Deutsche Bank Highlights a Society at Risk. Yves here. This article broaches a very large issue, and it pains me to be able to offer only a few additional thoughts. I don’t think risk aversion is quite the right frame for why destructive conduct has become so pervasive. For instance, as we’ve documented, casual lying is pervasive at CalPERS even though nearly everyone below the CEO is a civil service employee. Generally speaking, that means they are hard to fire. At CalPERS, the motivation seems to be that a lot of people find lying to be much easier than doing things well. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/deutsche-bank-highlights-a-society-at-risk.html

Wall Street banks bailing on troubled U.S. farm sector https://reut.rs/30uyRck

Employment among ‘prime age’ men declining, triggering 'alarm' https://fxn.ws/2NVtqlk #FoxBusiness

Trump vs. Obama on jobs. job growth has actually slowed under Trump. This isn’t necessarily a problem. The economy has created jobs consistently since 2010, with the peak coming in 2014, when companies created 3 million jobs, or 251,000 per month. During the last 12 months, employers created 2.3 million jobs, or 192,000 per month. During the first six months of 2019, the pace has slowed further to 172,000 new jobs per month. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-versus-obama-on-jobs-181449608.html

Hopes dim for passage of Trump trade deal https://thehill.com/homenews/house/451645-hopes-dim-for-passage-of-trump-trade-deal

Is it time to freak out? Yeah, maybe a little. The Single Most Reliable Recession Indicator of the Past 50 Years Has Officially Started Blaring. https://slate.com/business/2019/07/yield-curve-bond-market-recession.html via @slate

Trump didn't fix the economy that Obama didn't break https://theweek.com/articles/850636/trump-didnt-fix-economy-that-obama-didnt-break

Two Wyoming coal mines close, send 700 workers home after bankruptcy filing https://trib.com/business/energy/two-wyoming-coal-mines-close-send-workers-home-after-bankruptcy/article_773100d1-b5b4-57d8-af49-842518b9e219.html

US manufacturing growth slows in June for 3rd straight month https://apnews.com/819d8268e62546f38bcc98c6b001af65

Bosses pocket Trump tax windfall as workers see job promises vanish. AT&T, General Motors and Wells Fargo vowed to use tax cuts to create jobs. In fact, they did the opposite https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/15/job-losses-trump-tax-cut-at-t-general-motors-wells-fargo

Trump warns of a 'market crash the likes of which has not been seen before' if he loses 2020 election — but economists are worried he's causing a recession on his own https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-warns-market-crash-if-not-re-elected-2020-trade-war-wages-on-2019-6

Car Sales Are Slipping Into Recession-Level Decline https://jalopnik.com/car-sales-are-slipping-into-recession-level-decline-1835480712

Adding to Planetary Alarm Bells, Top US Finance Official Warns Climate Crisis a Recipe for Global Economic Collapse. Demanding action from industries and government, a top federal regulator warned this week that the human-caused climate emergency poses a threat to the economy which rivals the subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the 2008 financial crisis. “As most of the world’s markets and market regulators are taking steps towards assessing and mitigating the current and potential threats of climate change, we in the U.S. must also demand action from all segments of the public and private sectors, including this agency.” —Rostin Behnam, CFTC https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/06/adding-to-planetary-alarm-bells-top-us-finance-official-warns-climate-crisis-a-recipe-for-global-economic-collapse.html

Global semiconductor sales dropped 14.6% in April from April last year, to $32.1 billion, on a three-month moving average basis, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization reported Tuesday afternoon. The three-month moving average in April has plunged 24% from the peak last October, thus continuing the deepest plunge in semiconductor sales since the Financial Crisis: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/06/wolf-richter-global-semiconductor-sales-plunge-24-from-peak-deepest-plunge-since-financial-crisis-deepest-plunge-ever-heres-why.html

Hiring by US businesses hits a record high. The total number of workers hired rose to a new high in April, according to Labor Department data released Monday. But despite this, the amount of available jobs still vastly outnumbers unemployed workers. https://cnb.cx/2X0N3vm

Forget lower jobs growth, the number of people who've stopped looking for work is much more worrisome http://theconversation.com/forget-lower-jobs-growth-the-number-of-people-whove-stopped-looking-for-work-is-much-more-worrisome-118445

AP FACT CHECK: No sign of Trump-Mexico deal on farm goods https://apnews.com/45dba98a51974c16a3f5eac74a8d0eed

Treasury pushes back at report critical of Trump tax law's effects https://thehill.com/policy/finance/447513-treasury-pushes-back-at-report-critical-of-trump-tax-laws-effects

West Wing Reports @WestWingReport
Growing impact on U.S. of tariff war:
1) manufacturing growth has ground to halt in recent months
2) net job losses in trade, transportation, utilities past 3 mths
3) and that’s just because of tariff war w/China
4) Damage re: Mexico (now #1 trade partner) could be worse
(WSJ) 5:50 AM - 2 Jun 2019

Dow futures plummet after Trump announces new Mexico tariffs https://thehill.com/policy/finance/446272-dow-plummets-after-trump-announces-new-mexico-tariffs

The US is no longer the world's most competitive economy. For the first time in nine years, Singapore replaced the U.S. as the world’s most competitive economy. The U.S. dropped down to third on the list, thanks to higher fuel prices, weaker high-tech exports, fluctuations in the value of the dollar and the fading impact of President Trump’s Opens a New Window. massive tax overhaul. Hong Kong, meanwhile, remained in second place. China was ranked fourteenth. https://fxn.ws/2EIbEe8 #FoxBusiness

Trump tax cuts did little to boost economic growth in 2018, study says. The U.S. economy’s strong 2018 performance happened without much health from the massive tax cut President Donald Trump ushered through the previous year, according to a study released this week. An in-depth look by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service indicated that not only did the rollbacks in business and personal rates have little macro impact, but they also delivered the most benefits to corporations and the rich, with little boost to wages. https://cnb.cx/2W96ORX

China is not the source of our economic problems -- corporate greed is @CNN https://cnn.it/2HEDMAH

Republican Sen. Ernst: Trump calling our farmers patriots 'doesn't pay the bills' https://fxn.ws/2HYPR2M #FoxNews

Farmers ride the gravy train as Trump boosts welfare to the Heartland. Between this year and last, U.S. farmers will receive about $27 billion in so-called aid because of the president’s damaging policies https://on.mktw.net/2YJyh9q

No longer a simple tit-for-tat: Beijing ready to endure — and inflict — real pain on the U.S. “There’s a great deal of pain yet to be inflicted. We’re talking about a couple of trillion dollars of economic activity and a couple of million U.S. jobs,” said one China expert. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/no-longer-simple-tit-tat-china-ready-endure-inflict-real-n1009891 via @nbcnews

Automakers Cut 38,000 Jobs in the Last Six Months and More Are on the Way: Report https://jalopnik.com/automakers-cut-38-000-jobs-in-the-last-six-months-and-m-1834973409

Where Obama beats Trump on the economy.Anybody looking for a clear winner won’t find one. Monthly job growth during Obama’s second term was higher than it has been under Trump, and the stock market performed better in both of Obama’s terms. But earnings, GDP growth and manufacturing employment have been better under Trump. Is it a draw? Maybe. But what the data really show is the economy recovering from a sharp downturn regardless of presidential policies. Job growth went from negative to slightly positive during Obama’s first term, as widespread layoffs abated and companies started hiring again. Since 2011, the pace of job growth has been consistently upward, with little change in the transition from Obama to Trump. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/where-obama-beat-trump-on-the-economy-152137162.html?

The U.S. beer industry blames Trump's tariffs for the decline in jobs. A report by two trade groups showed U.S. beer-industry jobs dropped 40,000 since 2016 as metal tariffs boosted aluminum-can costs, leading to a drop in investment. The biennial study by the Beer Institute and National Beer Wholesalers Association said direct, indirect and induced jobs fell to 2.19 million in 2018 from 2.23 million in 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/u-s-beer-industry-blames-trump-tariffs-for-u-s-jobs-decline via @business

Dark clouds hang over Trump’s trade war. The president is heading into a reelection battle with his promise of challenging China unfulfilled. https://politi.co/2JQzCal

Southern California builders, swamped with unsold homes, cut construction to 3-year low. The volume of unsold, finished homes is up 22% in a year as construction is slashed by 18%. https://www.dailynews.com/2019/05/20/southern-california-builders-swamped-with-unsold-homes-cut-construction-to-3-year-low/ via @ladailynews

The Trump economy is hurting most Americans. Statistics won't fool voters | Robert Reich https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/19/trump-economy-americans-voters-unemployment

AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs instead https://arstechnica.com/?post_type=post&p=1505027

vbobkIU.png
U.S. Steel stock prices: 📉
• May 18, 2018: $36.46
• May 14, 2019: $15.13
Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/status/1128342394947002368

A decade after the recession, 40% of U.S. families still struggling https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-decade-after-the-recession-40-of-us-families-still-struggling/ via @cbsmoneywatch

Stocks plummet as Trump's trade war with China escalates https://thehill.com/policy/finance/443484-stocks-plunge-as-china-trade-war-escalates

Trump aide Kudlow acknowledges U.S. consumers pay for tariffs, not China https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-aide-kudlow-acknowledges-u-s-consumers-pay-tariffs-not-n1004756 via @nbcnews

Trump's trade agenda on the verge of imploding. President Donald Trump is heading toward his 2020 reelection campaign with virtually nothing to show for his big trade promises — except for angry farmers and a jittery stock market. A long-sought deal with China appears to be falling apart this week, exposing businesses on both sides of the Pacific to more tariffs and steep losses for farmers. His new pact with Canada and Mexico is facing significant opposition in Congress even from Republicans, who are demanding that he lift steel and aluminum tariffs before they’ll vote on it. Deals with the European Union, Japan and Great Britain are also stalled by politics here and abroad. https://politi.co/2Q04Ixl

China will not flinch in the face of U.S. pressure, top negotiator says after talks  https://wapo.st/2Q0cBCO

President Trump likes to claim credit for the American job boom. @ProPublica tracked down 35 specific White House claims, and it turns out most of the promised jobs haven’t materialized. https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/trump-job-promises

How to fix capitalism: nine expert solutions for America's broken system https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/08/how-to-fix-capitalism-eight-experts-solutions

Trump’s steel tariffs cost U.S. consumers $900,000 for every job created, experts say https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/07/trumps-steel-tariffs-cost-us-consumers-every-job-created-experts-say/

Economists quit Trump admin after their studies showed tariffs hurt US farmers: report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/442452-economists-quit-trump-admin-after-their-studies-showed-tariffs-hurt

Trump pulls out rug from GOP on trade Senate Republicans feel that President Trump has once again pulled the rug out from under them on trade, leaving GOP lawmakers frustrated over their inability to influence the White House’s policy on an issue that could have major economic and electoral ramifications. Days after a group of Republican senators relayed to Trump at a White House meeting their concerns about trade tensions with Canada, Mexico, Europe and China, Trump over the weekend threatened new tariffs on China, escalating a fight with Beijing and rattling markets. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said after the stock markets closed Monday that higher tariffs on China will take effect Friday, shortly after negotiations with a trade delegation from China are due to resume later this week. Lighthizer’s remarks are likely to rattle markets after they recovered most of their losses Monday afternoon as Wall Street strategists cautioned that Trump’s tough talk is a negotiating tactic and a deal with China is still possible. The controversy over trade has come amid economic data released recently that demonstrates the U.S. economy is booming, which Republicans will lean into in the 2020 election. But some Republicans are worried that Trump’s actions on trade could boomerang and harm the economy. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/442387-trump-pulls-out-rug-from-gop-on-trade

With two tweets, Trump shatters historic calm in global markets. After weeks of warnings from many on Wall Street that price swings across global markets were too subdued, the American president’s threat to boost tariffs on China sent volatility soaring Monday. The VIX Index jumped as much as 46 percent, the most since the February 2018 volatility meltdown. S&P 500 Index futures slid 1.5 percent and the Shanghai Composite fell 5.6 percent, the most since February 2016. European shares also dropped. Whether they were a negotiating tactic or a sign of something more ominous, Trump’s tweets jolted markets that had been lulled in recent weeks by signs of progress in trade talks, a dovish turn by the Federal Reserve and better-than-expected corporate earnings. Investors who had grown accustomed to cross-asset volatility at or near historically low levels were once again forced to consider that all might not be smooth sailing. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-06/with-two-tweets-trump-shatters-historic-calm-in-global-markets via @markets

Deregulation is boosting productivity, which boosts wages. Deregulation is boosting productivity, which boosts wages. But what if a regulatory agency were added to this island economy? Suppose that this new agency, call it the Coconut Farming Protection Bureau (CFPB), was formed with the goal of making coconut markets work for consumers, responsible providers and the economy as a whole. Suppose the bureau then issued two new regulations for the coconut industry aimed at protecting the sustainability of the island’s coconut grove and the other at protecting the endangered Macaroon Loon that builds its nests in the coconut palms. The first rule requires Crusoe to measure and document the size of each coconut before it is harvested and the second requires documentation that any tree that is being harvested does not have a Macaroon Loon nesting in it. Without debating the virtue of the CFPB goals to protect the coconut industry and the Macaroon Loon, what impact would such regulation have on the output of the island economy and the productivity of Crusoe? https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/442200-deregulation-is-boosting-productivity-which-boosts-wages

Is this economy too good to be true? https://wapo.st/2vyy9NJ

Hedge Funds Resurrect CDO Trade. This Time They Say It Will Work. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-02/hedge-funds-resurrect-cdo-trade-this-time-they-say-it-will-work

Trump's 'Record Economy' Is Making Americans Miserable Of the 801 American adults surveyed, just 12 percent believed they’ve “benefited a great deal from recent growth in the US economy.” And while 31 percent indicated “they have received some benefit from the economic upturn,” 27 percent said that they haven’t been helped “much,” and another 27 percent said that they haven’t been helped “at all.” Just 18 percent of respondents said that Trump’s policies helped middle-class families a lot, and high earners were more likely to say the rising economy gave them a bump: 58 percent of people who make $100,000-plus a year said they’ve benefitted, while just 34 percent of people earning less than $50,000 per year and 42 percent earning $50,000 to $100,000 said they did. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/597gdx/trumps-record-economy-is-making-americans-miserable

Trade war and sagging prices push U.S. family farmers to leave. Shuffling across his frozen fields, farmer Jim Taphorn hunched his shoulders against the wind and squinted at the auctioneer standing next to his tractors.After a fifth harvest with low grain prices, made worse last fall by the U.S.-China trade war, the 68-year-old and his family were calling it quits. Farming also was taking a physical toll on him, he said; he’d suffered a heart attack 15 months before.“We went through the bad times in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” said Jim, 68, broad-shouldered and stocky. “In some ways, this is worse.” Across the Midwest, growing numbers of grain farmers are choosing to shed their machinery and find renters for their land, all to stem the financial strain on their families, a dozen leading farm-equipment auction houses told Reuters. As these older grain farmers are retiring, fewer younger people are lining up to replace them. https://reut.rs/2PBMF0m

How are those tax cuts going in terms of business investment? @mrkwhths has some doubts https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-29/trump-s-tax-cuts-aren-t-leading-to-more-business-investment via @bopinion

Trump on collision course with McConnell on spending. President Trump is on a collision course with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over whether to work with Democrats on a spending bill. Trump has given the GOP leader some time to work with Democrats but doesn’t want the talks to drag on all year and lead to an agreement that would increase spending — and the budget deficit. McConnell, a longtime member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said he wants to try to pass regular spending bills before defaulting to a continuing resolution (CR). To Trump, the advantages of a yearlong stopgap are obvious. Any negotiation with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats is likely to increase spending, and that’s the last thing Trump wants ahead of his reelection effort in 2020. Trump doesn't want to risk being put in a position of having to sign a bill that further blows up the deficit, say sources familiar with the White House’s position. But McConnell, an ex-appropriator and dealmaker who faces a reelection race himself next year, wants to avoid a continuing resolution. He wants to strike a deal to raise defense and non-defense spending, along the lines of what congressional leaders agreed to in the late winter of 2018. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/441066-trump-on-collision-course-with-mcconnell-on-spending

Populist economic frustration threatens Trump’s strongest reelection issue, Post-ABC poll finds. This sentiment runs the deepest among Democratic and independent registered voters, but also exists among a significant slice of Republicans. About 8 in 10 Democrats and more than 6 in 10 independents say the country’s economic system gives an advantage to those already in power, while nearly a third of Republicans share that view. https://wapo.st/2V07XKQ

Chick-fil-A faces bans, protests across U.S., citing LGBTQ issues https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2019/04/12/chick-fil-faces-bans-protests-across-u-s-citing-lgbtq-issues/3447396002/ via @freep

Foxconn is confusing the hell out of Wisconsin https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18296793/foxconn-wisconsin-location-factory-innovation-centers-technology-hub-no-news

Booming jobs market is leaving the retail industry behind https://cnb.cx/2YWHmg3

BBC News - Germany's economy: Should we be worried? https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47802235

BBC News - Berlin protests: Thousands gather for march against rising rent prices https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47839821

How regulators, Republicans and big banks fought for a big increase in lucrative but risky corporate loans https://wapo.st/2UlvMfV

The economy is an unsustainable pyramid scheme, warns Nobel Prize winner http://s.oregonlive.com/iJ6nNgB

Job layoffs surge 35% to highest level to start a year in a decade https://cnb.cx/2K4Hs1M

Caterpillar shares fall after Deutsche Bank downgrade: 'Synchronized global growth has collapsed, the China Land Cycle is rolling over, ... Europe is slowing more than expected and the US is oversaturated with construction equipment,” Chad Dillard says.' https://cnb.cx/2K2Nf8h

Stampede of the unicorns: will a new breed of tech giants burst the bubble? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/30/lyft-ipo-stock-market-unicorns-uber-airbnb-slack

Pro-trade group: Cost of Trump tariffs hits $20B https://thehill.com/policy/finance/434563-pro-trade-group-cost-of-trump-tariffs-hits-20b

The real college crisis: Student debt drags down economy https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/the-real-college-crisis-student-debt-drags-down-economy-1459706435777 via @nbcnews

The Global Economy Is a Time Bomb Waiting to Explode https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-global-economy-is-a-time-bomb-waiting-to-explode/

Trump failed by his own trade metric. Pursue it further, and we’re doomed. If nothing else, the latest U.S. trade deficit — $621 billion in 2018 for goods and services — should give President Trump a lesson in the economics of trade. Trump has insisted that a successful policy requires a trade surplus (good) and the absence of a deficit (bad). That’s wrong, as many economists have argued. The economists are right. https://wapo.st/2TJTTne

WH official: ‘Much’ work to be done for China deal; no in-person meetings set https://politi.co/2THjfCe

U.S. stocks sink following surprisingly weak employment report https://www.dailynews.com/2019/03/08/us-stocks-sink-following-surprisingly-weak-jobs-report/ via @ladailynews

Lou Dobbs: Trump White House has 'lost its way' https://thehill.com/homenews/media/432993-lou-dobbs-trump-white-house-has-lost-its-way

By just about any measure you pick, Trump’s trade policy appears to have been an absolute flop. https://slate.com/business/2019/03/trumps-trade-policy-is-an-utter-failure.html via @slate

Trump promised to shrink the trade deficit. Instead, it exploded. https://wapo.st/2TxEBSE

Anxiety grows in first tax season under Trump law https://thehill.com/policy/finance/domestic-taxes/432284-tax-season-anxiety-grows-in-first-year-under-trump-law

Deregulating Banks Fueled Speculation, Not Productive Investment Posted on March 1, 2019 by Yves Smith https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/03/deregulating-banks-fueled-speculation-not-productive-investment.html

U.S. farm debt soars to levels seen during 1980s farm crisis:... https://reut.rs/2EADtp6

Fox Business host suggests the president doesn't need to understand what the Federal Reserve does http://mm4a.org/47e

Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen says Trump doesn't understand the Federal Reserve or economic policy https://www.businessinsider.com/former-fed-chair-janet-yellen-said-trump-doesnt-understand-fed-economy-2019-2

Debt among 19 to 29-year-old Americans exceeded $1 trillion at the end of 2018 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-25/millennials-face-1-trillion-debt-as-student-loans-pile-up via @markets

Trump to delay China tariff hike due to ‘substantial progress’. "I will be delaying the U.S. increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1," Trump said in the second of two tweets on the talks. "Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a Summit for President Xi and myself, at Mar-a-Lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for U.S. & China!" https://politi.co/2IAFB42

Warren Buffett takes swipe at Trump in shareholder letter https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/23/warren-buffett-kraft-heinz-berkshire-hathaway-elephant-sized-acquisition

Warren Buffett seeks 'elephant-sized acquisition' after large quarterly loss https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/23/warren-buffett-kraft-heinz-berkshire-hathaway-elephant-sized-acquisition

An exasperated Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, tried to gently educate his boss, President Trump, on the meaning of an MOU in the Oval Office, leading to a lecture in front of TV cameras and a top Chinese official. 1) President says America has never been more respected 2) top Chinese official, listening to him discuss trade, laughs out loud - in the Oval Office https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-22/trump-s-trade-chief-lectures-his-boss-and-gets-earful-in-return via @bpolitics

Retail layoffs are piling up. Here's the whole story @CNN https://cnn.it/2V6JuPC

Signs that China's real-estate bubble will burst and take the economy with it. Payless. Charlotte Russe. Toys "R" Us. The chain store liquidations just keep coming, putting tens of thousands of workers out of their jobs. Is the retail industry about to collapse? Probably not, despite the rash of stories over the past two years heralding the death of physical stores. But the brick-and-mortar part of the sector sure isn't creating as many jobs as it used to. Much of this has to do with the rise of online shopping, which stood at 9.8% of all retail sales in the third quarter of last year, up from 3.6% a decade earlier. The truck drivers and package-pickers who deliver your brown boxes mostly fall into the transportation and warehousing sector. Although smaller overall, that industry has grown by more than 30% since the end of the last recession, compared to only about 9% for regular retail. https://boingboing.net/2019/02/16/systemic-risk-2.html

Are Investors Finally Waking up to North America’s Fracked Gas Crisis? https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/07/north-america-natural-gas-fracking-financial-crisis-investors

Trump will score another win if Big Media fetishizes his soap opera while the working class suffers. In the midst of the never-ending Trump border wall sandstorm it was easy to miss the alarming report that we just set a new record for the number of Americans who have fallen at least three months behind in their car payments. https://www.salon.com/2019/02/17/trump-will-score-another-win-if-big-media-fetishizes-his-soap-opera-while-the-working-class-suffers/

The Subtle Signal That the Bull Market Could Soon End. it's the unemployment rate trend that's the great predictor of a recession and not the unemployment rate itself. The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator of a recession. In other words, the rate goes up significantly only after a recession is in effect. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/subtle-signal-bull-market-could-140000986.html

US retail sales suffer steepest drop in nine years https://thehill.com/policy/finance/430013-us-retail-sales-suffer-steepest-drop-in-nine-years

Why record job growth in America hides a troubling reality https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/02/america-record-job-growth-economics-wage-stagnation

The hypocrisy of Trump’s jobs claims, in one chart. Trump used to say jobs numbers were fake. Now he says the news is. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/30/18203611/trump-jobs-numbers-obama-economy

Foxconn may not build $10B Wisconsin plant Trump touted https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/foxconn-may-not-build-10b-wisconsin-plant-trump-touted-n964411 via @nbcnews

Wall Street freaks out about 2020 https://politi.co/2G2OXD0 via @politico

The tax cut investment 'boom' is already over. Some say it never really started @CNN https://cnn.it/2RbkvbP

The shutdown has exposed Trumponomics for what it is: a disaster | Robert Reich https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/20/government-shutdown-trump-tax-cuts-trumponomics

This is Trump's economy, two years in @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2FMG4gt

Trade war’s wounded: Companies improvise to dodge cost hikes https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trade-war-s-wounded-companies-improvise-to-dodge-cost-hikes-1.564288

Trump's Risking Financial Disaster for America https://politi.co/2FqCqd0

The Economics of Soaking the Rich. What does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez know about tax policy? A lot. https://nyti.ms/2GUnmWB

Proud Boys, Nazis, Charlottesville, Portland, MAGA hat, Boogaloo Bois

Sight of Nazi Swastika Flag Stuns East County Motorists on I-8: https://timesofsandiego.com/life/2020/07/02/sight-of-nazi-swastika-flag-stuns-east-county-motorists-on-i-8/ Nazi Flag Driver Claims of Battery, Vandalism Probed by Alpine Sheriff’s Station https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2020/07/07/nazi-flag-driver-claims-of-battery-vandalism-probed-by-alpine-sheriffs-station/

Neo-Nazi U.S. Soldier Faces Federal Terrorism Charges For Plotting Attack On Unit. Ethan Melzer, a 22-year-old from Kentucky, was arrested by federal agents on charges of conspiring and attempting to murder U.S. nationals; conspiring and attempting to murder military service members; providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists; and conspiring to murder and maim in a foreign country. Melzer was interviewed in late May and arrested on June 10, but the criminal complaint and indictment weren’t unsealed until Monday. Federal authorities said Melzer worked with the Order of the Nine Angles, also known as O9A, which they described as “an occult-based neo-Nazi and racially motivated violent extremist group.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-soldier-terrorism-charge-neo-nazi_n_5ef11e83c5b6503139dbfc2a

US Army Soldier Allegedly Gave Classified Info to Satanic Neo-Nazi Group, Sources Say. The charges, expected to be announced later Monday, allege the soldier gave information about U.S. troops stationed overseas to the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), law enforcement and military officials told NBC News. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described it as an "occult neo-Nazi" organization, and British lawmakers have called for the group, which was founded there, to be banned. Supporters are encouraged to join the police and army in the hope that they get a chance to kill. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/u-s-army-soldier-allegedly-gave-classified-info-to-satanic-neo-nazi-group-sources-say/2478537/

The Order of Nine Angles is a Nazi-Satanist “group” (or Nazi Occult as they prefer to describe themselves) that promotes a supernatural, hateful system of thought which condemns liberal, Judeo-Christian society and longs for a new imperial age created by a ludicrous sub-Nietzschean superman figure called ‘Vindex.’ Ultimately, the O9A elite aspires to colonise the solar system. The racist order deifies Hitler and the Third Reich, which are regarded as having attempted to create a “Satanic empire” in order to achieve the destiny of the western world. https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2019/02/16/state-of-hate-2019-order-of-nine-angles/

Man accused in deputy ambush scrawled extremist 'Boogaloo' phrases in blood. Steven Carrillo, a California man who was charged with murder after he ambushed two Santa Cruz County deputies, scrawled phrases tied to an online far-right extremist movement in blood on a car shortly before he was detained. Carrillo killed Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, critically injured another deputy and threw pipe bombs at police on June 6th, Santa Cruz District Attorney Jeffrey S. Rosell alleged on Thursday. Before he was apprehended, Carrillo scrawled the word “boog” and “I became unreasonable” in blood on the hood of a car. “Boog” is short for boogaloo, a far-right anti-government movement that began on the extremist site 4chan and aims to start a second American civil war. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-charged-deputy-ambush-scrawled-extremist-boogaloo-phrases-blood-n1230321

The ‘Boogaloo Bois’ Are Bringing Their AR-15s and Civil War Ideology to the Lockdown Protests. The far-right “boogaloo” meme, which refers to an impending civil war or violent anti-government rebellion, is now spilling out into the real world. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3zmj5/the-boogaloo-bois-are-bringing-their-ar-15s-and-civil-war-ideology-to-the-lockdown-protests

White nationalists shouting “RECLAIM AMERICA” through my neighborhood. This isn’t Charlottesville. This is Washington, DC. The group is called Patriot Front, and they’re marching near Union Station — Mike Valerio (@MikevWUSA) https://twitter.com/MikevWUSA/status/1226253885716803585 February 8, 2020

Posted by Rebel Girl February 19, 2019 THIS WEEK IN WHITE SUPREMACIST ACTIVITY IN ORANGE COUNTY: PATRIOT FRONT AT SADDLEBACK COLLEGE https://dissenttheblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/this-week-in-white-supremacist-activity.html

Patriot Front is led by Thomas Ryan Rousseau, a teenager living in the United States. Rousseau had previously taken control of Vanguard's web server and Discord channel several weeks prior to the Unite the Right rally, which Rousseau had participated in as the leader of Vanguard America's contingent. Following bad press associated with the rally, Rousseau left Vanguard and used the group's domain name to form Patriot Front as an ostensibly new group, although most members were former Vanguard members and rally participants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Front

2 Proud Boys Sentenced To 4 Years In Prison Over Gang Assault In New York. Maxwell Hare, 27, and John Kinsman, 32, were two of 10 Proud Boys arrested in the assault caught on camera in October 2018. Prosecutors slapped them with charges of attempted gang assault, attempted assault and rioting, declaring them the most vicious assailants that night. Their four-year sentence will include another five years of supervised release, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office confirmed to HuffPost. https://news.yahoo.com/proud-boys-sentenced-new-york.html

White Supremacist William Fears to Get Five Years in Prison. Fears attended the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. A video from Unite the Right shows Fears yelling: “Shoot! Fire the first shot in the race war.” Vice News wrote that Fears carried a flag representing the Texas chapter of Vanguard America, a white supremacist group. According to the complaint filed by Fears’ ex-girlfriend, he choked her less than two weeks before he, his brother Colton and Tyler Tenbrink traveled from Texas to Florida to attend a speech by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer at the University of Florida. A confrontation erupted between Spencer’s supporters and protesters, during which Tenbrink fired a shot into a crowd before getting into a vehicle with the Fears brothers. Tenbrink pleaded no contest and was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He’s serving a 15-year sentence in a Florida jail. Colton Fears, who drove the car during the confrontation, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to attempted first-degree murder. Authorities in Florida arrested William Fears, but prosecutors elected not to charge him because of a lack of evidence. He was then extradited to Texas on an out-of-state warrant for his arrest. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/10/11/white-supremacist-william-fears-get-five-years-prison

Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson uses untraceable church to drum up legal defense funds. “Thankfully,” Gibson’s pitch continues, “’The Church of Faith and Freedom’ is helping us Christians by accepting donations on our behalf in order to legally fight back against this discrimination.” The church, according to its website, seeks to help “Preachers hit the streets by helping to protect them legally and financially” and allows people to give money to evangelists who are working in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Tacoma. There is no record of such a church in California, Oregon or Washington, according to officials who oversee charities and non-profits in each state. Its website, registered in May, provides no address, contact information or list of staff. Online searches show the only reference to the Church of Faith and Freedom comes from social media accounts connected to Gibson or Patriot Prayer. Reached by phone Wednesday, Gibson declined to answer multiple questions about the Church of Faith and Freedom and his connection to it. “No comment,” he said. “What else do you want to ask?” https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/10/patriot-prayer-leader-joey-gibson-uses-untraceable-church-to-drum-up-legal-defense-funds.html

Judge won’t free extremists who attacked protesters at white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. U.S. District Judge Norman Moon ruled that Rise Above Movement members Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis and Thomas Gillen haven't adequately shown that releasing them from custody wouldn't pose a danger to others. All three men pleaded guilty to riot conspiracy charges stemming from violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. In July, Moon sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 27 months to 37 months. A fourth member of the California-based group, Cole White, pleaded guilty to a riot conspiracy charge several months before the other three men. White, a California resident, has been free on bond since May while he awaits a November sentencing hearing. Prosecutors didn't object to White's release, but they opposed the bond requests by Daley, Miselis and Gillen, who are appealing the constitutionality of a federal anti-riot law. Wednesday is the deadline for the three men's attorneys to file their opening briefs with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Daley, Miselis and Gillen all asked to be released to their parents' custody in California while the appeal is pending. https://www.pilotonline.com/virginia/vp-nw-charlottesville-extremists-judge-20190918-slgjjzmihzfslognovxtlfljvq-story.html

Jeff Schoep Sheds Neo-Nazi Past but Stays Loyal With Lawyer's Maneuvers. The NSM and its former leader, Jeff Schoep, are among more than 20 defendants in a federal civil suit stemming from the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. Other defendants include the Nationalist Front, an umbrella organization designed to unite various factions of the “alt-right” and racist movements. Hatewatch previously reported the ties between NSM and the Nationalist Front. Court filings in the civil suit allege Schoep and his attorney, Edward ReBrook, have used stalling tactics and legal maneuvers to delay the plaintiffs from receiving information their attorneys deem critical to proving their case. For example, the plaintiffs claim ReBrook has “obstinately refused to even inquire who else within the organization, beyond the former leader, possess responsive documents.” - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/09/11/jeff-schoep-sheds-neo-nazi-past-stays-loyal-lawyers-maneuvers

The Vancouver Sun published a nakedly white nationalist guest column citing a who’s who of far-right academics and racist think tanks by some dope who teaches geography at Mount Royal and they’ve now retracted it. Archive is here: http://archive.is/ulGJ4

Portland grand jury clears pair accused of pummeling man in MAGA hat outside of bar. Lenzner’s account came under scrutiny after video surfaced that appeared to show him threatening and picking fights with patrons at a different bar earlier in the evening. During that confrontation, Lenzner also said he served in the military — a claim he later admitted wasn’t true. http://s.oregonlive.com/YsUeN6e

How a Right-Wing Troll Managed to Manipulate the Mainstream Media. When a milkshake to the face brought the spotlight on Andy Ngo, politicians and talking heads on both sides were happy to take on his cause: demonizing antifa. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/andy-ngo-right-wing-troll-antifa-877914/ via @RollingStone

Boston 'straight pride' parade dwarfed by large counter-protest. A controversial “straight pride” parade in Boston on Saturday drew more than 1,000 counter-protesters and a few hundred supporters. The rightwing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was “grand marshal” of the event, for which a group calling itself Super Happy Fun America (SHFA) acquired a permit in June. In one confrontation with counter-protesters, a police officer pepper-sprayed several as the group tried to obey requests to make more space. Access to “straight pride” organizers was limited; one Boston police sergeant turned some media away despite viewing press credentials. Speakers at the SHFA event said repeatedly they planned to make it an annual event, and potentially hold some action on Christmas Day. At city hall, where the 19th-century Fur Elise played on the loudspeaker, the SHFA event organizer, John Hugo, said his organization was hoping to exercise its first amendment rights and was not anti-gay. Clad in a Captain America T-shirt, he said his attire was intended to troll the actor Chris Evans, who said organizers of the parade were homophobic. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/01/boston-straight-pride-parade-arrests?CMP=share_btn_tw

'Straight Pride Parade' in Boston draws counterprotesters and heavy police presence. The parade kicked off to the sound of “God Bless the USA,” with various floats displaying messages in support of President Donald Trump. A so-called "Straight Pride Parade" in Boston on Saturday drew as many counterprotesters as marchers in addition to a heavy police presence. The parade, which drew several dozen participants, kicked off at around noon to the sound of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” with some floats displaying messages of support for President Donald Trump, with signs such as "build the wall," "Trump nation" and "Blue Lives Matter." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/straight-pride-parade-boston-draws-counterprotesters-heavy-police-presence-n1048626 via @nbcnews

Heightened security in Boston for 'pro-straight parade'. "There are no racists in our group. You have to come to one of our meetings: it's like the United Nations," president John Hugo told AFP, defending the parade. Enrique Tarrio, a member of the all-male "Proud Boys" organization, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is also due to attend. Super Happy Fun America's website says Saturday's march is to "spread awareness of issues impacting straights," describing heterosexuals as "an oppressed majority" in Massachusetts, the first US state to legalize same-sex marriage. https://news.yahoo.com/heightened-security-boston-pro-straight-parade-062515220.html

A useful primer on the diversity of the American far-right. By @egavactip for @gwupoe https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Surveying%20The%20Landscape%20of%20the%20American%20Far%20Right_0.pdf

Right-Wing Brawlers Discussed a Hammer Fight While Being Filmed “I smacked one of them with a hammer a couple of times,” said one man aboard a bus leaving Portland. A large man in a Proud Boys shirt says the June 29 assault on Ngo happened because he ignored Proud Boys' offer of protection. "Andy Ngo was fucking told that if he wanted protection from the PBs [Proud Boys], he went in with us and he went out with us," he says. Why it matters: Ngo has claimed to be an independent journalist. It is increasingly clear he is coordinating his movements and his message with right-wing groups. On Aug. 26, The Portland Mercury published an allegation by a Vancouver infiltrator of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer. "There's an understanding," the man told the Mercury, "that Patriot Prayer protects him and he protects them." Ngo could not be reached for comment. https://www.wweek.com//news/courts/2019/08/28/right-wing-brawlers-discussed-a-hammer-fight-while-being-filmed/

Super Awkward for Right-Wing Blogger Andy Ngo to Make a Cameo in Video of Plot Against Antifa. Right-wing blogger Andy Ngo went from relative obscurity to a national conservative hero in the struggle against antifa after antifascists beat him up during a rally in Portland, Oregon, earlier this summer. But now video has surfaced of Ngo smiling and laughing with members of the far-right group Patriot Prayer shortly before they allegedly orchestrated an attack on a group of antifascists at a leftist bar in a separate incident in May. A female bar patron was knocked unconscious and said she suffered a fractured vertebrae. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3apyv/super-awkward-for-right-wing-blogger-andy-ngo-to-make-a-cameo-in-video-of-plot-against-antifa

Man in MAGA hat clashed with different Portland bar crowd before his alleged assault, video shows. A man who said he was attacked outside a Portland bar for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat while on a date with his wife had menaced and threatened patrons at a different bar earlier in the evening, according to the customer who captured the scene on video. “The second I locked eyes with him there was no doubt in my mind he was looking for a fight,” Michael Radosevich told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday. “Come outside and see what happens,” the man, identified as Luke Lenzner, says at one point. “No one wants to fight,” Radosevich and at least one other person can be heard yelling back. Lenzner eventually takes off. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2019/08/man-in-maga-hat-clashed-with-different-portland-bar-crowd-before-his-alleged-assault-video-shows.html

This clip, shot right before Patriot Prayer arrived at Cider Riot on May Day, is the clearest evidence I've seen supporting the claim that PP & leader Joey Gibson were intent on instigating a fight that afternoon.https://t.co/G1iM9XUDi2 — Alex Zielinski (@alex_zee) https://twitter.com/alex_zee/status/1164406638519803905 August 22, 2019 https://twitter.com/AndyBCampbell/status/1164983308427640834

The Proud Boys like to pretend the violent rallies they hold in city streets are patriotic, free speech affairs. But in new video, their leader shows his hand, admitting that his aim is to waste taxpayer money and fight. “We’ve wasted all their fucking resources to make this rally,” Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio said in video captured during the latest extremist rally held Saturday in Portland. “We want them to waste $2 million and we’ll do it again in two months.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-rallies-portland_n_5d5e9882e4b0dfcbd4893ee5

Feds Arrest Neo-Nazi Trump Fan for Threatening to "Exterminate" Miami Hispanics. Washington state resident Eric Lin was not shy about his love for Adolf Hitler. According to a criminal complaint filed Friday, Lin enjoyed referencing the Third Reich in writing: He apparently sent a litany of Hitler-referencing death threats to a Hispanic woman in Miami and got himself arrested last week after he planned to wire a man $10,000 to beat her up, hatched a plot to kidnap her and stuff her in a plastic bin, and repeatedly vowed to kill every Hispanic person in the Magic City. "The time will come when Miami will burn to the ground — and every Latin Man will be lined up against a Wall and Shot and every Latin Woman Raped or Cut to Pieces," Lin allegedly wrote August 8. Lin, age 35, is originally from Clarksburg, Maryland, but was arrested Friday in Seattle and charged with making threatening communications online. Lin appeared in Seattle federal court for this first time this morning. He has not yet entered a plea. http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/neo-nazi-eric-lin-threatened-to-exterminate-miami-hispanics-fbi-says-11247579 via @miaminewtimes https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/1163846964749824000

Portland rally: Proud Boys vow to march each month after biggest protest of Trump era. Portland saw its largest far-right demonstration of the Trump era on Saturday, as 500 rightwingers traveled from around the country to march back and forth across the city’s bridges, and briefly occupy a patch of its waterfront. By making extensive accommodations for the unpermitted rightwing protest, including close police escorts, concrete barriers, and reopening a bridge to allow them to leave the downtown area, Portland authorities succeeded in preventing head-on confrontations between it and a much larger counter-protest. The far right “end domestic terrorism” protest, organized by leaders in the “western chauvinst” Proud Boys fraternity, saw Trump supporters rub shoulders with more radical groups, including Three Percenters, a “patriot movement” militia group, and American Guard, who the Anti-Defamation League described as “hardcore white supremacists”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/17/portland-oregon-far-right-rally-proud-boys-antifa

Far-Right and Antifa Showdown Drew Over 1,000 Protesters. Thirteen people were arrested and police declared a “civil disturbance,” but there were relatively few skirmishes. Portland residents said that the far-right turnout — numbering around 500 — was the largest they’d seen in the Rose City during the Trump era. Attendees included Proud Boys — many clad in their trademark black-and-gold Fred Perry shirts with MAGA hats — members of the Pacific Northwest Patriot Prayer, and the American Guard, a white supremacist group. In the end, the rally didn’t result in the kind of violence that residents had feared. Instead, the day wound up resembling a giant, chaotic, cat-and-mouse game, with clusters of antifascist protesters dodging riot cops in an effort to confront fascists. At 11.00 a.m. sharp a convoy of school buses rolled up, and Proud Boy organizer Joe Biggs and a couple hundred other Proud Boys disembarked. The group spent about half an hour in the park, where they chanted “USA, USA,” and planted an American flag in the ground. They then marched across Hawthorne Bridge and assembled in a vacant lot on the other side of the Willamette River. At 12.20 p.m., Biggs, speaking into a megaphone, declared the rally over — and began organizing buses to shuttle attendees over state lines into Vancouver, Washington, for a cookout. Proud Boys put out a statement later on Saturday that sent a clear message to the famously liberal city: we’ll be back. “Antifa maintains a stranglehold on the Pacific Northwest locale,” they said. “The gathering was never about bringing carnage or violence to the City of Portland, it was about financially crippling the progressive hotbed until they take action against Antifa and showcasing the power of peaceful political action.” https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kewje/far-right-and-antifa-showdown-drew-1500-protesters

White Nationalists, MAGA Hat youths, Proud Boys, Charlottesville, Berkeley, Confederate statues

Proud Boys, Outnumbered By Anti-fascists, Get Police Escort After 30-Minute Rally. A few hundred fascists once again invaded Portland for a much-anticipated rally Saturday, but this time were mostly deprived of the violent spectacle they crave, as a much larger group of anti-fascists made them know they weren’t welcome in this city. The fascists belonged to far-right groups including the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer and the Three Percenters. And whereas at previous Portland rallies these groups have often confronted and attacked anti-fascist protesters, this time they were barely given the chance to do so. Upon arriving at Tom McCall Waterfront Park around 11.am. Saturday, they were kept separated from their foes by concrete barriers and a phalanx of police. Ultimately though, counterprotesters Saturday felt victorious. They’d amassed a giant, anti-fascist coalition, which can be mobilized to oppose future fascist rallies. And they’d developed new strategies. Many counterprotesters wore costumes to the rally. There was a person dressed as a unicorn and a brass band dressed as bananas. It was a tactic, a PopMob organizer told HuffPost, meant to disrupt the “toxic masculinity riot porn” the Proud Boys produce after these rallies for propaganda purposes. Whatever videos the Proud Boys might post from the day’s events, there’d be, for example, an anti-fascist dressed as a poop emoji in the background. “The social pressure and evolving diverse and incredibly fun tactics of PopMob; the seriousness of the Portland Police; and the number of city, civic and business leaders mobilized seems to have taken serious steam out of the white nationalist/alt-right protest,” Eric Ward, executive director at the Western States Center, a Portland-based civil rights group, wrote in a statement Saturday evening. “You are an amazing community Portland and you showed up this month and it mattered,” Ward continued. “Community and leadership made this happen and you showed up with a lot of both. Goodnight from the Rose City.” https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/proud-boys-portland-rally-140528375.html

Portland protests: 13 arrested as police declare civil disturbance (live updates) https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2019/08/portland-protests-antifa-right-wing-groups-set-to-face-off-downtown-live-updates.html

Portland protests now a ‘civil disturbance’; at least 13 arrested. Opposing groups clashed in downtown Portland. https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/portland-protests-proud-boys-patriot-prayer-three-percenters-antifa-august-17-2019/

Proud Boys, Charlottesville, archive August 2019

White Nationalists, MAGA Hat youths, Proud Boys, Charlottesville, Berkeley, Confederate statues

Riotlandia: Why Portland has become the epicenter of far-right violence. PORTLAND, OREGON IS bracing for a storm of far-right violence. In July, Joe Biggs, a former staffer at the far-right conspiracist site Infowars announced an “End Domestic Terrorism” rally in Portland this Saturday. Its aim: the local antifa movement. Biggs, who’s encouraged date rape and punching transgender people, told followers on Twitter to bring guns, declared “DEATH TO ANTIFA!!!!!!”, displayed a spiked weapon saying that it “will be put to good use,” and posted memes about death squads murdering leftists before his account was suspended. The “End Antifa” rally organizers include Enrique Tarrio, chair of the violence-prone Proud Boys, which is designated as a general hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and “Rufio Panman,” the alias of Ethan Nordean, a brawny street fighter whose knockout punch of an antifascist in Portland in June 2018 was used as a recruiting tool for the Proud Boys. This week’s rally was called after right-wing media personality and provocateur Andy Ngo was attacked in Portland on June 29 while filming a Patriot Prayer rally heavily outnumbered by antifa. A video shows him being punched, kicked, and hit with coconut milkshakes and silly string by masked individuals. https://interc.pt/30bqTF3 by @arunindy

How Portland's liberal utopia became the center of a rightwing war in the US. Saturday will see the latest in a long line of far-right gatherings that have plagued the city over the last few years as groups including the Proud Boys descend on the area. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/16/portland-proud-boys-rightwing-march-liberal-city

Arrests precede major demonstrations in Portland, Oregon. Gibson, who is not involved in this weekend’s event but organized similar rallies in 2017 and 2018 that erupted in clashes, surrendered Friday on an arrest warrant for rioting. He was at a confrontation that broke out on May 1 outside a bar where members of the so-called “antifa” movement had gathered after a May Day demonstration. In a video he livestreamed on Facebook, Gibson accused the police of playing politics by arresting him and other right-wing members but not the masked demonstrators who beat up conservative blogger Andy Ngo at a June 29 rally. A video of that attack went viral and led the Proud Boys, who have been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, to organize Saturday’s event. https://apnews.com/be42d98d7fd04bc6a4a598569492c2c8

Are the Proud Boys Done or Are They Just Getting Started? As the 2020 election approaches, there could be an increase in violence from the far-right group, says a researcher tracking the spread of the Proud Boys. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/proud-boys-antifa-attack-trump-rally-2020-election-862538/ via @RollingStone

Revealed: Republican lawmaker aided group training young men for 'biblical warfare'. The group ‘Team Rugged’ offers ‘patriotic and biblical training’ that includes instruction on how to use knives and guns. The Republican politician Matt Shea connected close allies with a group offering training to young men in “biblical warfare” that includes how to use knives, pistols and rifles, with lessons based in part on the teachings of a Georgia-based neo-Confederate pastor, emails obtained by the Guardian reveal. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/13/matt-shea-biblical-war-washington-team-rugged

A Crash Course in Far-Right Symbols (Updated Version) https://twitter.com/Iron_FrontUSA/status/1128059164423540737

Conservative media dismiss NY Times report showing the El Paso shooter echoed their anti-immigrant rhetoric https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/rush-limbaugh-and-other-conservative-media-dismiss-ny-times-report-showing-el-paso-shooter

How white supremacy went mainstream in the US: 8chan, Trump, voter suppression. The same anxiety that drives white supremacists has motivated Republicans to disenfranchise populations that don’t vote for them. efore he opened fire on an El Paso, Texas shopping center, killing 22 people and injuring dozens more, the accused gunman, Patrick Crusius, allegedly posted a manifesto online explicitly stating his motivation: he was trying to stop a “Hispanic invasion of Texas”. In April, another shooter attacked a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one woman and wounding three other people. In his a “manifesto” attributed to him, he claimed he was responding to the “meticulously planned genocide of the European race”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/11/el-paso-shooting-white-supremacy-8chan-voter-suppression

El Paso massacre upends white nationalists’ normalization strategy. The larger goal was what many white nationalists call “Phase 2” — gaining mainstream acceptance for far-right ideas widely rejected as repugnant and getting white nationalists into positions of influence. The normalization effort included softened rhetoric and social gatherings that, for many groups, would increasingly replace confrontational rallies. “The strategy is internally focused now — having families get together,” said alt-right blogger Brad Griffin, a self-avowed white nationalist from Montgomery, Alabama. He fondly recalled a river-tubing trip he organized in 2018 for friends who had attended a local white nationalist conference. The goal of such low-key gatherings, he said, is to spread far-right ideology away from the public spectacle of a public protest. “It’s a lot more fun to do that than to go out and tangle with Antifa” — members of America’s far-left “anti-fascist” movement — “and get hit with piss balloons in the street.” https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-WHITE%20NATIONALST/0100B0DQ0VQ/index.html via @Reuters

State Department suspends energy staffer linked to white supremacist group. The State Department has put on leave an employee of its energy bureau after reports that he has been an active member of a white supremacist group for more than five years, two sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday. Matthew Gebert, a foreign affairs officer for the department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, was linked to the Washington D.C.-area chapter of a white supremacist organization and published racist propaganda online, according to a report published Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate speech. https://politi.co/2yOsKUl

$250 million lawsuit from Covington student against Washington Post dismissed by judge. A $250 million defamation lawsuit filed by Kentucky high school student Nicholas Sandmann against The Washington Post was dismissed by a federal judge on Friday afternoon. Judge William O. Bertelsman ruled that seven Washington Post articles and three tweets focusing on the Covington Catholic High School student, who became the center of a viral confrontation with a Native American elder in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, were protected by the First Amendment and deemed opinion. “Few principles of law are as well-established as the rule that statements of opinion are not actionable in libel actions,” Bertelsman wrote. “The statements that Sandmann challenges constitute protected opinions that may not form the basis for a defamation claim.” Sandmann’s suit characterized the Post’s coverage as libelous. The judge, however, cited case law that the statements made in the stories on Sandmann must be “more than annoying, offensive or embarrassing.” https://thehill.com/homenews/media/454968-250-million-lawsuit-from-covington-student-against-washington-post-dismissed

Ole Miss students posed for a photo with guns in front of a shot-up Emmett Till memorial. Now they face a possible civil rights investigation. Three University of Mississippi students have been suspended from their fraternity house and face possible investigation by the Department of Justice after posing with guns in front of a bullet-riddled sign honoring slain civil rights icon Emmett Till. https://thedmonline.com/ole-miss-students-posed-for-a-photo-with-guns-in-front-of-a-shot-up-emmett-till-memorial-now-they-face-a-possible-civil-rights-investigation/

3 sentenced for violence at Virginia white nationalist rally. Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis and Thomas Gillen each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot. The men were sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville by Judge Norman Moon. Daley, 26, of Torrance, California, was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Gillen, 25, of Redondo Beach, California, received a sentence of 33 months. Miselis, 30, of Lawndale, California, received 27 months. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article232872672.html

Retaking Everything: The Story of Identity Dixie - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/07/17/retaking-everything-story-identity-dixie

Toledo man sentenced to 2nd life term in Charlottesville car attack. An avowed white supremacist was sentenced to life plus 419 years on federal hate crime charges Monday for deliberately driving his car into anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia. James Alex Fields, Jr., 22, received the sentence for killing one person and injuring dozens during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. Last month, Fields received a life sentence on 29 federal hate crime charges. https://www.toledoblade.com/news/nation/2019/07/15/toledo-james-alex-fields-jr-faces-second-sentence-in-charlottesville-car-attack/stories/20190715113/ via @toledonews

Today Tennessee celebrates the first grand wizard of the KKK. The state’s governor is not considering changing a law creating holidays for three confederate leaders. Tennessee is honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader, confederate general, and Ku Klux Klan leader today, according to a state law that Republican Gov. Bill Lee and his predecessors have kept in place. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/today-tennessee-celebrates-the-first-grand-wizard-of-the-kkk/ via @MotherJones

Proud Boys Rally Rocked by Sex, Cocaine Allegations. On one side of the fight: Navarro, a perennial challenger to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) whose losing campaigns against the liberal stalwart have become a cause celebre on the right. On the other: the Proud Boys, the all-male group of self-described “Western chauvinists,” and DeAnna Lorraine, a self-styled MAGA relationship expert and Navarro’s ex-girlfriend. https://www.thedailybeast.com/proud-boys-rally-rocked-by-sex-cocaine-allegations

ANDY NGO ATTACKED! (IN CONTEXT)
Proud Boys-friendly provocateur Andy Ngo went to a Proud Boys rally in Portland to film/harass people protesting the hate group. After repeatedly being told to back off & stop sticking a camera in their faces, things escalated and Ngo capitalized. — Pastor Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1147259553098022912 July 5, 2019

Tonight DC's #Antifa @DCDefend held a community gathering to speak about their plans for this coming week.
Following Trump's event on the 4th, a "Free Speech Rally" on the 6th is expected to attract many of his high-profile supporters.
Antifa intends to show up. — Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1146252516029542400 July 3, 2019 DC Antifa Hold "Community Gathering" To Discuss July 6 Plans https://youtu.be/iGIHgbZFqrk

Man convicted in Charlottesville attack asks for "mercy". The Adolf Hitler admirer who plowed his car through a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Virginia two years ago, killing one person and injuring dozens, has asked a judge to show mercy and sentence him to a prison term shorter than a life sentence. Lawyers for James Alex Fields Jr., 22, said in a sentencing memo submitted in court documents Friday that he should not spend his entire life in prison because of his age, a traumatic childhood and a history of mental illness. “No amount of punishment imposed on James can repair the damage he caused to dozens of innocent people. But this Court should find that retribution has limits,” his attorneys wrote. https://apnews.com/edbefa173dd7480fb64697aae9a78dc4

Portland police Lt. Jeff Niiya shared doubts about Joey Gibson’s promises to be peaceful at protests, emails show. The Portland police lieutenant under investigation for his friendly text and email exchanges with right-wing protest leader Joey Gibson at one point told his supervisors that he had started to doubt Gibson’s promises to remain peaceful. Lt. Jeff Niiya shared his concerns as the Police Bureau was preparing for competing rallies planned for Dec. 23, 2017 -- Gibson’s March for Jesus event and Direct Action Alliance’s community feed and clothing drive. http://s.oregonlive.com/KZido2Q

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Hate makes a comeback in the Pacific Northwest. In 2018, at least nine hate groups operated in the region of Spokane and northern Idaho, including Identity Evropa, Proud Boys, ACT for America and America's Promise Ministries. In late April, a self-described "American Nationalist" named Brittany Pettibone appeared at a meeting of Kootenai County, Idaho, Republicans to ask for help to bring her boyfriend, Martin Sellner, to the country from Austria. Pettibone, 26, said Sellner wants to marry her and live in Post Falls, Idaho. The Guardian published internet chats from 2017 in which a Washington state legislator and three other men discussed confronting "leftists" with a variety of tactics, including violence, surveillance and intimidation. James "Russell" Bolton, 51, faces at least six charges of extortion and attempted theft after he was arrested recently in West Virginia. Bolton has led a militia group called the Stevens County Assembly.The messages prompted Washington House Democrats to demand that the Republican lawmaker, Rep. Matt Shea of Spokane Valley, be reprimanded for a history of far-right speech and activities. While Shea did not propose violence, he did not speak up when violence was proposed, Democrats said. Hoover, the Gonzaga professor, said it is a mistake to consider all of the above as separate incidents. "These are movements," Hoover said, noting participants are not doing this alone. "They have interconnectedness over the internet." https://news.yahoo.com/hate-makes-comeback-pacific-northwest-144002397.html

NEW: Tennessee Police Protect White Nationalist Think Tank Meeting In State Park https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/tennessee-police-protect-white-nationalist-think-tank-meeting-in-state-park/ … Our latest article reports from Montgomery Bell State Park Resort, which rolled out the welcome mat for the white nationalist American Renaissance conference last weekend.

The Proud Boys street gang likes to argue it's a "drinking club" that provides security against its anti-fascist opponents. In reality, members plan violence for months before they attack, according to leaked chat logs obtained by HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-chat-logs-premeditate-rally-violence-in-leaked-chats_n_5ce1e231e4b00e035b928683

The Proud Boys. A Republican Party Street Gang. by Emily Gorcenski http://feature.politicalresearch.org/the-proud-boys

Once Defiant, All Four White Supremacists Charged in Charlottesville Violence Plead Guilty. Guilty pleas last week by two prominent members of the Rise Above Movement came after pledges to fight federal charges and claims that those jailed were political prisoners punished for their controversial views. The men proclaimed their innocence, and their backers described them in social media posts as “patriots” and “political prisoners.” The gang, known as the Rise Above Movement and based in Southern California, set up an anonymous tip line for people to share evidence that might exonerate the imprisoned members, and it established a legal defense fund, with donations taken via PayPal and bitcoin. But in the following months, the men, one after the other, have pleaded guilty. Last Friday saw the final two guilty pleas, including one from Ben Daley, 26, one of the group’s leaders. He was joined by Michael Miselis, 30, a former Northrop Grumman aerospace engineer. The men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot. https://www.propublica.org/article/all-four-white-supremacists-charged-in-charlottesville-violence-plead-guilty

Two Members of Rise Above Movement Plead Guilty in Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' Rioting Case - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/05/03/two-members-rise-above-movement-plead-guilty-charlottesville-unite-right-rioting-case

2 more Rise Above Movement members, from the South Bay, plead guilty to federal riot charges. Two prominent members of the Rise Above Movement – a white-supremacist group based in Southern California – pleaded guilty Friday to one count each of conspiracy to riot in connection with the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Benjamin Drake Daley, 26, of Redondo Beach and Michael Paul Miselis, 30, of Lawndale entered their guilty pleas in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville. Each now faces up to five years in federal prison when sentenced in July, officials said. Two other members, arrested with Daley and Miselis in October, had already pleaded guilty: Thomas Walter Gillen of Redondo Beach and Cole Evan White of Clayton, California. https://www.dailybreeze.com/2019/05/03/remaining-2-rise-above-movement-members-plead-guilty-to-federal-riot-charges/

California man pleads guilty to riot conspiracy in 'Unite the Right' rally. Thomas Walter Gillen, 25, a member of the Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist group, entered the guilty plea on Monday in U.S. District Court, where he admitted traveling to rallies in California and Virginia with the purpose of committing acts of violence. Four members of the group were charged last October. In addition to Gillen, the other three were Benjamin Drake Daley, Michael Paul Miselis, and Cole Evan White. In November, White pleaded guilty. Miselis and Daley, who prosecutors say both traveled to Europe after the Charlottesville rally to meet with neo-Nazi and fascist groups and attended a festival in Germany celebrating Adolf Hitler's birthday, are being held without bond. https://www.whsv.com/content/news/California-man-pleads-guilty-to-riot-conspiracy-in-Unite-the-Right-rally-509213341.html

So this bullshit just went down today at Politics & Prose. White nationalists disrupting @JonathanMetzl talk on his book Dying of Whiteness. Point made. @PM_Learn Catherine Wigginton (@cewigginton) https://twitter.com/cewigginton/status/1122255631757524992

AIM https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/americans-of-european-heritage-exclusively-identity-evropa-front-group-meetings-leaked/

Rep. Matt Gaetz hires ex-White House aide ousted for white nationalist ties. “Very proud to have the talented Dr. Darren Beattie helping our team as a Special Advisor for Speechwriting. Welcome on board!” Gaetz tweeted Friday. Beattie was fired from the White House in August 2018 after reports that he had delivered remarks at a 2016 conference, dubbed an “active hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, alongside a well-known white nationalist, Richard Spencer. Organizers of the event, the H.L. Mencken Club, described it as a gathering for the “independent-minded intellectuals and academics of the Right.” But the SPLC has described its attendees as “a band of white nationalists, pseudoacademic and academic racists.” https://politi.co/2vfviZC via @politico

What we know about the man who allegedly burned three black churches in Louisiana https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/597mnq/what-we-know-about-the-man-who-allegedly-burned-three-black-churches-in-louisiana

Trump Supporters Now Claim He Didn’t Call Neo-Nazis ‘Very Fine People’. Trump supporters have seized on the idea that it’s unfair for the media to say Trump said there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ when referring to white supremacists. “What are your thoughts about President Trump’s remarks regarding the Charlottesville demonstration, where he’s quoted as saying ‘you also had some very fine people on both sides?’” Gohmert said. “The media has completely distorted the truth of that episode,” Klein replied. This is a surprising move, given that there are videos and transcripts of Trump original remarks. But Trump supporters, led by Dilbert creator Scott Adams, have seized on the idea that it’s unfair for the media to say Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” when referring to the white supremacists. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-surprising-push-to-rebrand-trumps-very-fine-people-remarks

Man wearing Maga hat who 'slashed man with sword' charged with attempted murder https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/maga-hat-sword-attack-san-francisco-leor-bergland-gabriel-gaucin-a8858746.html

Suspect wearing 'MAGA' hat charged with attempted murder in alleged sword attack https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/437681-suspect-wearing-maga-hat-who-allegedly-attacked-man-with-sword

New video from the Alt-Right playbook explainer series: "Always a Bigger Fish" https://boingboing.net/2019/03/22/new-video-from-the-alt-right-p.html

US hate groups have seen ideas enter mainstream in Trump era, report finds https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/20/trump-hate-groups-ideas-spread-report-southern-poverty-law-center

Coast Guard lieutenant is a 'domestic terrorist' who compiled hit list, investigators say https://www.stripes.com/news/us/coast-guard-lieutenant-is-a-domestic-terrorist-who-compiled-hit-list-investigators-say-1.569494

A White Boy Called My Daughter A “Nigger” https://davidmartin.education/blog/2019/2/1/a-white-boy-called-my-daughter-a-nigger

Hardcore White Supremacists Elevate Dylann Roof to Cult Hero Status. https://www.adl.org/blog/hardcore-white-supremacists-elevate-dylann-roof-to-cult-hero-status

Founder of Proud Boys sues over being labeled hate group. Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes sued the U.S. Southern Poverty Law Center on Monday for defamation after it labeled his organization a hate group, alleging the designation was aimed at getting him kicked off social media platforms. https://reut.rs/2Gu2BPR

His side of the story: Nathan Phillips wants to talk about Covington https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/04/nathan-phillips-his-story-hate-division-covington

The Dangers of a Press Over-Correction http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/dangers-press-over-correction/ via @onthemedia

Covington bishop apologizes to teen in face-off with Native American. In a letter to parents, the Most Rev. Roger Foys said the diocese was too quick to condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students, particularly those of Nicholas Sandmann, the boy who was seen on video facing off with Native American elder Nathan Phillips as he performed the song "American Indian Movement" near the Lincoln Memorial. "We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it," Foys wrote. "I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family, as well as to all CovCath families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bishop-apologizes-teen-who-faced-native-american-n963056 via @nbcnews

Kentucky bishop argues wearing MAGA hats not 'pro-life'. A Kentucky Catholic bishop argued that the Covington Catholic high school students at the center of a recent viral controversy after their confrontation with a Native American activist sparked outrage cannot be “pro-life” while supporting a president “who denigrates the lives of immigrants.” Lexington Bishop John Stowe wrote in an op-ed this week that as the leader of the Catholic Church in the 50 counties of Central and Eastern Kentucky he joins “the Diocese of Covington and other Catholic leaders in apologizing” for the actions of the group of Catholic students over the viral confrontation following their involvement with the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. “I am ashamed that the actions of Kentucky Catholic high school students have become a contradiction of the very reverence for human life that the march is supposed to manifest,” he continued. “As such, I believe that U.S. Catholics must take a look at how our support of the fundamental right to life has become separated from the even more basic truth of the dignity of each human person.” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/427117-kentucky-bishop-argues-wearing-maga-hats-not-pro-life

Chants, cheers and the question of insensitivity: The culture of CovCath https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/01/25/accounts-past-covington-catholic-sporting-events-raise-questions/2636601002/ via @freep

Controversy over students mocking Native American strikes national chord. On the contrary, wrote Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, watching every available video “doesn’t greatly change the substance of what you see on the video, which is a middle aged Native American activist/elder beating a ceremonial drum in the face of what appears to be a bemused and cocky teenager while his classmates surrounding them, mostly wearing Maga caps, jeer and taunt the man with chopping motions.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/controversy-students-mock-native-american-strikes-national-chord

The Credibility of 'Our Boys'. Much like similarly sympathetic—and credulous—coverage of Kavanaugh, the segment granted Sandmann and his peers a wealth of credibility that their whiteness and class status secures them. It’s a necessary practice, the argument goes, because the alternative is unacceptable: “ruining” the life of one of our boys. As David French put it in the National Review, when he sees “activists” trying to “destroy” Covington boys, he thinks: “That could be my son.” He argues that it’s the same feeling conservatives get when they saw Kavanaugh and thought: “That could be me.” https://theslot.jezebel.com/the-credibility-of-our-boys-1831983535

Skip TODAY Show, Watch This Interview With Nathan Phillips Instead. While mainstream media rushes to center the MAGA teens who taunted the Omaha elder, watch the Indigenous leader describe what really happened after the Indigenous Peoples March. http://www.colorlines.com/articles/skip-today-show-watch-interview-nathan-phillips-instead via @colorlines

Here's where we're at with the MAGA hat–wearing Covington boys https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/3kgz7b/heres-where-were-at-with-the-maga-hat-wearing-convington-boys

Louisville public relations firm RunSwitch PR played a key role in Covington Catholic controversy. RunSwitch partners Steve Bryant and Gary Gerdemann said that Sandmann family asked people they knew over the weekend about getting help with handling the media. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2019/01/21/covington-catholic-runswitch-pr-helped-student-in-controversial-video/2638400002/ via @courierjournal

The Covington Catholic boys harrassed my friends and I before the incident with Nathan Phillips even happened. I'm tired of reading things saying they were provoked by anyone else other than their own egos and ignorance 🤦🏼‍♀️ https://t.co/utdPFii92D @roflinds January 21, 2019

The whole story: Before and after video of Nathan Phillips, #MAGAyouth and more https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/the-whole-story-before-and-after-video-of-nathan-phillips-magayouth-and-more-_O6lTVo8M0muOgi6Foug-w/ via @IndianCountry

Viral standoff between a tribal elder and a high schooler is more complicated than it first seemed https://wapo.st/2FNbEe4

Watch “1 of 4 - Indigenous Peoples March #MAGAyouth, Nathan Phillips and others” on #Vimeo https://vimeo.com/312330750#t=1m19s

Watch “2 of 4 - Indigenous Peoples March incident Nathan Phillips and #MAGAyouth” on #Vimeo https://vimeo.com/312332730

Watch “3 of 4 - Nathan Phillips and #MAGAyouth, a chaperone and more...” on #Vimeo https://vimeo.com/312411257#t=1m25s

Watch “4 of 4 - Indigenous Peoples Day incident Nathan Phillips says "Relatives"” on #Vimeo https://vimeo.com/312374574

Maga hat boy's mother blames 'black Muslims' for son's confrontation with Native American man https://news.yahoo.com/maga-hat-boy-apos-mother-132527127.html

Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips' claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him. The media got this one completely wrong, writes @robbysoave https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/20/covington-catholic-nathan-phillips-video

‘It was getting ugly’: Native American drummer speaks on the MAGA-hat wearing teens who surrounded him. Nathan Phillips, a veteran in the indigenous rights movement, was that man in the middle. In an interview Saturday, Phillips, 64, said he felt threatened by the teens and that they suddenly swarmed around him as and other activists were wrapping up the march and preparing to leave. Phillips, who was singing the American Indian Movement song of unity that serves as a ceremony to send the spirits home, said he noticed tensions beginning to escalate when the teens and other apparent participants from the nearby March for Life rally began taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd. A few people in the March for Life crowd began to chant “Build that wall, build that wall,” he said. https://wapo.st/2FAx1jD

Mob of young MAGA hat wearers surrounds Native American elder and mock him https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mob-of-young-maga-hat-wearers.html

Haaland condemns students' behavior toward Native elder at Indigenous Peoples March https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/426160-haaland-condemns-students-behavior-toward-native-elder-at

Republican Rep. Steve King embraced white supremacy, and the media had no idea how to cover it http://mm4a.org/4d7

4 arrested after throwing paint-filled water balloons at protesters outside White House. Activist Jovi Val held a rally in support of James Alex Fields, the man who drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring a number of other people. Val and his group were holding the rally to support “oppressed conservatives” across the U.S. | WTOP https://shar.es/aaFvhN via @WTOP

Trump violence, Race War, Liberate protesters, Evangelical Nazis

Portland Place couple who confronted protesters have a long history of not backing down. When Black Lives Matter protesters marched up Kingshighway on June 28 and turned through an iron gate into the magnificent private street of Portland Place, they encountered a couple who have for years, nearly constantly, sued other people and ordered people off their property. Personal-injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey became instant national figures when they intercepted protesters marching past their marble-faced palazzo at One Portland Place, aimed guns at them and demanded they get out. Americans saw the story they wanted to see. Some saw respected professionals fearing for their safety, reasonably exercising their Second Amendment rights to defend their home from violent trespassers. Others saw an overwrought, older affluent couple, recklessly pointing their weapons and asserting their white privilege. But public records and interviews reveal a fuller picture than emerged two weeks ago. They show the McCloskeys are almost always in conflict with others, typically over control of private property, what people can do on that property, and whose job it is to make sure they do it. https://stltoday.com/news/local/metro/portland-place-couple-who-confronted-protesters-have-a-long-history-of-not-backing-down/article_281d9989-373e-53c3-abcb-ecd0225dd287.html

The couple, Jillian and Eric Wuestenberg, has been arrested and their guns confiscated.
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Oakland County couple charged with felonious assault after pointing gun at Black woman in Orion Township. Posted By Steve Neavling on Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 4:55 pm. Oakland County prosecutors have charged an Independence Township husband and wife with felonious assault after the wife pointed a gun at a Black woman outside of a restaurant in Orion Township on Wednesday night. The couple, Jillian and Eric Wuestenberg, has been arrested and their guns confiscated. The charges carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison. https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/07/02/oakland-county-couple-charged-with-felonious-assault-after-pointing-gun-at-black-woman-in-orion-township

'The Confederacy of California': life in the valley where Robert Fuller was found hanged https://uk.news.yahoo.com/confederacy-california-life-valley-where-100007342.html

Prosecutors say Army reservist, Navy vet and Air Force vet plotted to terrorize Vegas protests. Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas. Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus. More recently, they sought to capitalize on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air, prosecutors said. The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday said they self-identified as part of the “boogaloo” movement, which U.S. prosecutors said in the document is “a term used by extremists to signify coming civil war and/or fall of civilization.” Stephen T. Parshall, 35, Andrew T. Lynam Jr., 23, and William L. Loomis, 40, were being held on $1 million bond each in the Clark County jail Wednesday, according to court records. Lynam is from suburban Henderson and the others are from Las Vegas. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/prosecutors-say-army-reservist-navy-vet-and-air-force-vet-plotted-to-te

White Supremacist Group Identity Evropa Posed as Antifa on Twitter and Called For Looting and Violence. Twitter announced Monday that it had suspended the account. A white supremacist group linked to deadly right-wing violence in Charlottesville in 2017 used a fake Twitter account to pose as “Antifa” and incite violence during the current wave of protests against police brutality. Twitter announced Monday that it had suspended the account, which claimed to belong to a national “Antifa” organization, and revealed that the account was created by Identity Evropa. “This account violated our platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts," Twitter said in a statement to the media. “We took action after the account sent a Tweet inciting violence and broke the Twitter Rules.” The account — @ANTIFA_US — tried to escalate an already turbulent situation when it posted a message inciting violence on Sunday night, as protesters were clashing with police in dozens of cities across the U.S. “Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” the message said, alongside a brown raised fist emoji. “Tonight we say 'Fuck The City' and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours …” https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7jvq8/white-supremacist-group-identity-evropa-posed-as-antifa-on-twitter-and-called-for-looting-and-violence

WATCH: President Trump walks across Lafayette Park to St. John's Church. Holding a Bible he says, "We have a great country. That's my thoughts." https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1267598834772869123

Pelosi and Schumer joint statement: "Tear-gassing peaceful protestors without provocation just so that the President could pose for photos outside a church dishonors every value that faith teaches us." https://twitter.com/CraigCaplan/status/1267658567932416000

Here is what was happening outside the White House as President Trump was giving his Rose Garden address and saying he is an “ally of all peaceful protestors.” Peaceful protestors being tear gassed outside of the WH gates. I confirmed because I was teargassed along with them. https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1267593673530884103

ANOTHER harrowing account from ANOTHER priest working outside St. John’s who says they were run off by tear gas, etc before Trump’s photo op. Ends with a defiant decree: “I am now a force to be reckoned with.” https://twitter.com/jackmjenkins/status/1267654371032039430

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT The police used stun grenades and horses to drive back White House protesters demonstrating against police brutality. Violent clashes erupt outside White House. To clear the path for Trump to walk to the church. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1267644529584205826

D.C. Church 'Outraged' That Trump Used It As Photo-Op. Trump used the Bible and St. John’s Church as a backdrop for a message that is “antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for,” Budde said in a separate statement. “He did not pray when he came to St. John’s,” Budde said. The president also failed to acknowledge the agony of people of color who are “rightfully demanding an end to 400 years of systemic racism and white supremacy.” “In no way do we support the President’s incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation,” she said. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/st-johns-fire-protest-donald-trump-004306778.html

“Pretty great,” Trump told me after visit to St John’s church, which suffered a fire last night amid George Floyd protest. He didn’t answer our questions on: clear park just for photo op, is this still a democracy, is systemic racism root of problem, will military further inflame https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1267597694677196802

Trump accompanied by Stephen Miller, Derek Lyons, Keith Kellogg, Mark Meadows, Tony Ornato, Pat Cipollone, Hope Hicks, Dan Scavino, Nick Luna, Bill Barr, Mark Esper, Kayleigh McEnany, Alyssa Farrah, Jared Kushner and (in a mask) Ivanka Trump. #DCProtest https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1267595090039578624

“I am mobilizing all available federal resources—civilian and military—to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your 2nd Amendment rights,” Trump said in the Rose Garden. https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1267592126197612545

Trump slams governors as 'weak,' urges crackdown on protests. Attorney General Bill Barr, who was also on the call, told governors that a joint terrorist task force would be used to track the agitators and urged local officials to “dominate” the streets and control, not react to crowds, and urged them to “go after troublemakers.” Trump's angry exhortations at the nation's governors came after a night of escalating violence, images of fires and looting and clashes with police filling the nation's airwaves and overshadowing the largely peaceful protests. The protests grew so heated Friday night that the Secret Service rushed the president to an underground bunker previously used during terrorist attacks. Trump continued his effort to project strength, using a series of inflammatory tweets and delivering partisan attacks during a time of national crisis. As cities burned night after night and images of violence dominated television coverage, Trump’s advisers discussed the prospect of an Oval Office address in an attempt to ease tensions. The notion was quickly scrapped for lack of policy proposals and the president’s own seeming disinterest in delivering a message of unity. Trump did not appear in public on Sunday and was not scheduled to so Monday either. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-slams-governors-as-weak-urges-crackdown-on-protests-1.632023

Trump took shelter in White House bunker as protests raged. Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to a White House bunker on Friday night as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the executive mansion, some of them throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades. Trump spent nearly an hour in the bunker, which was designed for use in emergencies like terrorist attacks, according to a Republican close to the White House who was not authorized to publicly discuss private matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. The account was confirmed by an administration official who also on condition of anonymity. The abrupt decision by the agents underscored the rattled mood inside the White House, where the chants from protesters in Lafayette Park could be heard all weekend and Secret Service agents and law enforcement officers struggled to contain the crowds. https://apnews.com/a2326518da6b25b4509bef1ec85f5d7f

'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. "I think my rhetoric brings people together," he said last year, four days after a 21-year-old allegedly posted an anti-immigrant screed online and then allegedly opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others. But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault. After a Latino gas station attendant in Gainesville, Florida, was suddenly punched in the head by a white man, the victim could be heard on surveillance camera recounting the attacker’s own words: “He said, ‘This is for Trump.'" Charges were filed but the victim stopped pursuing them. When police questioned a Washington state man about his threats to kill a local Syrian-born man, the suspect told police he wanted the victim to "get out of my country," adding, "That’s why I like Trump." https://www.yahoo.com/gma/no-blame-abc-news-finds-36-cases-invoking-080100960--abc-news-topstories.html

Reviewing police reports and court records, ABC News found that in at least 12 cases perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically assaulting innocent victims. In another 18 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior.

Trump praises Secret Service, warns of 'vicious dogs' after White House protest. Trump in a series of tweets lauded the officers while saying that "nobody came close to breaching the fence." He warned that if protesters had done so "they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen." "They let the 'protesters' scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard - didn’t know what hit them." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/500249-trump-praises-secret-service-after-hours-long-confrontation-with

Dueling claims: Trump blames Antifa for riots, Minnesota officials point fingers at white supremacists and cartels. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced Saturday he has authorized "full mobilization" of the state's National Guard -- something that has never been done in the 164-year history of the Minnesota National Guard -- in response to the protests that have turned increasingly violent. Meanwhile Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other officials have suggested that organized outsiders, including but not limited to anarchists, white supremacists and gangs from other states, were behind the destruction and chaos in Minneapolis. “We are now confronting white supremacists, members of organized crime, out of state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors to destroy and destabilize our city and our region,” Frey tweeted Saturday. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-blames-antifa-riots-minnesota-officials-point-fingers-white-supremacists-dueling-claims

Armed protesters gather for planned 'judgment day' demonstration at Michigan Capitol. In one video taken from Thursday's demonstrations, a person can be seen dangling a doll from a rope, before a tussle breaks out on the grounds outside the Capitol building, according to footage obtained by FOX17 in Michigan. According to a report from Michigan Live, the small fight took place as one person tried to remove the hanging doll from the pole from which it was tied. Michigan police said there were no injuries and no arrests. "We just encourage and ask everybody to be as peaceful as they can," Erica Pettinaro, a co-founder of Michigan United for Liberty, told the AP. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/497772-armed-protesters-planning-judgment-day-gathering-at-michigan-capitol

DHS warns of increase in violent extremism amid coronavirus lockdowns. A DHS memo cites recent arrests of individuals who have threatened government facilities and elected officials over health restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic. https://politi.co/3asCzaQ via @politico

Arrests in Four States of Racially Motivated Violent Extremists Targeting Journalists and Activists. The defendants charged in the conspiracy include: Cameron Brandon Shea, 24, of Redmond, Washington; Kaleb Cole, 24, of Montgomery, Texas; Taylor Ashley Parker-Dipeppe, 20, of Spring Hill, Florida, and Johnny Roman Garza, 20, of Queen Creek, Arizona. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/arrests-four-states-racially-motivated-violent-extremists-targeting-journalists-and-activists follow link, scroll down for images https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1252261/download

The FBI Says Violent Hate Crimes Have Surged To A 16-Year High. Activists Aren't Surprised. This report should sound an alarm that we all must do better to create a country where marginalized communities are safe and protected against hate violence. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/fbi-violent-hate-crimes-race-religion-latino via @ellievhall

Video Shows Man in MAGA Hat Blasting Anti-Trump Protesters With Bear Repellent. After ten minutes of the groups exchanging taunts and chants then “everything went to crap,” police said. While some anti-Trump protesters were screaming and others scattered in an attempt to avoid the spray, the man in the MAGA hat went towards an anti-Trump protester who was being held on the ground by Trump supporters and sprayed him. The video also shows that before the man in the MAGA hat was arrested, he pled with police, claiming anti-Trump protesters attacked him, calling them “fucking libtards” and “commies.” The video showed no such thing. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/video-maga-hat-wearing-man-blasting-anti-trump-protesters-with-bear-repellent-901523/ via @RollingStone

Trump violence, Right-wing hate groups, Evangelicals, Nazis, "Free Speech" archived October 20, 2019

House Democrats Just Demanded These Neo-Nazi Groups Be Prosecuted as International Terrorists. On Wednesday, New York Rep. Max Rose, who chairs the counterterrorism subcommittee, submitted a letter to the State Department, co-signed by 39 members of Congress. It urged the department to designate Azov Battalion (a far-right paramilitary regiment in Ukraine), National Action (a neo-Nazi group based in the U.K.), and Nordic Resistance Movement (a neo-Nazi network from Scandinavia) as terrorist organizations. “It’s clear that the threat we face today is of a self-radicalized gunman,” Rose, a Democrat, told VICE News. “Somebody who has been radicalized online, whether it’s in accordance with jihadi ideology or a global white nationalist, neo-Nazi group.” https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59nqmq/house-democrats-just-demanded-these-neo-nazi-groups-be-prosecuted-as-international-terrorists

FBI Crackdown on Atomwaffen Division Heats Up With New Arrests. Two members of a Virginia cell and an active-duty soldier who belongs to an offshoot group have been charged in recent weeks. Other recent cases include the August arrest of Conor Climo, a former Army combat engineer and security guard charged with planning attacks on a synagogue and a bar with a largely LGBT clientele, and the Sept. 21 bust of Jarrett William Smith, 24, an Army soldier stationed in Kansas who is charged with sharing viable bomb-making instructions online and strategizing to attack Beto O’Rourke, CNN’s New York headquarters, and Antifa activists. The feds say Climo was affiliated with Atomwaffen Division and its offshoot, Feuerkrieg Division; Smith claimed membership in Feuerkrieg, according to an account on the messaging platform Telegram that was tied to Smith in court papers. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-crackdown-on-atomwaffen-division-heats-up-with-new-arrests-13

Anti-Muslim Hate Group to Hold Gala at Mar-a-Lago. An anti-Muslim hate group that claims to have close ties to the White House is hosting its annual gala at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, with tickets starting at $1,500. ACT for America is going in a new direction with the Mar-a-Lago event in Palm Beach, Florida. The group has traditionally held its annual conference, including a gala, around Sept. 11 in the Washington, D.C., area. This year's ticket prices represent about a 400 percent increase over previous years, which ranged from $250 to $350. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/10/04/anti-muslim-hate-group-hold-gala-mar-lago

Militia Movement Rhetoric Elevated to National Level. A weekend tweet by President Donald Trump mirrors the language of a militia movement that has been calling for civil war for at least three years and gives extremist groups a powerful seal of approval. On Sunday, Trump tweeted a comment that the Rev. Robert Jeffress made on “Fox & Friends Weekend” that same day. “....If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/10/03/militia-movement-rhetoric-elevated-national-level

Former U.S. Soldier Who Fought With Ukrainian Far-Right Militia Wanted For U.S. Murder. Craig Lang, 29, is one of two Army veterans implicated in the 2018 murder of a couple, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Florida, where the killing occurred. The case is one of a growing number involving former U.S. veterans and U.S.-based extremists and white supremacist groups who have cultivated ties with Ukrainian right-wing groups in recent years. Lang, who was being held in a jail in central Ukraine as of September 26, has also been linked to another U.S. soldier who was arrested on September 21 in Kansas, and who had asked Lang for help with traveling to Ukraine to fight for another right-wing paramilitary group. That soldier, Jarrett William Smith, is expected to make an initial court appearance in a Kansas federal court on September 26. According to the Florida criminal complaint, Lang and another former U.S. Army soldier, Alex Zwiefelhofer, were accused of robbing the Florida couple in 2018 and then killing them in an effort to get money to travel to Venezuela to "participate in an armed conflict against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."

The complaint said in September 2016, as Zwiefelhofer was returning to the United States, that he told agents from the FBI and U.S. Customs that he and Lang had fought in Ukraine with a group called Right Sector. https://www.rferl.org/a/former-u-s-soldier-who-fought-with-ukrainian-far-right-militia-wanted-for-u-s-murder/30185448.html

Hate on Display™ Hate Symbols Database. This database provides an overview of many of the symbols most frequently used by a variety of white supremacist groups and movements, as well as some other types of hate groups. https://www.adl.org/hate-symbols

Furries deplatform Milo. [Milo] registered for Midwest FurFest, a convention “to celebrate the furry fandom” hosted in the suburbs on Chicago this December. “Furries,” as they’re often called, are groups of people who have interest in animal personas with human characteristics; people who participate in the subculture often present themselves as non-human characters via art and costumes. Yiannopoulos also claimed on Telegram that he had submitted a form to suggest he host a panel called “The Politics of Fur.” He asked his followers who plan to attend Midwest FurFest to message him to arrange “dinner, drinks, photos or anything else.” After numerous complaints online, Midwest FurFest put out a statement on Twitter: “We have received a number of mentions and support tickets today – we assure all attendees that your safety is of the utmost importance and is not being ignored. We are investigating all concerns being relayed to us.” Among furs is a surprisingly large far-right contingent: virtually unsocialized men taking advantage of a social milieu that's vulnerable to exploitation and trolling. Furry fandom is a freebase microcosm of all that the internet dissolves and binds, and so here comes Milo, tearing for a last redoubt. https://boingboing.net/2019/09/16/furries-deplatform-milo.html

Three Percent Security Force’s Split Highlights Plague of Infighting. Chris Hill led the Three Percent Security Force for years, but it appears that the organization may be nearing its end. Six of nine chapters Hill led recently abandoned him, according to members’ posts on social media. Then those branches aligned with the leader of the group's Ohio chapter, Skylar Steward, a former member ousted by Hill. Together, they formed American Constitutional Elites. Hatewatch could not determine the status of the other three chapters. Michael Ubriaco, who uses the name Mike Rage on Facebook and belongs to the Three Percenter movement, commented about the perpetual upheaval. “Jesus christ!!!!!!! Here we go again,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “I love everyone but this is why I stay independent. This drama is too much, and the reason Patriots can’t get shit right.” Events of the last five years support Ubriaco's views about dissension within antigovernment militias. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/09/06/three-percent-security-forces-split-highlights-plague-infighting

Former Marine said he’d ‘slaughter’ antifa. The FBI, using Oregon’s new red flag law, took his guns away. Shane Kohfield stood outside the home of Portland’s mayor in July wearing body armor and a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, a large knife strapped to one shoulder and a copy of his concealed weapons permit displayed on the other. His protest activity, he said, has been limited to the event outside the mayor’s house and a right-wing rally last fall in downtown Portland, both organized by local conservative activist Haley Adams. he sent a letter to Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw. Kohfield told Crenshaw that Congress needed to take immediate steps to declare antifa a terrorist organization. Otherwise, he and other veterans would have no choice but to begin systematically killing antifa members “until we have achieved genocide.” Kohfield included a detailed outline of how he would carry out the mission, which he argued would be legally justified if the federal government refused to act. The U.S. Capitol Police shared the letter with the FBI’s Portland office, which assigned the case to a Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy serving on the area’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, court records show. Deputy Jeremy Stinson interviewed Kohfield and his father at their home in April, according to the court documents. Stinson learned Kohfield had served in the Marines and kept guns in the house. Kohfield told the deputy he would defend himself the next time members of antifa attacked him. http://s.oregonlive.com/uRVV9qU

The Trump supporters who have committed or threatened violence in the name of the president. Dozens of supporters of Donald Trump have carried out or threatened acts of violence. Here, the Guardian lists them all. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/aug/28/in-the-name-of-trump-supporters-attacks-database

A U.S. State Department official oversaw the Washington, D.C.-area chapter of a white nationalist organization, hosted white nationalists at his home and published white nationalist propaganda online, Hatewatch has determined. The official, Matthew Q. Gebert, works as a foreign affairs officer assigned to the Bureau of Energy Resources, a State Department spokesperson told Hatewatch. Online, and in private correspondences with other white nationalists, Gebert uses “Coach Finstock” as a pseudonym. Through that alias, he expressed a desire to build a country for whites only. “[Whites] need a country of our own with nukes, and we will retake this thing lickety split,” “Coach Finstock” said on a May 2018 episode of “The Fatherland,” a white nationalist podcast. “That’s all that we need. We need a country founded for white people with a nuclear deterrent. And you watch how the world trembles.” https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/08/07/us-state-department-official-involved-white-nationalist-movement-hatewatch-determines

White Nationalists Praise El Paso Attack and Mock the Dead - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/08/04/white-nationalists-praise-el-paso-attack-and-mock-dead

“No One Really Knew Him”: Everything We Know About the El Paso Mass Shooting Suspect. Patrick Crusius traveled over 650 miles from his home in Allen, Texas, Saturday before walking into the Walmart store in El Paso armed with an automatic rifle and killing 20 people. The police have yet to confirm a motive for Crusius’s attack, but the 21-year-old is believed to have posted a hate-filled manifesto to an anonymous online message board 45 minutes before the shooting, citing his support for the New Zealand mosque terrorist and saying his attack “is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/7x5z4a/el-paso-shooting-suspect-patrick-crusius

Ted Cruz introduces resolution to call Antifa a terror organization in the face of murderous far-right attacks. Last year was the fourth-deadliest in the nation for right-wing extremist violence, according to data from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/antifa-right-wing-violence-ted-cruz-bill-cassidy-resolution_n_5d33c982e4b0419fd32de46b

Andy Ngo Has The Newest New Media Career. It's Made Him A Victim And A Star. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/andy-ngo-portland-antifa via @bernstein

Gov. Bill Lee proclaimed that Saturday is Nathan Bedford Forrest Day, in honor of a man who was the KKK's first grand wizard, a Confederate war criminal and a slave owner. The day of observation calls on Tennesseans to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave-owning war criminal and Klan grand wizard. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tennessee-gov-bill-lee-honors-kkk-grand-wizard-proclamation_n_5d28dd44e4b0060b11ec14fb

To Whom It May Concern, I got your hate letter. I'd love to clarify many of your comments, which incidentally are ignorant and hateful. Unfortunately, your cowardly anonymity does not allow me to directly engage with you. Immigrants are makers, not takers #HereToStay #ThisIsHome — Omar Carrera - CEO (@canalalliance) https://twitter.com/canalalliance/status/1145824779569528833 July 1, 2019

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Anti-LGBT Conference Showcases Breadth of a Church Movement's Hate - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/anti-lgbt-conference-showcases-breadth-church-movement-hate

Accusations in a Mirror: How the Radical Right Blames Rising Political Violence on the Left - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/06/11/accusations-mirror-how-radical-right-blames-rising-political-violence-left

Detroit police chief faces backlash over neo-Nazi protest at Pride event. James Craig was criticized after officers escorted National Socialist Movement members who carried weapons at Motor City Pride. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/14/detroit-pride-festival-neo-nazi-police-protection-backlash

OFFICIALS SAY: Accused pro-nazi Cadet admits to running Twitter account. An ROTC cadet accused of operating a pro-Nazi and white supremacist Twitter account while at a North Carolina college has admitted the account was hers after enrolling in ROTC at a second school in the state, U.S. Army Cadet Command officials said this week. During an investigation into “online behavior that is not consistent with Army values,” Cadet Marth Gerdes of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte admitted to posting anti-Semitic, racist and anti-gay statements on Twitter, Maj. Dean Carter, a command spokesman, said Monday in an emailed statement. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/officials-say-accused-pro-nazi-cadet-admits-to-running-twitter-account-1.585628

Accusations in a Mirror: How the Radical Right Blames Rising Political Violence on the Left - Southern Poverty Law Center. Candace Owens, then communications director for the right-wing student group Turning Point USA, wrote off white nationalism as a fearmongering “election strategy” on the part of Democrats. “If they were really concerned about white nationalism, they’d hold hearings on antifa,” she told the committee. If you listened only to Owens’s testimony, you might never learn that the vast majority of extremist murders committed in 2018 were carried out by members of the far right who were steeped in white supremacist ideology. Or that the number of those murders is increasing. Or that many of the tech companies that control the online spaces where violent white supremacists become radicalized are failing to moderate hate content effectively, creating a fertile space for frustrated white men to become socialized into the world of hate. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/06/11/accusations-mirror-how-radical-right-blames-rising-political-violence-left

Armed neo-Nazis at Detroit pride parade ‘wanted Charlottesville No. 2,’ chief says. Detroit Police Chief James Craig said neo-Nazis who interrupted the Motor City Pride Festival over the weekend intended on creating “Charlottesville No. 2.” The department has been under fire from some after video on social media emerged that seemingly showed police marching with members of the National Socialist Party. However, Craig on Monday applauded his department’s conduct, noting that its No. 1 goal was keeping the peace. http://s.mlive.com/0mioCJl

Why Detroit police 'escorted' Nazis at Motor City Pride https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2019/06/10/detroit-police-nazis-pride/1412498001/ via @freep

Detroit chief: Nazis wanted 'Charlottesville 2.0' at Detroit gay pride event https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/06/10/detroit-chief-nazis-wanted-charlottesville-no-2-detroit-gay-pride-event/1410945001/ via @detroitnews

Armed neo-Nazis get a police escort to disrupt Detroit Pride. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/armed-neo-nazis-police-escort-detroit-pride.html via @slate

Armed neo-Nazis march with police protection during Detroit Pride parade https://www.newsweek.com/armed-neo-nazis-marched-police-protection-during-detroit-pride-parade-1443013

Why a Judge Just Let 3 White Supremacist Fight Club Members Go Free. In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney called the Anti-Riot statute “unconstitutionally overbroad” because it “criminalizes protected speech.” https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/neaq7m/why-a-judge-just-let-3-white-supremacist-fight-club-members-go-free

Judge Tosses All Charges in White Nationalist Rioting Plot. Members of the white supremacist group Rise Above Movement (RAM) were arrested on charges of plotting riots and inciting violence across the Golden State in 2017. One member of the group, Tyler Laube, pleaded guilty to the charge while the other three, Robert Rundo, Robert Boman and Aaron Eason were ordered released on Monday. https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-tosses-all-charges-in-white-nationalist-rioting-plot/

Indiana man sentenced to federal prison for vandalism at Carmel synagogue https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/21/carmel-synagogue-vandalism-indiana-man-nolan-brewer-sentenced-federal-prison/3758040002/ via @indystar https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1132210962889678848

Trump ramps up war against 'political bias' with new social media reporting tool. The form urges users to post screenshots to back up claims of political bias and it also asks for the respondent's first and last name, zip code, phone number and their citizenship of residency status. - ABC News - https://abcn.ws/2JHb6s9

American Nazis protested a Holocaust remembrance event. A university's scholarship is part of the reason why. For the past five years, Joyce Griffis and Congregation Chaim B'Derech have held a Holocaust March for Remembrance in Russellville, Arkansas. It's always been solemn and peaceful. CNN sent protest organizer Billy Roper a number of questions in the days after the protest, but he has not responded. On his blog, he says he organized his group to protest what he called an "anti-Christian Holocaust Remembrance March." Controversy over the new scholarship at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville named for a now-deceased professor, Michael Link, has grown into a groundswell of opposition from the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish leaders. Link purportedly taught that Holocaust denial is a valid historical viewpoint. @CNN https://cnn.it/2E3iVF0

Andrew Neil: questions to Ben Shapiro were legitimate. The interview, which aired on Friday, became acrimonious as Neil robustly interrogated Shapiro about previous remarks such as “Israelis like to build, Arabs like to bomb crap”. Shapiro accused Neil of being a “lefty” and ended the interview prematurely. Shapiro later apologised for misinterpreting Neil’s “antagonism as political leftism” and conceded that he had been “destroyed” in the debate, adding he had not properly prepared for the interview. Josh Hammer, the editor-at-large of the Daily Wire channel, which broadcasts The Ben Shapiro Show, described the interview as a “hostile dredging up of nine-year-old (repudiated!) tweets” and questioned why Neil had not focused on Shapiro’s new book. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/12/andrew-neil-questions-to-ben-shapiro-were-legitimate

A short history of Turning Point USA's racism. Turning Point USA is often associated with the time its members wore diapers in an attempt at “triggering” liberals, but this should not be the only public failure the group is remembered for. The conservative organization, which focuses on increasing right-wing political influence on college campuses, has a long history of involvement in racist incidents that are now permanently linked to its name. http://mm4a.org/4DQ

Can someone just clip the bit where Ben Shapiro calls Andrew Neil on “the left” and Neil laughs at him and says “Mr Shapiro if you only know how ridiculous” you sound, that would be great. Mark Di Stefano 🤙🏻 (@MarkDiStef) https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1126827610242207745 https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1126827992854990848 https://www.nationalreview.com/author/ben-shapiro/

BBC News - US politics: Andrew Neil and Ben Shapiro on abortion, Obama and Middle East. “I am not inclined to continue an interview with someone as badly motivated as you” US conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro ends spiky interview with @afneil https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-48230588/us-politics-andrew-neil-and-ben-shapiro-on-abortion-obama-and-middle-east

The alleged synagogue shooter was a churchgoer who talked Christian theology, raising tough questions for evangelical pastors. Before he allegedly walked into a synagogue in Poway, Calif., and opened fire, John Earnest appears to have written a seven-page letter spelling out his core beliefs: that Jewish people, guilty in his view of faults ranging from killing Jesus to controlling the media, deserved to die. That his intention to kill Jews would glorify God. Days later, the Rev. Mika Edmondson read those words and was stunned. “It certainly calls for a good amount of soul-searching,” said Edmondson, a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a small evangelical denomination founded to counter liberalism in mainline Presbyterianism. Earnest, 19, was a member of an OPC congregation. His father was an elder. He attended regularly. And in the manifesto, the writer spewed not only invective against Jews and racial minorities but also cogent Christian theology he heard in the pews. https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/05/01/alleged-synagogue-shooter-was-churchgoer-who-articulated-christian-theology-prompting-tough-questions-evangelical-pastors/

A Former Alt-Right Member’s Message: Get Out While You Still Can. If you remember Katie McHugh, it’s probably because of the tweets. A short selection: “British settlers built the USA. ‘Slaves’ built the country much as cows ‘built’ McDonald’s. Amateur…” “The only way to strike a balance between vigilance, discrimination, (& terror) is to end Muslim immigration.” "Funny how Europeans assimilated, unlike Third Worlders demanding welfare while raping, killing Americans." There are many more examples, but this is the big one, the one that ultimately triggered her firing from her job as a writer and editor at Breitbart News in 2017: “There would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn't live there." https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/katie-mchugh

COMMENTARY: Radical Democrats hate the United States. Like I said, “Joe McCarthy wasn’t wrong, he was just early.” Joe McCarthy would have a field day with today’s Democrat politicians. He’d be a hero for defending America from evil, radical Marxist politicians posing as “Democrats.” We’d be giving him ticker-tape parades. The House Un-American Activities Committee served as a model for McCarthy in the Senate. Let me ask you bluntly: How much more un-American can you get than the ideas espoused just in the past few days by Democrats? Contact Wayne Allyn Root https://lvrj.com/post/1649064 via @reviewjournal

Afghanistan war vet plotted to bomb Long Beach white nationalist rally, feds say https://fxn.ws/2LcFBZz

White nationalist rally doesn’t materialize as counter-protestors fill Bluff Park https://lbpo.st/2Pz24OR via @LongBeachPost

Rabbi Says Poway Shooting Victim's Funeral Will Be Most Difficult Of His Career. Oscar Stewart, 51, had been inside in the synagogue with his wife and stepdaughter. A veteran of both the Navy and the Army, Stewart confronted the gunman. “I was standing in the back and I heard the gunshot and into the lobby. I saw him and he fired two more rounds," Stewart said. "And I charged him at that point. He saw me and he dropped his weapon and he turned and ran." Normally, he said he sits in the front, which is why he said it was "God's will" he was in the back Saturday. Eventually, a member of the congregation, who is a border patrol agent in the El Centro Sector, ran out of the temple and began firing at the suspect. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/apr/29/rabbi-says-poway-shooting-victims-funeral-will-be-/ via @KPBSnews

Attorney: Coast Guard officer isn't facing terrorism charges. Christopher Hasson, 49, has remained in custody since his Feb. 15 arrest and subsequent indictment in Maryland on firearms and drug charges. Hasson's attorney, Liz Oyer, wrote in a court filing Monday that prosecutors recently disclosed that they don't expect to seek any additional charges. https://www.stripes.com/news/coast-guard/attorney-coast-guard-officer-isn-t-facing-terrorism-charges-1.577154

The plot against America: Inside the Christian right plan to "remodel" the nation https://www.salon.com/2019/04/13/the-plot-against-america-inside-the-christian-right-plan-to-remodel-the-nation/

Evangelical Taylor U community in uproar over Pence speech: "Deeply at odds with following Christ" https://www.salon.com/2019/04/12/evangelical-taylor-u-community-in-uproar-over-pence-speech-deeply-at-odds-with-following-christ/

Understanding the Alt-Right's Growing Fascination with 'Eco-Fascism' One name frequently cited by the #Ecofash is that of Ted Kaczynski; or as they affectionately name him, “Uncle Ted.” Otherwise known as The Unabomber, Kaczynski was a math-teacher-turned-terrorist who went on an 18-year bombing spree around the US between 1978 and 1996, killing three people and injuring 23 others. Kaczynski was radicalized after the land around his woodland cabin was bought by property developers. He saw himself as a Neo-luddite, fighting against the corporate world in favor of a more primitive lifestyle. Another key thinker on eco-fascism is the 86-year-old Finnish polemicist Pentti Linkola. A fisherman by trade, he believes that democracy doesn’t function and that the only way to prevent ecological collapse is to impose dictatorships that could force humans to be green. This would involve killing people en masse so as to avoid overpopulation—which he labels as the main cause behind the degradation of the planet. His ideology is summed up pretty well by the following quote: "What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship's axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides." https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbw55j/understanding-the-alt-rights-growing-fascination-with-eco-fascism

Ocasio-Cortez links Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro to death threat against Ilhan Omar. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/ocasio-cortez-fox-news-jeanine-pirro-threat-ilhan-omar.html via @slate

Trump under fire over Islamophobia after man threatens to kill Ilhan Omar https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/07/trump-islamophobia-ilhan-omar-alexandria-ocasio-cortez

Trump Homeland Security Official Suggested Antifascists Were ‘The Actual Threats’ Here’s what Katie Gorka has been up to at work. Emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show Homeland Security officials working to find reasons to cancel funding for a Muslim civil rights group and a nonprofit that deradicalizes white supremacists. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dhs-violent-extremism-katie-gorka-life-after-hate-mpac-antifa_n_5ca787d7e4b0a00f6d3f2e73

Vandals Spray Graffiti On and Inside Several Cars in El Cajon. It happened in El Cajon in the early hours of April Fool's day along and near Cordial Road off the Lake Jennings Park Road exit. The next morning Denise Ruis saw her friend’s car, who is staying with them, covered with black and blue spray paint. All four tires were slashed. They even wrote President Trump’s name on the hood and wrote numbers in black paint on their fence. They have lived there for two years and have always felt safe until now. She said another neighbor a couple of houses down had the name “Trump” written in spray paint on his vehicle. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Vandals-Spray-Graffiti-On-and-Inside-Several-Cars-in-El-Cajon-508151661.html via @nbcsandiego

New Zealand killer scrawled 'inspiration' for shooting spree on guns https://mol.im/a/6812729 via @MailOnline

Trump supporter drives ‘build the wall’ float past New Zealand mourners at Cleveland City Hall. http://www.cleveland19.com/2019/03/15/trump-supporters-drive-build-wall-float-past-mourners-new-zealand-massacre-cleveland-city-hall/

Trump is cornered, with violence on his mind. We must be on red alert | Robert Reich https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2019/mar/16/donald-trump-breitbart-interview-white-supremacy

U.S. sees steady rise in violence by white supremacists https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-zealand-shooting-highlights-rise-violence-linked-to-white-supremacy-2019-03-15/

Militias, MAGA activists and one border town’s complicated resistance, Arivaca, Arizona. Arizona Border Recon Founder Tim Foley. Shawna Forde, the leader of Minuteman American Defense, a militia that patrolled the Borderlands for migrants. they murdered Raul “Junior” Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia. a tall redheaded conspiracy theorist named Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, who often goes by Lewis Arthur. Bryan Melchior of Sandy, Utah who ran a group called the Utah Gun Exchange. Ben Bergquam, a California talk radio host with over 100,000 Facebook followers. ARIZONA BORDER RECON is a three-person organization composed of Foley, his girlfriend, Jan Fields, and a man named Lorenzo Murillo, who also lives in Arivaca. Montanan Ryan Payne and a California man named Gary Hunt recruited him to help establish an organization called Operation Mutual Defense, or OMD. Lewis Arthur’s Tucson-based group, Veterans on Patrol, Jim and Sue Chilton had nothing to do with Shawna Forde, but they are vocal about their support for Foley and Arizona Border Recon. - https://www.hcn.org/articles/us-mexican-border-militias-maga-activists-and-one-border-towns-complicated-resistance @highcountrynews

On Fox News, Dinesh D’Souza calls on Trump to use “force” and send the National Guard to college campuses to crack down on liberal protesters http://mm4a.org/4XQ

The neo-Nazi plot against America is much bigger than we realize https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/christopher-hasson-coast-guard-neo-nazi-far-right

Mark Krikorian Among Nativist, Anti-Muslim Figures Who Conferred With Trump During White House Meeting - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/01/31/mark-krikorian-among-nativist-anti-muslim-figures-who-conferred-trump-during-white-house

Religion, Religious Liberty, Abortion protests

US preacher Franklin Graham tries to reverse UK tour cancellations. Lawyers push venues to reconsider, as evangelicals in Britain refuse to back his events. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/us-preacher-franklin-graham-will-try-to-reverse-uk-tour-cancellations

STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS BAFFLED BY POMPEO’S EXCLUSIVE FAITH-BASED BRIEFING, RECORDS SHOW. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s March 18, 2019 “faith-based media” briefing. https://www.citizensforethics.org/pompeo-faith-based-call-baffled-state-officials/ starts on page 59: https://s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/17203308/19-cv-01344-January-2020-Production-Part-1-merged.pdf

An article from Religion News Service -- which notes that it "is not a faith-based media organization, but rather a secular news service that covers religion, spirituality and ethics" -- said participants in the Pompeo briefing "were not told that the call was limited to faith-based media." "While it was not clear which outlets were part of the call, questions were asked by Religion News Service, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Algemeiner, World Magazine and The Leaven, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. America Magazine also participated in the call," according to RNS. On Tuesday evening, one of the participants shared a transcript of the call with the press corps. That transcript showed that Pompeo faced questions about the Israeli election, terrorism and the omission of the word "occupied" when describing the Golan Heights and the West Bank. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/politics/state-department-faith-outlets-briefing/index.html

Pompeo: All faiths will have 'something to say' on forthcoming peace plan https://religionnews.com/2019/03/19/pompeo-all-faiths-will-have-something-to-say-on-forthcoming-peace-plan/ via @RNS

Secretary of State Pompeo's invitation-only briefing with 'faith-based media' causes a stir https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2019/3/19/secretary-of-state-pompeos-invitation-only-briefing-with-faith-based-media-causes-a-stir

Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back https://53eig.ht/2RJ50LU

At UN, Trump focuses on religious freedom, not climate. Dallas-based pastor Robert Jeffress lauded Trump for focusing on religious freedom instead of climate change. “What president in history would have the guts to do what President Trump is doing?” Jeffress, who was set to be in the audience for Trump’s speech, said on Fox News. “And it’s this kind of leadership that is absolutely infuriating the president’s enemies. https://apnews.com/f2aa0a837c14476ab101e5da8483c652

In UN Speech, Trump Announces New Religious Freedom Initiatives. A number of evangelical leaders cheered his remarks, including Franklin Graham and Cissie Graham Lynch of Samaritan’s Purse, who attended the UN event in person. Trump called Graham “instrumental” and praised his involvement in disaster relief. Graham thanked the President for “shining a spotlight on this critical issue.” Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee president Ronnie Floyd, one of Trump’s evangelical advisors, also celebrated the UN speech in comments to Baptist Press. Trump announced plans for a first-of-its-kind coalition of US businesses that would take a proactive role to defend religious freedom. “This initiative will encourage the private sector to protect people of all faiths in the workplace,” he said. (The Trump administration has strengthened conscience protections for government employees, such as those who wish to decline participation in medical procedures such as abortions for religious reasons.) He did not offer further details on the business coalition or who would be involved beyond describing “great business leaders, great people of strength.” “Freedom of religion and belief can contribute to a rich pluralism that is itself associated with economic growth,” said Brian Grim, president of the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation https://religiousfreedomandbusiness.org/about, which organized a sideline meeting at the Harvard Club with US Ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. “Indeed, the active participation of religious minorities in society often boosts economic innovation.” Evangelical leaders like Tony Perkins, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and president of Family Research Council, defended the President’s religious freedom emphasis on Fox News, saying, “This is the president kind of putting down a marker ... advancing religious freedom. This is a step forward with very tangible markers in terms of protecting people of faith.” “Too often people in positions of power preach diversity while silencing, shunning, or censoring the faithful," Trump said. "True tolerance means respecting the right of all people to express their de eply held religious beliefs. “I ask all nations to join us in this urgent moral duty.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/september/trump-un-speech-religious-freedom-private-business-coalitio.html via @CTmagazine

US to Launch Business Coalition to Protect Workers of All Faiths in the Workplace - https://go.shr.lc/2mEH3Ij

President Trump repeats lie about protecting religious liberty for all - Freedom From Religion Foundation. Instead of participating in a world summit on climate change, today President Donald Trump convened a session on worldwide religious persecution at the United Nations, in which he demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of religious liberty. The speech at the UN’s Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom event was trumpeted as the first time a sitting U.S. president has given an address focused solely on “religious liberty” before the UN’s General Assembly. Vice President Mike Pence introduced Trump and a number of evangelical leaders were in attendance. Evangelical preachers Franklin Graham and Paula White were explicitly singled out for praise by Trump. Trump’s opening remarks repeated his Big Lie that “we’ve obliterated the Johnson Amendment in our country.” The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued Trump for claiming he had overturned that law via executive fiat. The Johnson Amendment prevents any 501(c)(3) entities, including churches, from engaging in partisan politicking. FFRF dropped the lawsuit after the Justice Department entered into court not once but twice an admission that Trump had not overturned the Johnson Amendment. The Johnson Amendment remains the law of the land. https://shar.es/aXzDFI

CBS News highlights increasing rates of anti-abortion violence and harassment. In a September 17 article, CBS News’ Kate Smith highlighted the increasing severity of violence and harassment against abortion providers, noting how continued use of sensationalized rhetoric contributes to this harmful trend. Despite right-wing media’s claims to the contrary, anti-abortion harassment is a serious and ever-increasing problem. The Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, interim president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), told CBS News there has been “a dramatic increase in violence and disruption against clinics.” As CBS News explained: In 2017, violent acts against abortion providers more than doubled from the year prior, according to data compiled by NAF. The group recorded 1,081 violent acts, the most since the group began tracking these incidents. Last year, the group recorded another new record high: 1,369 reported violent acts, including 15 instances of assault and battery, 13 burglaries, 14 counts of stalking and over a thousand episodes of illegal trespassing. https://www.mediamatters.org/cbs/cbs-news-highlights-increasing-rates-anti-abortion-violence-and-harassment

King doubles down, says rape, incest should not be factored in to abortion decisions. He tweeted Saturday that fetuses developing from cases of rape or incest were "as precious as any other" and should be protected, "@RebeccaKiesslin of Savethe1 delivered a powerful statement to the entire nation for legal protection from abortion for innocent babies who were conceived in rape or incest. Their lives are as precious as any other, regardless of how they came to be," King wrote. “I am so grateful for his leadership,” Kiessling told the Standard of King's record in Congress, while adding that criticism suggesting that he was praising or minimizing rape was "absurd." “In a civilized society... we do not punish innocent people for someone else’s crime. That’s exactly what Congressman King said in his statement — the child does not deserve to die for the sins of the father," she added. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/458704-king-doubles-down-says-rape-incest-should-not-be-factored-in-to-abortion

Steve King’s View of Rape and Incest Is Not Abnormal Among GOP Lawmakers. King’s comments provoked outrage, but the underlying views are squarely in the GOP mainstream. “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” King asked. (He was discussing his view that abortion should be illegal under any circumstance, including rape or incest.) “Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations — I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/steve-kings-rape-incest-gop-lawmakers-871751/ via @RollingStone

Dumbfounding poll results on our responsibility to help refugees. One of the most bruising ironies in this cruel situation is a recent Pew Research Center Poll showing that 68 percent of white evangelical protestants do not believe they have any responsibility to accept refugees. Compare that to the 68 percent who are unaffiliated with any religion who do believe they have a responsibility to take in refugees. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/dumbfounding-poll-results-on-our-responsibility-to-help-refugees

Christians Against Christian Nationalism. As Christians, our faith teaches us everyone is created in God’s image and commands us to love one another. As Americans, we value our system of government and the good that can be accomplished in our constitutional democracy. Today, we are concerned about a persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy — Christian nationalism. https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/statement

Christian Student Group Claims Anti-Religious Discrimination at Wayne State University. The 75-year-old chapter had its student organization status revoked in 2017 and has since embarked on a legal crusade to protect the rights of Christians on campus. “Wayne State rightly allows fraternities to have only male leaders, female athletic clubs to have only female leaders, and African-American clubs to have only African-American leaders. But Wayne State cannot then say it is wrong for a Christian club to have only Christian leaders,” the lawsuit states. “Wayne State’s attempt to tell InterVarsity how to define its faith and select its leaders is anti-religious discrimination that violates clearly established federal and state law.” Within days of the lawsuit, Wayne State had reinstated the student group. But InterVarsity wasn’t finished—and has pushed ahead with the lawsuit anyway. Filed in U.S District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan, the case seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting “enforcement of Wayne State’s non-discrimination policy against InterVarsity based on InterVarsity’s practice of selecting religious leaders who share its faith” and unspecified damages for the group’s “loss of rights.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/intervarsity-christian-fellowship-claims-discrimination-at-wayne-state-university

Mike Pompeo human rights commission thing is in my (very small) wheelhouse. — Samuel Moyn (@samuelmoyn) Mary Ann Glendon. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). “Christian Human Rights” “natural rights” counter revolution https://twitter.com/samuelmoyn/status/1148580364824301568 July 9, 2019

Under Trump, Christian nationalists are playing to win — and liberals are finally fighting back https://www.salon.com/2019/07/07/under-trump-christian-nationalists-are-playing-to-win-and-liberals-are-finally-fighting-back/

Poll: Support for abortion rights increases as restrictive laws spread. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/poll-support-abortion-rights-increases.html via @slate

Christian rightwing figures warn abortion fight could lead to civil war. Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed that the Washington state republican legislator Matt Shea had also speculated about civil war, and the “Balkanization” of America, predicting that Christians would retreat to “zones of freedom” such as the inland Pacific north-west, where Shea is campaigning for a new state to break away from Washington. Asked on a podcast if the two halves of the country could remain together, Shea said: “I don’t think we can, again, because you have half that want to follow the Lord and righteousness and half that don’t, and I don’t know how that can stand.” Shea has introduced a bill – unlikely to pass – which would criminalize abortion in the state. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/26/abortion-ban-rightwing-christian-figures-civil-war-predictions

A new report shows harassment and hate mail at abortion clinics rose in 2018. One clinic discovered nails sprinkled in its parking lot, according to a new report on violence against abortion providers. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abortion-clinics-see-surge-in-harassment-and-hate_n_5ce81832e4b0cce67c8a6890

Thousands rally across US against abortion bans – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2019/may/21/abortion-rights-activists-rally-across-us

An Amazon series and a Lionsgate comedy are the first major productions to confirm they are pulling out of Georgia over the heartbeat bill http://bit.ly/2VTTl0b

Abortion in America, explained in 10 facts https://www.vox.com/2019/5/16/18628002/abortion-ohio-alabama-georgia-law-bill-details

Pence Whines to Liberty Grads About How Oppressed Christians Are https://splinternews.com/pence-whines-to-liberty-grads-about-how-oppressed-chris-1834703265

How Kellyanne Conway influenced a new Trump rule cheered by religious conservatives. Polling done a decade ago by the senior White House adviser finds its way into a new federal rule cheered by religious activists. Late last week, the Health and Human Services Department unveiled a regulation that empowers doctors and other health workers to decline care that violates their beliefs. The 440-page rule cites Conway’s years-old polling, including another she conducted in 2011, a dozen times. No other surveys are cited more frequently — and no other data is more central to the Trump administration’s arguments. https://politi.co/2vL6IQN

Trump strengthens protections for religious health workers. The Trump administration Thursday finalized new rules making it easier for health care workers to refuse to provide care that violates their religious or moral beliefs, advancing a policy favored by anti-abortion groups and Christian conservatives closely allied with the Trump administration. The rules will protect "physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, students and faith-based charities," President Donald Trump said during Rose Garden remarks noting the National Day of Prayer. "Together, we are building a culture that cherishes the dignity and worth of human life." https://politi.co/2PIhj8r

Wall

US Officials Said It's Unlikely Hurricane Hanna Toppled Over Parts Of The Border Wall. The US Army Corps of Engineers said the video was from June when high winds caused parts of the border wall to fall in New Mexico. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/hurricane-hanna-border-wall

He Built a Privately Funded Border Wall. It’s Already at Risk of Falling Down if Not Fixed. Trump supporters funded a private border wall on the banks of the Rio Grande, helping the builder secure $1.7 billion in federal contracts. Now the “Lamborghini” of border walls is in danger of falling into the river if nothing is done, experts say. Tommy Fisher billed his new privately funded border wall as the future of deterrence, a quick-to-build steel fortress that spans 3 miles in one of the busiest Border Patrol sectors. Unlike a generation of wall builders before him, he said he figured out how to build a structure directly on the banks of the Rio Grande, a risky but potentially game-changing step when it came to the nation’s border wall system. Fisher has leveraged his self-described “Lamborghini” of walls to win more than $1.7 billion worth of federal contracts in Arizona. But his showcase piece is showing signs of runoff erosion and, if it’s not fixed, could be in danger of falling into the Rio Grande, according to engineers and hydrologists who reviewed photos of the wall for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. It never should have been built so close to the river, they say. https://www.propublica.org/article/he-built-a-privately-funded-border-wall-its-already-at-risk-of-falling-down-if-not-fixed https://goo.gl/maps/NM6YkCtQCkvR6UGUA

Smugglers sawed into Trump’s border wall 18 times in one month in San Diego area, records show. The breaches and attempted breaches were made between Sept. 27 and Oct. 27, according to CBP records, with five of the incidents occurring on a single day, Oct. 10. The agency withheld information about the specific locations of the incidents, citing law enforcement sensitivities. The agency said the average cost to repair the damage was $620 per incident. The records do not indicate whether the one-month span last year is a representative sample of how frequently people are trying to breach new sections of Trump’s border barrier, which are made of tall steel bollards partially filled with concrete and rebar. The Post reported last November that smuggling crews armed with common battery-operated power tools — including reciprocating saws that retail for as little as $100 at home improvement stores — can cut hack through the bollards using inexpensive blades designed for slicing through metal and stone. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/sawing-trump-border-wall/2020/04/17/39df8926-8007-11ea-8de7-9fdff6d5d83e_story.html

concentration camps

Mountain climbers scale replica of Trump's border wall in under one minute: report https://thehill.com/homenews/news/465415-mountain-climbers-scale-replica-of-trumps-border-wall-in-under-1-minute-report

Trump boasted that his border wall was 'virtually impenetrable.' Then an 8-year-old girl climbed a replica https://bit.ly/2M3XdVX

Rock climbers to hold border wall climbing competition after Trump said new section was unscalable https://thehill.com/homenews/news/464478-rock-climbers-to-hold-border-wall-climbing-competition-after-trump-said-new

Trump’s New Steel Border Wall Won’t Be Any Better Than Concrete. Recently leaked photos show that people were able to saw a significant hole in the bollard wall in testing. But that’s not the only problem with a steel wall. https://new.engineering.com/story/trumps-new-steel-border-wall-wont-be-any-better-than-concrete

Trump Said This Wall Can’t Be Climbed. Professional Climbers Say He’s Full of Sh*t. President Trump claimed that a fleet of champion climbers tested his border wall. The sport’s top athletes have no idea what the hell Trump is talking about. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-said-this-wall-cant-be-climbed-professional-climbers-say-hes-full-of-sht

Trump visits border wall construction in California to cap three-day trip https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/462077-trump-visits-border-wall-construction-in-california-to-cap-three-day

Trump visits border barriers near San Diego: 'This wall can't be climbed' President Trump touted the effectiveness of newly-constructed barriers as he toured the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego on Wednesday, insisting, “This wall can’t be climbed.” “It’s a very powerful -- very powerful – wall,” the president, accompanied by border officials, said as he toured the Otay Mesa area. He also talked up how the barrier was designed to retain heat as a deterrent. “You can fry an egg on that wall,” he said. https://fxn.ws/2NmUc4P #FoxNews

Trump border wall may damage archeological sites: A 123-page internal NPS memo from July found that expanding an existing fence near Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument could harm artifacts from ancient Sonoran Desert peoples. It noted previous research that found archaeological sites “likely will be wholly or partially destroyed by forthcoming border fence construction.” Construction has already begun on converting a 5-foot vehicle barrier to the 30-foot-high border wall envisioned by Trump. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has sought to build at a quick pace in order to keep up with Trump’s campaign pledge of completing 500 miles of wall before the 2020 election. But at risk in the process are a number of well preserved pre-Colombian artifacts left in what used to be a well-traveled trade route that passes along a spring and wetlands that provide important habitat for area species. “We’ve historically lived in this area from time immemorial,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris Jr. told the Post. “We feel very strongly that this particular wall will desecrate this area forever. I would compare it to building a wall over your parents’ graveyards. It would have the same effect.” https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/461783-trump-border-wall-may-damage-archeological-sites-report

'National tragedy': Trump begins border wall construction in Unesco reserve. Wall will traverse the entirety of the southern edge of the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument, one of the most biologically diverse regions in the US. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/border-wall-organ-pipe-cactus-arizona

Projects defunded for border wall include buildings with 'life safety violations,' hazmat concerns. The U.S. Navy has been forced to stand down on construction projects meant to fix "life safety violations" and fire risks at dilapidated ship maintenance buildings and hazardous materials warehouses in Virginia after funds were diverted to pay for President Donald Trump's border wall. The pending construction projects at Norfolk Navy Shipyard are among 127 that the Pentagon has defunded to free up $3.6 billion in funding for fences and barriers on the southern border with Mexico using emergency powers. https://www.stripes.com/news/navy/projects-defunded-for-border-wall-include-buildings-with-life-safety-violations-hazmat-concerns-1.597869

Republicans who supported an emergency declaration on the U.S.-Mexico border learn the cost of standing with Trump: millions of federal dollars diverted away from military projects in their states. Who could have seen this coming when the president chose to divert defense money to build his border wall? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-border-wall-military-funds-senators_n_5d6fff9ce4b0cdfe0579f881?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004 via @HuffPostPol

Trump diverts $3.6 billion from U.S. military to pay for 175 miles of border wall https://boingboing.net/2019/09/03/pentagon-moving-3-6b-in-milit.html

.@realdonaldtrump has promised 400 miles of border wall by end of 2020. Here are the facts on what’s taking shape. Trump at times has seemingly acknowledged that what’s taken shape isn’t the extended mileage of barriers that his supporters and critics envisioned. "When we rip down and totally replace a badly broken and dilapidated Barrier on the Southern Border, something which cannot do the job, the Fake News Media gives us zero credit for building a new Wall. We have replaced many miles of old Barrier with powerful new Walls!" Trump tweeted July 22, and sent a similar tweet a day later. Overall, Trump has also been less vocal about Mexico paying for the wall, though in January he falsely claimed that Mexico would pay through a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/30/donald-trumps-border-wall-how-much-has-really-been/ via @PolitiFact

Wall, archived August 2019

concentration camps

Fox News's Shepard Smith pushes back on Trump: 'There's no new wall ... not true'. Fox News chief anchor Shepard Smith on Wednesday disputed President Trump’s recent remarks about border wall construction, saying on air that "there is no new wall." Smith's remarks were in response to a tweet from the president that said the wall is "going up very fast." "So far, despite the president's claims to the contrary, there is no new wall," Smith said. "Existing barriers have been replaced. Same span. The total of repaired barrier is about 60 miles along that 2,000-mile border." "The president also said in the tweet that the wall is going up rapidly. It is not. As we just reported, there's no new wall. Only replacement for walls which were in need of repair or upgrade. Those are the facts," Smith added. https://thehill.com/media/459302-fox-newss-shepard-smith-pushes-back-on-trump-theres-no-new-wall-not-true

GOP senator held up Trump aide's confirmation to get info on border wall contracts. The Post reported that Cramer has touted a major donor's company as his preferred construction firm. Cramer has received thousands of dollars in donations from the owner of North Dakota-based Fisher Industries and the CEO's family, according to campaign finance records. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/456028-gop-senator-reportedly-held-up-trump-aides-confirmation-to-see-border-wall#.XUUFedHNWF8.twitter

Money from a retirement program for the US military is set to be diverted to pay for Trump's border wall https://www.businessinsider.com/military-retirement-program-could-lose-funding-trump-border-wall-2019-8

Barr reverses ruling on asylum for those with persecuted family members. Attorney General William Barr on Monday reversed a 2018 immigration board ruling that found that a migrant whose immediate family member was persecuted in their home country may be able to claim asylum. The order is yet another hit to the United States' asylum laws and the most recent action taken by U.S. authorities in recent weeks that would affect asylum rules and procedures. In this latest decision, Barr effectively tightened a measure in the Immigration and Nationality Act that states a migrant can be granted asylum if they show they have been or will be persecuted because of “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” https://thehill.com/latino/455163-barr-migrants-with-family-members-facing-persecution-cant-automatically-claim-asylum

President Donald Trump said he's reached an agreement with Guatemala on asylum after previously threatening the nation with tariffs. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-asylum-agreement-guatemala_n_5d3b5b9de4b0a6d6373f4c5e

Trump takes hit from conservative commentators on border wall. A pair of prominent conservative personalities knocked President Trump on Monday over a report that asserted his administration has not constructed a single mile of new wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Drudge Report, an influential site run by conservative Matt Drudge, featured The Washington Examiner's report as its main story on Monday afternoon with the banner headline: "NO NEW WALL AT ALL!" Conservative commentator Ann Coulter took note of the headline and added her own barb at Trump. "I guess @realDonaldTrump is too chicken to call @DRUDGE a wacky nutjob," Coulter tweeted. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/454187-trump-takes-hit-from-conservative-commentators-on-border-wall

Trump has not built a single mile of new border fence after 30 months in office. In a statement last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency overseeing border barrier construction, confirmed that all the fencing completed since Trump took office is "in place of dilapidated designs" because the existing fence was in need of replacement. The agency said that it had built 51 miles of steel bollard fence with funding that was set aside during fiscal 2017 and 2018. But while the funding was meant both to replace outdated walls and to place barriers where there previously had been none, the government has only completed the replacement projects. The projects to secure areas with no fence are still in the works. https://washex.am/2JQsbhO

As The US Debates “Concentration Camps,” These Jews Are Trying To Actually Shut Them Down. "My whole life I’ve been told these stories by my community," said one young Jewish activist. "Those alarms are going off in my head.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/jews-against-ice-never-again-immigration-concentration-camp via @juliareinstein

WHEN JEWS SAY NEVER AGAIN, WE MEAN IT. https://www.neveragainaction.com/press

Barbarism at the Border Is Just as Shocking as the First Concentration Camps. Drawing the right lessons from history shows that the worst thing we have to fear is the assent of silence. Just look at the Republicans today. https://www.thedailybeast.com/barbarism-at-the-border-is-just-as-shocking-as-the-first-concentration-camps

'Haunting Cries of Babies and Toddlers': Inside a Migrant Border Facility at Center of National Controversy. "We saw mothers with infants and fathers with infants and small children, many of them listless, many were sick"..https://people.com/politics/immigrant-detention-center-ursula-photos-jackie-speier/

Pence’s Detention Center Visit Exposes Depths of Trump Administration’s Cruelty. “I was not surprised by what I saw,” the vice president said. “I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed”. Connelly and Ocasio-Cortez are right. Trump and Pence have made a significant departure from Obama Administration policy regarding the detention of migrants, keeping migrants detained beyond legal limits and systematically separating families. It’s a crisis of their own making and their proposed solution is to build more facilities instead of changing the policies that are keeping people detained in inhumane conditions. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pence-detention-center-visit-858668/ via @RollingStone

Perspective | Migrant children drew disturbing pictures of cages and bars. They also drew these bright scenes. https://wapo.st/32gg7yO

How a private wall rose on the border using millions in donations — and deception and threats https://news.yahoo.com/how-a-private-wall-rose-on-the-border-using-millions-in-donations-and-deception-and-threats-100000942.html

UN rights chief ‘appalled’ by conditions in US for migrants https://lvrj.com/post/1706341

Holocaust Survivor: Yes, the Border Detention Centers Are Like Concentration Camps. Republicans think comparing the cramped border detention centers to concentration camps is offensive to Holocaust survivors. Ruth Bloch, 93, begs to differ. https://www.thedailybeast.com/holocaust-survivor-yes-the-border-detention-centers-are-like-concentration-camps

There’s no way to discuss modern atrocities without the context of the Holocaust. Why Holocaust Comparisons Matter. The Nazi genocide gives us a frame of reference to understand modern atrocities. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/holocaust-museum-concentration-camps-border.html via @slate

Acting homeland security secretary defends border conditions. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Sunday defended conditions at U.S. Border Patrol stations following reports of crowded and unsanitary conditions that have heightened debate about President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, a trademark issue for his re-election campaign. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he is stunned when administration officials say that reports on the conditions are unsubstantiated. “I’m just like, ‘What world are they living in?’” Merkley said, citing government and news reports. “From every direction you see that the children are being treated in a horrific manner. And there’s an underlying philosophy that it’s OK to treat refugees in this fashion. And that’s really the rot at the core of the administration’s policy.” https://lvrj.com/post/1705574 via @reviewjournal

President Trump on border facilities: "When people come in illegally and then it's crowded. And I've seen some of those places and they are run beautifully. They're clean. They are good. They do a great job." — The Hill (@thehill) "https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1147675347594428419 July 7, 2019

Nurses Say Border Patrol Is Delaying Treatment To Sick Immigrant Kids, With Dire Consequences. In the wake of at least five children dying in US government custody in the last nine months, two nurses told BuzzFeed News immigration agents have delayed taking sick children in increasingly dire condition to a hospital near the border for treatment, putting the kids at risk of potentially severe health issues. The two registered nurses, who have treated immigrant children at a hospital in the Rio Grande Valley, said young patients arriving in recent months are often in such poor health that they're "on the borderline" of medical staff needing to call a specialized rapid response team of doctors to prevent them from going into respiratory or cardiac arrest. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/nurses-sick-immigrant-kids-border-patrol via @aflores

A few days ago, Alexandria and the team visited a series of detention camps run by the United States government, and what we saw was unconscionable.
As we walked from camp to camp, virulent racists protested our visit — screaming violent words, xenophobic insults, and racist defenses of their concentration camps. Officers with Customs and Border Patrol treated her, a Congresswoman, as if she were the enemy.
But that beginning was nothing compared to what we saw inside, even after the CBP had days to hide the worst of their injustices. Women had been left outside in the 100 degree heat for weeks, with no access to basic hygiene or adequate sleeping conditions.

In her own words: AOC describes the "intentional cruelty" she saw inside a migrant detention center. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-border-migrant-centers-exclusive-mother-jones-podcast/ via @MotherJones

A Congressional Tour of Border Patrol Stations Just “Went Off the Rails”. Customs and Border Protection officers told the delegation that they couldn’t take photos of the facility — though Kennedy said one guard tried to take a selfie with New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — or speak to detainees. The politicians managed to speak to a few migrants anyway, Kennedy said, and the conditions they described were horrific. “One cell had 13 women from Cuba that had been moved into the facility that morning. They were on sleeping bags — no pillows, no air mattresses,” Kennedy said of the Border Patrol station in El Paso. “The cell next door had about 10 people in it, including a 6-year-old boy and a pregnant woman from Cuba. They told stories of a lack of access to medication, a lack of information about what was going on.” On Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez said detainees were told to drink out of toilets — some facilities have combination toilet and sinks. Ocasio-Cortez said she spoke with several women at the El Paso facility, one of whom described the treatment there as “psychological warfare.” https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vb98pa/a-congressional-tour-of-border-patrol-stations-just-went-off-the-rails

36 Jewish protesters arrested at ICE detention center in New Jersey - Jewish Telegraphic Agency https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/36-jews-arrested-protesting-at-ice-detention-center

Judge blocks Trump from using billions in military funds for border wall https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/450987-judge-permanently-blocks-trump-from-using-billions-in-military-funds

After concentration camp comparison, photographer shares photos of Ocasio-Cortez at border https://thehill.com/homenews/house/450315-photographer-shares-photos-of-ocasio-cortez-at-border-after-concentration-camp

Auschwitz Memorial criticizes congressman for filming selfie video in a gas chamber. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana, is being criticized for making comments about the United States’ military and terrorism while inside the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/clay-higgins-auschwitz-gas-chamber-video/

Rep. King met with far-right Austrians on trip funded by Holocaust memorial group https://wapo.st/2CHvWEx

Trump official: detained children do not need soap and blankets – video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/jun/23/us-government-lawyer-detained-children-do-not-need-soap-blankets-video

What Trump supporters think of family separations at the border. "To be perfectly honest, I'm angry at the parents," she said. "I feel very honestly that it's their fault that the children have been separated, because they're bringing them in illegally. And the other thing is, the law that has been put on the books was not put on recently. It was put on back many years ago, and I think very seriously that they need very firmly to say enough is enough." She faulted the media for using children to play on people's emotions. @CNN https://cnn.it/2llQQz9

What Has The U.S. Gained From Tariff Talks With Mexico? NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro about the negotiated tariff settlement between the U.S. and Mexico. NPR's Scott Horsley comments on the discussion. https://n.pr/31u7PTs Navarro ran unsuccessfully for office in San Diego, California five times. In 1992 he ran for mayor, finishing first (38.2%) in the primary, but lost with 48% to Susan Golding in the runoff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Navarro

Acting DHS chief testifies about situation at border. Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan testified before Congress Tuesday about new migration figures from the U.S. border with Mexico. “In the last 40 days, 60,000 children have entered into DHS custody, both unaccompanied and as part of family units," McAleenan told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Last month ... we encountered a modern record of 144,000 border crossers, a record day of over 5,800 border crossings in a single 24-hour period and the largest single group ever apprehended at our border, 1,036 individuals.” https://thehill.com/latino/447913-acting-dhs-chief-testifies-about-situation-at-border

The GoFundMe Border Wall Blocked Access To A Monument. It's Been Ordered To Keep A Gate Open Indefinitely. "They think they can build now and ask questions later, and that's not how it works," a water agency spokesperson said. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/gofundme-border-wall-gate-access-monument-water via @salhernandez

Private border wall expands onto federal land, blocking access to historic site. On Monday, IBWC, accompanied by sheriff deputies, opened the gate and, according to Kuczmanski, told We Build the Wall that any tampering with the gate would be “considered trespassing and further action will be taken.” We Build the Wall reacted with outrage. The group called for the firing of Commissioner Harkins and mobilized supporters. Kolfage fulminated on his Twitter feed that the opening of the gate was due to the IBWC’s being “half owned by Mexico,” and Benvie live-streamed on Facebook that if the IBWC and the ACLU “want a war, they’ll get war.” https://interc.pt/2IwRxAE by @DebbieNathan2, @JordynRR

CBP says photos of U.S. travelers, license plate images were stolen in data breach https://thehill.com/policy/technology/447778-cbp-says-photos-of-us-travelers-license-plate-images-were-stolen-in-data

Footage shows migrants walking around border wall to enter US https://fxn.ws/2X15H6m #FoxNews

Southwest Border Migration FY 2019 https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

The GoFundMe Border Wall Is Finished. It’s Not Stopping Migrants From Coming In. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/border-wall-gofundme-sunland-park-residents-migrants via @salhernandez

Troops to paint section of US-Mexico border wall. The government made that determination after Customs and Border Protection earlier painted sections of barrier in Arizona. Some sections there were painted bright white. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/troops-to-paint-section-of-us-mexico-border-wall-1.584995

How a MAGA Stunt Became a Very Real Border Wall https://politi.co/2MjU8mQ via @politicomag

Mexican president on Trump immigration tariffs: 'America First is a fallacy'. Trump in a tweet on Thursday announced he was imposing a 5 percent tariff beginning June 10 on all Mexican imports “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.” The White House released a statement saying the tariff would increase by 5 percent each month until it reaches 25 percent. It’s unclear how the administration will measure Mexican progress on stemming migration. https://thehill.com/latino/446282-mexican-president-on-trump-immigration-tariffs-america-first-is-a-fallacy

Trump says U.S. to impose 5 percent tariff on all Mexican imports beginning June 10 in dramatic escalation of border clash https://wapo.st/2HNtgY8

Private border wall construction halts after New Mexico town protests https://reut.rs/2WqBNZ2

https://goo.gl/maps/VYBBu7qQqzVkFCnc8 Private group says it's building its own border wall using millions donated in GoFundMe campaign. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who chairs We Build the Wall's advisory board, told CNN on Monday that the stretch of private wall connects two 21-mile sections of existing fencing. Jeff Allen told CNN he owns the property where We Build the Wall's team is working, and he's excited to see it. "They are doing an incredible job," he said. "I have fought illegals on this property for six years. I love my country and this is a step in protecting my country." Daniel Garcia Salinas, the director of a nearby museum on the Mexican side of the border, told CNN the new wall went up rapidly over the weekend, changing the horizon behind the Museo Casa de Adobe. Garcia said that when he had left the museum Friday afternoon there was no fencing there. By Saturday morning, he said, portions of new wall had been constructed. "They moved very quickly," he said. @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2HDO3NA

Privately funded organization 'We Build the Wall' starts construction of border barrier in El Paso area. Former Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, said on "Fox & Friends" Monday that the project was undertaken because there is a "ridiculously large gap" near Mount Cristo Rey that drug and human smugglers are taking advantage of. The barrier will be built on private land. Authorities in the El Paso Sector - which provides support for the counties of El Paso and Hudspeth in the state of Texas and the entire state of New Mexico - apprehends 930 people per day, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. https://fxn.ws/2HXc4Or #FoxNews

Trump administration will hire Cuccinelli for senior DHS border role. The Trump administration will hire conservative firebrand and former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli II to coordinate immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, three administration officials said Tuesday. Cuccinelli will work at DHS in a senior role and will report to acting DHS secretary Kevin ­McAleenan, while also providing regular briefings to President Trump at the White House, according two officials briefed on the appointment. https://wapo.st/2QeCiQp

uWJSx2Y.png
All people that are illegally coming into the United States now will be removed from our Country at a later date as we build up our removal forces and as the laws are changed. Please do not make yourselves too comfortable, you will be leaving soon! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1129338665216430080

Trump sending ‘500 migrants a month’ to Florida Democratic strongholds https://politi.co/2Q4hTgT

Pentagon will pull money from ballistic missile and surveillance plane programs to fund border wall https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/05/12/pentagon-will-pull-money-ballistic-missile-surveillance-plane-programs-fund-border-wall/

An Arizona border sheriff confronts the wall - https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.6/immigration-an-arizona-border-sheriff-confronts-the-wall @highcountrynews

What It's Like To Live In The Shadow Of The Wall https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katebubacz/us-mexico-southern-border-american-backyard via @BuzzFeedNews

Since its creation in 1989, journalists, members of Congress, government agencies and researchers have seen Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) as a vital tool for watchdogging the federal government. The website compiles government data, received through systematic Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and provides it free to the public and the press. But in early April, the organization hit a wall: Its requests for information about asylum and immigration cases weren’t getting through. High Country News spoke to TRAC’s co-founder, Susan Long. They said they are concerned about protecting individuals’ privacy within the data. And during the review, these concerns had come up. But this is anonymous data; there is no way to identify anyone. This is just statistical-type data, so you can’t identify an individual through the records. https://www.hcn.org/articles/immigration-watchdogs-hit-a-wall-in-accessing-once-available-immigration-data

The FBI Has Arrested The Leader Of An Armed Militia Detaining Migrants At The Border. Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, was arrested on a federal complaint charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the FBI said. He was arrested near the New Mexico border with the assistance of the Sunland Park Police Department. The arrest of Hopkins, who is referred to as "the commander" of the United Constitutional Patriots and goes by the alias Johnny Horton Jr., was hailed by New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas. “This is a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families,” Balderas said in a statement. “Today's arrest by the FBI indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes.” The Flora Vista, New Mexico resident was previously arrested in 2006 in Klamath County, Oregon, facing charges for impersonating a peace officer and two charges of a felon in possession of a firearm, according to court records. He ended up pleading no contest to a charge of impersonating a peace officer and guilty to felony possession of a firearm. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/militia-border-fbi-arrest-larry-hopkins-united via @aflores

The FBI arrested Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, for alleged unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition , days after his group posted videos that appeared to show armed men stopping migrants at the border in New Mexico, ordering them to sit on the ground and coordinating with US border patrol agents to have them taken into custody. Hopkins’ role in the group was unclear, and it was also not clear if he was facing any charges directly related to the videos of the men stopping migrants. The New Mexico attorney general’s office described Hopkins as a “dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families” and labeled him an “armed individual detaining migrants at the border”. https://gu.com/p/ba4fk/stw

Armed militia patrolling border near Sunland Park: 'Border Patrol asked us to come here' - KVIA https://www.kvia.com/news/border/armed-militia-patrolling-border-near-sunland-park-border-patrol-asked-us-to-come-here-/1061390952 https://twitter.com/rockyhorrorrr/status/1118704839192719360 https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1118611477991026688

White House proposed releasing immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities, targeting political foes. The White House believed it could punish Democrats — including Pelosi — by busing ICE detainees into their districts before their release, according to two DHS whistleblowers who independently reported the busing plan to Congress. One of the whistleblowers spoke with The Washington Post, and several DHS officials confirmed the accounts. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller discussed the proposal with ICE, according to two DHS officials. Matthew Albence, who is ICE’s acting deputy director, immediately questioned the proposal in November. “It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out,” said one congressional investigator who has spoken to one of the whistleblowers. “What happened here is that Stephen Miller called people at ICE, said if they’re going to cut funding, you’ve got to make sure you’re releasing people in Pelosi’s district and other congressional districts.” The investigator spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the whistleblower. https://wapo.st/2Ga7ziB

Visiting border, Trump says he could close it in 'a day' “They system is full, can’t take you any more,” Trump said, adding that whether it is “illegal immigration” or “asylum” seekers, the answer is “I’m sorry, we’re full.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437644-visiting-border-trump-says-he-could-close-it-in-a-day

Trump bewilders GOP allies on immigration ahead of border visit. Trump will travel to Calexico, Calif., to tour the border on Friday on a West Coast swing that also includes 2020 campaign fundraising. The White House has not disclosed details of the trip. https://politi.co/2FOVkIq via @politico

FAIR Board Member, Immigration Hardliner Sheriffs Appear With President Trump As He Vetoes Resolution To Block National Emergency - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/03/19/fair-board-member-immigration-hardliner-sheriffs-appear-president-trump-he-vetoes

Why Trump didn’t stop a GOP revolt on his border emergency. The president’s haphazard persuasion efforts led to an embarrassing rebuff on the Senate floor. It was also a reminder that White House aides have long acknowledged the futility of speaking for or negotiating on the president’s behalf, a position they are now openly conveying to lawmakers: passing along his tweets rather than attempting to twist arms or hash out a compromise themselves. https://politi.co/2TOHYVk via @politico

@CBPSanDiego fielding questions about the border wall prototypes demolition and secondary wall project replacing them while another section falls https://twitter.com/10NewsTravis/status/1100835863502581760 @10News

Analysis | Stephen Miller’s claim that ‘thousands of Americans die year after year’ from illegal immigration. But there is no evidence these claims are true. In fact, the available evidence suggests these claims are false. This is a good example about how a paucity of data allows political advocates to jump to conclusions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/21/stephen-millers-claim-that-thousand-americans-die-year-after-year-illegal-immigration/

Demonstrators protest opening of new migrant shelter. Demonstrators gathered at the old San Diego County Family Court Building on 6th Street in Downtown, to protest the opening of a new temporary migrant shelter. "Americans First!" They said it's a reminder of priorities-- Americans or those just passing through. "It's like standing in the line at the grocery store, and somebody pushes you to the back of the line and goes in front. That's what these illegal immigrants are doing," Melinda Oporto of Make California Great Again, said. Oporto told 10News her son was in the military. But when he came back stateside, he became homeless. She expressed her anger as to why special services were being provided to migrants, and not to those who served the Country. https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/demonstrators-protest-opening-of-new-migrant-shelter-in-downtown

‘I Didn’t Need to Do This’ Sums Up the Entire Trump Presidency. Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a southern border wall will be met with fierce Democratic opposition, both legally and in Congress https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-national-emergency-details-795290/ via @RollingStone

Republicans in Bloomfield Hills rally to 'Build the Wall' https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2019/01/26/republicans-bloomfield-hills-rally-build-wall/2689514002/ via @freep

Senate rejects dueling GOP, Democratic bills to end partial government shutdown. The vote was 52-44 on the Democratic bill, with all Democrats voting yes and several Republicans crossing over, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander. Not voting on the bill were Sens. Richard Burr, Rand Paul, James Risch, and Jacky Rosen. https://fxn.ws/2G1CqzL #FoxNews

Fact-checking @realDonaldTrump’s false and misleading immigration claims https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/jan/24/fact-checking-donald-trumps-false-and-misleading-c/ via @PolitiFact

What is the humanitarian crisis at border? Trump calls wall only solution to ‘growing humanitarian crisis’ at border. Trump painted a harrowing picture of danger and death along the U.S.-Mexico border, describing undocumented immigrants as murderers, rapists and drug smugglers and arguing that a steel barrier — for which he is demanding that Congress appropriate $5.7 billion — is the only solution. https://wapo.st/2FgrnD5

TRUMP: "I don't think we have ever seen unity like this in the Republican Party. The media, which I call the opposition party, in coordination with the Democrats, they are not talking about the Democrats folding... I don't think there will be any break away [among Republicans]." https://t.co/x8thr8VsEl Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 10, 2019

To understand Trump’s speech, look at the US-Mexico border as it exists today https://qz.com/1517907/ via @qz

Video of Trump sniffing. Trump doesn't declare a nat'l emergency & concludes by passing the buck: "To Congress, pass a bill that ends this crisis...This is a choice between right & wrong. Justice and injustice. This is about whether we fulfill our sacred duty to protect the American citizens we serve." https://t.co/DJHTkSXVrT @atrupar January 9, 2019

Analysis | Your fact-checking cheat sheet for Trump’s immigration address https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/08/your-fact-checking-cheat-sheet-trumps-immigration-address/

All living former presidents refute Trump's claim they privately voiced support for border wall with Mexico https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-presidents-refute-trump-wall-20190107-story.html

Analysis | Sarah Sanders: Valuing life is ‘what sets America apart from every other country’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/06/sarah-sanders-valuing-life-is-what-sets-america-apart-every-other-country/

Border lawmakers press Trump to beef up existing security https://thehill.com/latino/423974-border-lawmakers-press-trump-to-beef-up-existing-security

Immigration, Undocumented Workers

Stephen Miller indicates immigration pause will be long term: report. According to audio of the call obtained by The Washington Post, Miller said that "the most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor" and that the temporary ban would limit "chains of follow-on migration." Trump's order, signed Wednesday, suspended for 60 days the entry of some green card applicants based abroad. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494572-stephen-miller-indicates-immigration-pause-will-be-long-term-report

"It felt like we were responding to a natural disaster": Inside the chaos following a huge ICE raid https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/ice-workplace-raids-mississippi-tennessee-morristown/ via @MotherJones

CBP Chief Forced To Explain Why ICE Raids Haven’t Targeted Trump’s Companies. Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan on Sunday had to explain why sweeping immigration raids haven’t affected President Donald Trump’s companies despite multiple reports of those companies hiring undocumented immigrants. The Washington Post reported on Friday that even as Trump cracks down on immigration through harsh measures, Trump Organization itself currently has undocumented immigrants working on its construction sites. CNN’s “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper pointed out to Morgan that despite immigration agencies’ major increases in raids, including the ones in Mississippi last week that led to a record 680 arrests, there’ve been “zero raids” at Trump’s businesses. “It seems like you guys are turning a blind eye to this crime being committed by the President’s own companies,” Tapper told Morgan, who recently served as the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency before he was tapped as acting CBP commissioner in July. Morgan said he’s “never known anybody in law enforcement to turn a blind eye to someone that’s committing a crime.” When Tapper commented that it seemed like there haven’t been any investigations into Trump’s companies, the acting CBP commissioner said that “you can’t really say that for sure” because “there are investigations going on all the time that you’re unaware of.” https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cbp-chief-explain-ice-raids-not-targeting-trump-companies via @TPM

US arrests 680 workers in immigration sting before Trump visits El Paso. Operation is largest of its kind in at least a decade and comes after shooting suspect railed against ‘Hispanic invasion’ Workers filled three buses – two for men and one for women – at a Koch Foods plant in the tiny city of Morton, 40 miles (64km) east of Jackson. They were taken to a military hangar to be processed for immigration violations. About 70 family, friends and residents waved goodbye and shouted, “Let them go! Let them go!” Later, two more buses arrived. A tearful 13-year-old boy whose parents are from Guatemala waved goodbye to his mother, a Koch worker, as he stood beside his father. Some employees tried to flee on foot but were captured in the parking lot. Workers who were confirmed to have legal status were allowed to leave the plant after having their trunks searched. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/07/us-arrests-680-workers-in-immigration-sting-before-trump-visits-el-paso

Undocumented workers fired from Donald Trump's golf clubs are now asking to meet with the president, hoping to gain legal status. “You know we are hard workers and that we are not criminals or seeking a free ride in America,” nearly two dozen people wrote in a letter to the president. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/workers-fired-trump-golf-clubs-letter-white-house-meeting_n_5d20b462e4b01b83473789c9

Trump breaks his silence about undocumented immigrants working at his properties. “I don’t know because I don’t run it,” he replied. “But I would say this,” he added. “Probably every club in the United States has that because it seems to be, from what I understand, a way that people did business.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-breaks-his-silence-about-undocumented-immigrants-working-at-his-properties/ via @MotherJones

ICE has held former Trump family driver in detention for 8 months: Zoltan Tamas, 38, of Romania previously worked as a driver for the Trump family and the president’s campaign staff during the 2016 election, according to The New York Times. At the time, Tamas had reportedly been a green card holder since legally immigrating to the country from Romania in 2011. However, Tamas was arrested by immigration authorities after he applied for U.S. citizenship in 2016 and was discovered to have had been convicted in absentia of committing insurance fraud in Romania following a background check, according to the Times. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/436511-a-former-driver-for-the-trump-family-has-been-in-ice-detention

Did you hear that? It sounded like a twig snapping behind us. The Washington Post published an important, moving story on Wednesday about an undocumented immigrant named Juan Quintero who was employed by the Trump family for years—working particularly closely with Eric Trump at an upstate New York hunting property he co-owns with his brother, Don Jr.—but has now been laid off, seemingly for the sake of political optics, and left unable to support his family. It’s the latest in a series of reports that make clear that the Trumps were happy until very recently to systematically exploit the low cost of undocumented labor when it suited them, even as they complained publicly that illegal immigration is an infestation that is ruining America. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/trump-sons-hunting-preserve-run-now-before-its-too-late.html via @slate

Second undocumented worker says he worked directly for Eric Trump: report https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/432897-second-undocumented-worker-says-he-worked-directly-for-eric

Worker fired from Trump golf course says Trump must have known undocumented people were employed https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/427196-worker-fired-from-trump-golf-course-says-trump-knew-undocumented

Run-up to War

Al Qaeda leader taken out by 'secret' US missile filled with knives dubbed the 'ninja bomb’. The journey of two senior al-Qaeda aligned commanders in northwestern Syria on Sunday was suddenly cut short by a targeted U.S.-led strike – only it doesn't appear that they were killed by explosives, but a missile packed with knives. Video of the aftermath circulating on social media shows that the vehicle of the terrorist leaders – Jordanian Qassam ul-Urdini and Yemeni Bilal al-Sanaani – was mostly untouched, with just one side severed and the roof smashed in, prompting defense analysts to point to the use of a "secret" missile jointly developed by both the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It is a variation of the Hellfire anti-tank missile, referred to as the R9X, and internally called the "Flying Ginsu" or the "ninja bomb," and it just might drastically shape the way war is waged given its exactitude and subsequent ability to vastly reduce the risk of collateral damage and civilian casualties. One occasion was in a January 2019 strike on a Taliban commander in Kunduz, Afghanistan. That same month, Jamal al-Badawi – alleged to have been the mastermind behind the attack of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port 20 years ago – was similarly neutralized. Two years earlier, Al Qaeda top brass Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri was targeted using the R9X in Syria's Idlib province, WSJ reported. "Some analysts allege that the Hellfire R9X was used in Iraq in a deadly display of its effectiveness this January against Qassem Soleimani – the former Commander of Iran's IRGC Quds-Force, and Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former Commander of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq," Taleblu surmised. "One lasting impact of that strike is how removing the leadership cadre can handicap or hinder efforts of a larger organization. We are likely to see continued use of this weapon in U.S. counterterrorism campaigns to target leaders on the battlefield.​“ https://fxn.ws/2BdgIZ4

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This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution. And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator. — House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) https://twitter.com/HouseForeign/status/1213953699371982853

Navy plans first new Pearl Harbor dry dock since World War II. A surge in demand for attack submarines and the lengthening of Virginia-class subs to carry more missiles has the Navy examining building its first new dry dock at Pearl Harbor since World War II or creating a 650-foot floating dry dock to better maintain its Pacific-based undersea fleet. https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/navy-plans-first-new-pearl-harbor-dry-dock-since-world-war-ii-1.612339

Russia, China are the most pressing threats to ill-prepared US, report says. In its annual assessment of the U.S. military, the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, which wields influence with the Trump administration, said Russia and China showed “aggressive” behavior toward U.S. vital interests in 2018. But Russia was deemed the more urgent threat, due not only to frequent disinformation and hacking campaigns that are tied to the Kremlin but also because of its “formidable” and growing military capabilities. The Heritage Foundation ranks two categories – behavior and capability – in its annual assessment. “Aggressive” is the second-highest ranking in the behavior category, and “formidable” is the highest under capability. “From the Arctic to the Baltics, Ukraine, and the South Caucasus, and increasingly in the Mediterranean, Russia continues to foment instability in Europe,” the report said. “Its aggressive stance in a number of theaters, including the Balkans, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, continues both to encourage destabilization and to threaten U.S. interests,” it said. https://www.stripes.com/news/russia-china-are-the-most-pressing-threats-to-ill-prepared-us-report-says-1.605967

Tired of Winning: Trump Surrenders Northern Syria to Turkish Jihadists. It’s unreal how much damage and death Trump can cause with the drop of a single tweet. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-syria-kurds-turkey-isis-898524/ via @RollingStone

Iran mocks Pompeo’s offers to visit https://politi.co/2GDs4pg via @politico

US and Europe pursuing sharply different plans for patrols in the Persian Gulf. As tensions rise, the exact mandate remains uncertain, with two separate and possibly competing plans — one led by the United States and one led by Europe — under discussion. https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/us-and-europe-pursuing-sharply-different-plans-for-patrols-in-the-persian-gulf-1.591662

Drones watch every US ship in the Gulf, Iran navy chief claims. A fleet of drones has allowed Iran to watch every U.S. ship in the Persian Gulf region and develop an archive of their daily movements, Iran's top naval commander said in an interview published on Tuesday. https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/drones-watch-every-us-ship-in-the-gulf-iran-navy-chief-claims-1.591500

Trump: I could win Afghanistan war 'in a week'. “I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth,” the president continued. “It would be gone. It would be over in — literally in ten days. And I don't want to do that. I don't want to go that route.” https://politi.co/2JKa2TX

UK must look after its own ships in the Gulf, says Pompeo. US secretary of state’s comment reflects tensions with UK over Iran nuclear deal. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/22/uk-must-look-after-its-own-ships-in-the-gulf-says-pompeo

Navy ship shoots down Iranian drone over Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Boxer used “counter-drone jamming equipment” to take down the drone, according to a CNN report citing a U.S. official. https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/navy-ship-shoots-down-iranian-drone-over-strait-of-hormuz-1.590959

Mike Pence says West Point grads should expect to see combat. Vice President Mike Pence told the most diverse graduating class in the history of the U.S. Military Academy on Saturday that the world is "a dangerous place" and they should expect to see combat. "Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said. Pence congratulated the West Point graduates on behalf of President Donald Trump, and told them, "As you accept the mantle of leadership I promise you, your commander in chief will always have your back. President Donald Trump is the best friend the men and women of our armed forces will ever have." https://www.stripes.com/news/army/mike-pence-says-west-point-grads-should-expect-to-see-combat-1.583002

Satellite Images Raise Questions About Iran Threat, Experts Say. More than a thousand American troops are headed to the region, but questions about the threat persist. https://www.thedailybeast.com/satellite-images-raise-questions-about-iran-threat-experts-say

Trump officials brief a divided Congress on escalating tensions with Iran. Lawmakers were sharply divided Tuesday over whether Iran poses an imminent threat to U.S. interests or the Trump administration is exaggerating intelligence to lay the groundwork for war. Top administration officials briefed the House and Senate in two closed-door sessions for all members, presenting evidence that Iran may be poised to attack U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the Middle East. But some Democrats said that none of the information showed Iran was appreciably more of a threat now than in the past, and they accused the administration of being ready to attack at the slightest provocation. https://wapo.st/2QbZe2E

Iran hits back at Trump for tweeting 'genocidal taunts'. “Goaded by #B_Team,” Zarif wrote on Twitter, in an apparent reference to Trump advisers such as John Bolton, “@realdonaldTrump hopes to achieve what Alexander, Genghis & other aggressors failed to do. Iranians have stood tall for millennia while aggressors all gone. #EconomicTerrorism & genocidal taunts won’t ‘end Iran’.” He added: “#NeverThreatenAnIranian. Try respect – it works!” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/iran-trump-tweet-genocidal-taunts

It Sure Looks Like the Trump Administration Is Preparing for War With Iran https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-administration-preparing-for-war-with-iran-835116/ via @RollingStone

Coalition officer says no rise in Iran threat in Iraq, Syria; CENTCOM disputes claim https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/coalition-officer-says-no-rise-in-iran-threat-in-iraq-syria-centcom-disputes-claim-1.580964

Saudi Arabia says its oil pipeline was attacked by drones https://apnews.com/63d729241e0645539dad32f57de7bc95

Military, War, Russian Bounties

Their names were Staff Sgt. Christopher K.A. Slutman, Cpl. Robert Hendriks, and Sgt. Benjamin S. Hines. Their families deserve to know if the Russians had anything to do with their deaths, or any other US servicemembers. https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1287410583801929730

Hero or murderer? Soldiers divided in 1LT Lorance case. Shortly after the soldiers from 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment set out on patrol from Strong Point Payenzai, Afghanistan, a motorcycle carrying three Afghan men came into view. Pfc. James Skelton reported the sighting to 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, his new platoon leader. "He told me to engage," Skelton said, according to the transcript from Lorance's court-martial. Skelton fired two shots. He missed. The motorcycle came to a stop, the men climbed off and began walking towards the Afghan National Army soldiers who were at the front of the U.S.-Afghan patrol. "The ANA started telling them to go back, waving to them to return towards the motorcycle, to stay away," Skelton testified. "They turned around and went back towards the motorcycle." Within seconds, two of them were dead. The third man ran away. A gun truck that was accompanying the soldiers on foot had opened fire with its M240B machine gun. "He was told to engage by Lieutenant Lorance when they had a visual," Skelton testified. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2015/01/12/hero-or-murderer-soldiers-divided-in-1lt-lorance-case/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/clint-lorance-platoon-afghanistan/

Russia did pay extremists to attack US soldiers in Afghanistan, according to 3 separate Taliban sources. Taliban commanders have confirmed that Russia has offered financial and material support to its members in exchange for attacking US forces in Afghanistan. The practice was first reported on Friday by The New York Times, which cited US intelligence officials. President Donald Trump has since strongly denied that he was told of this intelligence and attacked its credibility, characterizing the existence of Russian bounty payments as fake. But three separate Taliban sources told Insider they were aware of Russian bounty payments being made — though they said only the less-disciplined elements on the fringes of the group would take up such an offer. https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-did-pay-extremists-attack-american-soldiers-taliban-sources-say-2020-7

Russian bounties to Taliban-linked militants resulted in deaths of U.S. troops, according to intelligence assessments. The intelligence was passed up from the U.S. Special Operations forces based in Afghanistan and led to a restricted high-level White House meeting in late March, the people said. The disturbing intelligence — which the CIA was tasked with reviewing, and later confirmed — generated disagreement about the appropriate path forward, a senior U.S. official said. The administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, preferred confronting the Russians directly about the matter, while some National Security Council officials in charge of Russia were more dismissive of taking immediate action, the official said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russian-bounties-to-taliban-linked-militants-resulted-in-deaths-of-us-troops-according-to-intelligence-assessments/2020/06/28/74ffaec2-b96a-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html

Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says. The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment. American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter. The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year. Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion. The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said. Though Russia declared the Taliban a terrorist organization in 2003, relations between them have been warming in recent years. Taliban officials have traveled to Moscow for peace talks with other prominent Afghans, including the former president, Hamid Karzai. The talks have excluded representatives from the current Afghan government as well as anyone from the United States, and at times they have seemed to work at crosscurrents with American efforts to bring an end to the conflict. The disclosure comes at a time when Mr. Trump has said he would invite Mr. Putin to an expanded meeting of the Group of 7 nations, but tensions between American and Russian militaries are running high. In several recent episodes, in international territory and airspace from off the coast of Alaska to the Black and Mediterranean Seas, combat planes from each country have scrambled to intercept military aircraft from the other. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html

Military bases named for Confederates: Renaming suggestions from military historians. Despite President Donald Trump’s opposition, momentum is growing to rename 10 military bases that have long been named for Confederate figures. The bases got their names mainly during World War I and World War II, when military officials, under pressure to mobilize larger forces, erected bases in the South and yielded to local politicians’ preferences for names. Military historians offered a long list of potential replacement names, from top generals to African American military pioneers. https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jun/16/military-bases-named-confederates-renaming-suggest/

At West Point, Trump stresses unity, nation's core values. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/at-west-point-trump-stresses-unity-nation-s-core-values-1.633631

President Trump on Saturday addressed the graduating class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, telling them they are the “bravest of the brave” and hailing the durability of America’s institutions “against the passions and prejudices of the moment.” "To the eleven hundred and seven cadets who today become the newest officers in the most exceptional Army ever to take the field of battle, I am here to offer America’s salute. Thank you for answering your nation’s call,” he said. “What has historically made America unique is the durability of its institutions against the passions and prejudices of the moment. When times are turbulent, when the road is rough, what matters most is that which is permanent, timeless, enduring and eternal,” he said. "We are ending the era of endless wars. In its place is a renewed, clear-eyed focus on defending America’s vital interests. It is not the duty of U.S. troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never even heard of," he said. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-west-point-graduates-america

West Point grads raise concerns about politicization of military, urge Class of 2020 to uphold ideals. “This oath has no expiration date,” says the letter, published on Medium.com just days before President Donald Trump is slated to speak to the current graduating class on Saturday. “Oaths are solemn, public promises with significant meaning and moral gravity. When they are broken, the nation suffers.” The post has been signed by over 350 graduates calling themselves Concerned Members of the Long Gray Line, representing nearly 50 classes from 1964 to 2017. Their service spans several presidential administrations. The group writes that its concern is about principle, not party, but it is clear rebuke of West Point alumni serving in the Trump administration. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/west-point-grads-raise-concerns-about-politicization-of-military-urge-class-of-2020-to-uphold-ideals-1.633448

After photo op debacle, Pentagon leaders try to regroup. The Pentagon’s top two leaders, after stumbling last week in their response to racial unrest across the country, are now actively pushing back against their commander in chief in their renewed quest to keep politics out of the military. But in distancing themselves from their boss, both are risking their jobs as the Pentagon faces a crisis in public confidence not seen in decades. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley on Thursday broke his silence on the murder of George Floyd and military leadership’s handling of peaceful demonstrations over racial injustice and police violence that swept the nation in past weeks. He expressed his regret for walking with President Donald Trump across Lafayette Square for a photo op on June 1 after authorities forcefully cleared the area of protesters. In a prerecorded video commencement address to National Defense University, Milley called the appearance a "mistake.” "I should not have been there," said Milley. "As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.” Two days after that incident, Esper addressed reporters at the Pentagon, distanced himself from the photo op and said he was against deploying active-duty troops to handle civic unrest, something Trump had threatened to do. This account of the days following the photo op and the tension with the White House that followed is drawn from interviews with nine officials in the Pentagon and the White House, along with four people close to the discussions over the past two weeks, many of whom have been critical of Milley and Esper’s actions. Since Trump’s walk to St. John's Episcopal Church and all the criticism that came after it, Milley and Esper now find themselves with the unenviable task of not only trying to restore America’s confidence in its armed forces, but of also managing the Pentagon’s frayed relationship with the White House. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/mark-milley-trump-church-walk-313074

These are the Army bases named for Confederates. Here are the 10 Army bases named after Confederate generals. After some high-profile generals floated the idea of renaming Army bases named after Confederate generals, President Trump said that his administration would “not even consider” such legislation. Those comments came after it was learned U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy will seek bipartisan support to change the names of the 10 Army bases named after confederates after protests against police brutality and racial injustice have given them new spotlight. An Army spokesperson told Politico that Defense Secretary Mark Esper also supports the decision. Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus penned an opinion piece for The Atlantic saying, “it is time to remove the names of traitors like Benning and Bragg from our country’s most important military bases.” “The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention,” Petraeus wrote. But President Trump tweeted Wednesday: “These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,” Trump tweeted. “Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!” https://fxn.ws/2zrgkWs

  1. Fort Benning, Georgia
  2. Fort Bragg, North Carolina
  3. Fort Hood, Texas
  4. Fort Lee, Virginia
  5. Fort Gordon, Georgia
  6. Fort Polk, Louisiana
  7. Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia
  8. Fort Pickett, Virginia
  9. Fort Rucker, Alabama
  10. Camp Beauregard, Louisiana

It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military! note: Fort Bragg is named for the confederate commander Braxton Bragg who, along with being a proponent of slavery, is characterized by many historians as one of the Civil War’s worst generals, notable for his poor military tactics. Trump’s reference to “winning, victory, and freedom” also struck an apparently unintended note of irony, given that Bragg and the other Confederate generals fighting for states that seceded from the U.S. ultimately lost the war in which they sought to keep Blacks from being free. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-renaming-confederate-military-bases_n_5ee13407c5b6495f42efb5cb

Attack on Afghanistan maternity clinic kills 14, including infants. KABUL, Afghanistan — Fourteen civilians were killed and at least 15 were wounded when assailants attacked a maternity clinic in a Kabul hospital Tuesday, setting off a battle as Afghan police rescued dozens of mothers and newborns while under fire. Two newborns were among the dead, and the rest were women, officials said. By early afternoon, special operations police had killed all three assailants and rescued more than 100 people, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Aryan said in a statement, calling the attack “a crime against humanity.” Photos released by the Interior Ministry showed police carrying infants wrapped in towels and blankets, some of them blood-soaked, followed by their mothers as they fled the hospital, where international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders runs the maternity clinic. https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/attack-on-afghanistan-maternity-clinic-kills-14-including-infants-1.629386

Taliban says it’s walking away from talks with government over prisoner release https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/taliban-says-it-s-walking-away-from-talks-with-government-over-prisoner-release-1.625123

Defense chief admits he 'didn't see' evidence for Trump claim that Iran planned embassy attacks https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-12/trump-iran-general-us-embassies-targeted-suleimani

Afghanistan: Remembering the fallen of 2019 https://www.stripes.com/news/afghanistan-remembering-the-fallen-of-2019-1.613124

Anguish and Anger From the Navy SEALs Who Turned In Edward Gallagher. Video interviews and group texts obtained by The Times show men describing their platoon leader in grim terms. https://nyti.ms/2EU91FB

Navy proposes cutting future production of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers by 40%. The OMB memo pertains to what’s known as the Future Years Defense Program, which covers federal fiscal years 2021 through 2025, which begin Oct. 1, 2020 and end Sept. 30, 2025. It says the Navy has proposed buying a total of 42 warships over the five-year period at a cost of $111.8 billion, which would result in a reduction of 12 battle-force ships and $9.4 billion in funding for shipbuilding compared with President Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/navy-proposes-cutting-future-production-of-arleigh-burke-class-destroyers-by-40-1.612597

Russia's most advanced fighter jet crashes during training mission, pilot survives. The Su-57, which made its maiden flight in 2010, is Russia's most advanced fighter plane. It has stealth capability and carries sophisticated equipment and weapons. The twin-engine aircraft has been designed by the Sukhoi company to compete with the U.S. F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/russia-s-most-advanced-fighter-jet-crashes-during-training-mission-pilot-survives-1.612304

Military expert warns support for Trump in the US armed forces is ‘downright cult-like’ — and creating frightening divisions within the ranks https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/military-expert-warns-support-for-trump-in-the-us-armed-forces-is-downright-cult-like-and-creating-frightening-divisions-within-the-ranks/

If Trump’s Rage Brings ‘Civil War,’ Where Will the Military Stand? The moment may come when soldiers have to choose between the Constitution and Donald Trump. No doubt most will embrace the Constitution. But some will see that as a tough call. The gulf between the civilian world and the military has been growing since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—wars that have touched more American families than at any time since Vietnam. Vietnam created a huge cultural divide in the U.S. that Richard Nixon successfully exploited, earning him one of the largest electoral victories in American history. But something more sinister may be afoot as we approach the 2020 election. Trump has done what Nixon ultimately could not do. He has, so far, avoided real accountability to Congress. He has successfully blurred the lines between lies and truth in the minds of the American public. He has undermined the institutions that have kept the U.S. safe since World War ll. The extent of the visceral hatred much of the military feels for Democrats, the “deep state” and the “fake news media” is a new phenomenon. The belief that there is indeed a coup being orchestrated against President Trump is a weapon Trump has in his arsenal, depending how far down the road to authoritarianism he decides to go. But Trump would need to deeply fracture the military first, and that is something to watch for. Most members of the armed forces are honorable, patriotic Americans who would never take part in such a scheme, despite their support for Trump. But a significant portion just might. https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-trumps-rage-brings-civil-war-where-will-the-military-stand

Here's What We Saw At China’s Gigantic Military Parade https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-what-we-saw-at-china-s-gigantic-military-parade-1838676610

Trump wants Gallagher trial prosecutors stripped of medals. President Donald Trump says he's directed the secretary of the Navy and chief of naval operations to "immediately withdraw and rescind" the Navy Achievement Medal from prosecutors who argued the case against a decorated Navy SEAL. Military jurors this month acquitted Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher in the death of a wounded Islamic State captive under his care in Iraq. Trump is complaining in a series of tweets that "Prosecutors who lost the case against SEAL Eddie Gallagher.... were ridiculously given" the medal. He says he's directed the navy chiefs "to immediately withdraw and rescind the awards." https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/trump-wants-gallagher-trial-prosecutors-stripped-of-medals

Do We Even Remember the Afghan War? | Opinion https://www.newsweek.com/do-we-remember-afghanistan-war-vietnam-1450064

America is woefully unprepared for cyber warfare, experts say https://www.stripes.com/news/us/america-is-woefully-unprepared-for-cyber-warfare-experts-say-1.590354

Trump Keeps Talking About the Last Military Standoff With Iran — Here’s What Really Happened https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-keeps-talking-about-last-military-standoff-iran-what-really-happened-farsi-island-navy

Pentagon spent $1.2 million to support 'Salute to America' event on July Fourth https://www.stripes.com/news/us/pentagon-spent-1-2-million-to-support-salute-to-america-event-on-july-fourth-1.589627

Pentagon Keeps Trump in the Dark About its Cyber Attacks on Russia. “Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place ‘implants’ — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid. “Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.” New laws, enacted by Congress last year, allow such “clandestine military activity” in cyberspace to go ahead without the president’s approval. So, in this case, those new laws are protecting American interests… by keeping the sitting president out of the loop. What a (scary) time to be alive. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pentagon-trump-cyber-attacks-on-russia-848695/ via @RollingStone

Trump says transgender people banned from military over drug use. The military doesn't prohibit service members from taking prescription medicines, including drugs prescribed for conditions such as depression and anxiety. The Navy, in fact, changed its policy late last year to allow pilots and other aircrew on such drugs to continue flying.Medical services specific to transgender people cost the military about $8 million between 2016 and February of this year, according to the Defense Department. About 1,525 troops had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria since July 1, 2016, when Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, lifted a military ban on transgender people openly serving and allowed them to seek medical treatment. Total military spending for health care was estimated to be about $44 billion in fiscal 2018, according to the Pentagon's comptroller. https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/trump-says-transgender-people-banned-from-military-over-drug-use-1.584661

Trump on Vietnam: Despite deferments, he’d have been ‘honored’ to serve https://wapo.st/2Inj4V5

The Pentagon has told the White House that the U.S. military will not be politicized, a U.S. official said on Sunday, in response to a controversy after officials directed the United States Navy to keep the USS John S. McCain out of sight during a recent speech by President Donald Trump in Japan. https://reut.rs/2QGm96E

McCain warship incident raises questions about a changing military culture under Trump https://wapo.st/2MfFUTH

Navy looking into 'Make Aircrew Great Again' patches sailors wore during Trump visit https://www.stripes.com/navy-looking-into-make-aircrew-great-again-patches-sailors-wore-during-trump-visit-1.583498

California congressman defends war crimes suspect. “Eddie did one bad thing that I’m guilty of too: Taking a picture of the body and saying something stupid,” the California Republican said at a border-issues forum in Ramona, Calif., according to the Times of San Diego. https://politi.co/2wkVPFs

The Army asked how serving the country impacted military members. They received devastating stories in return. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-army-memorial-day-tweet-replies-from-vets_n_5ce9db97e4b0512156f28f38

These potential Trump pardons represent a potential existential threat to the military justice system. In order to better understand how to think about this controversial decision, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the country’s leading veterans empowerment organization representing the post-9/11 generation of veterans, decided to ask its members about the pardons. A Marine veteran myself, I serve as IAVA’s director of communications and legal strategy. In a flash poll conducted this week, over 1,600 member veterans and military service members responded, from all different occupational specialties and across various services. Eleven percent of respondents are currently serving on active duty or in the National Guard or Reserves. While the majority of respondents disagreed with the president’s pardons (52 percent), a significant portion (40 percent) agree with the president’s pardons to service members who have already been convicted of war crimes. For those awaiting trial, the numbers are similar: 54 percent disagreed with the president’s pardons, and 37 percent agreed with them. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-war-crimes-pardon-memorial-day-veteran-response.html via @slate

Retired admiral who led raid that killed bin Laden cautions Trump on pardoning servicemen https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444687-retired-admiral-who-led-raid-that-killed-bin-laden-cautions-trump-on

Trump may pardon US soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes – report https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/18/trump-pardon-us-soldiers-war-crimes-new-york-times

Trump may pardon US soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes – report https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/18/trump-pardon-us-soldiers-war-crimes-new-york-times

Cruz warns 'Space Force' needed to prevent space pirates. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said this week that it was important to fund President Trump's proposed "Space Force" in order to prevent possible space pirates. “Since the ancient Greeks first put to sea, nations have recognized the necessity of naval forces and maintaining a superior capability to protect waterborne travel and commerce from bad actors,” Cruz, the chairman of the subcommittee on aviation and space, said at a hearing Tuesday. “Pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space. In this same way, I believe we too must now recognize the necessity of a Space Force to defend the nation and to protect space commerce and civil space exploration,” Cruz said. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/443923-ted-cruz-says-space-force-is-necessary-to-prevent-space-pirates

Trump pardons former US soldier who killed Iraqi prisoner. Trump signed an executive grant of clemency, a full pardon, for former Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, of Oklahoma, press secretary Sarah Sanders said. Behenna was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone after killing a suspected al-Qaida terrorist in Iraq. He was paroled in 2014 and had been scheduled to remain on parole until 2024. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-pardons-former-us-soldier-who-killed-iraqi-prisoner-1.579943

How Erik Prince used the rise of Trump to make an improbable comeback. An examination of Prince’s time working with the UAE in particular reveals suspicious financial transactions at a moment when his personal finances were under stress and his mercenary ventures were failing. The picture that emerges is one of a man desperately trying to avoid U.S. tax and weapons trafficking laws even as he offers military services, without a license, in no fewer than 15 countries around the world. https://interc.pt/2Jd7L3Q by @matthewacole

When it comes to counting dead civilians, the Pentagon has its own math. The Pentagon acknowledged killing 120 civilians last year in four countries, according to a report submitted to Congress on Thursday. The figure falls far short of estimates determined by nongovernmental organizations and advocacy groups, and suggests the US military is not close to accurately accounting for the toll of its military ventures abroad. “These numbers simply are not credible,” Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLUs National Security Project, said in a statement. “As the Trump administration doubles down on the secrecy of its killing of civilians abroad, Congress needs to continue exercising its oversight power.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/when-it-comes-to-counting-dead-civilians-the-pentagon-has-its-own-math/ via @MotherJones

Trump wants Germany, Japan and others to pay full cost plus a premium for US troops, report says https://www.stripes.com/news/trump-wants-germany-japan-and-others-to-pay-full-cost-plus-a-premium-for-us-troops-report-says-1.571839

Immigrant recruits face more scrutiny than white supremacists when they enlist https://www.stripes.com/news/us/immigrant-recruits-face-more-scrutiny-than-white-supremacists-when-they-enlist-1.569696

Foreign Policy

Pompeo whistleblower complaint reveals ongoing inquiry over ‘questionable activities’. A whistleblower complaint from a State Department employee about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s conduct, made public for the first time through a lawsuit and obtained by McClatchy, reveals that eyewitnesses made repeated attempts to inform executive leadership and legal advisers about his “questionable activities.” The whistleblower said they had additional evidence to back up their allegations against Pompeo, according to a redacted complaint to the State Department inspector general’s hotline. The complainant said concerned parties were “blocked” from reporting the activity to the department’s Office of Legal Affairs. “I directly witnessed much of the behavior,” the whistleblower wrote. Others, the complaint states, “tried on several occasions to obtain clarifications and guidance from senior leadership in [the executive secretariat] and from the Office of Legal Advisors, but were blocked from doing so.” Testifying before Congress last month, Linick confirmed that his office had been investigating whether Pompeo and his wife, Susan, had been conducting personal business on government time, as well as his involvement in a questionable arms sale to Saudi Arabia, before the inspector general was fired May 15. While Linick declined to discuss details of the investigation, he acknowledged that one inquiry was examining the Pompeos’ use of a political appointee to run personal errands. He told lawmakers that he faced internal pressure from aides to the secretary to end the inquiries.“I think the Florida datapoint is incredibly interesting,” Evers said. “There were reports that the secretary made a visit to the Villages in Florida to meet with a high-powered Republican donor.” https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article244328882.html

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article244328882.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article244328882.html#storylink=cpy

Sec. Mike Pompeo: "I'm leaning on my faith each and every day to help me try to get it right." https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1284861803835473921

Foreign foes taking advantage of divide over race, national security adviser says. On Saturday night, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio — the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee — tweeted that he was seeing “very heavy” social media activity on nationwide demonstrations and counter reactions linked to at least three foreign adversaries. “They didn’t create these divisions. But they are actively stoking & promoting violence & confrontation from multiple angles,” he wrote. On ABC’s “This Week,” O’Brien said that was “spot on.” He said he saw tweets from the Chinese taking pleasure and solace in the chaos in America. He also mentioned Zimbabwe and Iran. The national security adviser defended President Donald Trump, who has been accused of inciting violence with his tweets. He blamed far-left groups and Antifa for inciting much of the violence and said the “bad apples” in police departments should be removed, condemning Derek Chauvin — the white Minneapolis officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck — and the three officers who stood by. O’Brien promised Chauvin would be investigated and prosecuted with a fair trial. He added that he “can’t imagine” the other officers wouldn’t be charged. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/31/obrien-foreign-foes-racial-unrest-292147

Killing of ISIS leader has not hurt group's operations, says Iraqi Kurdish prime minister. Iraqi Kurdistan's prime minister says the U.S. killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has not affected the extremist group's ability to operate and is warning that the militants are resurgent. Masrour Barzani, also the region's security chief, said that the organization is "regrouping" and mounting attacks in northern and western Iraq. He spoke Saturday to The Washington Post on the sidelines of a security summit in the southern German city of Munich, where he said he had reiterated Kurdish concerns to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when they met a day earlier. "His killing has not weakened the ability of ISIS to operate," Barzani said, using an acronym for the militant group, pointing to the ability of local cells to operate independently of the central leadership. "They have not stopped recruiting more people, they have not stopped attacking," he added. https://www.stripes.com/killing-of-isis-leader-has-not-hurt-group-s-operations-says-iraqi-kurdish-prime-minister-1.618962

After interview, Pompeo cursed at reporter, yelled: 'Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?' She said he used the F-word and "many others" when he asking her if Americans cared about Ukraine. He then asked her if she could find Ukraine on a map. "I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine," she recounted. Pompeo then said: "'People will hear about this.'" https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/24/npr-mike-pompeo-dropped-f-bomb-after-being-questioned-ukraine/4569387002/ via @usatoday

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_sovereign_states_by_GDP

Vladimir Putin: Russia has edge in new weapons.“Now we have a situation that is unique in modern history when they are trying to catch up to us,” he said. Putin said that the first unit equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle is set to go on duty this month, while the air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missiles already have entered service. The Russian leader first mentioned the Avangard and the Kinzhal among other prospective weapons systems in his state-of-the-nation address in March 2018. Putin said then that the Avangard has an intercontinental range and can fly in the atmosphere at a speed 20 times the speed of sound. He noted that the weapon’s ability to change both its course and its altitude en route to a target makes it immune to interception by the the enemy. “It’s a weapon of the future, capable of penetrating both existing and prospective missile defense systems,” Putin said Tuesday. The Kinzhal, which is carried by MiG-31 fighter jets, entered service with the Russian air force last year. Putin has said that the missile flies 10 times faster than the speed of sound, has a range of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) and can carry a nuclear or a conventional warhead. The military said it’s capable of hitting both land targets and navy ships. The United States and other countries also have worked on designing hypersonic weapons, but they haven’t entered service yet. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported Tuesday that the military this year has received 143 warplanes and helicopters, 624 armored vehicles, a submarine and eight surface warships. He said that the modernization of Russia’s arsenals will continue at the same rapid pace next year, with 22 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 106 new aircraft, 565 armored vehicles, three submarines and 14 surface ships to enter duty. Putin noted that the work to develop other prospective weapons, including the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater drone and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile was going according to plan. The Burevestnik has stoked particular controversy. The U.S. and the Soviet Union worked on nuclear-powered rocket engines during the Cold War, but they eventually spiked those projects considering them to be too hazardous. The Burevestnik reportedly suffered an explosion in August during tests at a Russian navy range on the White Sea, killing five nuclear engineers and two servicemen and resulting in a brief spike in radioactivity that fueled radiation fears in a nearby city. Russian officials never named the weapon involved in the incident, but the U.S. said it was the Burevestnik. https://politi.co/37cWM3n via @politico

Kremlin relishes US pullback from Syria, turmoil in Ukraine. In Syria, the U.S. military withdrawal leaves Russia as the ultimate power broker, allowing it to help negotiate a potential agreement between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Kurds who were abandoned by Washington. And in Ukraine, where Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian turned president, has found himself drawn into the U.S. political battles, Russia may use the volatility to push for a deal that would secure its leverage over its western neighbor. https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/kremlin-relishes-us-pullback-from-syria-turmoil-in-ukraine-1.602921

The president threatened a serving State Department official during his July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president. “She’s going to go through some things,” Trump said of the country's former ambassador.“She’s going to go through some things,” Trump said of Marie Yovanovitch, a veteran foreign service officer who served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until May of this year. She departed from her post months earlier than expected after conservative media outlets and Donald Trump Jr. accused her of being part of an alleged Ukrainian attempt to support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-threatened-an-american-serving-her-country-as-he-pressured-ukraine_n_5d8b9602e4b0c6d0cef53903

Bolton unloads on Trump’s foreign policy behind closed doors. The recently fired national security adviser made little secret of his disagreements with the president. John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s fired national security adviser, harshly criticized Trump’s foreign policy on Wednesday at a private lunch, saying that inviting the Taliban to Camp David sent a “terrible signal” and that it was “disrespectful” to the victims of 9/11 because the Taliban had harbored al Qaeda. Bolton also said that any negotiations with North Korea and Iran were “doomed to failure,” according to two attendees. https://politi.co/2IdpXcg

Plan for Taliban meeting latest bold Trump gamble to unravel. Trump’s secret plan for high-level meetings at the presidential retreat in Maryland resembled other bold, unorthodox foreign policy initiatives — with North Korea, China and Iran — that the president has pursued that have yet to bear fruit. Trump’s three high-profile meetings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — including the president’s recent brief footsteps onto North Korean soil — prompted deep unease from many quarters, including his conservative base in Congress. And while the meetings produced the ready-for-television visuals that Trump is known to relish, negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled for months with no tangible progress in getting the North to abandon its nuclear weapons. https://apnews.com/bf2b42d5e86d466ab5f434d0f646bc72

Fox News' Chris Wallace Grills Mike Pompeo On Taliban Invite: ‘Who Thought It Was A Good Idea?’. The Fox News host questioned President Donald Trump’s attempt to host Taliban leaders at Camp David just days before the anniversary of 9/11. The secretary of state said the White House had reflected on the “history of Camp David” and felt it was “perfectly appropriate” to extend the invitation to the Taliban leadership. The Taliban, an Islamic militant group in Afghanistan, recently reiterated its support for the 9/11 attacks. “President Trump ultimately made the decision,” Pompeo said of the Camp David invite. “He said, ‘I want to talk to [Afghan President Ashraf Ghani], I want to talk to these Taliban negotiators, I want to look them in the eye.’” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-wallace-mike-pompeo-taliban_n_5d7527dce4b07521022e4081

Trump administration wants to 'reset' relations with EU. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wants to "reset" Donald Trump's relationship with the EU, U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland told POLITICO on Monday. Pompeo, Trump's chief diplomat, arrives in Brussels Monday for a quick two-day visit, in which he will meet European Parliament President David Sassoli and the EU's incoming leadership team: Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen, Council President-elect Charles Michel, and the nominee for foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell. But in a sign of how strained relations have become between Washington and Brussels over an array of issues, including Iran, trade and climate change, Pompeo will not see any of the EU leaders currently in office. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker serves until November 1 and Council President Donald Tusk until December 1. https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-administration-wants-to-reset-relations-with-eu/

Bolton sidelined from Afghanistan policy as his standing with Trump falters. As the president's top aides prepared for a high-stakes meeting on the future of Afghanistan earlier this month, one senior official was not on the original invite list: national security adviser John Bolton. The attendance of the top security aide would normally be critical, but the omission was no mistake, senior U.S. officials said. Bolton, who has long advocated an expansive military presence around the world, has become a staunch internal foe of an emerging peace deal aimed at ending America's longest war, the officials said. His opposition to the diplomatic effort in Afghanistan has irritated President Trump, these officials said, and led aides to leave the National Security Council out of sensitive discussions about the agreement. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/bolton-sidelined-from-afghanistan-policy-as-his-standing-with-trump-falters-1.596737

North Korea berates Pompeo, says hopes for talks fading. A senior North Korean diplomat on Saturday berated Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over his comments describing North Korean behavior as “rogue” and warned that Pyongyang’s hopes for talks with Washington are fading. In a statement carried by state media, North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said Pompeo’s “thoughtless” comments increased North Korean people’s animosity toward Americans and made it harder for working-level nuclear dialogue between the countries to resume. https://politi.co/2ZKCWwk

How nations are starting to behave as if the United States isn’t there anymore. after two and a half years, this attitude has become more than a mere annoyance: It is beginning to change national behavior around the world. Nations are starting to act almost as if the United States isn’t there—or if it is, mainly as a hindrance. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/09/america-ignored-trump-mediate-kashmir-dispute/

The British ambassador to the U.S. reportedly describes an "inept" Donald Trump in leaked memos. Sir Kim Darroch reportedly described Trump as “inept” and at risk of ending his presidency in “disgrace.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/british-ambassador-leaked-memo-inept-trump_n_5d212ed0e4b01b834737dbfe

New White House press secretary roughed up in scuffle with North Korean guards: report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/451048-new-white-house-press-secretary-roughed-up-in-scuffle-with-north

North Korea 'executes envoy to US' after Trump summit failures – report https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/31/north-korea-executes-envoy-to-us-after-trump-summit-failures

Would we have survived the Cuban missile crisis if Donald Trump had been president in 1962? https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/05/16/donald-trump-intelligence-community-disdain-national-crisis-decision-dictators-column/3678884002/ via @usatoday

US ambassador to Ukraine is recalled after becoming a political target. According to an internal State Department management notice, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will leave her post permanently on May 20, with no replacement in place and no nominations to fill that position. "We expect the Department to appoint a long-term Chargé d'Affaires to lead the mission until a new Chief of Mission is nominated and confirmed," said the notice, which was sent to all mission personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. Incoming Deputy Chief of Mission Kristina Kvien plans to arrive in Kiev on May 28, and Joseph Pennington will continue to serve as chargé d'affaires and acting deputy chief through the transition period, the notice said. The House Democratic leadership thinks that Yovanovitch's early departure under pressure is a clear sign that the White House is responding to calls from Trump allies, Trump family members and conservative media sites that have accused Yovanovitch of being part of a conspiracy that involves anti-corruption probes in Ukraine and efforts by the Trump team to investigate ties between Ukrainian officials and the Hillary Clinton campaign. "Ambassador Yovanovitch is a dedicated public servant and a diplomat of the highest caliber who has represented the United States under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The White House's outrageous decision to recall her is a political hit job and the latest in this Administration's campaign against career State Department personnel," said a statement released Tuesday morning by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. "It's clear that this decision was politically motivated, as allies of President Trump had joined foreign actors in lobbying for the Ambassador's dismissal." https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/us-ambassador-to-ukraine-is-recalled-after-becoming-a-political-target-1.580654

Accused spy Paul Whelan to lawyers: I used work visa to get into Russia https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/05/10/paul-whelan-russia-spy-borgwarner-visa/1118448001/ via @freep

Trump says John Kerry ‘should be prosecuted’ for meetings with Iranian officials. The president raised the issue during a freewheeling exchange with reporters after an event on health care at the White House, accusing Kerry of telling Iranian officials not to speak with members of the Trump administration. “I’d like to see — with Iran, I’d like to see them call me,” Trump said. “You know, John Kerry speaks to them a lot. John Kerry tells them not to call. That’s a violation of the Logan Act. And frankly, he should be prosecuted on that. But my people don’t want to do anything that’s — only the Democrats do that kind of stuff, you know? If it were the opposite way, they’d prosecute him under the Logan Act.” https://wapo.st/2vXfYS9

John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have gotten a lot of things wrong about Venezuela. Since Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader recognized by the United States and more than 50 other countries as Venezuela’s interim president, launched an unsuccessful military uprising last week to seize power from embattled dictator Nicolas Maduro, top Trump administration officials were quick to announce a decisive end to the conflict. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton are among Guaidó’s most outspoken international backers, but their depiction of fractures in Maduro’s inner circle and among the military have consistently been contradicted by what has unfolded in Caracas. Despite four months of relentless American pressure, Maduro, not Guaidó, occupies the Miraflores Palace, while ongoing clashes between protesters and Maduro’s allies have left four people dead and hundreds injured. Millions of Venezuelans are starving amid a severe economic crisis that was amplified in January by new US sanctions on the state-owned energy giant. The move did not precipitate Maduro’s swift ouster, as many high-ranking military leaders have remained loyal to him. “If someone tells you the military no longer wants Maduro, that’s really hard to maintain,” Andrei Serbin Pont, a Venezuela expert at an Argentine research group, tells Mother Jones. “The post-Maduro scenario doesn’t look good for them. They’ll be persecuted for human rights abuses.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/john-bolton-and-mike-pompeo-have-gotten-a-lot-of-things-wrong-about-venezuela/ via @MotherJones

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Inflated Iran Intel, U.S. Officials Say. John Bolton and other Team Trump hawks are trumpeting intelligence that Tehran is readying attacks on U.S. forces. They’re exaggerating the threat, officials tell The Daily Beast. “It’s not that the administration is mischaracterizing the intelligence, so much as overreacting to it,” said one U.S. government official briefed on it. Another source familiar with the situation agreed that the Trump administration’s response was an “overreaction” but didn’t dispute that a threat exists. Gen. Qasem Soleimani—the head of the Quds Force, Iran’s covert action arm—has told proxy forces in Iraq that a conflict with the U.S. will come soon, this source noted. “I would characterize the current situation as shaping operations on both sides to tilt the field in preparation for a possible coming conflict,” continued the second source, who is also a U.S. government official. “The risk is a low-level proxy unit miscalculating and escalating things. We’re sending a message with this reaction to the intelligence, even though the threat might not be as imminent as portrayed.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-inflated-iran-intelligence-us-officials-say

President Donald Trump initiated a lengthy call with his Russian counterpart on Friday, in which Vladimir Putin urged sanctions relief for North Korea and warned against interference in Venezuela, the Russian embassy in Washington said. The leaders’ call lasted for 1.5 hours, according to a post on the embassy’s Facebook page, and the pair discussed a “shared commitment to step up dialogue in various areas, including on issues of strategic stability.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday the leaders spoke for more than an hour. Very good call yesterday with President Putin of Russia. Tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with Russia, despite what you read and see in the Fake News Media. Look how they have misled you on “Russia Collusion.” The World can be a better and safer place. Nice! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-04/russia-says-trump-initiated-friday-s-1-5-hour-call-with-putin

'Whimsical, uninformed': French ambassador's parting verdict on Trump. “When they say ‘America first’, it’s America alone,” Araud said in an interview with the Guardian. “Basically, this president and this administration don’t have allies, don’t have friends. It’s really [about] bilateral relationships on the basis of the balance of power and the defence of narrow American interest.” At 2am on the night Trump was elected, the ambassador tweeted: “It is the end of an era, the era of neoliberalism. We don’t yet know what will succeed it … After Brexit and this election, anything is possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes. Vertigo.” At 2am on the night Trump was elected, the ambassador tweeted: “It is the end of an era, the era of neoliberalism. We don’t yet know what will succeed it … After Brexit and this election, anything is possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes. Vertigo.” “My world, our world of certainties, really was collapsing and we were facing a real, substantial, dangerous crisis, which could basically really overwhelm my own country,” Araud said. “I believe we are entering a new era. I just don’t know what this era will be.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/19/whimsical-uninformed-french-ambassadors-parting-verdict-on-trump

North Korea issues mild criticism of Bolton over media interview https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/north-korea-issues-mild-criticism-of-bolton-over-media-interview-1.577701

Pentagon confirms North Korean weapons test as Pyongyang demands Pompeo's removal from nuclear talks https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pentagon-confirms-north-korean-weapons-test-as-pyongyang-demands-pompeo-s-removal-from-nuclear-talks-1.577374

Trump wrote off novichok attack of defector as 'spy games' – report. Donald Trump was reluctant to expel suspected Russian spies after the novichok chemical weapons attack in Salisbury, viewing the poisoning of a defector as “part of legitimate spy games”, according to a new report. According to the New York Times, Trump reacted sceptically to a British request in March 2018 for a strong punitive response to the use of the nerve agent against the former spy, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. A local resident, Dawn Sturgess, was killed three months later when she came in contact with the chemical. It marked the first chemical weapon attack on European soil since the first world war. Trump is reported to have written off the attack as business as usual among spies – “distasteful but within the bounds of espionage”. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/16/trump-novichok-attack-skripal-poisoning-spy-game

Egypt’s defection from Trump’s anti-Iran coalition shows how little faith U.S. allies have in the president’s strategy. The big failing in Trump’s policy in the region is that he doesn’t know what he wants, except to help Israel (which he isn’t doing, in the long run, by giving Netanyahu and his partners everything they want) and to crush Iran (which is harder than he imagines and which would likely lead to something worse). He has no strategy, only bluster, and Egypt’s breakaway makes that clearer than ever. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/trump-middle-east-israel-egypt-iran-strategy.html via @slate

State Department blocks reporters from Pompeo briefing with faith-based media: report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/434664-state-department-blocks-reporters-from-pompeo-briefing-with-faith

Pompeo slaps visa restrictions on international court probing US military https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/434231-trump-admin-announces-visa-restrictions-on-icc-staff-investigating

Kim lets Trump know their 'mysteriously wonderful' chemistry isn't enough. North Korea's vice foreign minister, Choe Son-hui blamed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House National Security Adviser John Bolton for fostering an "atmosphere of hostility and mistrust" in Hanoi, Vietnam, adding they were too fixed in their demands and "were too busy with pursuing their own political interests and had no sincere intention to achieve a result." https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/kim-lets-trump-know-their-mysteriously-wonderful-chemistry-isn-t-enough-1.572976

Report: Trump wants Germany, Japan and others to pay full cost plus a premium for US troops https://www.stripes.com/news/report-trump-wants-germany-japan-and-others-to-pay-full-cost-plus-a-premium-for-us-troops-1.571839

John Bolton puts his singular stamp on Trump’s National Security Council https://wapo.st/2TpFsVz

'Washington Has Become Much Rougher': Germany Is Still Recalibrating With Trump. Two years after President Trump took office, the U.S.-German relationship is at a new low. https://n.pr/2SpT5Q3

Trump says he’ll sign executive order for free speech on college campuses. announced Saturday March 02, 2019 he intends to sign an executive order mandating colleges and universities take steps to guarantee free speech to attain federal research grants. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432328-trump-says-hell-sign-executive-order-for-free-speech-on-college

Inside the Chaotic Early Days of Trump’s Foreign Policy https://politi.co/2Ny8ywk via @politicomag

No deal: Trump, Kim end high-stakes summit without nuclear agreement https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/no-deal-trump-kim-end-high-stakes-summit-without-nuclear-agreement-1.570701

Trump: I 'fully' understand why North Korea wouldn't denuclearize https://politi.co/2TgGVNO via @politico

What to know about Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on his Trump visit - ABC News - https://abcnews.go.com/International/austrian-chancellor-sebastian-kurz-trump-visit/story

Pence hails 'remarkable, extraordinary' Trump tenure in attack on US allies. Describing the results of Donald Trump’s presidency as “remarkable” and “extraordinary“, the vice-president told senior European and Asian officials the European Union should follow the US in quitting the Iran nuclear deal and recognising the head of Venezuela’s congress, Juan Guaido, as president. “America is stronger than ever before and America is leading on the world stage once again,” Pence told officials at the Munich Security Conference, listing what he described as US foreign policy successes from Afghanistan to North Korea. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/16/trump-presidency-mike-pence-allies

Homelessness

Trump administration sends team to LA for 'fact finding' on homelessness. There is no evidence that Trump did anything early in his presidency that “ended” any problem related to homelessness in the nation’s capital. http://via.kswbtv.com/0Borp via @fox5sandiego

September 10, 2019 Trump's reported California homeless takeover bewilders state, local leaders. A Washington Post report that the Trump administration is considering demolishing homeless encampments and moving unhoused people into government facilities caught elected officials here off guard. Mayors were left trying to determine if they were dealing with a speculative threat or the possibility of concrete, drastic action. https://politi.co/307FRLw

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today

Sunday, July 19, 2020: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that it's "time for people to go to jail" as part of U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into FBI misconduct -- prompting ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos to sound a celebratory note on Twitter. The comments came as Fox News learned this weekend that Jennifer Boone, a senior FBI official who oversaw the flawed probe into former Trump adviser Carter Page, has received a major promotion to lead a field office -- and the bureau won't say why. Meadows, during his Sunday interview with Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," also previewed the Trump administration's soon-to-be-released plans for reopening schools and implementing new economic stimulus measures. More details, Meadows said, would be coming this week. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/meadows-previews-school-reopening-plans-durham-probe-results-i-expect-indictments

Sunday, May 03, 2020: Trump: Expect Vaccine by Year's End | Newsmax.com https://www.newsmax.com/politics/vaccine-coronavirus-trump-fox/2020/05/03/id/965863/ via @Newsmax

6:16 AM - 31 Dec 2019 Trump says he'll sign China trade deal Jan. 15 https://politi.co/2SGoLnT via @politico https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1212014713808273410

Thursday, November 21, 2019 Trump says he'll release financial records before election, knocks Dems' efforts. Trump previously pledged in September to release “extremely complete” financial records in the wake of reports of U.S. Air Force crews staying at this Scottish resort during refueling, but offered no details or timeline. He also pledged to release his tax returns ahead of the 2016 election but never followed through, citing an unspecified audit when asked. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/471450-trump-knocks-vows-to-release-financial-records-before-election-knocks

Thursday, November 14, 2019: Barr says watchdog report on Russia probe's origins is 'imminent' https://www.yahoo.com/news/barr-says-watchdog-report-russia-194145180.html

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Trump says more information soon to be released about White House's... Asked whether he regrets calling the Vindman a “Never Trumper,” Trump told reporters on Saturday, “Well, you’ll be seeing very soon what comes out and then you can ask the question in a different way.” https://reut.rs/2C78YVS

BBC News - Trump says US and China to resume trade talks. "China called last night... said let's get back to the table. So we'll be getting back to the table," he said. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-494717

August 25, 2019: Trump promises 'very big trade deal' with Britain post-Brexit https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/458713-trump-promises-very-big-trade-deal-with-britain-post-brexit

August 13, 2019: Trump delays tariffs on key Chinese goods https://thehill.com/policy/finance/457224-trump-to-delay-tariffs-on-key-chinese-goods

August 07, 2019 Mike Pompeo: US will be ready with 'pen in hand' to sign post-Brexit trade deal. ‘However Brexit ultimately shakes out, and we’ll be on the doorstep.’ https://www.politico.eu/article/mike-pompeo-us-will-be-ready-with-pen-in-hand-to-sign-post-brexit-trade-deal/

July 21, 2019 Pence's mysteriously canceled NH trip linked to presence of suspected drug dealer https://fxn.ws/2Od9lXL #FoxNews

15 July, 2019. Immigrant families across the country waited in fear on Sunday as President Donald Trump's planned mass deportation raids failed to manifest in major U.S. cities. The president confirmed that his administration would launch raids in at least 10 cities this weekend. But on Sunday, there were no mass roundups in sight. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/immigrants-no-sign-ice-raids_n_5d2bee91e4b0060b11eeb222

10:01 AM - 6 Jul 2019 President Trump on cancelled VP Pence NH trip: "You'll know in about two weeks. It's a very interesting problem that they had in New Hampshire that I can't tell you about." https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1147369834663075841?s=19

July 01, 2019: Trump: I may tackle homelessness because leaders 'can't be looking at that'. Donald Trump said he might “intercede” to “clean up” homelessness in San Francisco and Los Angeles, noting that world leaders “can’t be looking at that”. In a conversation with the Fox News host Tucker Carlson broadcast Monday evening, Trump called the situation “disgraceful” and implied that it was making police officers sick. “I’m looking at it very seriously,” Trump said of homelessness, according to a Fox News summary of the Carlson interview. “They can’t be looking at scenes like you see in Los Angeles and San Francisco,” Trump said, referring to world leaders. “We’re looking at it very seriously. We may intercede,” he added. The first two and a half years of the Trump administration have yielded few traces of action on the social policy front, apart from a criminal justice reform bill. Trump has repeatedly attacked society’s most vulnerable, including immigrants and refugees. Yet in his interview with Carlson, Trump appeared enthused about his plan to address homelessness. “When we have leaders of the world coming in to see the president of the United States and they’re riding down a highway, they can’t be looking at that,” Trump said of homelessness. “I really believe that it hurts our country.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/01/donald-trump-

Trump announces two-week delay to planned ICE deportations. President Trump announced Saturday that a planned mass apprehension of illegal immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is being delayed for two weeks, in the hope that a bipartisan solution to the border crisis can be reached. “At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border,” he tweeted. https://fxn.ws/2KE87Cn #FoxNews 11:56 AM - Jun 22, 2019

Trump tweets ICE will begin removing 'millions' of undocumented migrants. President Trump on Monday night tweeted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will begin deporting "millions" of undocumented immigrants next week. "Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in," Trump tweeted. 06/17/19 10:12 PM EDT https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/449003-trump-says-ice-will-begin-removing-millions-of-undocumented-migrants

Trump says he will roll out new health care plan in next couple of months. 06/16/19 08:41 PM EDT https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448829-trump-says-he-will-roll-out-new-health-care-plan-in-next-couple-of

Mexico releases copy of letter touted by Trump. Trump on Tuesday had held up a single folded sheet of paper in front of cameras before leaving on a trip to Iowa, saying the paper represented an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico. The president declined to share any details about the letter. He has sought to sell the deal reached between his administration and Mexico amid reports it included actions Mexico had already agreed to take. "That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday while pulling the document from the pocket of his jacket. "This is one page of a very long and very good agreement for both Mexico and the United States," he added. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448689-mexico-releases-copy-of-letter-touted-by-trump

Trump appears to walk back pledge not to use CIA informants against Kim Jong Un. Trump pointed to the letter he said he received yesterday, which he first revealed on Tuesday, as a sign for optimism but declined to discuss its contents. “He just wrote me a very nice letter, unexpected. Someday you'll see what's in that letter. One day you'll be reading about it. Maybe in 100 years from now, maybe in two weeks,” he said. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448209-trump-appears-to-walk-back-pledge-not-to-use-cia-informants-against

Trump says he didn't expect cameras to capture contents of secret Mexico deal. Jabin Botsford, a photographer for The Washington Post, tweeted photos that captured some of the document's wording, including that the Mexican government "will take all necessary steps under domestic law to bring the agreement into force with a view to ensuring that the agreement will enter into force within 45 days." The document was signed and dated June 7, 2019. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448216-trump-says-he-didnt-expect-cameras-to-capture-contents-of-secret

Photographer snapped image of Trump’s alleged Mexico deal. Here’s what it says. http://s.oregonlive.com/qt48Azf

Trump taunts journalists with supposed one-page Mexico deal. President Trump teased a group of reporters on the South Lawn Tuesday by waving around what he said was a one-page deal with Mexico. “This is one page,” Trump said, taking a folded piece of paper out of his blazer pocket and holding it up for cameras to see. “This is one page of a very long and very good agreement for both Mexico and the United States. Without the tariffs, we would have had nothing." But Mexican officials have pushed back against some of Trump's claims, and news reports have questioned whether there was much new at all in the deal. Trump, however, has said the full deal has not been publicly announced, tweeting earlier Tuesday, "Biggest part of deal with Mexico has not yet been revealed!" When journalists pressed for more details on the piece of paper in Trump's pocket, he stated that the document “goes into effect when I want it to.” https://politi.co/2I9412w via @politico

Rep. Dan Kildee: "Many of us didn't think the president would ever really pull the trigger on these tariffs. He didn't define what success would look like, which is usually a signal that it was a false threat." — The Hill (@thehill) https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1137845576895217664

Trump drops tariff threat on Mexico after migration deal reached. 5:31 PM - Jun 7, 2019 https://politi.co/2IonbAg

Trump erupts over immigration, threatening Mexico with tariffs. Trump said in a White House statement that the first round of tariffs would begin on June 10 at 5% "on all goods imported from Mexico." @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2HLPBVS

Trump has made clear repeatedly that he believes the U.S. should violate the Geneva Conventions. The New York Times reported this weekend that Donald Trump is considering granting pardons to a number of convicted and accused war criminals who are serving or have served in the U.S. military. One would involve the ongoing case of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who is set to stand trial shortly on war crimes charges that include murdering a prisoner of war with a knife and shooting a young woman and an elderly man (both seemingly unarmed civilians) with a sniper rifle. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-war-crime-pardons-campaign-promises.html via @slate

Rudy Giuliani says his controversial pro-Trump Ukraine visit is off. Sat 11 May 2019 08.17 EDT https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/11/rudy-giuliani-trump-ukraine

President Trump’s trade war with China is approaching the one-year mark, with no end in sight. The two countries appeared close to a deal just a week ago after months of negotiations and reciprocal tariffs. But Trump ordered a steep increase in tariffs on Chinese goods after top Beijing officials reportedly backtracked on previous agreements with the White House. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that a U.S. delegation concluded trade talks with top Chinese officials, but no deal was announced. The U.S. economy and Trump’s reelection campaign could face serious consequences if Washington and Beijing can’t resolve their trade spat. But the president said Friday there is “no need to rush” a trade deal with China. Five things to know about Trump's trade war with China https://thehill.com/policy/finance/trade/443160-five-things-to-know-about-trumps-trade-war-with-china

After the Mueller Report, we were supposed to get the Rudy Report. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's attorney, promised that he would release a document rebutting the results of Mueller's investigation. The Wall Street Journal talked to Giuliani about it on April 14: Just read this by @JuddLegum https://popular.info/p/the-rudy-report

President Trump: Our trade deal with China is moving along. And it's moving along nicely. And we're asking for a lot of things and I have a feeling we'll be successful. The Hill (@thehill) 6:31 PM - 17 Apr 2019 https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1118688345540816896

PUNTED: Trump Walks Back Threat To Close U.S. Border, Giving Mexico A '1-Year Warning' https://n.pr/2TW4IyI

Thursday, March 28, 2019: Trump threatens to close the southern border next week, voicing heightened frustration with Mexico https://wapo.st/2U1dVuu

Trump Today: President signals openness to postponing tariff hike on China as talks continue. Trump told reporters at the White House he’d either strike a large trade deal with Beijing “or it’s going to be a deal that we’ll just postpone for a little while.” Negotiators met in Washington Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to strike an agreement ahead of a planned increased in tariffs on Chinese imports on March 1. https://on.mktw.net/2RqznDf

Trump says GOP will be 'party of health care' after DOJ escalates ObamaCare fight. “Let me just tell you exactly what my message is: The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care. You watch," Trump told reporters as he visited the Capitol to meet with GOP senators. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/435863-trump-says-gop-will-be-party-of-health-care-after-doj-escalates-fight

16 times Trump said ISIS was defeated, or soon would be https://thehill.com/policy/defense/435402-16-times-trump-declared-or-predicted-the-demise-of-isis

PAID! Trump signs executive order on free speech on college campuses https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/03/21/trump-expected-sign-executive-order-free-speech/ Trump says he’ll sign executive order for free speech on college campuses https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432328-trump-says-hell-sign-executive-order-for-free-speech-on-college

‘HOLD THE DATE!’: Trump announces Independence Day celebration https://wapo.st/2TfKkfQ

President Donald Trump vowed Friday that the total wipeout of the Islamic State caliphate would be announced within 24 hours. It has now been two days and no official proclamation has been made. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-isis-24-hours_n_5c693902e4b05c889d2007e7

Trump builds anticipation around State of the Union https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/428259-trump-builds-anticipation-around-reveals-at-state-of-the-union

Trump teases 'major announcement' about shutdown on Saturday https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/426112-trump-teases-major-announcement-about-shutdown-on-saturday

Nepotism, Cronyism, dysfunction, Corruption, sex criminals, weather forecasting

State Department Insiders Ask: What Is Susan Pompeo Really Up To? The wife of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been integral to his meteoric rise. But her close involvement in his career has attracted unwelcome scrutiny. But in recent months, Susan Pompeo’s involvement in State Department business has drawn public attention in ways that have been uncomfortable for the Pompeos. In May, at Mike Pompeo’s behest, Trump fired the department’s inspector general, who had been probing whether the Pompeos have improperly used office staff to perform personal and political errands. Democratic lawmakers are now investigating the circumstances of the inspector general’s firing. From speaking to roughly two dozen people and examining emails and audio recordings, a portrait emerges of a couple experiencing a rude introduction to the major leagues. In a vast Cabinet department with extensive resources, tightly bound by protocol and with close oversight, Mike and Susan Pompeo have imported a model more familiar to smaller, less scrutinized congressional offices on Capitol Hill: a blurry line between the appointed secretary and unappointed spouse, and among official, political and personal agendas. “Politico is trafficking in outmoded, frankly, sexist views of the ‘proper’ role of the wives of officials in public life,” he wrote. “You paint Susan’s relentless focus on high performance and excellence as making her a ‘difficult’ woman, which not only could not be farther from the truth, but also demeans her professionalism and talents. These are badly dated and offensive positions that no self-respecting journalist should be peddling in the year 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/23/susan-pompeo-state-mike-378073

Trump Has Commuted The Prison Sentence Of His “Loyal” Ally Roger Stone. Stone was convicted of lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks leading up to the 2016 election. Before Stone was sentenced in February, the case exploded into a national controversy over political overreach by the administration to protect a friend Trump once called a “loyal guy.” Four federal prosecutors originally assigned to Stone’s case had filed papers with the court recommending a sentence of seven to nine years, but Trump balked, saying on Twitter that would be a “very unfair situation” and “miscarriage of justice!” Political appointees at the Justice Department quickly intervened to request a lighter punishment in February, prompting all four prosecutors to quit the case. One of the prosecutors, Special Assistant US Attorney Aaron Zelinsky, had told the jury when the trial began in November, “Evidence will show Roger Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee because the truth looked bad. The truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/roger-stone-trump-russia-wikileaks-mueller-sentence

Ivanka Trump Mocked By Twitter Users While Promoting ‘Skills-Based Hiring’. Today, President @realDonaldTrump will sign an executive order to transform the federal hiring process—and replace one-size-fits-all, degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring. More from @IvankaTrump: video https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ivanka-trump-dragged-twitter-skill-based-hiring_n_5ef633d8c5b612083c4d2178

Nepotism, Cronyism, dysfunction, Corruption, sex criminals, archived June 26, 2020

"The elephant not in the room": The strange, rich emptiness of the new Melania Trump biography. Mary Jordan's biography of Melania Trump, "The Art of Her Deal," is an extraordinary work of discovery and empathy. Jordan does cast serious doubts on Melania's trustworthiness (calling her the "avid creator of her own history"), and says, for example, that Melania's claim to speak five languages is patently false. As recently as summer 2016, Melania's official bio said she graduated from college. She did not. In their lone interview, when Jordan asked Melania to describe herself "correctly," the soon-to-be first lady replied, "I know what I want, and I don't need to talk, and to, you know, be an attention seeker. I'm not that way." Jordan, just as confused by this answer as she was before it, asked Melania to tell her what she does want, as opposed to what she is not. "I live meaningful life," Melania said. "I know that talking every time, blabbing something around isn't good. That's not my style." "Maintaining façades is and has always been Melania's job, a job she takes seriously and executes meticulously, even if — as with her modeling — rather lifelessly," Jordan observes. "She knows how to do what she needs to do; she just doesn't know how to look like she enjoys doing it." https://www.salon.com/2020/06/23/the-elephant-not-in-the-room-the-strange-rich-emptiness-of-the-new-melania-trump-biography/

John Bolton: Pence was a 'consistent ally' and equally 'stunned' by some Trump actions. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton mercilessly criticizes President Donald Trump in his new bookbut writes that he had a White House ally in the vice president. From China and Russia to Syria and Venezuela, Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence wanted to take hard lines against oppressive regimes while Trump sought to cut deals and appease totalitarian leaders, Bolton says in his memoir scheduled for release Tuesday. “As Vice President, Pence maintained the strong views on national security that he’d had during his years in the House of Representatives, and I regarded him as a consistent ally,” Bolton wrote in “The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir.” Bolton argued for keeping Pence on the 2020 ticket when Trump asked if he should replace him with Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador. Bolton called it a bad idea to jettison someone so loyal without a guarantee that it would pay off at the ballot box. Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview last week that Bolton "is a liar” and adding “everybody in the White House hated John Bolton.” While Trump has also tweeted this month that Bolton is wacko, despicable and a “disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war,” Pence has not recently mentioned Bolton on Twitter. https://news.yahoo.com/john-bolton-pence-consistent-ally-160624520.html

Today we celebrate #Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S. In honor of today, I would like to share the story "All Different Now" by Angela Johnson, which sheds a light on the first Juneteenth through the eyes of a young girl. Melania Trump @FLOTUS https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/1273948647860785153

Melania Trump was in no rush to move into the White House. That’s when she renegotiated her prenup, a new book says. The incoming first lady needed time to cool off, and “to amend her financial arrangement with Trump — what Melania referred to as ‘taking care of Barron,’ ” Jordan writes in “The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump.” She attended a highly competitive architecture program at the University of Ljubljana, but did not graduate, though she claimed in sworn testimony to have a bachelor’s degree. There’s also little evidence to suggest her claims of being able to speak four or five languages fluently are true. “Photographers and others who have worked with her over the years — including native speakers of Italian, French, and German — told me that they never heard her use more than a few words of those languages,” Jordan writes. Reporting in the book suggests she only speaks English and Slovene fluently. Observers in the White House had noticed an uptick in her mood by mid-2018 that might account for her being so willing to fight for a second term. According to three people close to Trump, Jordan writes, Melania had finally renegotiated the prenup to her liking. She’d already been looking out for Barron’s future by making sure he had dual citizenship in Slovenia, which will position him to work in Europe for the Trump Organization when he comes of age. Now, she’d made sure he wasn’t shut out of the family business. Jordan writes: “She wanted proof in writing that when it came to financial opportunities and inheritance, Barron would be treated as more of an equal to Trump’s oldest three children.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/melania-book-art-of-her-deal-prenup-white-house/2020/06/11/ce63ec02-abec-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html

John Kelly says he agrees with Mattis: 'We need to look harder at who we elect' President Trump's former chief of staff said he agreed with former Defense Secretary James Mattis when he released a statement attacking the president's leadership and describing Trump as a threat to the Constitution. "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try," Mattis said. "Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.” Mattis also suggested that Trump disrespected the Constitution in the way he responded to ongoing protests surrounding George Floyd's death. https://fxn.ws/2zWPFkD

Trump tweets copy of letter from lawyer John Dowd to Jim Mattis. President Trump tweeted a copy of a letter from John Dowd, one of the lead lawyers who represented him during the Russia investigation, addressed to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. The letter penned by Dowd denounced Mattis for criticizing the president’s approach to protesters in front of the White House. “The peaceful protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real. They are terrorists using idle hate filled students to burn and destroy,” Dowd wrote, referring to the peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square who were forcefully dispersed. After the protestors fled from the square, Trump walked through the area for a photo opportunity at St. John's Episcopal Church. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/501257-trump-tweets-copy-of-letter-from-john-dowd-to-jim-mattis

Pompeo's elite taxpayer-funded dinners raise new concerns. State Department officials involved in the dinners said they had raised concerns internally that the events were essentially using federal resources to cultivate a donor and supporter base for Pompeo's political ambitions — complete with extensive contact information that gets sent back to Susan Pompeo's personal email address. The officials and others who attended discussed the dinners on condition of anonymity. An NBC News investigation found that Pompeo held about two dozen Madison Dinners since he took over in 2018. NBC News obtained a master guest list for every dinner through the end of 2019, as well as internal State Department calendars from before the pandemic emerged, showing that future dinners were on the books through at least October. The master list includes the names of nearly 500 invitees and specifies who accepted, although it is possible some people RSVP'd but didn't show up in Foggy Bottom for dinner. The records show that about 29 percent of the invitees came from the corporate world, while about a quarter of them hailed from the media or entertainment industries, with conservative media members heavily represented. About 30 percent work in politics or government, and just 14 percent were diplomats or foreign officials. Every single member of the House or the Senate who has been invited is a Republican. https://news.yahoo.com/pompeos-elite-taxpayer-funded-dinners-020500176.html

Kushner Details His Wild Idea to Use Russia’s Secret Comms. The president’s son-in-law and top aide, Jared Kushner, suggested having Trump’s future national security adviser use secure communications at the Russian embassy to communicate with Russian generals, according to newly released transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee. The suggestion, made during a December 2016 meeting with Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was ultimately nixed by the Russian ambassador, according to Kushner. Kushner’s proposed back-channel with the Kremlin has been widely reported, but this is the first detailed, on-the-record account by him of the incident. The Washington Post reported in May 2017 that Kislyak relayed the proposal to his superiors in Moscow at the time. Kushner framed the proposal as an innocuous way to develop closer cooperation with Russia in Syria, saying the Russian ambassador had lamented to him shortly after Trump’s 2016 electoral win that the Russians believed “America’s strategy in Syria was a little bit misguided.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/kushner-details-his-wild-idea-to-use-russias-secret-comms

The Stories Dan Crenshaw Tells Himself. The pathos of Trump’s most effective defender. https://thebulwark.com/the-stories-dan-crenshaw-tells-himself/ via @BulwarkOnline

FBI releases documents showing Roger Stone, Julian Assange communications. New documents from the FBI made public Tuesday showed that Roger Stone, a longtime GOP operative and associate of President Trump, was in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The new trove of documents highlights the extent to which Stone and Assange communicated during the 2016 campaign, in part regarding damaging information Assange’s anti-secrecy site published about then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In exchanges released by the FBI, Stone and Assange discussed the origin of the information on Clinton, which U.S. officials believe was hacked by Russians and handed to WikiLeaks. In a direct message on Twitter cited by the FBI, Stone sought to reassure Assange that the issue was “still nonsense” and said “as a journalist it doesn’t matter where you get information only that it is accurate and authentic.” “If the US government moves on you I will bring down the entire house of cards,” Stone wrote, according to a transcript of the message. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/495181-fbi-releases-documents-showing-roger-stone-julian-assange

Trip to Guam at center of top Navy official's resignation cost taxpayers at least $243,000. Acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly boarded one of his service's executive jets Monday to visit Guam — a trip that turned out to be costly for both him and U.S. taxpayers. For Modly, the visit resulted in his resignation, after he created an uproar by insulting the former commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, who had raised concerns about how the Navy was handling a coronavirus outbreak on the warship. For taxpayers, the cost of the flight alone was at least $243,151.65, according to a Navy estimate. The figure was based on 35 hours of flight time to and from Guam, with refueling in Hawaii. Modly traveled on a C-37B at a cost of about $6,946.19 per hour, according to the estimate, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The jet is a military version of the Gulfstream G550. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trip-to-guam-at-center-of-top-navy-official-s-resignation-cost-taxpayers-at-least-243-000-1.625394

Trump claims that his daughter created 10 percent of all the jobs in the United States. To put this claim in perspective, as of January — before the coronavirus pandemic caused the US economy to start hemorrhaging jobs — about 152 million people in the United States were employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So Trump is claiming that his daughter created about 10 percent of all the jobs in the United States. Ivanka has apparently been working overtime in recent months: During a White House event last November, Trump claimed that his daughter has “gotten jobs for” 14 million people. So, if one takes Trump’s statements at face value, she created a million jobs in just the past six months. https://www.vox.com/2020/4/8/21212802/trump-ivanka-10-percent-jobs-walmart-15-million

Trump administration edits national stockpile website a day after it contradicted Jared Kushner. As of early Friday morning, the stockpile's home page had read: "Strategic National Stockpile is the nation's largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, this repository contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously." These sentences were gone as of Friday afternoon. In their place were new sentences that emphasized that the stockpile is meant as a temporary backup for states' own supplies. The revised page reads: "The Strategic National Stockpile's role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available." https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/politics/stockpile-website-edited-kushner-claim/index.html

Melania Trump like you've never seen her before https://nypost.com/2016/07/30/melania-trump-like-youve-never-seen-her-before/

White House hits back at John Kelly over impeachment remarks. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham confirmed Trump’s response, adding, “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.” https://politi.co/2WgFcah via @politico

Every Single Person Who Has Resigned or Been Fired From the Trump Administration https://lifehacker.com/every-single-person-who-has-resigned-or-been-fired-from-1839163702

Like So Many Of His Associates, Donald Trump's New Press Secretary Has Posed For Some Mug Shots. Like so many other Donald Trump associates--Manafort, Gates, Stone, Flynn, Cohen, Cohn, Papadopoulos, Weichselbaum, Pierson, Epshteyn, “Fat Tony” Salerno, etc.--the new White House press secretary has spent time posing for mug shots. Stephanie Grisham, who last month succeeded Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has a pair of drunk driving collars on her rap sheet. Grisham is pictured above in mug shots (click to enlarge) snapped following her 2013 and 2015 DUI busts in Arizona. Grisham, 43, was first nabbed for drunk driving in January 2013 in Gilbert, a town outside Phoenix. Grisham--who was driving on a suspended license--was pulled over for speeding while behind the wheel of an SUV whose other passenger was a tipsy 25-year-old man. Grisham’s second arrest came in December 2015 when she busted by Phoenix police. Grisham failed to appear at a court hearing in January 2016, prompting a City Court judge to issue an arrest warrant for her. As with her initial criminal case, Grisham pleaded guilty--this time to a DUI count. She was ordered to pay about $1500 in court costs and fines. Grisham’s July 2016 conviction came as she was working as a press aide for Trump’s presidential campaign. | The Smoking Gun http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/arizona/press-secretary-collars-162053 via @tsgnews

How Donald Trump's Kids Have Profited Off Their Dad's Presidency. No one knows a “clear conflict of interest” when they see it better than the president's children. https://www.gq.com/story/trump-kids-profit-presidency

Who's the secret Russian in the indictment of Giuliani's pals? We found some clues. The indictment does not say. It refers to this individual only as “Foreign National-1.” And the question cannot be yet answered definitively. But California state records and emails obtained by Mother Jones indicate that a Russian businessman named Andrey Muraviev had previously worked with Kukushkin to develop a cannabis enterprise. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/whos-the-secret-russian-in-the-indictment-of-giulianis-pals-we-found-some-clues/ via @MotherJones

In addition to Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two other men were indicted Thursday morning for violations related to various campaign donations — David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/david-correia-andrey-kukushkin via @TPM

Donald Trump
Rudy Giuliani
Lev Parnas
Igor Fruman
David Correia
Andrey Kukushkin
Andrey Muraviev

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/10/10/u.s..v..lev.parnas.et.al.indictment.pdf

Exclusive: Giuliani associate linked to Yanukovych's stolen cash. Semyon Kislin, friend of Trump's personal lawyer, tried to obtain millions of dollars stolen from the Ukrainian state. Semyon Kislin, a business associate of Donald Trump who is due to give evidence at the US president's impeachment inquiry on October 14, tried to obtain millions of dollars that Ukrainian prosecutors deemed stolen, Al Jazeera can reveal. Kislin is a long-time friend of Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The Ukraine-born businessman donated to Giuliani's political campaigns in the 1990s. In January last year, Kislin lobbied the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to help him unlock millions of dollars that had in fact been seized in a major criminal inquiry. This comes as the New York Times reported that federal investigators are examining Giuliani's efforts to undermine Yovanovitch as part of a broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping Trump's political prospects. @AJENews https://aje.io/yq5ul

AG Barr blames drug overdoses on secular society. Barr, in a speech largely focused on the role of religion in law, decried what he described as an effort to drive religion away while promoting secularism. "We see the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism," he said. "Basically every measure of this social pathology continues to gain ground." He described several social issues as "consequences of this moral upheaval." "Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence and a deadly drug epidemic. "Over 70,000 people die a year from drug overdoses," he added. "But I won't dwell on the bitter results of the new secular age." Barr also slammed "so-called progressives," saying that many are "among the militant secularists." A spokesman for the university told the South Bend Tribune this week that the topic of Barr's speech would be "religious freedom." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/465472-ag-barr-blames-drug-overdoses-on-secular-society

Lindsey Graham dishes on Trump in hoax calls with Russians. But it wasn’t the Turkish defense minister at all. Instead, it was Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, Russian pranksters with suspected ties to the country’s intelligence services who go by “Lexus and Vovan.” The duo have become notorious in recent years for their cold calls to unwitting, high-profile Western politicians, including Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, leading some to suspect that they’ve had help from the Kremlin, according to The Guardian. (A Schiff spokesman said at the time that the House Intelligence Committee “informed appropriate law enforcement and security personnel of the conversation.”) https://politi.co/33hNKjq via @politico

Two Key Players In The Ukraine Controversy Spent Lavishly As They Dug For Dirt on Biden. Bank records reveal a whirlwind of spending at high-end restaurants, an infamous strip club, and five-star hotels by the two little-known operatives who waged a back-channel campaign with Rudy Giuliani. For Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian American businessman who joined Rudy Giuliani in a back-channel campaign to unearth damaging information about Joe Biden, the money kept flowing. BuzzFeed News obtained unprecedented access to scores of bank records from private business accounts controlled by Parnas and his partner, Igor Fruman, as they carried out a campaign now at the center of the first presidential impeachment inquiry in a generation. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikesallah/ukraine-spending-trump-parnas-fruman via @BuzzFeedNews

Trump lawyer Giuliani tells Fox his mission is 'to disrupt the world' https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/464487-trump-lawyer-giuliani-tells-fox-his-mission-is-to-disrupt-the-world

A Glossary of Ivankisms. Ivanka Trump, just empowering and architecting herself to effectuate and actualize the execution of women! https://theslot.jezebel.com/a-glossary-of-ivankisms-1838144363

Stephen Miller says Trump is 'real whistleblower' and calls complaint 'partisan hit job' in contentious interview. “The president of the United States is the whistleblower and this individual is a saboteur trying to undermine a democratically elected government,” Miller said, during a contentious interview on “Fox News Sunday.” Miller said that the whistleblower complaint “drips with condemnation, condescension and contempt for the president” and claimed that the intelligence community’s Inspector General had found evidence of political bias in the complaint. Miller also bucked when host Chris Wallace countered that the IG had found the report “credible and a matter of urgent concern." “They’re wrong,” Miller said. https://fxn.ws/2nEcRgP #FoxNews

Rudy Giuliani’s Mystery Trips to Russia, Armenia and Ukraine — “Trump, Inc.” Podcast https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-rudy-giuliani-mystery-trips-to-russia-armenia-and-ukraine

Sen. Menendez stalls Issa nomination over fake ID flap from youth. Former GOP Rep. Darrell Issa’s confirmation hearing for a top trade position in the Trump administration was indefinitely delayed Thursday after Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Menendez insisted on the release of an FBI background file that sources say shows Issa used a fake ID when he was 17. Issa, the colorful former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was nominated a year ago to be director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. With the confirmation process at a crawl, he's already signaled he's ready to move on, creating an exploratory committee for a potential run against embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. The focus on the fake ID he used as a 17-year-old Army private raised eyebrows, considering Issa had a well-known history of run-ins with the law when he was a teenager involving more serious accusations. But, during the confirmation hearing on Thursday, Menendez, D-N.J., argued that the committee did not have access to the information needed to determine whether Issa could be confirmed to his post, and said there was “problematic” information from his FBI background investigation that could be “potentially disqualifying.” https://fxn.ws/2QjF4aK #FoxNews

The New York Times' latest report on Brett Kavanaugh sexual misconduct is hugely important, botched article roll-out aside https://www.mediamatters.org/supreme-court/new-york-times-latest-report-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-misconduct-hugely-important

Trump’s Acting National Security Adviser Once Tied to Group Known for Anti-Muslim Stance. Trump named Charles M. Kupperman the acting national security adviser Tuesday after John Bolton’s ouster. Bolton said he resigned, but Trump said he fired the controversial national security adviser. Kupperman served on the board of directors for the Center for Security Policy from 2001 through 2010, according to the group’s tax records obtained by ProPublica. Frank Gaffney Jr., an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, founded the center in 1988 and serves as its executive chairman. The Southern Poverty Law Center first designated the center a hate group in 2015, five years after Kupperman left the board. But while Kupperman was on the board, Gaffney and the center trafficked in anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and rhetoric, including questioning whether President Barack Obama was a Muslim. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/09/11/trumps-acting-national-security-adviser-once-tied-group-known-anti-muslim-stance

How crooked is each member of Trump’s Cabinet? Let’s start with the transportation secretary, who is very, very crooked. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and who previously served as George W. Bush’s labor secretary, faced back-to-back-to-back-to-back scandals this summer with a series of pieces about her and her husband’s various public grafts. First, at the end of May, the Wall Street Journal published a report that Chao had failed to divest her shares in a crushed stone, sand, and gravel company, which supplied construction materials to the transportation sector, a year after she had promised to do so. In the meantime, she had netted more than $40,000. (She has reportedly divested since the report came out.) https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/elaine-chao-trump-corruption-still-happening.html via @slate

FEMA official arrested on bribery, fraud charges from power restoration efforts in Puerto Rico. Federal officials arrested former Deputy Administrator Ahsha Tribble, who oversaw the FEMA region including Puerto Rico, and the former president of Cobra Acquisitions, Donald K. Ellison, accusing them of conspiring to defraud the federal government, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Tribble once mandated that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) hire Cobra Acquisitions to attend to the damage from an explosion at a transmission center in order to receive FEMA funding for the project, the Times reported. Federal contracts provided Cobra with $1.8 billion to restore power in the country. Tribble's deputy chief of staff, Jovanda R. Patterson, was also arrested. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/460724-fema-official-arrested-after-bribery-fraud-charges-during-power

A Brief Overview of the Reasons Don Jr. and Ivanka Reportedly Hate Each Other. But as Don’s visibility grew, the cold war between him and Ivanka intensified. Now that each had their own teams of allies and advisers, they had grown paranoid that the other’s henchmen were planting damaging stories about them in the press. A few days before the midterms, McClatchy published a story under the headline “Trump Kids on the Campaign Trail: Don Jr. Wows, Ivanka Disappoints.” Ivanka’s camp was enraged, and suspected that Don was behind the story. Later, Don confronted Ivanka over rumors that her team was undermining him in off-the-record conversations with reporters. “Tell your people to stop trashing me to the media,” he said, according to someone familiar with the conversation. (Spokespeople for Don and Ivanka disputed this account and denied that there is a rift between them.) https://theslot.jezebel.com/a-brief-review-of-the-reasons-don-jr-and-ivanka-report-1837978453

There’s a simple reason right-wing media won’t be honest about Mike Pence’s anti-LGBTQ views. A lot has changed about how the country views LGBTQ people since Pence began his political career. https://www.mediamatters.org/mike-pence/theres-simple-reason-right-wing-media-wont-be-honest-about-mike-pences-anti-lgbtq-views

Air Force leaders order probe of Trump resort stays. Stopovers at Scotland airport have tripled since 2015 and overnight stays in the area are up five-fold. https://politi.co/2zXQ4Q7

Sarah Huckabee Sanders says she is 'relentlessly' attacked by women. You know, it usually depends on where I am in the country. Back home in Arkansas, things have been so far pretty easy and very welcoming,” she began, before adding: "But every once in a while, you always have somebody who comes up to say something nasty to you.” "Like what,” Doocy asked. "What I always find interesting is 99 percent of the people who come over to say something negative, and to attack you, are women. And I find that very startling from a group of people that claim to be the champions of women empowerment," Sanders said. "I am only the third woman and the first mom to ever be the White House press secretary," she continued. "And yet women attack me relentlessly, instead of being proud that we have more women doing those types of jobs." https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/460300-sarah-huckabee-sanders-says-she-is-relentlessly-attacked-by

White House officials attack Washington Post over 'media bias'. Stephanie Grisham and Hogan Gidley, the White House press secretary and deputy press secretary, respectively, on Thursday penned an op-ed in the Washington Examiner criticizing the Post for a Sept. 1 article that described “what some Trump advisers and allies characterize as a lost summer defined by self-inflicted controversies and squandered opportunities.”Grisham and Gidley wrote that the Post refused to cite the majority of Trump’s accomplishments from a list of 26 that was provided by the White House, and that writers Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker “pushed their own personal political narrative that President Trump had a ‘lost summer’ of squandered opportunities and few accomplishments.” The White House officials argued that the opposite is true. The Post article notes that White House officials offered up a list of over two-dozen accomplishments from summer 2019, but goes on to report that many of Trump’s advisers and allies privately described it as a “period of missed opportunity and self-sabotage.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/460246-white-house-officials-attack-washington-post-over-media-bias

Mike Pence accused of humiliating hosts in Ireland: 'He shat on the carpet'. The vice-president’s comments on Brexit while visiting Ireland and his stay at his boss’s golf course did not go down well https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/05/mike-pence-ireland-shat-on-the-carpet

We Always Knew Mike Pence Was Irrelevant, and Now We Know He’s Corrupt, Too. For two-plus years, the fawning vice president merely made a fool of himself. But after he stayed at Trump’s Ireland hotel, he’s much worse than that. https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-always-knew-mike-pence-was-irrelevant-and-now-we-know-hes-corrupt-too

Nepotism, Cronyism, Trump administration dysfunction, Draft Dodgers, sex criminals, archived September 2019

Absolutely nobody turned up to support Mike Pence in Ireland. US vice president Mike Pence didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome on his official visit to Ireland, with videos showing not a single person turning out to greet him at his family’s ancestral home. While in Ireland, Pence stayed at Trump’s five-star private golf resort and hotel. Pence has connections with the local village, Doonbeg, which is where his great-grandmother grew up. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/09/05/absolutely-nobody-turned-up-to-support-mike-pence-in-ireland/

The lonely tragedy of Tiffany Trump | Arwa Mahdawi. It’s hard to feel sorry for a Trump – but I’ll make an exception for Donald’s fourth child. The 25-year-old, for her part, appears to have responded to the drama in the most millennial way possible – posting a quote from Rumi, the ancient Persian poet, to her Instagram story on Saturday. “Study me as much as you like, you will never know me,” it read. “For I differ a hundred ways from what you see me to be … I have chosen to dwell in a place you can’t see.” Tiffany, by the way, normally dwells at Georgetown University law school. While we may never fully know her, we know she has dabbled in all the usual famous-child activities such as modelling and singing. In 2011, she released a single, Like a Bird, which is surprisingly catchy. Sample lyrics include: “Feel like I spot a bug crawlin’ through the liquid love / You kill and you tweeted me, baby you go beep-beep-beep” and “I just want serenity / While living it up.” And that, I think, is all we need to know about Tiffany. I hope whoever leaked Westerhout’s alleged comments is having a belated crisis of conscience. It’s true that Tiffany campaigned for her dad in 2016, so she isn’t a wholly sympathetic figure. However, she hasn’t courted the spotlight like her adult siblings and is not expected to join the 2020 campaign. If any of the Trumps deserve some serenity, it’s Tiffany. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/03/tiffany-trump-flying-like-a-bird-above-the-hurtful-rumours

Trump's personal assistant fired after comments about Ivanka, Tiffany. Madeleine Westerhout, who left her White House job suddenly on Thursday as President Trump’s personal assistant, was fired after bragging to reporters that she had a better relationship with Trump than his own daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany Trump, and that the president did not like being in pictures with Tiffany because he perceived her as overweight. https://politi.co/30XYiDq

Trump's personal assistant resigns: NYT. According to the Times, Westerhout's resignation came after Trump reportedly learned that she had shared information on a recent working vacation about his family and Oval Office matters she was part of during an off-the-record dinner with reporters at hotels near the president's Bedminster, N.J., resort. The Times reported that Westerhout was immediately labeled a "separated employee" and would not be allowed to return to the White House on Friday after Trump reportedly learned of her alleged conversation with journalists. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459378-trumps-personal-assistant-resigns-nyt

Death and destruction: this is David Koch's sad legacy. Anarcho-capitalism was the real cancer plaguing the billionaire libertarian. And it spread across universities, halls of Congress and the White House | Alex Kotch https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/27/death-destruction-david-koch-legacy

Exclusive: Falwell steered Liberty University land deal benefiting... Around 2011, Falwell, president of Liberty University in Virginia, and his wife, Rebecca, began personal fitness training sessions with Benjamin Crosswhite, then a 23-year-old recent Liberty graduate. Now, after a series of university real estate transactions signed by Falwell, Crosswhite owns a sprawling 18-acre racquet sports and fitness facility on former Liberty property. Last year, a local bank approved a line of credit allowing Crosswhite’s business to borrow as much as $2 million against the property. Falwell, one of the most influential right-wing Christian leaders in the United States, has been buffeted by disclosures about his private dealings over the last year and a half. A Florida lawsuit brought public scrutiny to a relationship between the Falwells and Giancarlo Granda, a young man they befriended while he was working as a pool attendant at a luxury Miami Beach hotel and later backed in a business venture involving a youth hostel. Falwell filed an affidavit in 2018 saying he used his own wealth to lend $1.8 million to the $4.65 million project with Granda. And U.S. President Trump’s now-jailed fixer, Michael Cohen, has said he helped the Falwells suppress racy personal photos, as Reuters reported this May, in the months before Cohen persuaded Falwell to endorse Trump’s 2016 White House bid. There is no evidence that Cohen’s efforts to suppress the photos were a quid pro quo for Falwell’s vital political backing. https://reut.rs/2Zs52x3

David Koch’s most important legacy is the election of Donald Trump. He left a legacy of blocking health care for the most needy, polluting the environment & political system. https://interc.pt/2NxbStF by @lhfang

At the congressional swearing in ceremony for the Tea Party wave, I saw David Koch leaving the building and got a short interview. Every other political interview Koch ever gave was carefully screened. This one wasn't. https://t.co/bHsBR6fXvQ" — Lee Fang (@lhfang) https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1164942632599953409 August 23, 2019

VA officials labeled recommendations from Mar-a-Lago members 'ridiculous': Staffers at the Department of Veterans Affairs blasted policy recommendations from members of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club as “ridiculous,” according to documents released by a Washington, D.C. governmental ethics watchdog. In more than 300 pages of emails obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) through a Freedom of Information Act request, career VA officials expressed frustration about having to entertain suggestions from Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, attorney Marc Sherman and Palm Beach-area doctor Bruce Moskowitz. In one email, a senior department official tells staffers Sherman does not “understand the context of government nor does he understand the [app development] contract,” and that due to his presence, those involved in the process are “talking past each other.” Another email, responding to an official questioning how they should address “ridiculous” questions, advised the official, “They are coming from POTUS friend/doctor … Handle sensitively and with facts.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/458746-va-officials-labeled-recommendations-from-mar-a-lago-members

Trump’s new press secretary was arrested for DUI while working on the 2016 campaign during her rocky rise to the White House. She was arrested for driving under the influence, speeding, and driving with an invalid license in 2013, according to the report, and the charges were later reduced to reckless driving. Grisham was also arrested for driving under the influence in December 2015, ultimately pleading guilty. She paid a fine and was ordered by the court into a treatment program. she worked for the AAA auto club in Arizona as well as the ad agency Mindspace. Grisham reportedly left AAA after facing allegations of filing false claims for travel and other expenses and lost the job at Mindspace for plagiarism. Grisham is a fierce defender of the Trumps, but also represents a break from the traditional mold of her prestigious role in the White House. Grisham hasn't held an on-camera briefing since taking over in early July and does not appear particularly interested in engaging with members of the press. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-press-secretary-arrested-dui-amid-work-for-2016-campaign-2019-8

Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump. “I'm in the process of putting together a team of people that feel the exact same way that I do. This is not a ‘Never Trump’ situation, this is not just screeching rhetoric. This is, 'OK, the guy's unstable, everyone inside knows it, everyone outside knows it, let’s see if we can find a viable alternative,'” Scaramucci said Monday on CNN’s “New Day.”

“Moreover, I’ve got to get some of these former Cabinet officials in unity to speak up about it.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/457923-scaramucci-assembling-team-of-former-cabinet-members-to-speak-out

The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Is Much Bigger Than Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein is at the top of every news cycle, and dominates our digital social media world. His trafficking of young girls, children to satisfy his and the sexual preferences of so many of the rich and powerful, are the center of all this, as are his connections to that dark world of the unseemly side of the interaction between government, business, and the intelligence world, allegedly. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-jeffrey-epstein-scandal-is-much-bigger-than-jeffrey-epstein/

A top intelligence official interrupted a meeting to urge his deputy to resign. The country's No. 2 intelligence official, Sue Gordon, knew it was likely she would have to eventually step down from her post, but the timing of that decision became more urgent on Thursday after her boss -- outgoing spy chief Dan Coats -- interrupted a meeting she was holding on election security and asked his deputy to submit her letter of resignation, sources familiar with the events told CNN. While details of the conversation between Gordon, an intelligence veteran of more than 30 years, and Coats remain unclear, sources say that the situation clearly abruptly changed after the meeting was interrupted. Shortly after her encounter with Coats, Gordon submitted her letter of resignation to Vice President Mike Pence, though the document itself was addressed to Trump, according to officials, a highly unusual move that prompted some confusion among some West Wing officials who waited for the President's tweet confirming the news. The circumstances surrounding Gordon's resignation, including the role Coats appears to have played in the timing of her announcement, seem to indicate she was forced out for political reasons. "I offer this letter as an act of respect & patriotism, not preference. You should have your team," she wrote in a handwritten note to the President that was released by the White House. Gordon's abrupt departure, with only one week's notice, and Trump's longstanding hostility toward the intelligence community -- which he has publicly derided, likened to Nazis and disagreed with -- is likely to heighten concerns that the President may be trying to politicize agencies that are meant to stand apart from partisanship or politicking. (link: https://cnn.it/2yOx7i6) cnn.it/2yOx7i6

Unsealed documents detail alleged Epstein victim’s recruitment at Mar-a-Lago. A trove of court documents unsealed Friday detail allegations by an alleged victim of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein that while working as a teenage locker room attendant at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort nearly two decades ago she was recruited to give Epstein massages that often involved sexual activity. The roughly 2,000 pages of records released by the Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals also show the same woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, appears to have claimed she had sex with a series of prominent men — including former politicians — at Epstein’s direction while working as a staff masseuse for the investment adviser, who eventually came under investigation in 2006 for sex trafficking over his involvement with teenage girls. https://politi.co/2OPS47j

Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex trafficking victim named Bill Richardson, George Mitchell in newly released documents. Giuffre alleged in her own deposition that she was allegedly forced to have sex with Richardson, 71, Britain’s Prince Andrew, Hedge Fund manager Glenn Dubin, American scientist Marvin Minsky, “another prince,” “a large hotel chain owner,” Stephen Kauffman, and model scout Jean Luc Brunell. Meanwhile, included in the hundreds of pages of documents were pages of flight logs from Epstein’s private jet. Prominent individuals who had traveled on the jet, according to those records, included Bill Gates, who flew once, former President Bill Clinton and aide Doug Band, who flew four times, President Trump, who flew once in 1997 from Palm Beach to New York, Colombian President Andres Pastrana, Dershowitz, Hyatt Hotels Chairman Tom Pritzker, Brunel, and model and talent agent Naomi Campbell, among others. https://fxn.ws/33lwYRk #FoxNews

State Department foreign service officer resigns in blistering criticism of Trump. Chuck Park wrote in the op-ed that during his almost 10 years in the foreign service he "worked to spread what (he) believed were American values: freedom, fairness and tolerance." "But more and more I found myself in a defensive stance, struggling to explain to foreign peoples the blatant contradictions at home," he wrote. Park said that after the election of President Donald Trump, he had remained "complacent" and had "let career perks silence (his) conscience." "I let free housing, the countdown to a pension and the prestige of representing a powerful nation overseas distract me from ideals that once seemed so clear to me. I can't do that anymore," Park wrote. "My son, born in El Paso on the American side of that same Rio Grande where the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter were discovered, in the same city where 22 people were just killed by a gunman whose purported 'manifesto' echoed the inflammatory language of our President, turned 7 this month. I can no longer justify to him, or to myself, my complicity in the actions of this administration. That's why I choose to resign," he said. https://t.co/TJiTcXNy88

Victoria's Secret billionaire Leslie Wexner accuses Epstein of misappropriating 'vast sums of money' from him. Billionaire Leslie Wexner on Wednesday accused his former money manager Jeffrey Epstein of misappropriating millions of his fortune. The Wall Street Journal reported that Wexner, the billionaire behind Victoria's Secret, issued a statement to members of the Wexner Foundation, alleging that more than $46 million of his family's fortune was uncovered after the L Brands CEO decided to cut ties with Epstein in 2007. The Journal reported that Wexner began severing ties with Epstein after allegations emerged involving Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls. “We discovered that he had misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family,” Wexner told the foundation Wednesday, according to the Journal. “This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now.” “All of that money — every dollar of it — was originally Wexner family money,” he said, according to the Journal. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/456645-victorias-secret-billionaire-leslie-wexner-accuses-epstein-of-misappropriating

Whistleblower Allegations Surfaced Just Before DNI Pick John Ratcliffe Withdrew. An email disclosing Rep. John Ratcliffe’s (R-TX) alleged involvement in a controversial whistleblowing case reached the White House prior to the announcement Friday that he was withdrawing his name from consideration for Director of National Intelligence, according to two sources with knowledge of the correspondence. The email, originally sent to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, laid out how Ratcliffe promoted a company accused of being instrumental in the reprisal against a whistleblower and their cybersecurity efforts, according to one of those sources. The Government Accountability Project, an organization that protects whistleblowers, is helping represent the unnamed government employee. Details about the case are being closely held in part because of security reasons. The organization sent information on its client’s disclosure to the committee Wednesday morning. The email then circulated among Republicans in Washington, including some White House officials, who did not think Ratcliffe was up to the job of DNI, according to two sources with direct knowledge. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-nominee-john-ratcliffes-ties-to-whistleblower-case-surfaced-as-officials-warned-against-him-for-dni

President Donald Trump on Friday said that his pick for director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), will not proceed with the confirmation process, blaming “the LameStream Media.” President Donald Trump on Friday said that his pick for director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), will not proceed with the confirmation process, blaming “the LameStream Media.” Trump tweeted Friday that he persuaded Ratcliffe to avoid “months of slander and libel,” saying that Ratcliffe had been “treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media,” and it would be “miserable... to deal with these people.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-ratcliffe-trump-intel-nominee_n_5d447c7ae4b0acb57fcc226f

The confirmation of Craft, a Trump pick, ends a seven-month vacancy in an important diplomatic position. The Senate confirmed Trump nominee Kelly Knight Craft on Wednesday as ambassador to the United Nations, filling the role that's been vacant for roughly seven months. #MoscowMitch: The Senate just confirmed @POTUS's impressive nominee for the critical role of @USUN Ambassador: Kelly Knight Craft of #Kentucky. I’m confident our entire nation will be proud of the fine service she will render as our Ambassador to the United Nations. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-confirms-kelly-knight-un-ambassador_n_5d4209fae4b0acb57fc6c100

The president's silent spokeswoman. In one of the most fiery months of the Trump presidency, the new press secretary has had very little to say.Stephanie Grisham is operating under a basic principle as President Donald Trump’s new chief spokesperson and communications director: Let Trump soak up all the media oxygen. She has not appeared on Fox News, the president’s favorite channel, or taken reporters’ questions in a gaggle from the White House driveway. https://politi.co/2JISRSK

‘It’s a disaster over there’: Commerce reaches new heights of dysfunction. Constant infighting among top officials. Sudden departures of senior staffers without explanation. A leader who is disengaged and prone to falling asleep in meetings. The Commerce Department has reached its apex of dysfunction under Wilbur Ross, according to four people with knowledge of the inner workings of the department. The 81-year-old Commerce secretary, who has for months endured whispers that he is on the outs, spends much of his time at the White House to try to retain President Donald Trump’s favor, the sources said, leaving his department adrift. https://politi.co/2M6h4En

Trump adviser Stephen Miller says outrage over 'racist' remarks meant to 'silence and punish' https://news.yahoo.com/trump-adviser-stephen-miller-says-143342160.html

Tiffany Trump Just Got Snubbed by Her Dad in a Big Way https://news.yahoo.com/tiffany-trump-just-got-snubbed-014500888.html

Eric Trump: ‘95 percent’ of Americans agree with my father https://news.yahoo.com/eric-trump-95-percent-americans-125003882.html

A comprehensive list of former Fox employees who have joined the Trump administration http://mm4a.org/4bM

Pompeo layers over top State Dept. negotiator ahead of talks with Russia. The official, Andrea Thompson, stands accused of failing to disclose ties to a GOP operative caught up in the Maria Butina affair. https://politi.co/2ki2spE

Trump's Cabinet exodus is an emergency: Unconfirmed acting secretaries are running the government. Alex Acosta the 13th Cabinet member to depart the Trump administration — and his replacement may be much worse. https://www.salon.com/2019/07/15/trumps-cabinet-exodus-is-an-emergency-unconfirmed-acting-secretaries-are-running-the-government/

The White House refused to let Kellyanne Conway appear the first time, so it wasn’t a surprise she didn't show up to a second congressional hearing, even with a subpoena. The White House said President Trump’s counselor “cannot be compelled to testify.” White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway did not show up to testify at a hearing on Monday about Hatch Act violations for a second time, despite being issued a subpoena by the House Oversight and Reform Committee following her absence at the first hearing last month. “In defiance of that subpoena, Ms. Conway is, again, refusing to appear,” Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said during opening statements. Cummings said he hoped Conway would reconsider her decision not to testify, but if not, the committee will have a meeting to hold her in contempt on July 25. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-defies-subpoena_n_5d2ce22ae4b0bca60363fc8e

Alexander Acosta stepping down as Labor secretary. Acosta, a 50-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer, came newly under fire for the lenient 2008 plea deal after Epstein was re-arrested July 6 in New York City and charged with sex trafficking. Under the earlier plea agreement, Epstein served only 13 months of an 18-month term and was permitted daily furloughs to go to the office. Epstein also was required to register as a sex offender and to pay restitution to his underage victims. https://politi.co/2JJpdvB

Who Is British Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s Longtime Partner? The daughter of a British media mogul, Maxwell is alleged to have served as a “madam” for her billionaire partner https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-arrest-856874/ via @RollingStone

A Running List of Jeffrey Epstein’s Rich, Powerful, and Presidential Friends. From A(costa) to Z(uckerman), everyone’s bad. To be updated, we have a feeling. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-donald-trump-alan-dershowitz.html via @slate

Mike Pompeo unveils panel to examine 'unalienable rights'. The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush. Glendon is also a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice, which could lend credence to the concerns among human rights activists that the commission is a ploy to undercut LGBTQ and women’s rights under the guise of religious liberty. https://politi.co/2NGeCXA

‘The next 72 hours are critical for Acosta’. Trump aides so far are not bothered by Acosta's role in the controversial Epstein plea deal, but are aware of the headline risk. https://politi.co/2NGOCLG

Jeffrey Epstein prosecutors aided by ‘excellent investigative journalism’. Berman’s comments at the news conference — which came in response to a question about whether prosecutors had obtained new information about Epstein, who pleaded not guilty — prompted a round of celebrations from journalists. But they also renewed questions about why the allegations against the financier, who has counted presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton as friends, were not deeply investigated much earlier. https://politi.co/2NEBBlG via @politico

Jeffrey Epstein arrested in New York, charged with sex trafficking. Epstein, 66, is expected to be arraigned in federal court in New York on Monday on charges that he molested dozens of underage girls in New York and in Florida, the sources said. His arrest, first reported by the Daily Beast, comes nearly two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it would not throw out his 2008 non-prosecution agreement, even though a federal judge ruled it was illegal. Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article232374872.html“

I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them on the younger side. Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” – Donald J. Trump in 2002

Trump nepotism attacked after 'out-of-her-depth' Ivanka given key summit role https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/01/donald-trump-ivanka-g20-north-korea-nepotism

Trump nepotism attacked after 'out-of-her-depth' Ivanka given key summit role. Donald Trump has been accused of taking nepotism to alarming new depths after giving his daughter, Ivanka, a prominent role in meetings with the G20 and Kim Jong-un.Such brazenly dynastic displays caused concern among foreign policy experts who, noting Ivanka’s complete lack of diplomatic experience or training, warned of lasting damage to America’s credibility. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/01/donald-trump-ivanka-g20-north-korea-nepotism

Hope Hicks implicates Jared Kushner in lying about Trump-Russia contacts https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/hope-hicks-implicates-jared-kushner-in-lying-about-trump-russia-contacts-1/ via @MotherJones

'Painful to watch': The French government released a video of Ivanka Trump having an awkward chat with world leaders https://www.businessinsider.com/ivanka-trump-g20-macron-may-trudeau-lagarde-snubbed-video-2019-6

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham Brawls With North Korean Guards https://deadline.com/2019/06/stephanie-grisham-north-korean-guards-fight-1202640086/ via @Deadline

Ocasio-Cortez: Ivanka Trump is not a 'qualified diplomat' Ocasio-Cortez was reacting to the viral video, posted by BBC journalist Parham Ghobadi, which he described as Ivanka Trump, a senior adviser to President Trump, trying to “get involved” in a conversation with several world leaders: French President Emmanuel Macron, United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and International Monetary Fund Chairwoman Christine Lagarde. The encounter drew widespread mockery online. https://news.yahoo.com/ocasio-cortez-ivanka-trump-152932324.html

Analysis: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Leaves White House After Contentious Encounters, Credibility Issues. Sanders’ relationship with the press had so deteriorated by the end of her two-year tenure that once frequent press briefings had become nonexistent. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Huckabee-Sanders-to-Leave-White-House-Press-Secretary-Post-504174791.html via @nbcwashington

Former White House lawyer: 'I’m not aware of any situation like' Elaine Chao's reported conflicts of interest. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s personal connections are raising concerns on Capitol Hill and beyond amid recent reports of various conflicts of interest. Recent reports found that the Trump cabinet member created a “special path” for projects favored by Senate Majority Leader and husband Mitch McConnell for his home state of Kentucky; she retained shares in a construction-materials company for more than a year after promising to relinquish them; and she has “extraordinary proximity to power in China” given her family’s American shipping company is largely based in China. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elaine-chao-conflicts-interest-reports-133505604.html

Exclusive: Leaked Trump vetting docs. The massive trove, and the story behind it, sheds light on the slap-dash way President Trump filled his cabinet and administration, and foreshadowed future scandals that beset his government. https://www.axios.com/leaked-donald-trump-vetting-docs-hbo-6ce3cd26-1eb9-4da8-b15e-47b56020aef7.html

7 of the most outrageous moments from Sarah Sanders' time in the White House. Her legacy may best be remembered for destroying the daily White House press briefing. https://www.salon.com/2019/06/14/7-of-the-most-outrageous-moments-from-sarah-sanders-time-in-the-white-house_partner/

Five memorable moments from Sarah Sanders at the White House. During the May 2017 briefing, she claimed that “countless” FBI agents had reached out to voice their support for Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as the bureau’s director. New York Times reporter Michael Shear skeptically questioned that statement, and Sanders doubled down. “Between, like, email, text messages, absolutely. Yes,” she said. “We’re not going to get into a numbers game. I mean, I have heard from a large number of individuals that work at the FBI that said that they’re very happy with the president’s decision.” Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 election revealed two years after the incident that Sanders admitted she had misled reporters with the claim. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448630-five-memorable-moments-from-sarah-sanders-at-the-white-house

Can you tell Scaramucci from Spicer? Which Ex–Trump Official Said It? A quiz in honor of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ departure from the White House.

  1. “If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russia connection.” Sean Spicer
  2. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c—.” Anthony Scaramucci
  3. “I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.” John Kelly
  4. “Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they (the media) get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.” Steve Bannon
  5. ”It is very biblical to enforce the law.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders
  6. “When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody.” Reince Priebus
  7. ”Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump.” Omarosa Manigault Newman
  8. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” Jeff Sessions
  9. ”I would ask for wall. We need wall.” Kirstjen Nielson
  10. “I don’t do well in plaid.” Hope Hicks

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/sarah-huckabee-sanders-quiz-quote-trump-staffers.html via @slate

With Sarah Sanders leaving the White House, Trump now lies alone. During her time as press secretary, Sanders has lied repeatedly on behalf of the president. Now, she's leaving him to lie for himself. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/14/sarah-huckabee-sanders-quit-white-house-trump-liar-column/1457224001/ via @usatoday

Nepotism, Cronyism, Trump administration dysfunction, Draft Dodgers, archived June 2019

Andrew McCabe celebrates Sarah Sanders' exit from White House: 'I have to say I will not miss her'. MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace asked McCabe to weigh in on Sanders' exit, specifically the revelation in the Mueller report where she admitted that she was not being truthful about what she suggested was the lack of the bureau support for then-FBI Director James Comey following his firing. “You know, I knew at the time it was completely false,” McCabe responded. “It was also obvious that it was very important to the president and to his staff that we all adopt that false narrative that the FBI was happy about the fact that Jim Comey was fired, and that gleeful agents and employees were calling over to the White House to express that. Never happened, completely false from the beginning, so to see that admission in the Mueller report was enormously satisfying. I have to say I will not miss her after she departs the White House.” https://fxn.ws/2XenneR #FoxNews

House Oversight to hold hearing on Conway's Hatch Act violations. Under the Hatch Act, federal employees are prohibited from engaging in elections in their official capacity. The Office of Special Counsel sent a 17-page report to Trump on Thursday accusing Conway of breaking the law on numerous occasions “by disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media” and calling on the president to oust her "immediately." https://thehill.com/homenews/house/448435-house-oversight-to-hold-hearing-on-conways-hatch-act-violations

With classified filing, feds eye national security case against Mar-a-Lago intruder https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article231465918.html

The Nepotism Might Finally Be Too Much to Ignore. From Jared Kushner to Elaine Chao and Amy Chua, the game has gotten a bit too obvious. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/trump-nepotism-too-obvious-to-ignore-elitism.html via @slate

Who has gained access to President Trump and Mar-a-Lago through Cindy Yang? https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article228882284.html

Top Trump Official Made $40,000 From a Stock She Promised to Sell. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is the latest in a long line of Trump officials with apparent conflicts of interest. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/trump-official-elaine-chao-made-40000-from-stock-she-promised-to-sell

Papadopoulos on AG's new powers: 'Trump is now on the offense' "Most people who work for Donald Trump, if not all of them, either got bankrupt, their life thrown in a whirlwind, or found themselves in short or long jail sentences. My short answer to you is if the feds want to get you, they’re going to get you," he argued. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/445551-papadopoulos-on-ags-new-powers-trump-is-now-on-the-offense

George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying in Russiagate. Now he has a sexy new life in Hollywood. https://wapo.st/papadopoulos

Ocasio-Cortez hits NYT over story on Hope Hicks: It's framed 'as some Lifetime drama'. "What gets me is news breaks that this woman is weighing committing a crime before Congress &it’s getting framed by the NYT as some Lifetime drama called 'Hope’s Choice'" Ocasio-Cortez wrote in one tweet. "In the immediate aftermath of shootings, media routinely post menacing photos of people-of-color victims + dredge up any questionable thing they’d ever done," she wrote in another tweet. "But when Hope Hicks considers not complying w a subpoena, it’s glamour shot time." https://thehill.com/homenews/media/445614-ocasio-cortez-hits-nyt-over-story-on-hope-hicks-its-framed-as-some-lifetime

Melania Trump’s parents would have struggled to come to the U.S. under Trump’s immigration plan. David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, dismissed Trump’s plan as a campaign ploy. But he said it was no surprise that Trump is seeking to devastate family reunifications. “That is the consistent theme of this administration,” he said, “Yet, Melania has benefited from the immigration system; his in-laws are here because of the immigration system. He demonizes immigrants when he is benefiting and profiting from undocumented workers at his golf club.” “For them to talk about the immigration system is an absolute joke and it’s shameful,” Leopold said. https://wapo.st/2vZKavR

Trump’s pick for ICE director: I can tell which migrant children will become gang members by looking into their eyes. Mark Morgan, the White House choice to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said during a Fox News interview earlier this year that he can judge the likelihood that an unaccompanied minor will become a gang member by looking into that child's eyes. “I’ve been to detention facilities where I’ve walked up to these individuals that are so-called minors, 17 or under,” Morgan said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in January. “I’ve looked at them and I’ve looked at their eyes, Tucker — and I’ve said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member. It’s unequivocal.” https://politi.co/2JpsO41

‘Get Scavino in here’: Trump’s Twitter guru is the ultimate insider. “Get Dan Scavino in here,” Trump called out in the middle of the meeting earlier this year. In walked a man in his early 40s with close-cropped brown hair. Scavino met Trump as a 16-year-old golf caddie and has spent much of his adult life by his side. Today, he sits just feet from the Oval Office and is present at most meetings, tapping away on his laptop in the background. He has joined Trump on trips to Saudi Arabia, Argentina and other far-flung destinations. And officials say he talks to the president more than just about anybody else aside from Trump’s own family members, ping-ponging in and out of the Oval, sometimes more than a half-dozen times a day. Aides wanting a read on Trump’s mood often check in with Scavino, who can be counted on to know. https://politi.co/2JJC2aE via @politico

Rudy, Inc. Rudy Giuliani has had many identities in his time on the public stage. A crusading federal prosecutor who struck terror in mobsters and Wall Street titans alike. A sometimes cantankerous New York City mayor who became a national hero for his stirring leadership after the 9/11 attacks. And, currently, President Donald Trump’s unpaid attorney in the Russia collusion investigation being led by Robert Mueller. In this week’s episode of Trump, Inc., we’re digging into a part of Giuliani's work that has occurred largely outside of the spotlight: He has often traveled to Russia or other former Soviet states as guests of powerful players there. And since Trump was elected, he appears to have stepped up the frequency of those trips. Just last week, for example, Giuliani appeared in the former Soviet republic of Armenia, which has close trade ties with Russia. He was invited, according to local press accounts, by Ara Abramyan, an Armenian businessman who lives in Russia. Abramyan once helped reconstruct the Kremlin and also received a medal for “merit to the fatherland” from President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Giuliani said he was in Armenia as a private citizen, but on a local TV news show, Abramyan implied that he expected Giuliani to carry a message for him to Trump. (The conversation was in Armenian, so it’s not clear whether Giuliani understood what Abramyan was saying.) http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/trump-inc-rudy-inc/ via @wnycstudios

Ivanka Trump tweets, then deletes, photo with “National Security Strategy” document https://www.newsweek.com/ivanka-trump-tweets-then-deletes-photo-national-security-strategy-document-1422335

Michael Cohen fixed Jerry Falwell Jr.'s problem. Then the evangelical leader went to bat for Trump. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/michael-cohen-fixed-jerry-falwell-jr-s-problem-then-the-evangelical-leader-went-to-bat-for-trump/ via @MotherJones

Is Melania Trump's Be Best campaign doomed by her husband’s presidency? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/07/melania-trump-be-best-campaign-donald-trump

Another Chinese American Trump donor tried to sell Mar-a-Lago access to overseas clients. Businessman Daniel Lou raised money for Trump—and the GOP won’t let him talk about it. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/another-chinese-american-trump-donor-tried-to-sell-mar-a-lago-access-to-overseas-clients/ via @MotherJones

Trump Furious With Ally David Bossie Over His Reported Self-Dealing. The president even instructed top officials on his campaign to retaliate against his former deputy campaign manager. On Tuesday, they finally did. On Monday morning, Donald Trump was incensed over a report that one of his highest-profile supporters, David Bossie, had been engaged in apparent financial self-dealing under the guise of re-electing the president. And as he stewed, Trump began telling those close to him that Bossie’s alleged scheme was brazen and egregious enough to warrant a swift, public response. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-furious-with-ally-david-bossie-over-his-reported-self-dealing

Why a Former Met Gala Planner is Fighting With Melania Trump and Her Spokeswoman. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the longtime Met Gala planner turned lead organizer for Donald Trump’s inaugural celebration and former senior adviser to Melania Trump, was unceremoniously fired by the First Lady last February—and she is very upset at her (possibly former) friends, the Trumps. More specifically, she is upset at White House officials who characterized her departure as stemming from the revelation that her firm, which was called WIS Media Partners, had received a whopping $26 million to help plan the inauguration. “Was I fired? No,” Winston Wolkoff said in a statement she sent to the New York Times. “Did I personally receive $26 million or $1.6 million? No. Was I thrown under the bus? Yes.” How pissed do you have to be to mark the 14-month anniversary of getting fired by unloading on your former friend-turned-former-boss? Let us unwrap this beef, shall we? https://theslot.jezebel.com/unwrapping-the-beef-why-a-former-met-gala-planner-is-f-1834579259

Economists quit Trump admin after their studies showed tariffs hurt US farmers: report. Trump administration economists are quitting their jobs, saying they've faced retaliation for publishing reports highlighting how President Trump's tariffs and other trade policies have hurt farmers, Politico reports. Six economists in the Agriculture Department's (USDA) research branch quit the Trump administration in a single day late last month and more are reportedly planning to leave. The exodus comes after the Economic Research Service (ERS) published findings that painted the new Republican tax law, Trump's trade disputes and other policy decisions as hurting American farmers financially. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/442452-economists-quit-trump-admin-after-their-studies-showed-tariffs-hurt

Stephen Moore: Trump's Federal Reserve pick withdraws nomination. In a letter to Trump released after the president’s tweet, Moore said: “The unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family and three more months of this would be too hard on us.” Earlier on Thursday, the Guardian revealed that Moore had continued underpaying alimony to his ex-wife for years after he was reprimanded by a judge for failing to pay his debts to her. Moore was, in 2012, found in contempt of court for failing to pay $300,000 in alimony and money owed in his divorce settlement. He was separately pursued by the Internal Revenue Service for $75,000 in unpaid taxes. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/02/stephen-moore-trump-federal-reserve-nominee-withdraws-latest

Mattis ignored orders from Trump, White House on North Korea, Iran: report. "There are a lot of people in the administration who want to limit the president’s options because they don’t want the president to get anything done," a former senior administration official said. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/441240-mattis-ignored-orders-from-trump-white-house-on-north-korea-iran-report

Sarah Huckabee Sanders stands by 'sentiment' of misleading comments revealed in Mueller report https://politi.co/2Pi57e8 via @politico

What Was the Chinese Woman Arrested at Mar-a-Lago Really Up To? A Former Spy Helps Us Figure It Out. For now, it is impossible to say if Zhang was a confused tourist, who just wanted a glimpse of the president, or a bumbling Chinese intelligence officer whose cover story cracked. But one thing is for sure: Mar-a-Lago is target-rich environment for any real spy. https://politi.co/2PjAmFG

7 times the Mueller report caught Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders lying to press https://www.vox.com/2019/4/18/18485512/mueller-report-trump-lies-sarah-sanders

White House press secretary responds to report - GMA - Pressed repeatedly on her comments on FBI agents, Sarah Sanders tells @GStephanopoulos, "It was the heat of the moment, meaning that it wasn't a scripted talking point. I'm sorry that I wasn't a robot like the Democratic Party" was about Mueller probe. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1119197778482057216 https://gma.abc/2Pr3ew1 via @GMA

‘Not my Jesus’: Christian students protest Pence, alarming conservatives https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/18/who-has-bewitched-you-conservatives-alarmed-christian-students-protest-pence-speech/

Sarah Sanders made false statements to press on Comey firing, Mueller says https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439554-sarah-sanders-made-false-statements-to-press-on-comey-firing-mueller

Sarah Sanders told Mueller’s team she had no basis for her statements about Comey. Watch her make those 2017 claims. Sarah Sanders told Mueller's team she lied to reporters. Here's the video of the lie. https://politi.co/2vbWCZ6 via @politico

Hypocrisy without borders: the pomposity of Ivanka Trump’s trip to Africa | Arwa Mahdawi. We don’t deserve Saint Ivanka, we really don’t. Nobody asked Donald Trump’s favourite child to devote her life to empowering women, she just knew it had to be done. Nobody elected her to serve in the US government, but she took a senior role in her father’s administration anyway. And not content with simply empowering the women of the US, the patron saint of nepotists, hypocrites and grifters has altruistically taken her talents on tour. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/16/hypocrisy-without-borders-ivanka-trump-trip-africa-ethiopia-ivory-coast

Mike Pence is reportedly as big a Trump suck-up in private as in public https://theweek.com/speedreads/835179/mike-pence-reportedly-big-trump-suckup-private-public via @TheWeek

'Smart Enough' Twitter Critics Smack Down Sarah Huckabee Sanders' Insult Over Trump's Taxes. “I don’t think Congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume President Trump’s taxes will be,” Sanders told “Fox News Sunday.” She added: “My guess is most of them don’t do their own taxes, and I certainly don’t trust them to look through the decades of success that the president has and determine anything.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/sarah-huckabee-sanders-twitter-not-smart-enough-taxes-024645737.html

Little Stevie Miller is No Wonder. Speaking of white nationalists (how’s that for a segue?), that brings me to Santa Monica’s own, Stephen Miller who, at 33, has ascended to Trump’s “immigration czar.” Miller, who bears a striking resemblance to the infamous Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man during the “red scare” of the 1950’s. After being disbarred and disgraced, Cohn became Trump’s mentor. Figures. Meanwhile, Miller even dresses like Cohn with his retro “skinny suits” and soulless facial expressions. https://www.smdp.com/little-stevie-miller-is-no-wonder/174240 via @Santa Monica Daily Press

Ivanka Trump spent years rigorously cultivating her image. But she wasn’t prepared for scrutiny, @elainaplott writes: As part of her research, Plott looked for concrete examples of ways that Ivanka had stopped her father from enacting an extreme policy that she believed went too far — and she came up empty. “I remember thinking, ‘Okay, we see Ivanka and her husband Jared as moderating influences on this president,'” she said. “I was trying to dig up where the first time was that she might have said she was pro-choice, for example, or that she was a huge activist when it came to climate change. And it just didn’t exist. It’s just nowhere.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/ivanka-trump-job-white-house/586972/

Trump’s sister quietly retired in February, and it’s actually a really big deal. The retirement of a federal appeals court judge is normally not a huge national news story, and while the fact that Maryanne Trump Barry is the sister of the president of the United States makes her decision a bit more noteworthy, on its face, you can still see why it’s been treated as relatively minor news. But peer a little bit deeper and the reason Barry is stepping down makes it clear that the story is a very big deal indeed. The key is that last fall, the New York Times published a bombshell investigation of Donald and Maryanne Trump’s father Fred Trump’s finances that appeared to reveal, among other things, that he illegally evaded taxes in transferring much of his wealth to his children — including both Donald and Maryanne. https://www.vox.com/2019/4/11/18306167/maryanne-trump-barry-tax-returns-trump

Inside the (semi-)secret society for young Trump staffers. For members of 'the Team,' the 45 Club offers refuge in a hostile capital. https://politi.co/2UvSK3Z via @politico

‘I would have preferred not to have been ejected like an Austin Powers villain’ “He’s always thinking optics. Everything, whether it’s policy or a staff move, he’s always thinking about it in terms of PR,” said former White House staffer Cliff Sims, who wrote a tell-all book about the administration, drawing Trump’s ire. “And one of his favorite talking points is, ‘We’re going to hire the best and the brightest, everybody wants to work for me,’ and so any implication or public perception that someone abandoned him, someone left him, I think in his mind, undercuts that premise.” Most of the time, however, the endings are not happy. And Trump often blindsides his own aides, announcing major departures on his own timeline. Last December, before leaving the White House for the Army-Navy football game, Trump made a point to pause in front of reporters and announce the upcoming ouster of then-White House chief of staff John Kelly. That upended his aides’ plans for a formal rollout of news about Kelly two days later. https://politi.co/2FWXZ2C via @politico

Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen has resigned https://www.stripes.com/news/us/homeland-security-secretary-nielsen-has-resigned-1.576136

Kirstjen Nielsen resigns as Trump homeland security secretary. Seventeen senior administration figures have departed so far and the key roles of secretary of defense, secretary of the interior, homeland security secretary, White House chief of staff and ambassador to the United Nations are currently filled in an acting capacity. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/07/kirstjen-nielsen-resigns-trump-homeland-security-secretary

A government watchdog group wants information on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's conference call that was limited to "faith-base" media. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crew-mike-pompeo-faith-based-media-briefing_n_5c97233be4b01ebeef105458

Robert Kraft speaks out for first time since prostitution bust: 'I am truly sorry' https://nypost.com/2019/03/23/robert-kraft-speaks-out-for-first-time-since-prostitution-bust-i-am-truly-sorry/

Opinion | Charles Kushner: Here’s the truth about my family and our business. But then came the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Amid the global recession that followed, the New York real estate market soured. The projected office rents for 666 Fifth Ave. were cut in half. That was a setback, but we had structured our debt in a way that enabled us to sell off half of the building’s Fifth Avenue retail component to pay down debt; the 2008 sale brought in $525 million. We kept a 51 percent stake in the retail, which was sold for a total of $1.03 billion in two pieces, in 2011 and 2012, allowing us to recoup most of our initial investment. To restructure the debt on the office component, we brought in Vornado Realty Trust in 2011 as a 49.5 percent partner in improving the building and reducing vacancies. Last year, we completed a $1.3 billion, 99-year land lease to Brookfield Asset Management, with significant financial upside for our company. https://wapo.st/2HIsE6l

Inside Ben Carson's light work schedule: Not much work on Fridays https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/ben-carson-s-schedule-shows-friday-trips-florida-lunch-my-n983526 via @nbcnews

The Miami Herald is reporting that the founder of the chain of massage parlors, Li Yang, including a location where Patriot's owner Bob Kraft was arrested for soliciting prositution, has previously visited President Trump at the White House and has been a guest at Mar-A-Lago. Travis Akers (@travisakers) The story doesn't end with President Trump, Bob Kraft, and a chain of massage parlors conducting human trafficking. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida Senator Rick Scott, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. also have associations with the founder of the massage parlor chain. https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1104032936905580544

Blackwater Founder Erik Prince finally admits he attended a controversial Trump Tower meeting https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-finally-admits-he-attended-a-controversial-trump-tower-meeting/ via @MotherJones

From a White House source, the House Oversight Committee has obtained documents related to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's security clearances that the Trump administration refused to provide, according to a senior Democratic aide involved in handling the documents. https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-security-clearance-leak-0a312b92-4a2d-4a70-a7fa-7fb7980d5305.html

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson says she will resign. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, one of the first officials to join the Trump administration in the Pentagon, said Friday she has informed President Trump she will resign, as the University of Texas System announced she has been named the sole finalist to become president of its campus in El Paso. Wilson said in a tweet that she submitted a resignation letter and released a statement Friday morning in which she said it was a privilege to serve alongside U.S. airmen over the two previous years and that she is “proud of the progress that we have made restoring our nation’s defense.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/03/08/air-force-secretary-heather-wilson-expected-resign/

Bill Shine abruptly resigns as White House communications chief. Bill Shine, the former Fox News executive who joined the White House eight months ago as President Trump’s top communications adviser, has resigned abruptly, the White House announced Friday. Shine, who served as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for communications, offered his resignation to Trump on Thursday evening, and the president accepted it, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced Friday. Shine plans to continue in the Trump orbit as a senior adviser to the president’s 2020 reelection campaign. https://wapo.st/2J13lyN?

Policy-making in the Trump administration: Mar-a-Lago member pens note to "King" Trump, he passes it on to the head of the VA. https://t.co/yoBFhwwSM3 https://t.co/CwYKr7oNWI Mark Elliott (@markmobility) March 7, 2019

Melania Trump visited Oklahoma school linked to exiled Turkish cleric — but why? https://interc.pt/2NL3zbY by @RobertMackey

Omarosa says there's one insider who can bring down the president. “One name: Rhona Graff,” Manigault Newman replied without hesitation, referring to Trump’s longtime personal secretary. “She knows everyone. She knows the role they play. She knows who said what and when. She set up the meetings,” Manigault Newman said. “If she is called to testify, that will be the end of Donald Trump.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/omarosa-names-trump-fears_n_5c7f36dfe4b0e62f69e792c5

Fox News Quietly Ditched Trump-Loving Sheriff David Clarke https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-quietly-ditched-trump-loving-sheriff-david-clarke

Whitaker out at Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman told The Hill that Whitaker’s last day was Saturday but did not expand on the circumstances surrounding his departure or his plans after leaving. It is unclear where Whitaker might go, including whether he might seek another role in the Trump administration. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/432477-whitaker-out-at-justice-department

Gorka, Fox part ways. Sebastian Gorka has parted ways with Fox News and has joined Sinclair Broadcasting. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/432450-gorka-fox-part-ways

Melania Trump Spokeswoman: Trump Tweets Don't 'Have Anything To Do' With 'Be Best' https://news.yahoo.com/melania-trump-spokeswoman-trump-tweets-182846663.html

Trump ordered Kelly to grant Kushner security clearance: NY Times https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432119-trump-ordered-john-kelly-to-grant-kushner-security-clearance-ny-times

Trump's inner circle sustains collateral damage in Cohen hearing https://politi.co/2Nx3b0t via @politico

White House to set up panel to counter climate change consensus, officials say. The White House plans to create an ad hoc group of select federal scientists to reassess the government’s analysis of climate science and counter conclusions that the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet, according to three administration officials. The National Security Council initiative would include scientists who question the severity of climate impacts and the extent to which humans contribute to the problem, according to these individuals, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The group would not be subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee. The move would represent the Trump administration’s most forceful effort to date to challenge the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are helping drive global warming and that the world could face dire consequences unless countries curb their carbon output over the next few decades. https://wapo.st/2TfwlXo

Robert Kraft: New England Patriots owner charged with soliciting prostitution. Kraft, a public ally of Donald Trump and regular visitor to Mar-a-Lago who donated $1m to the president’s inaugural celebrations, was one of several major US sports team owners whose names appeared in the Paradise Papers leak through involvement in firms in tax havens. Trump addressed the charges from the Oval Office on Friday, describing Kraft’s involvement as “sad” while adding the owner “denies it”. “It’s very sad,” the president said. “I was very surprised to see it. He’s proclaimed his innocence totally. I’m very surprised to see it.” https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/22/robert-kraft-arrest-prostitution-new-england-patriots-owner-latest-news

Interior officials accused of violating ethics pledge. A government ethics group is accusing six political officials at the Interior Department of violating the Trump administration’s ethics pledge.The targets of the Wednesday letter are assistant secretary for insular and international affairs Doug Domenech, senior deputy director of intergovernmental and external affairs Benjamin Cassidy, former energy adviser Vincent DeVito, deputy director of intergovernmental and external affairs Timothy Williams, White House liaison Lori Mashburn and director of intergovernmental and external affairs Todd Wynn. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/430841-interior-officials-accused-of-violating-ethics-pledge

Review | Andrew McCabe’s disturbing account of working for Sessions and Trump. He didn’t read intelligence reports and mixed up classified material with what he had seen in newspaper clips. He seemed confused about the structure and purpose of organizations and became overwhelmed when meetings covered multiple subjects. He blamed immigrants for nearly every societal problem and uttered racist sentiments with shocking callousness. This isn’t how President Trump is depicted in a new book by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe. Instead, it’s McCabe’s account of what it was like to work for then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. https://wapo.st/2N8ccwP

BTW it seems like Spicer had some drinks during before his appeareance on BlazeTV lol cristina lópez @crislopezg https://twitter.com/crislopezg/status/1092999859857223680 February 6, 2019

Dems call for revoking Kushner's security clearance https://thehill.com/homenews/house/427931-dems-call-for-revoking-kushners-security-clearance

'Whistleblower' in White House security clearance office is suspended. A White House security specialist has been suspended without pay for defying her supervisor Carl Kline, less than a week after NBC News reported Kline approved Jared Kushner for top secret clearance over the objections of career staff. The specialist, Tricia Newbold, had filed a discrimination complaint against Kline three months ago. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/whistleblower-white-house-security-clearance-office-gets-suspended-n964826 via @nbcnews

The Fallen Heroes Who Went to Vietnam in John Bolton’s Place https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fallen-heroes-who-went-to-vietnam-in-john-boltons-place

Trump met with group led by Ginni Thomas at White House: report. Other members of the delegation reportedly included Rosemary Jenks of the anti-immigration NumbersUSA think tank, and Frank Gaffney, the founder of the Center for Security Policy known for anti-Muslim rhetoric and conspiracy theories. The chief of staff for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas.) Connie Hair also attended the meeting, though she was introduced as a "conservative columnist," according to the Times. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/427108-trump-met-with-group-led-by-ginni-thomas-at-white-house-report

‘Master negotiator’ or ‘nonentity’? Kushner thrusts himself into middle of shutdown talks. https://wapo.st/2G0ubE7

So called President Trump, Grifter, Racist, rapist, liar, bed bug infested

Trump tweets a letter calling protesters ‘terrorists’. The letter from his former lawyer John Dowd appears addressed to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who had called out Trump on using the military against demonstrators. Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is among the organizations representing the plaintiffs, decried Dowd’s letter as “abhorrent and a completely false characterization of the peacefully assembled demonstrators who were dispersed through state-sanctioned violence at the hands of government officials.” “It is remarkable,” Clarke said in a statement to POLITICO on Thursday night, “that President Trump objects so vehemently to those speaking out against racial and police violence while embracing gun-toting activists who take siege of government buildings and violent white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/trump-lawyer-protesters-terrorist-letter-302552

Supreme Court divided over fight for Trump's financial records. The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared divided over President Trump’s assertion that the broad powers he enjoys as the nation’s chief executive override subpoenas for his financial records and tax returns. Trump’s standoff with a trio of Democratic-led House committees and Manhattan prosecutors over his financial paper trail saw the justices raise divergent concerns about presidential immunity, congressional oversight and the power of prosecutors to gather evidence linked to a sitting president. The first argument in Tuesday’s pair of overlapping cases concerned a slate of congressional subpoenas issued to Trump’s accountants and banks. The court’s more conservative justices tended to focus on the risk of granting Congress overly broad powers, including the potential for presidential harassment, while liberal justices aired concerns about placing unduly restrictive limits on lawmakers. https://thehill.com/regulation/497385-supreme-court-divided-over-fight-for-trumps-financial-records

Trump says he was supposed to play for Major League Baseball. His high school box scores say otherwise. I asked Keith Law, a senior baseball writer for the Athletic and author of The Inside Game who covers the MLB draft, if Trump’s numbers sounded like those of a pro prospect. “There’s no chance,” said Law, who once worked in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays assessing high school players. “You don’t hit .138 for some podunk, cold-weather high school playing the worst competition you could possibly imagine. You wouldn’t even get recruited for Division I baseball programs, let alone by pro teams. That’s totally unthinkable. It’s absolutely laughable. He hit .138—he couldn’t fucking hit, that’s pretty clear.” https://slate.com/culture/2020/05/donald-trump-baseball-high-school-nyma.html via @slate

Trump’s History With the Word Sarcasm Is Littered with Excuses and Ignorance. When Trump uses the sarcasm excuse, it’s because he knows he’s gone too far but can’t bring himself to admit it. Last week President Trump went back to an often-used excuse he deploys when facing backlash for saying dumb things: sarcasm. But Trump historically has run into problems while attempting to bail himself out of trouble with the word, thanks to his inconsistency in using it correctly and how obvious and transparent it is that he’s lying. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-sarcasm-history-990750/ via @RollingStone

Trump's Sunday rant scrubbed from Twitter. Over the weekend, Trump railed about journalists on Twitter in a typo-strewn rant in which he repeatedly confused the Pulitzer Prize with the Nobel Prize (which lacks a journalism category) and spelled Nobel "Noble" throughout. Trump (or a handler) has deleted the tweets, but they live on in the archives. https://boingboing.net/2020/04/27/trumps-sunday-rant-scrubbed.html

Trump owes tens of millions to the Bank of China — and the loan is due soon. The president's financial dealings with the state-owned bank complicate his attacks on Biden. https://politi.co/2xVYkCz via @politico

President Donald Trump Tweetstorm – The Saturday Edition https://deadline.com/2020/04/president-donald-trump-tweetstorm-the-saturday-edition-67-1202900648/ via @Deadline

Trump’s Company Paid Bribes to Reduce Property Taxes, Assessors Say. Five former city employees and a former Trump Organization employee say the company used middlemen to pay New York City tax assessors to lower building assessments and pay less taxes in the 1980s and 1990s. https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-company-paid-bribes-to-reduce-property-taxes-assessors-say

Teen models, powerful men and private dinners: when Trump hosted Look of the Year. In the early 90s, Donald Trump judged the world’s biggest modelling competition - since hit by allegations of abuse. This is how the people who were there remember it. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/14/teen-models-powerful-men-when-donald-trump-hosted-look-of-the-year

This Photo Taken Of President Trump Has Become A Meme For Reasons We Don't Need To Go Into In This Headline https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/president-trump-confusing-color-lines-meme via @tanyachen

‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-

Trump's shifty eyed sniffy full address to the nation on the Iran missile strikes https://youtu.be/a2dO_l2YOLM

Over the years, key guardians of Trump’s image won wealth and power by shielding him—but in the end, he offered little protection or respect in return. The mogul-turned-president has long relied on loyalists to push the limits in defense of his image, but Roy Cohn, David Pecker and Michael Cohen all wound up out in the cold. From Pulitzer winners @joe_palazzolo and @mrothfeld:   https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fall-of-donald-trumps-fixers-11578669496 via @WSJ

Column: Call Trumpism what it is: a cult. By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN JAN. 10, 2020 The comparisons have come hard and fast, at least since 2015. Trump is like Silvio Berlusconi, like Adolf Hitler, like Boris Johnson. A 2018 film called “The Trump Prophecy” took the evangelical route, comparing Trump to Cyrus the Great, the 6th century BC Persian monarch chosen by God to free Jewish captives in Babylon. But maybe it’s time to stop searching for the exact analogy for Trump, be he Cyrus or Boris, Adolf or a Silvio. What demands analysis is less the arrogant 73-year-old mediocrity in the Oval Office, but the worshipful attitude so many Americans have toward him. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-10/donald-trump-cult-steven-hassan-moonie

Here Are All the Books Donald Trump Recommended in 2019. https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/donald-trump-book-recommendations-2019-plus-ray-donovan-for-some-reason.html via @slate

The President of the United States has, today alone, retweeted 2 QAnon fan accounts, a Pizzagate account, an account that compared his following to a cult, and an account that described Obama as “Satan’s Muslim Scum.” And this insanity isn’t even a blip on the news radar. — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1210766344934707201 December 28, 2019

Trump hits back after Trudeau laughs at him in NATO summit video. "Is that why you were late?" Johnson smirked to Macron. "He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top — 'Oh, ya, ya ya,'" Trudeau said, later adding, "You just watched his team's jaws drop to the floor." "Last night I made reference to the fact that there was an unscheduled press conference before my meeting with President Trump and I was happy to be part of it but it was certainly notable," Trudeau said, admitting the conversation was about Trump. Trudeau also indicated that his comment about jaws dropping was in regards to Trump’s announcement that next year’s G7 meeting would be at Camp David. “Every different leader has teams, who every now and then, have their jaws drop at unscheduled surprises, like that video itself for example,” Trudeau said. https://fxn.ws/2Yj9dXV #FoxNews

Trump's self-destructive diet: Psychiatrist says unhealthy food choices may affect his mental health. Why Trump's consumption of "some of the worst-quality foods" is worrisome, according to Dr. Bandy Lee. https://www.salon.com/2019/11/03/self-destructiveness-paranoia-and-disdain-trumps-unhealthy-food-choices-impact-his-mental-health/

Join Me in Closely Observing Melania's Face While President Trump Got Booed at the World Series https://theslot.jezebel.com/join-me-in-closely-observing-melanias-face-while-presid-1839410953

Trump says al-Baghdadi died 'screaming and crying.' U.S. officials aren't sure how he knows that. While announcing the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, President Trump described the terrorist’s death during the U.S. raid in unusually graphic detail — repeatedly claiming that al-Baghdadi died “whimpering, screaming and crying.” But a top U.S. official who watched the raid with Trump in the White House Situation Room said he’s not sure where the president got that information. “I don’t know what the source of that was,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon Monday. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-isis-leader-al-baghdadi-died-screaming-crying-184607314.html

Enjoy these deeply satisfying clips of Trump getting booed at the World Series https://www.motherjones.com/impeachment/2019/10/enjoy-these-deeply-satisfying-clips-of-trump-getting-booed-at-the-world-series/ via @MotherJones

Trump's latest Twitter tirade targeted the members of his own party who haven't unquestionably backed him. The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum! https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-tweet-human-scum_n_5db0a12ae4b0d5b789451e91

Classic: Trump Interrupts First All-Women Spacewalk to Get His Facts Wrong. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir corrected the President, who seemed to think this was the first time women had ever performed a spacewalk, while making history. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5ykak/classic-trump-interrupts-first-all-women-spacewalk-to-get-his-facts-wrong

'Meltdown': Trump-Pelosi feud intensifies after Dem walkout. Wednesday’s ugly encounter marks the third time in less than nine months that a meeting between two of the nation’s most powerful leaders has been derailed after a barrage of insults from the president. https://politi.co/2OTbruv via @politico

So called President Trump, Racist, rapist, liar, bed bug infested, archived October 16, 2019

Trump Tried to Pull Some Sleazy Reality TV Sweeps Week Stunt With Grieving British Parents. In a move that would have been rejected from even the sleaziest, most exploitative reality TV franchise of the mid 2000s, the Trump administration attempted to engineer a surprise meeting for the cameras between the grieving parents of a 19-year-old British man killed in a car crash and the diplomat’s wife who was involved in the accident and immediately fled the country. Literally what in the fuck is wrong with these people? The New York Times reported on the extremely upsetting surprise that awaited Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, who have come to the United States to demand the return of Anne Sacoolas to the United Kingdom, when they got to the White House to meet with Trump: Anne Sacoolas, 42, the wife of an American diplomat and the driver involved in the crash that killed their son, was in an adjacent room, waiting to meet them. The police in England said she had fled the country while claiming immunity. Britain and the United States have been involved in a diplomatic tug of war ever since. Mr. Trump, a former reality television star well versed in the language of staging a spectacle for the cameras, had another surprise. Members of the White House press corps were in another room. Apparently they were waiting to record any meeting between the grieving parents and the woman they had pleaded with in teary television interviews to return to Britain to face the police and to meet them so they could get answers. https://jezebel.com/trump-tried-to-pull-some-sleazy-reality-tv-sweeps-week-1839098226

Dems storm out of Syria meeting with Trump: 'We have to pray for his health' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced at a news conference outside the White House on Wednesday that they had just walked out of a meeting with President Trump on Syria policy, after he apparently called Pelosi either a "third-rate politician" or "third-grade politician" and angrily suggested the Democrats probably appreciated communist Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East. "What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say," Pelosi, D-Calif., remarked. She said later, at the Capitol: "I pray for the president all the time, and I tell him that -- I pray for his safety and that of his family. Now, we have to pray for his health -- because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president." A senior Democratic aide said Trump began the meeting, which was called by the White House, by remarking that "someone wanted this meeting so I agreed to it." Trump also reportedly told Pelosi, "I hate ISIS more than you do," prompting Pelosi to respond, "You don't know that." https://fxn.ws/2BtGtBr #FoxNews

A running list of the women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-running-list-of-the-women-whove-accused-donald-trump-of-sexual-misconduct_n_57ffae1fe4b0162c043a7212

Pastor Bruson, praying for Trump: "I ask that you give the president supernatural discernment to know who is trustworthy and who is not. Bring into the light all deception and intrigue. Expose and reverse the plans of those who would harm President Trump and this nation." Trump begins his Values Voters Summit speech by blasting "far-left socialists": "Extreme left-wing radicals, both inside and outside government, are determined to shred our Constitution and eradicate the beliefs we all cherish." https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1183161307379449856

Trump appears to do impression of FBI agents having sex. The president mocks Peter Strzok and Lisa Page at rally in Minnesota. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-sex-video-fbi-rally-peter-strzok-lisa-page-a9152806.html

Trump defends Syria move: The Kurds 'didn't help us' in Normandy. on Wednesday criticized the Kurds, saying they didn't help the United States during World War II and that they were only fighting for their land in Syria during the battle against ISIS. “The Kurds are fighting for their land,” Trump told reporters at the White House during an event in the Roosevelt Room. “And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn’t help us in the second World War, they didn’t help us with Normandy as an example. They mentioned names of different battles. But they’re there to help us with their land and that’s a different thing.” Trump did not specify to which article he was referring, but some on Twitter pointed to an article written in TownHall by conservative Kurt Schlichter that included a reference to the Kurds and Normandy. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/465098-trump-defends-syria-move-the-kurds-didnt-help-us-in-normandy

Will the 26 New Sexual Allegations Against Trump Be Ignored Like the Rest? A new book titled 'All the President's Women' includes new stories about the president's alleged grotesque behavior. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywaq9v/will-the-26-new-sexual-allegations-against-trump-be-ignored-like-the-rest

Trump told Republicans he doesn't want impeachment on his 'resume': report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/464589-trump-told-republicans-he-doesnt-want-impeachment-on-his-resume

Trump slams Romney for criticizing Ukraine dealings: 'Somebody please wake up Mitt' Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked! Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous “ass” who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s! https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/464498-trump-slams-romney-for-criticizing-ukraine-dealings-somebody-please

Another whistleblower has come forward, this time alleging 'inappropriate efforts' to influence Trump's tax audit. Rep. Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxes, tariffs, and other social-assistance programs, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on August 8 saying that a federal employee submitted "an unsolicited communication" on July 29 outlining allegations of "inappropriate efforts to influence" the mandatory IRS audit of Trump's and Vice President Mike Pence's tax returns. In his letter, first widely reported this week, Neal described the whistleblower's allegations of "evidence of possible misconduct" as credible. "This is a grave charge that appreciably heightens the Committee's concerns about the absence of appropriate safeguards as part of the mandatory audit program and whether statutory codification of such program or other remedial, legislative measures are warranted," he wrote. Neal also wrote that his committee had "raised these concerns repeatedly" but that IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig had said they were "unfounded." Neal said the whistleblower's allegations "underscore the pressing need for complete and meaningful oversight" of the audit program. https://www.businessinsider.com/whistleblower-alleges-inappropriate-action-over-trump-taxe-returns-2019-10

‘Circus Trump’: What that White House news conference looked like to the Finns. Wednesday’s roller coaster news conference with President Trump and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto elicited ridicule and some concern in Finland, where many celebrated their leader on Thursday for enduring with dignity what they largely described as a Trump monologue. Coming from a nation that ranks second on the World Press Freedom Index — compared to the United States, which ranks 48th — stunned Finnish reporters described to their readers back home a “circus” and parallel reality in the White House. Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet offered a blunt summary of the meeting: “Niinisto’s visit was overshadowed by Circus Trump — President Niinisto asked Trump to safeguard US democracy.” “It was a very typical Trump press conference with a foreign leader. [Trump talks] and the foreign leader is just a prop, who basically watches and tries to keep a straight face,” Jussi Hanhimaki, a Finnish researcher focusing on transatlantic relations, told The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/03/finns-who-watched-trump-news-conference-describe-parallel-reality-resembling-circus/

Watchdog reveals mysterious attempt to smear ex-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The origin of the documents is unclear, but one lawmaker who attended the briefing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said the stack included folders from a Trump-owned hotel. Raskin described the materials as “amateurish” and said they are a “propagandistic distortion and distraction” from what he called Trump’s abuses of his office. “The existence of this packet and its curious history raises profoundly troubling questions. Why was Secretary of State Pompeo in possession of this packet of disinformation? Why did he distribute and circulate it? To whom else did he distribute and circulate it?” Raskin told reporters. A Democratic source familiar with the briefing said the White House sent documents to Pompeo that “contained notes from interviews that took place at Rudy Giuliani’s NYC office with various Ukrainians about debunked conspiracies related to Ukraine.” https://politi.co/2oFhiss via @politico

https://twitter.com/K_JeanPierre/status/1178473032769294337
Jessica Leeds
Kristin Anderson
Jill Harth
Cathy Heller
Temple Taggart McDowell
Karena Virginia
Bridget Sullivan
Tasha Dixon
Mindy McGillivray
Rcahel Crooks
Natasha Stoynoff
Jenifer Murphy
Jessica Drake
Ninni Laaksonen
Summer Zervos
Cassandra Searles
E. Jean Carroll
Katie Johnson

Trump demands to meet whistleblower, warns of 'Big Consequences' "Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called 'Whistleblower,' represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress," Trump said in a series of tweets. "His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber," he continued before adding that he wants Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, "questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason." "In addition," he added, "I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the 'Whistleblower.' Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/463580-trump-demands-to-meet-whistleblower-warns-of-big-consequences

America's mob boss at work. A scam that’s basic throughout the hoodlum hierarchy sometimes goes by the name “create and alleviate.” In brief: You create a problem for a businessman or politician, then offer to fix it — for a fee or a favor, of course. It’s not the most sophisticated hustle on the street. Corporate America and the Congress have refined it to a high art, but it’s a staple of a crowd that counts extortion as just another business practice. From the look of things, the create-and-alleviate is in full effect these days in Washington. It’s being practiced not by some treacherous mug with a grade-school education, but by America’s “Boss of Bosses,” President Donald J. Trump. For those who have followed Trump’s scam-riddled career, it’s no surprise. Anybody whose admiration for the late mob mouthpiece and fixer Roy Cohn borders on hero worship is bereft of conscience and capable of anything. Even mobster diplomacy. Even working the create-and-alleviate with the president of Ukraine. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/americas-mob-boss-at-work

This is what I heard Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow say just before he went on TV to defend Trump. Sekulow was standing on the other side of the open door connecting his room to mine. Not long after I noticed him, he got on his cell phone. I don’t know who he was talking to, but he got right to the point in his phone conversation. “I’m going on CBS at 8,” he said. “I’m going to see the president at 10. We’ve got to get on top of this thing. I think we can, but we have got to get on top of this.” A moment or two later, Sekulow added: “He’s going all around town, stirring things up. It’s not helpful.” https://interc.pt/2nCsAgw by James Risen

President Donald Trump Tweetstorm – The Saturday Edition. Can you imagine if these Do Nothing Democrat Savages, people like Nadler, Schiff, AOC Plus 3, and many more, had a Republican Party who would have done to Obama what the Do Nothings are doing to me. Oh well, maybe next time! https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/president-donald-trump-tweetstorm-saturday-152202750.html

Trump told Russian officials in 2017 he wasn’t concerned about Moscow’s interference in U.S. election https://wapo.st/2nYJyFZ

Did Trump just resign? Trump lashes out at 'Do Nothing Democrat Savages' Can you imagine if these Do Nothing Democrat Savages, people like Nadler, Schiff, AOC Plus 3, and many more, had a Republican Party who would have done to Obama what the Do Nothings are doing to me. Oh well, maybe next time! https://thehill.com/homenews/463495-trump-lashes-out-at-do-nothing-democrat-savages

Trump rants nonsensically about his own spelling mistake, while confusing hyphen for apostrophe. Donald Trump has complained about coverage of his incorrect spelling of “little”, in a barely comprehensible tweet in which he confuses an apostrophe for a hyphen. Seemingly enraged that his description of congressman Adam Schiff as “liddle” had been noted by US TV news network CNN, the president embarked on a customary early-morning Twitter tirade, in which he also misspells the word ‘describing’. “To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing [sic] Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff,” he said. He went on the suggest CNN “purposely took the hyphen out [sic] and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-news-twitter-cnn-spelling-liddle-impeach-today-a9122916.html

White House inadvertently sends Ukraine talking points to Democrats https://thehill.com/homenews/house/463013-white-house-inadvertently-sends-ukraine-talking-points-to-democrats

Twitter users notice a hilarious change to the profile page of climate activist Greta Thunberg. As of Tuesday afternoon, Thunberg hadn’t responded directly to the president’s tweet. However, visitors to her Twitter page noticed a slight change to her bio. It now described her as “a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greta-thunberg-shade-trump_n_5d8a3c03e4b0938b59350e81

Trump's Latest Speech To The UN Was Filled With Dog Whistles And Unbridled Nationalism https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hayesbrown/trump-united-nations-general-assembly-speech-nationalism via @hayesbrown

Trump Admits Asking Ukraine to Investigate Biden’s Son. President Donald Trump admitted on Monday morning that he told Ukraine’s president that the U.S. would withhold $250 million in military aid for Ukraine because of “corruption”—an apparent reference to efforts to dig up dirt on the role Joe Biden and his son Hunter are alleged to have played in Ukraine several years back. “Well, you’re going to see because what we are doing is we want honesty and I think with the new president you’re going to see much more honesty in the Ukraine and that’s what we’re looking for,” Trump told reporters in New York City. “We want to make sure that country is honest. It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?” https://news.yahoo.com/trump-admits-asking-ukraine-investigate-151851988.html

Trump Whistleblower Saga Threatens to Blow Up 2020 Campaign. Two reports on Thursday night say the conversation in the complaint involved Ukraine, the country that the president’s close lawyer has turned to in looking for dirt on Joe Biden. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-whistleblower-saga-threatens-to-blow-up-2020-campaign

Ukrainian Official: Trump Looking for Dirt ‘To Discredit Biden’. Ukraine officials see no indication Biden or his son broke their laws. If Trump wants them investigated in Kyiv, his government will need to say why and what for. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraine-is-ready-to-investigate-bidens-sonbut-only-if-theres-an-official-us-request

Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress, former officials say. The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trumps-communications-with-foreign-leader-are-part-of-whistleblower-complaint-that-spurred-standoff-between-spy-chief-and-congress-former-officials-say/2019/09/18/df651aa2-da60-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html

The US's top spy agency just dropped a big hint that an 'urgent' whistleblower complaint involves Trump or someone close to him. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) dropped a big hint this week that a whistleblower complaint it has been withholding from Congress involved President Donald Trump or senior administration officials. The complaint was filed in mid-August by someone whose identity is being protected by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG). The ICIG concluded this month that the complaint was credible and a matter of "urgent concern." Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, subpoenaed Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, to turn over the complaint last week, saying Maguire was required to turn the document over to Congress under federal law but had not done so. But in a letter to Schiff on Tuesday, the ODNI's general counsel said the agency overruled the ICIG and determined the complaint didn't meet the definition of "urgent concern" under the law. The definition concerns serious allegations related to "the funding, administration or operation of an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority" of the director of national intelligence, ODNI general counsel Jason Klitenic wrote in the letter. "This complaint, however, concerned conduct by someone outside the Intelligence Community and did not relate to any 'intelligence activity' under the DNI's supervision," Klitenic added. For that reason, after consulting with the Justice Department, the agency concluded it was not required to forward the complaint to the intelligence committees. Schiff said on Tuesday that Klitenic's letter added to concerns that the ODNI was acting to shield Trump or someone in his inner circle from public scrutiny. https://www.businessinsider.com/odni-house-intelligence-committee-whistleblower-complaint-urgent-concern-2019-9

Trump Pushes Baseless Smear That Ilhan Omar ‘Partied’ on 9/11. The false tweet Trump boosted to claim Omar danced on 9/11’s anniversary has disappeared from the site, but Twitter says they didn’t delete it. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-pushes-baseless-smear-that-ilhan-omar-partied-on-911

Snowden on Trump: He's 'a man who has never really known a love that he hasn't had to pay for' "And so everything that he does is informed by a kind of transactionalism." Snowden added that he thinks Trump aims for "people to like him." "I think and what he’s actually looking for is simply for people to like him. Unfortunately that produces a lot of negative effects," he said. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/461649-snowden-on-trump-hes-a-man-who-has-never-really-known-a-love-that-he

Trump’s Favorite Family Members, Ranked by Facebook Ads. The Trump campaign has raised millions, and it's spent much of it testing which Trump family members perform best on Facebook. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3ay3q/trumps-favorite-family-members-ranked-by-facebook-ads

Emoluments lawsuit against Trump can go forward, court rules. A big loss for the president. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/emoluments-lawsuit-against-trump-can-go-forward-court-rules/ via @MotherJones

MSNBC’s Ari Melber broke down why he believes Fox Business host Lou Dobbs went full sycophant with his review of what it’s like to work in Donald Trump’s White House. Ari Melber Tears Apart Lou Dobbs’ ‘Sunshine’ Review Of The Donald Trump White House: “Little bit like the policeman in that scene from ‘The Naked Gun’ when a rocket explodes in a fireworks factory.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ari-melber-lou-dobbs-fox-business_n_5d7c8ae7e4b077dcbd5eb8aa

Donald Trump’s first tweet of the weekend left people puzzled on Twitter. Donald Trump Randomly Tweets ‘Stable Genius’ Boast And People Are Puzzled. “Isn’t this something he said about himself?” asked one person on Twitter. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-twitter-boast-puzzled_n_5d7ce2d7e4b03b5fc88460a2

NOAA chief praises agency scientists after statement backing up Trump. The acting chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Friday reportedly praised the agency in an all-staff email after it released a statement last week siding with President Trump over its own scientists. In the email under the subject line “Keeping NOAA’s Mission in Focus,” Neil Jacobs highlighted the efforts of the National Weather Service's Birmingham office and said forecasters “did their utmost” to predict accurate forecasts, The Washington Post reports. “During hurricane Dorian, our Weather Forecast Offices, including Birmingham and the National Hurricane Center, did their utmost to produce accurate and timely weather forecasts to inform the general public and ensure public safety,” Jacobs wrote. He added: “The American people are depending on our agency. There is no question in my mind that we will continue to provide expert analyses and predictions to keep Americans safe, and that all our line and staff offices will support the American public during these events. Our work saves lives.” “Our team is committed to upholding scientific integrity,” his email concluded, according to The Post. The email comes after the NOAA issued a statement Sept. 6 disavowing a days-old tweet from the Weather Service office in Birmingham that had contradicted Trump's remarks on the path of Dorian. The statement, which was unsigned and posted to the agency's website, said the "Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time." The statement caused widespread backlash by siding instead with Trump, who had incorrectly tweeted days earlier that Alabama would be among several states that would “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.” The Post reported that Jacobs and another top NOAA aide were involved in crafting the statement, but the newspaper reported that Jacobs fought issuing such a statement, citing two sources. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/461397-noaa-chief-praises-agency-scientists-after-statement-backing-up-trump

Trump blames energy efficient light bulbs for making him 'look orange' Trump struggles to say Mike Pence's name and blames energy efficient light bulbs for making him 'look orange' during bizarre speech. Vice-president becomes 'Mike Pounce' in speech slip-up. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mike-pence-pounce-speech-energy-efficient-light-bulbs-balitmore-republican-retreat-a9104036.html

While Democrats debated, Trump went on a bizarre, 68-minute rant in Baltimore. “Whether you like me or not, it doesn’t matter,” Trump told the crowd at the Republican conference. “You have to elect me; you have no choice.” Trump then went on to criticize the lighting that was used, claiming that “the light is the worst,” a comment he made, the New York Times reported, “during an extended aside about his dislike for energy-efficient light bulbs.” He complained that the light made him “look orange, and so do you.” The President touched on a vast range of topics including but not limited to the North Carolina special election, opioids, Venezuela, the Paris Climate accords, African-American unemployment, immigration, various Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Occasio-Cortes (D-N.Y.) and 2020 candidate South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, plastic straws, and his many accomplishments as president. He also took the opportunity to repeat his attacks on Baltimore from earlier this summer, which he had described as “disgusting” and “rodent-infested.” “We’re going to fight for the future of cities like Baltimore that have been destroyed by decades of failed and corrupt rule,” he said, including Los Angeles and San Francisco in his assault. “These are great American cities, and they’re an embarrassment—what the Democrats have let happen. Republicans want to rebuild our inner cities and provide a future of limitless opportunity for all Americans.” Protesters surrounded the hotel where Trump spoke, yelling abuse at the presidential motorcade. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/while-democrats-debated-trump-went-on-a-bizarre-68-minute-rant-in-baltimore/ via @MotherJones

'Mr. Tough Guy': Trump delivers vicious takedown of Bolton. “I told him, ‘John, you have too many people — you’re not getting along with people, and a lot of us, including me, disagree with some of your tactics and some of your ideas. And I wish you well, but I’d like you to submit your resignation,’” Trump said. Bolton’s departure followed reports that he had been largely sidelined from White House deliberations aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, and had objected to a planned round of peace talks at Camp David with leaders of the Afghan Taliban. https://politi.co/2ZTj6Pg via @politico

Trump erupts over 'worst' opinion polls as approval ratings plummet. Donald Trump slammed ABC and Washington Post as “two very bad and dangerous media outlets” after they released a joint-poll showing the president’s approval rating in decline and growing fears of an economic recession. The latest poll released by the two media outlets showed a six-point drop from the president’s record-high approval rating of 44 per cent — the highest he has achieved since taking office in 2016. The numbers have been historically low for a modern president, albeit remarkably consistent, usually holding somewhere steady in the high 30s or low 40s. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-approval-rating-polls-twitter-today-a9099386.html

Top NOAA Scientist Calls Out Agency for Backing Trump in Dumbest White House Controversy Ever. "This intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance” Craig McLean, the acting chief scientist at NOAA, sent an email to staff calling the agency’s support of Trump’s tweets — that Dorian posed a threat to Alabama — “political” and warning that it “compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information,” according to the Washington Post. On Friday, the agency sided with the president over its own scientists in an unsigned press release that said Trump had been correct in the claim about Dorian’s path. Scientists quickly shot back at NOAA. The agency is, after all, responsible for conveying accurate information to the public about weather events that pose serious threats. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwxxp/top-noaa-scientist-calls-out-agency-for-backing-trump-in-dumbest-white-house-controversy-ever

In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN. A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy. The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel. The disclosure to the Russians by the President, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/russia-us-spy-extracted/index.html

Weather Service staff warned against contradicting Trump’s false hurricane claims. ‘If we’re politicising the weather what is there left to politicise?’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-national-weather-service-hurricane-dorian-alabama-fake-map-a9096371.html

NOAA Staff Instructed Not to Contradict the President’s Sharpie Hurricane Forecasts. “This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast,” a meteorologist said https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/noaa-staff-not-to-contradict-the-presidents-hurricane-forecasts-881515/ via @RollingStone

So called President Trump, Racist, rapist, liar, bed bug infested, archived September 08, 2019

Ex-officials assail NOAA for defending Trump’s Hurricane Dorian claim. Former top officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are assailing the agency for undermining its weather forecasters as it defends President Donald Trump’s statement from days ago that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama. They said NOAA’s action risks the credibility of the nation’s weather and science agency and even might risk lives. Dismay came those who served under Republican and Democratic presidents alike as leaders in meteorology and disaster response sized up a sustained effort by Trump and his aides to justify his warning that Alabama, among other states, was “most likely” to be hit hard by Dorian, contrary to forecasts showing Alabama was clear. That effort led NOAA to repudiate a tweet from the National Weather Service the previous weekend assuring Alabamans — accurately — that they had nothing to fear from the hurricane. The weather service is part of NOAA and the tweet came from its Birmingham, Ala., office. “This rewriting history to satisfy an ego diminishes NOAA,” Elbert “Joe” Friday, former Republican-appointed director of the National Weather Service, said on Facebook. He told The Associated Press on Saturday, “We don’t want to get the point where science is determined by politics rather than science and facts. And I’m afraid this is an example where this is beginning to occur.” Alabama never had been included in hurricane advisories and Trump’s information, based on less authoritative graphics than an official forecast, was outdated even at the time. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/ex-officials-assail-noaa-for-defending-trump-s-hurricane-dorian-claim-1.597911

This Is the Dumbest White House Scandal in History and Trump Can’t Let It Go. Welcome to Day Six of the stupid Alabama thing https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59n9pz/this-is-the-dumbest-white-house-scandal-in-history-and-trump-cant-let-it-go

In a Dangerous Move, NOAA Debases Itself in the Name of Trump's Bad Tweet. Against all odds, we have reached an even lower nadir in Donald Trump’s war on the hurricane forecast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency in charge of making sure every American has access to trusted, life-saving forecasts, sent out a Friday news dump press release undermining itself because the president can’t take an L. https://earther.gizmodo.com/in-a-dangerous-move-noaa-debases-itself-in-the-name-of-1837943758

'He's losing his s---': Trump's advisers are increasingly worried about his mental state following days of erratic behavior. But one person who was close to Trump's legal team during the Russia investigation told Insider his public statements were "nothing compared to what he's like behind closed doors. He's like a bull seeing red. There's just no getting through to him, and you can kiss your plans for the day goodbye because you're basically stuck looking after a 4-year-old now." https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-aides-worried-about-mental-state-alabama-hurricane-dorian-2019-9

Trump may have committed tax fraud by fabricating a loan to avoid paying income taxes on nearly $50 million. President Donald Trump may have fabricated a loan to avoid paying taxes on nearly $50 million of income, Mother Jones reported in a bombshell investigation published on Thursday. The controversy appears to be related to the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and a shadowy shell company Trump owns called Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC. Media reports have found that the company does not earn revenue and is essentially worthless. Trump has said on his financial-disclosure forms that he owes more than $50 million to the company, which he controls. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-may-have-made-up-loan-tax-fraud-mother-jones-2019-9

The White House thinks The Post ignored Trump’s summertime successes. So, about that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/04/white-house-thinks-post-ignored-trumps-summertime-successes-so-about-that/

Trump’s lost summer: Aides claim victory, but others see incompetence and intolerance. What followed was what some Trump advisers and allies characterize as a lost summer defined by self-inflicted controversies and squandered opportunities. Trump leveled racist attacks against four congresswomen of color dubbed “the Squad.” He derided the majority-black city of Baltimore as “rat and rodent infested.” His anti-immigrant rhetoric was echoed in a missive that authorities believe a mass shooting suspect posted. His visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso after the gun massacres in those cities served to divide rather than heal. Trump’s economy also began to falter, with the markets ping-ponging based on the president’s erratic behavior. His trade war with China grew more acrimonious. His whipsaw diplomacy at the Group of Seven summit left allies uncertain about American leadership. The president returned from his visit to France in a sour mood, frustrated by what he felt was unfairly negative news coverage of his trip. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-lost-summer-aides-claim-victory-but-others-see-incompetence-and-intolerance/2019/09/01/f6f74f86-ca8a-11e9-be05-f76ac4ec618c_story.html

Trump causes confusion by saying hurricane Dorian is going to hit Alabama. It is not. Mr Trump tweeted: “In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” This prompted US weather organisations to refute the president’s statement. @NWSBirmingham Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hurricane-dorian-latest-trump-alabama-national-weather-service-correction-a9088436.html

Trump heads for the golf course as leaders gather to mark start of WW2. Dominic Raab leads British delegation to the Polish capital, while Vladimir Putin is not invited. European leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, will mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the second world war in Warsaw on Sunday. But Donald Trump – who cancelled on his Polish hosts at the last-minute last week, citing concerns over a hurricane barrelling towards Florida – was due to spend the day at his golf club in Virginia. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/01/european-leaders-go-to-warsaw-for-ww2-commemorations

It Is Very Bad That Our President Reportedly Lied About Trade Negotiations With China. At this week’s G-7 meeting, Donald Trump offered the world an unexpected glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the U.S. and China might be making some progress ironing out their differences on trade. “China called last night our top trade people and said ‘let’s get back to the table,’ so we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something,” he said. “They have been hurt very badly but they understand this is the right thing to do and I have great respect for it. This is a very positive development for the world.” “I think we are going to have a deal,” he added. But things soon turned murky. A spokesman from China’s foreign ministry said he was not aware that any phone calls had taken place. And by Thursday, CNN was reporting that, yeah, the president had basically made the whole thing up. https://slate.com/business/2019/08/trump-phone-call-china-trade.html via @slate

Trump lashes out at former intel officials for criticism of Iran tweet. blasted former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Saturday for criticism of a tweet Trump sent following a reported accident at an Iranian rocket facility. The president referred to the three men in a pair of tweets as "failed former 'Intelligence' officials" and accused them of scolding him for offering "condolences" to Iranian officials. "Being scolded by failed former “Intelligence” officials, like James Clapper, on my condolences to Iran on their failed Rocket launch. Sadly for the United States, guys like him, Comey, and the even dumber John Brennan, don’t have a clue. They really set our Country back," Trump tweeted, adding: "but now we are moving forward like never before. We are winning again, and we are respected again!" It wasn't immediately clear what criticism the president was referring to, as the officials had not issued public statements on Trump's tweet or his decision to release an image taken by U.S. forces of a damaged Iranian rocket facility. Trump has faced criticism from some Democrats for releasing the image due to its high resolution and concerns over whether it should have remained classified. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459536-trump-lashes-out-at-former-intel-officials-for-criticism-of-iran

Trump faked phone call with China at G-7 summit, White House aides admit https://news.yahoo.com/trump-faked-phone-call-china-183613538.html

Puerto Rico's leading newspaper slammed Trump's false claims that Congress approved $92 billion in aid to the island, telling the president his "numbers are fake." As President Donald Trump repeatedly levels false claims that Puerto Rico has been granted $92 billion in hurricane recovery aid, the island’s leading newspaper sent him a direct message on its front page Friday: “Your Numbers Are Fake.” El Nuevo Día, which typically publishes in Spanish, released an English version of the paper laying out a fact-check of the president’s math. “Although some politicians in Puerto Rico have indeed mismanaged funds and have let their constituents down, Mr. Trump’s claims about the amount of money that has actually been assigned to the island are incorrect,” it reads. In reality, federal data shows that Congress has allocated $49.7 billion to Puerto Rico’s disaster relief following hurricanes Irma and Maria, both of which struck in 2017. Of that total, less than $14 billion has been received. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/puerto-rico-el-nuevo-dia-donald-trump-recovery-aid_n_5d6a71e7e4b0cdfe0570c804

Trump Calls Fox News' Sean Hannity A ‘Shoe' And People Put The Boot In. Has anyone noticed that the top shows on @foxnews and cable ratings are those that are Fair (or great) to your favorite President, me! Congratulations to @seanhannity for being the number one shoe on Cable Television! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/donald-trump-sean-hannity-shoe-130100556.html

Trump Says Ousted Aide Shouldn’t Have Said ‘Hurtful’ Things. The president says Madeleine Westerhout’s abrupt departure from the White House was “automatic” after she said things that were “a little bit hurtful” when she’d been drinking. “I really think she had a bad night. I think it was unfortunate, she said she was drinking and the whole thing was very unfortunate,” he told reporters, adding that she had made remarks that were “just a little bit hurtful to some people.” “You don’t say things like she said,” he said, describing her departure as “automatic” after the comments became public knowledge. Westerhout reportedly claimed she had a better relationship with the president than his two daughters, Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump, during an Aug. 17 dinner with reporters near Bedminster, New Jersey—while Trump was on a working vacation. Politico reported that the 28-year-old also disparaged Tiffany, claiming Trump didn’t like being photographed with her because he thought she was overweight. She jokingly quipped that the president couldn’t pick Tiffany out in a crowd. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-personal-assistant-madeleine-westerhout-was-fired-for-gossiping-about-ivanka-and-tiffany

US official confirms that Trump tweeted out a picture from a classified intelligence briefing https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tweeted-classified-intelligence-briefing-photo-2019-8

Harvard Law professor rejects idea Trump is either Russian asset or an idiot: 'He's both'. Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe said Friday that he rejected what he saw as a false choice between labeling President Trump an "idiot" and a "Russian asset." Tribe, a vocal critic of the president, was responding to a report that spies reacted to this week's G-7 summit by describing Trump as either an asset or "useful idiot" for Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Of course he’s both," Tribe tweeted. "Trump has been a Russian asset AND an idiot, how useful is unclear, from the beginning." https://fxn.ws/2ZEOixy #FoxNews

Trump "accidentally" signals affinity with white nationalists in new campaign logo. New Trump-Pence campaign logo, seemingly borrowed from overt racists, is another in a long line of "coincidences" https://www.salon.com/2019/08/29/trump-accidentally-signals-affinity-with-white-nationalists-in-new-campaign-logo/

Trump tweets 2020 campaign logo linked to alt-right and white supremacy groups https://www.fastcompany.com/90397217/trump-tweets-2020-campaign-logo-linked-to-alt-right-and-white-supremacy-groups

Trump may block $250 million in aid to Ukraine: officials. The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow. “The president has made no secret when it comes to foreign assistance that U.S. interests abroad should be prioritized and other foreign countries should also be paying their fair share,” said one of the officials, who shared details of the plan on condition of anonymity. https://reut.rs/2LeBR6p

US spies say Trump's G7 performance suggests he's either a 'Russian asset' or a 'useful idiot' for Putin. "It's hard to see the bar anymore since it's been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump's behavior over the weekend was a new low," one FBI agent who works in counterintelligence told Insider. Meanwhile, a recently retired FBI special agent told Insider that Trump's freewheeling and often unfounded statements make it more likely that he's a "useful idiot" for the Russians. But "it would not surprise me in the least if the Russians had at least one asset in Trump's inner circle." https://www.businessinsider.com/spies-react-trump-g7-summit-russian-asset-2019-8

James Mattis: Former defence secretary reveals fraught relationship with Trump https://news.yahoo.com/james-mattis-former-defence-secretary-155017879.html

Fox News Stars Push Back as Trump Demands Loyalty: We Don’t ‘Work for You’. The president on Wednesday morning had a tantrum about the network giving coverage to Democrats. Fox News, he said, “isn’t working for us anymore!” In the end, while Trump sweats Fox’s “straight news” programming and publicly courts other alternatives, those inside Fox News actually feel the president’s repeated attacks are extremely helpful, as it allows them to rebut widespread criticism that the network often acts as “state media,” especially in light of a constantly revolving door between Fox and the White House. “Everybody wins,” one Fox opinion-side staffer told The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-push-back-as-trump-demands-loyalty-we-dont-work-for-you

Trump Claims Doral Bedbugs Are 'Nasty Rumor' Despite 2017 Legal Settlement Over Bedbugs. George Conway, husband to senior presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway, noted the president’s apparent attempt to spread misinformation about Doral’s bedbug history. “Now you’re lying about *bedbugs.* You settled a lawsuit with this guy,” Conway tweeted, along with a picture Linder originally included in his lawsuit showing the bedbug bites he claimed to have suffered while staying at Doral. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/trump-claims-doral-bedbugs-nasty-rumor-despite-2017-legal-settlement-over-bedbugs/ via @lawcrimenews

Trump misses climate meeting and says he’ll invite Putin to next G7 amid erratic behaviour at summit . Separately, meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel, the US president claimed there was “great unity” on how to deal with the Iran crisis. Ms Merkel, however, said there was a long way to go on the issue, which has created considerable headache as tensions have flared between Tehran and Washington. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-news-live-president-appears-095826589.html

Queen Elizabeth Reportedly Said Donald Trump "Ruined" Her Property. ‘Come and look at my lawn. It’s ruined,' https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/queen-elizabeth-reportedly-said-donald-141500388.html

Trump gave a joint news conference before departing the G7 summit, and he took questions. He made at least eight false claims, seven of which he had made before. And he made at least five claims that were misleading, questionable or lacking in context. Trump made at least eight false claims, seven of which he had made before. (The new one was an odd claim about Melania Trump and Kim Jong Un.) And he made at least five claims that we'll call misleading, questionable or lacking in context. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/26/politics/fact-check-trump-g7-melania-kim-news-conference/index.html

Some media outlets parrot Trump’s preposterous claim that he’s an environmentalist https://www.mediamatters.org/abc/some-media-outlets-parrot-trumps-preposterous-claim-hes-environmentalist

US air quality is slipping after years of improvement https://apnews.com/d3515b79af1246d08f7978f026c9092b

Psychiatrist to CNN's Stelter: Trump 'may be responsible for many more million deaths' than Hitler, Stalin, Mao. The former chairman of psychiatry at Duke University said Sunday during an interview with CNN's Brian Stelter that President Trump may be responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. "Calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist," Allen Frances, the author of "Twilight of American Sanity," said on CNN's "Reliable Sources." "Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were. He needs to be contained, but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person." https://thehill.com/homenews/media/458754-psychiatrist-to-cnns-stelter-trump-may-be-responsible-for-many-more-million

Trump floated nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting US: "I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?" Trump said at one such White House briefing, a source who was there told Axios. "They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?" the source added, paraphrasing the president's remarks. The source told Axios that the briefer responded with something to the effect of "Sir, we'll look into that." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/458765-trump-floated-nuking-hurricanes-to-stop-them-from-hitting-us-report

At global summit, Trump facing limits of go-it-alone stance. Trump, growing more isolated in Washington, faces a tepid reception on the world stage, where a list of challenges awaits. Anxiety is growing over a global slowdown, and there are new points of tension with allies on trade, Iran and Russia. Fears of a financial downturn are spreading, meaning the need for cooperation and a collective response is essential. Yet Trump has ridiculed Germany for its economic travails at a time when he may have to turn to Chancellor Angela Merkel and others to help blunt the force of China's newly aggressive tariffs on U.S. goods. Those trade penalties, combined with the economic slowdown, have raised political alarms for Trump's reelection effort . https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/at-global-summit-trump-facing-limits-of-go-it-alone-stance-1.595666

Trump says he may begin cutting Social Security and Medicare if he wins in 2020 https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-may-begin-cutting-201130207.html

During a working breakfast with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G7 summit, which is currently taking place in Biarritz, France, Trump was asked whether he was having “any second thoughts on escalating the trade war with China.” “Yeah, sure. Why not,” the president responded. “Might as well. Might as well.” “I have second thoughts about everything,” Trump went on to add.“I have no plan right now,” Trump says amid escalating Chinese trade war. “I have second thoughts about everything,” Trump said after announcing new tariffs on Chinese goods. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/25/20831958/trade-war-china-us-tariffs-white-house-donald-trump-g7

'You remain a frickin' coward': Trump taunting a 2020 Democratic candidate and retired Marine isn't a laughing matter for some veterans https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-taunt-seth-moulton-military-veterans-marine-corps-2019-8

It’s time for the president to log off. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/trump-week-twitter-bad.html via @slate

What do voters think of when they hear “Trump” and “women”? OK, fine, it’s rapist. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/poll-trump-women-words-rapist.html via @slate

Trump Racist, Trump rapist, Trump liar

A$AP Rocky Didn't Let Trump Use Him. The White House reportedly wanted rapper A$AP Rocky to publicly thank President Trump for attempting to facilitate his release from a Swedish jail, but A$AP Rocky ghosted them instead. Yahoo News reports that this “bizarre saga” left behind a sea of bruised egos at the White House, but what’s paramount is that Rocky effectively avoided letting the Trump administration use him as a cheap cover for the president’s racism. Rocky, who really doesn’t owe the president anything in the greater sense, still has a weird record of his own when it comes to saying heinously ignorant shit. In 2015, Rocky famously claimed can’t relate to “Ferguson and shit”—referencing the protests following the death of Michael Brown by a police officer in a Ferguson, Missouri—because he lives in Soho and Beverly Hills. In 2016, an attempt to walk back his comments on The Breakfast Club radio program became an even bigger mess, resulting in ASAP literally saying “all lives matter,” suggesting that “Black Lives Matter” was a bandwagon, and finding time to defend Bill Cosby. Maybe Rocky didn’t thank Trump because it would have been a public relations nightmare for him to do so. Or maybe Rocky experienced a modicum of political growth since 2016 and has some understanding that the Trump administration was clearly latching onto him for pandering purposes. Either way, the fact that Jared Kushner has been denied yet another encounter with a rapper is reason enough to celebrate. https://theslot.jezebel.com/a-ap-rocky-didnt-let-trump-use-him-1837514459

An old video in which Donald Trump dodges questions about the Bible is going viral again in light of the president’s recent claim that he is the “chosen one.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-bible-questions-old-video_n_5d5fc45be4b0b59d25732db3

Anthony Scaramucci: Trump’s Own Aides ‘Absolutely Hate The Guy’s Guts’. “It’s like a hostage crisis inside the building,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “They absolutely hate the guy’s guts, but they’re scared out of their minds.” https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/anthony-scaramucci-trump-full-blown-fascism-041540029.html

Trump struggles to pronounce various words during rambling speech to veterans. Wednesday’s official event in Louisville, Kentucky, nominally used to announce a cancellation of student debt owed by permanently disabled US veterans, at times resembled a Trump campaign rally, and saw the president repeatedly stumble over lines read out from a teleprompter. It followed an extraordinary huddle with reporters earlier in the day outside the White House in which Mr Trump attacked the Danish prime minister for rejecting his advances over Greenland, referred to himself as the “Chosen One”, suggested he could change the constitution to abolish birthright citizenship and talked about serving another 14 years as president. “We're holding thousands of Isis fighters right now - prisoners. And we're going to give them to, from where they came. The Europe (sic), certain countries in Europe, they got to take them back because we don't want to hold them,” Mr Trump said in reference to America's presence in Syria. Touting the US military’s global pre-eminence, Mr Trump appeared to repeatedly struggle with the word “forces”, before mangling the name of Douglas MacArthur, a prominent Second World War general. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-speech-veterans-student-debt-isis-a9074261.html

Trump Claims Doctors Left Operating Rooms To Greet Him In El Paso. Hospital Says Nope. The President boasted on Wednesday that the people he visited in the hospital “love their President,” adding that “doctors were coming out of the operating rooms.” “There were hundreds and hundreds of people all over the floor. You couldn’t even walk on it,” he continued. That’s not what happened, according to the hospital Trump visited in El Paso. “At no time did, or would, physicians or staff leave active operating rooms during the presidential visit. Our priority is always patient care,” Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for the University Medical Center, told a local ABC affiliate on Thursday. Reporters were not allowed to accompany Trump on his visit to the hospital in El Paso, perhaps because eight victims of the shooting massacre there did not wish to meet with the President. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-hospital-el-paso-shooting via @TPM

'I am the Chosen One': with boasts and insults, Trump sets new benchmark for incoherence. Over an ensuing half-hour rant, Trump trucked in antisemitic tropes, insulted the Danish prime minister, insisted he wasn’t racist, bragged about the performance of his former Apprentice reality show, denied starting a trade war with China, praised Vladimir Putin and told reporters that he, Trump, was the “Chosen One” – all within hours of referring to himself as the “King of Israel” and tweeting in all caps: “WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/21/trump-press-conference-greenland-jewish-democrats

Trump just delivered a weapons-grade crazy rant in front of reporters — here are the 7 worst moments. Trump threatens to release ISIS fighters into Germany and France. The president chided key American allies for not taking on ISIS fighters captured over the past few years and said that unless they met his demands, he would simply release them back to their countries of origin. “We’re holding thousands of ISIS fighters right now,” the president said. “And Europe has to take them. And if Europe doesn’t take them, I’ll have no choice but to release them into the countries from which they came. Which is Germany and France and other places.” https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/trump-just-delivered-a-weapons-grade-crazy-rant-in-front-of-reporters-here-are-the-7-worst-moments/

Aides got Trump to delay tariffs by telling President it could 'ruin Christmas'. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/17/politics/donald-trump-economy-2020-christmas/index.html

Trump's large union crowd at Shell was given the option of not showing up — and not getting paid. “Your attendance is not mandatory,” said the rules that one contractor relayed to employees, summarizing points from a memo that Shell sent to union leaders a day ahead of the visit to the $6 billion construction site. But only those who showed up at 7 a.m., scanned their ID cards, and prepared to stand for hours — through lunch but without lunch — would be paid. “NO SCAN, NO PAY,” a supervisor for that contractor wrote. https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2019/08/16/Trump-speech-union-crowd-Shell-ethane-plant-natural-gas-beaver-county-pennsylvania-attendance-pay-overtime/stories/201908160113 via @PittsburghPG

President Trump renews Twitter rant against US Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Rep. Tlaib wrote a letter to Israeli officials desperately wanting to visit her grandmother. Permission was quickly granted, whereupon Tlaib obnoxiously turned the approval down, a complete setup. The only real winner here is Tlaib’s grandmother. She doesn’t have to see her now! https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/16/president-trump-twitter-rant-rashida-tlaib-israel-controversy/2035556001/ via @freep

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he was 'Michigan's Man of the Year.' That's not a real award https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-michigan-man-year-no-award-1454776

Israel Blocks Visit by Omar, Tlaib After Trump Smears Them in a Tweet. President Donald Trump on Thursday called on the Israeli government to bar Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) from entering the country during a planned visit to the West Bank this weekend, claiming in an incendiary tweet that they “hate Israel” and “all Jews.” Less than an hour later, Israel formally announced that the two Democratic congresswomen—the first and only two Muslim women to be elected to Congress—would not be allowed entry. “We won’t allow those who deny our right to exist in this world to enter Israel,” Israel’s deputy foreign minister said on state radio, a likely reference to Omar and Tlaib’s support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. “In principle, this is a very justified decision.” Trump’s efforts to block Omar and Tlaib from entering Israel, and thereby punish his perceived political enemies, comes as the latest in his longstanding attacks against the two congresswomen. Those attacks have frequently included racist diatribes and charges of antisemitism. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/israel-blocks-visit-by-omar-tlaib-after-trump-smears-them-in-a-tweet/ via @MotherJones

More than three dozen violent or threatening criminal cases linked to people who cited Trump: The victims "represent an array of minority groups," while the perpetrators and suspects "are mostly white men" https://www.salon.com/2019/08/15/more-than-three-dozen-violent-or-threatening-criminal-cases-linked-to-people-who-cited-trump-report/

So called President Trump, Racist, rapist, liar, archived August 2019

Fox News poll: Trump disapproval rises to near record. disapproval rating has jumped to 56 percent in a Fox News survey released Wednesday, just one point shy of the record high in Fox News polling. The survey found a 5 percentage point increase in Trump's disapproval from last month. The only time his disapproval rating was higher, according to Fox News, was when it reached 57 percent in October 2017. Forty-three percent of respondents said they approve of Trump's job performance, down from 46 percent last month. The record low for Trump approval in Fox News's polling is 38 percent, also from October of 2017. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/457480-trump-disapproval-rises-to-near-record-fox-news-poll

'No Blame?' ABC News finds 36 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. In nine cases, perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically attacking innocent victims. In another 10 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior. - ABC News - https://abcn.ws/2yQScsw via @ABC

Trump rips emolument lawsuits: Being president 'costing me a fortune'. on Tuesday disputed that he's profiting off the presidency, arguing instead that lawsuits alleging he's violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution amount to "presidential harassment" and are costing him significant legal fees. "I got sued on a thing called emoluments. Emoluments. You ever hear of the word? Nobody ever heard of it before," Trump said at a Shell petrochemical plant in Pennsylvania. "And what it is is presidential harassment, because this thing is costing me a fortune, and I love it," Trump added. "I love it because I’m making the lives of other people much, much better." Multiple lawsuits have alleged Trump is in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits elected officials from receiving gifts or benefits from foreign governments without Congress’s approval. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/457287-trump-rips-emolument-lawsuits-being-president-costing-me-a-fortune

‘Using the Lord’s name in vain’: Evangelicals chafe at Trump’s blasphemy. A Trump-supporting West Virginia state senator who represents many evangelicals got three phone calls from constituents complaining about Trump’s profanity after a recent rally. Here’s what he would have seen: Trump crowing, “They'll be hit so g--damn hard,” while bragging about bombing Islamic State militants. And Trump recounting his warning to a wealthy businessman: “If you don't support me, you're going to be so g--damn poor.” To most of America, the comments went unnoticed. Instead, the nation was gripped by the moment a “send her back” chant broke out as Trump went after Somali-born Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, an American citizen. But some Trump supporters were more fixated on his casual use of the word “g--damn” — an off-limits term for many Christians — not to mention the numerous other profanities laced throughout the rest of his speech. https://politi.co/2yV7eNz

White supremacist attacks have grown deadlier during Trump's presidency. Law enforcement leaders say they are also facing a surge in far-right plots and threats. violence linked to far-right extremism has not only continued apace but has grown deadlier as the trend has converged with the mass shootings epidemic. According to Mother Jones research, there have been at least six gun rampages since last October marked by far-right ideology, including the mass murders at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas; a food festival in Gilroy, California; and a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Other recent shootings—at a synagogue near San Diego, a supermarket in Kentucky, and a yoga studio in Florida—were committed by individuals who harbored racist or anti-Semitic hatred. In total, these attacks resulted in 41 victims killed and at least 52 others wounded—nearly double the amount of casualties seen from such cases during the first year and a half of Trump’s presidency, and bringing the overall carnage since Trump was elected to at least 62 people dead and 79 others injured. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/white-supremacist-violence-trump-mass-shootings/ via @MotherJones

Washington Post: Trump making more false or misleading claims in recent months. The Washington Post in an analysis piece published Monday alleged that President Trump has made 12,019 false or misleading claims during his time in office as of August 5, pointing specifically to Trump’s comments on immigration and the economy. According to the newspaper, Trump has averaged 20 false claims per day since April 26, when he crossed the 10,000 lie mark during White House tenure. For the duration of his presidency, the Post says Trump has average averaged about 13 misleading or false claims per day. Approximately one-fifth of Trump’s misleading or false claims are about immigration, according to the newspaper. He has claimed 190 times that a wall along the U.S. and Mexico border, one of his central campaign promises, is being built. However, the Trump administration has reportedly only replaced portions of already existing border fencing and other barriers. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/457069-washington-post-trump-making-more-false-or-misleading-claims-in

Steve Bannon: 'President Trump is not a racist'. He said in an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York that people who do not support Trump's policies "realize that they can't defeat him on the policies so they're going to smear him as being a racist, a white supremacist, all of this stuff, and I don't think any of it holds water." "President Trump is not a racist, he's not a white supremacist, he's someone who has put a series of policies in that really have helped not just everybody, but have really helped the African American and Hispanic community," Bannon continued. "These divisions are being sown by the radical left." https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/456966-steve-bannon-president-trump-is-not-a-racist

Why Trump’s 'maximum pressure' foreign policy yields minimum results. The president is heading into 2020 with no major successes and looming crises – so many expect him to attempt to reverse the trend with dramatic deals. “What is interesting is that in every one of these issues, Trump saw a domestic political benefit: getting tough on China, Iran, on Venezuela, with voters in Florida in mind, the spectacle of meeting Kim Jong-un,” said Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s speechwriter and foreign policy adviser. “But whatever short-term benefit there was has been more than eclipsed by the long-term mess he has created.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/11/trump-foreign-policy-venezuela-north-korea-iran-results-2020

Trump lashes out at NYT reporter over Dayton, El Paso coverage. “Maggie Haberman of the Failing @nytimes reported that I was annoyed by the lack of cameras inside the hospitals in Dayton & El Paso, when in fact I was the one who stated, very strongly, that I didn’t want the Fake News inside & told my people NOT to let them in. Fake reporting!” Trump tweeted Saturday morning. Trump's tweet came one day after the Times published a report by Haberman, Katie Rogers and Rick Rojas that said the president grew frustrated during his trip with multiple media reports focusing on his attacks on political adversaries and with a lack of coverage of the positive reception he arrived to at a hospital in Dayton. According to the Times, Trump "screamed at his aides to begin producing proof that in El Paso people were happy to see him." Trump was reportedly irked after seeing footage of a news conference with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley (D) in lieu of images of his trip to Dayton's Miami Valley Hospital, the Times reported. Soon after, White House aides began distributing photos and video of the president joined by doctors and nurses in the Ohio hospital, according to the outlet. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/456944-trump-lashes-out-at-nyt-reporter-over-dayton-el-paso-coverage

Trump retweets post promoting conspiracy theory about Jeffrey Epstein's death. The tweet, by Twitter user Terrence K. Williams, blamed the death on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Clinton and does not provide evidence. The tweet included the hashtags #ClintonBodyCount and #ClintonCrimeFamily, as well as a photo of both the former president and former secretary of State. Conspiracy theories linking the death to both the Clinton and Trump himself trended Saturday on Twitter. Bill Clinton's spokesman Angel Ureña responded by writing "Ridiculous, and of course not true — and Donald Trump knows it. Has he triggered the 25th Amendment yet?" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/456979-trump-retweets-post-promoting-conspiracy-theory-about-jeffrey

Trump blasts Bill Maher for 'so many lies' after El Paso visit. “Got to see, by accident, wacko comedian Bill Maher’s show - So many lies. He said patients in El Paso hospital didn’t want to meet with me,” Trump tweeted Saturday afternoon. “Wrong! Had really great meetings with numerous patients.” “Said I was on vacation. Wrong! Long planned fix up of W.H., stay here rather than cause big disruption by going to Manhattan,” he continued. “Working almost all of the time, including evenings. Don’t have to be in W.H. to do that...And sooo many other false statements. He is right about one thing, though. I will win again in 2020. Otherwise, he pays 95% in taxes!” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/456981-trump-blasts-bill-maher-for-so-many-lies-after-el-paso-visit

Trump reportedly grew furious with his aides over media coverage of his trips to Dayton and El Paso https://theweek.com/speedreads/858371/trump-reportedly-grew-furious-aides-over-media-coverage-trips-dayton-el-paso via @TheWeek

Trump Rants Real Rival Isn't 'Easy' Democrats But The 'Lamestream Media' It’s not clear which piece of recent critical media coverage Trump was taking issue with. https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-attacks-media-saturday-morning-123557570.html

Scaramucci says trip to El Paso hospital a 'catastrophe' for Trump. “So, look, the president didn’t do well on the trip. He probably would be mad at somebody for saying that,” he said on MSNBC on Thursday. “Maybe he’ll tweet something negative about somebody for saying he didn’t do well, but the facts are he did not do well on the trip because if the trip is being made about him and not the demonstration of compassion and love and caring and empathy for those people, then it becomes a catastrophe for him, the administration, and it’s also a bad reflection on the country.” Scaramucci, who served in the administration for 11 days in 2017, also tore into White House staffers who anonymously trashed the appearance to reporters as “cowards.” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/456928-scaramucci-says-trip-to-el-paso-hospital-a-catastrophe-for

Trump’s Photo-Op With the Orphaned El Paso Baby Was the Smallest Moment of His Presidency. This photo of the president grinning and giving the thumbs-up with a baby who was orphaned by the El Paso shooter, who spouted Trump’s rhetoric, is the perfect distillation of his presidency. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/trump-photo-melania-el-paso-orphan-baby-photo.html via @slate

Most Latinos Now Say It's Gotten Worse For Them In The U.S. The shooting in El Paso last weekend was one of the deadliest attacks against Latinos in recent memory. And in the aftermath, President Trump was blamed for encouraging the violence with his inflammatory anti-immigrant language, although he’s dismissed this criticism so far. We will likely never know how much the El Paso shooter was influenced by rhetoric like Trump’s. But we do know that since Trump took office, surveys and studies have shown that Latinos, particularly Latino immigrants, have become more insecure and fearful about their place in the country. And the El Paso shooting, which officials are treating as an act of terrorism, seems likely to reinforce and deepen these anxieties. The direct effect of a politician’s words is impossible to measure, but there’s evidence that in addition to creating a general sense of distress, Trump’s words may be fueling prejudice and aggressive behavior against Latinos and other minority groups. https://53eig.ht/33tALMC

Trump’s vision meets growing global chaos. President Donald Trump had hoped to head into the 2020 campaign season as the world’s consummate deal-maker. He may instead enter his reelection campaign not just empty-handed, but vulnerable to the charge that his policies have helped sow chaos across the globe. His trade war with China keeps escalating, with mounting costs to the U.S. economy. Diplomatic overtures to Iran and North Korea have so far failed to yield the president’s desired outcome. Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan, two years in the making, is nowhere to be seen. And America’s retreat from Syria, where the president once boasted he had defeated ISIS, has allowed the terrorist group to regenerate, according to a new Pentagon inspector general’s report. https://politi.co/2OGjWdJ

Trump, getting facts wrong, says he may free Blagojevich. The 62-year-old Democrat, who was once best known and the butt of jokes for his thick, meticulously coiffed hair, is seven years into a lengthy sentence for extortion, bribery and other wide-ranging political corruption. Trump’s comments on Blagojevich’s case contained several errors and underplayed the severity of the crimes, which included attempting to sell an appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated when Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. https://apnews.com/dec271e6326247a29fe5eb0f4668fd5e

Dayton Mayor cares more about gun control than Trump’s disparaging tweets. In response to the president’s tweet, Whaley told Cooper, “I really don't understand the comments at all, and, you know, he did have good report with the victims we said that and first responders were grateful.” She later reiterated, ”We really are grateful for the president coming and comforting these victims but what the city of Dayton wants is action out of Washington, D.C.” Ultimately, the mayor doesn’t really care what the president has to say or tweet about her and Sen. Brown, she just wants the people of Dayton to not have suffered in vain. “He is a bully and a coward and it's fine he wants to bully me and Senator Brown, we're okay, we can take it,” said Whaley, adding, “The citizens of Dayton deserve action.” https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dayton-mayor-cares-more-about-gun-control-than-trumps-disparaging-tweets-073243778.html

Fact check: President tones down claim on crime, boosts crowd sizes at County Coliseum. Throughout Monday, President Donald Trump touted the size of the crowd that would attend his rally in El Paso. When his rally got underway, the president said that “69,000 signed up to be here. The arena holds about 8,000." However, a Fire Department spokesman said 6,500 people were inside the venue and denied any special accommodations were made. Several thousand, though, were outside the Coliseum, watching the president's speech on big screens. There were no official estimates, though. An O'Rourke spokesman said about 8,000 attended the counter-rally. However, the El Paso Police Department told the El Paso Times that officers had made no official estimates. https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/02/11/trump-rally-el-paso-fact-check-how-big-was-crowd-county-coliseum/2844228002/ via @elpasotimes

THE PRESIDENT: “So, I don’t know if you know it, because you’ve been pretty busy lately, right? But they’re talking about you all over the world. The job you’ve done is incredible. And they’re talking about you all over the world. And the doctor, what you’ve done is -- I feel I know him, I’ve seen him now. And you did a fantastic job, your whole group. And you know Sen. Cornyn. The job you’ve done -- and they’re talking about it all over the world. And it’s an honor to be with you. Look at this group of people -- can you believe this? “I WAS HERE THREE MONTHS AGO, we made a speech, we had a -- what was the name of the arena … that place was packed, right? The judge is a respected guy … That was some crowd. And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto -- Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot. They said his crowd was wonderful.” https://twitter.com/CBS4Local/status/1159306347114110976

Trump attacks local leaders as he visits two cities grieving from mass shootings https://wapo.st/2OLb3Qr

Trump's trip to Dayton and El Paso marked by protests, attacks on critics. Most photos from the day’s trip came from official White House accounts, which showed Trump and the first lady smiling for pictures with hospital staff and meeting with patients recovering from injuries. "He and Melania did the right things," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said at a press conference in Dayton. "It's his job in part to comfort people. I'm glad he did it." But the president’s visits were also met with protests. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in each city to demand action on gun laws and to denounce Trump’s rhetoric, which Democrats have argued contributed to the violence in El Paso. Trump at times overshadowed the somber atmosphere of the day, including when he sent a series of tweets while en route from Dayton to El Paso in which he lashed out at Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, two Ohio officials who joined him at the hospital and a Fox News anchor. The tweets and protests appeared to validate the concerns of some local officials who worried that Trump's arrival would divide their grieving communities. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/456643-trumps-trip-to-dayton-el-paso-marked-by-protests-and-attacks-on

'Oh well': Dayton mayor confused by Trump's criticism of how she described his visit https://news.yahoo.com/oh-well-dayton-mayor-confused-204446129.html

On his way to commemorate shootings, Trump evokes his "both sides" defense of white supremacists. “I am concerned about the rise of any group of hate, I don’t like it,” he told reporters. “Any group of hate, whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of supremacy, whether it’s antifa. Whether it’s any group of hate.” “I am very concerned about it and I’ll do something about it.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/trump-el-paso-dayton-shootings-both-sides/ via @MotherJones

Trump Comes to El Paso After Trash-Talking City for Years. El Paso Seethes as Trump Brings Condolences for Racist Mass Murder Many Blame on Him. It’s personal for the border town allegedly targeted by a suspected terrorist who repeated the president’s “invasion” language about immigrants. The last time he was in El Paso, he chanted “murders, murders, murders, killings, murders” about immigrants like those who fill the city. He’s called migrants who come here “dangerous criminals” and accused asylum-seekers who arrive of “invasion.” During his State of the Union address, he said El Paso was “one of our nation’s most dangerous cities” before a border wall was constructed (it wasn’t). He kicked off his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans—like the ones who’ve lived here for generations—“rapists and criminals.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/el-paso-seethes-as-trump-offers-condolences-for-racist-mass-murder-many-blame-on-him

Trump Is Heading to El Paso Despite Objections From City Officials. The president still owes the city nearly $600,000 from his last visit. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-el-paso-visit-controversy-white-nationalism-867869/ via @RollingStone

Could This Be the Moment Trump Loses America? Public reaction to El Paso shows a realization that Trump has been stoking racist hatred. https://thebulwark.com/could-this-be-the-moment-trump-loses-america/ via @BulwarkOnline

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown says President Trump needs to apologize for "his racist rhetoric and his divisive tones" when he visits Dayton this week. The Democratic senator from Ohio said the president needs to apologize for “his racist rhetoric and his divisive tones.” The president is slated to visit Dayton after a shooter armed with a legally obtained rifle murdered at least nine people in the city early Sunday morning, a day after another legally armed gunman — who allegedly posted a manifesto indicating his attack was motivated by racism against Hispanics — took at least 22 lives in El Paso, Texas. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sherrod-brown-trump-visit-dayton-shooting_n_5d49c27fe4b0244052e245e1

Trump campaign still owes El Paso $500K for February rally. “Our resources are really strained right now,” said Alexsandra Annello, a member of the El Paso City Council. “Our police and fire are exhausted, our health department had for three days straight been working with the reunification of families. As you see from the bill, these are the services required for a presidential visit. In addition to financial costs, our community and resources are already strained and do not need this extra burden.” According to the city, Trump’s campaign owed $470,417.05 for police and public safety services related to the February rally, which was not an official presidential visit. The city sent the Trump campaign a letter in May prior to the deadline notifying it of the past-due invoice and in June added a one-time 21 percent late fee penalty, bringing the total bill to $569,204.63. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-campaign-still-owes-el-paso-rally-152116905.html

Exclusive: This Memo Shows Trump Knows Exactly What He's Doing. This document strongly suggests presidential Twitter tantrums against everyone from AOC to the entire city of Baltimore are no accident. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8jkm/the-memo-behind-donald-trumps-run-for-president-2016?utm_campaign=sharebutton via @vice

Trump warns he is 'watching Google very closely!' “Lou Dobbs stated that this is a fraud on the American public. @peterschweizer stated with certainty that they suppressed negative stories on Hillary Clinton, and boosted negative stories on Donald Ttump,” the president posted, misspelling his own name. “All very illegal. We are watching Google very closely!” https://politi.co/2yIJ6Ok

El Paso congresswoman to Trump: Don't come here. Rep. Veronica Escobar said Monday that President Donald Trump "is not welcome" in her hometown of El Paso, Texas, as the city recovers from a mass shooting that killed 21 people and wounded more than two dozen. "From my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning," Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes nearly all of El Paso, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I would encourage the president's staff members to have him do a little self-reflection. I would encourage them to show him his own words and his actions at the rallies." https://politi.co/2yDUmLA

"We Have an Invasion!" Trump's Facebook Ads Sound a Lot Like the El Paso Suspect's Manifesto. the president’s own messaging to his followers has repeatedly echoed the core theme of the alleged shooter’s racist, anti-immigrant screed. In thousands of ads plastered across Facebook and Google, Trump’s re-election campaign is regularly stoking fears of a Latino “invasion” of the United States. “We have an INVASION!” one Facebook ad reads. “So we are BUILDING THE WALL to STOP IT. Dems will sue us. But we want a SAFE COUNTRY! It’s CRITICAL that we STOP THE INVASION.” https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjb8y/we-have-an-invasion-trumps-facebook-ads-sound-a-lot-like-the-el-paso-suspects-manifesto

Trump mistakenly refers to shooting in Toledo https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/456179-trump-mistakenly-refers-to-shooting-in-toledo

Epstein had ‘photos of Trump with girls’. As Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2016, Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile financier, told a mutual acquaintance that he had compromising – or at least embarrassing – photographs of the candidate taken some years earlier. He showed them to this man who, three years later, described them for Cockburn as ‘sort of sexy, sort of suggestive’. https://spectator.us/epstein-photos-trump-girls/

Trump now praises El Paso, but in February he infuriated city leaders with falsely calling it one of the nation's "most dangerous cities." Beto O’Rourke at the time called Trump’s attack “racist” and intended to “incite fear and paranoia.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-el-paso-lied-about-crime-rate-wall-mexicans_n_5d4780abe4b0aca3411fbe1b

Trump rhetoric freshly condemned after mass shootings. 2020 candidates and other politicians battle over the president's words about minorities, while the Justice Department pursues the El Paso killings as domestic terrorism. The weekend’s rampages are not the first time Trump’s rhetoric has been tied to violence as a possible motivating factor or a catalyst for attacks. But they come as Trump continues to lean on racist tropes as he runs for reelection. O’Rourke, who left the presidential campaign trail to return home in the wake of the El Paso shooting, repeatedly accused Trump of using language more commonly found during Hitler’s Third Reich, but also said that the president’s rhetoric was commonly found on the internet and even Fox News. “He is encouraging this,” O’Rourke told host Jake Tapper of CNN. “He doesn’t just tolerate it; he encourages it, calling immigrants rapists and criminals and seeking to ban all people of one religion.” “Folks are responding to this. It doesn't just offend us, it encourages the violence we're seeing including in my hometown of El Paso yesterday.” https://politi.co/2yydk6z

Donald Trump said he's done more for African Americans than any president. Historians disagree. When we took a closer look, we found that Trump does have a point about some of the economic and policy details he mentioned. His campaign also pointed to a double-digit funding increase he sought and signed for historically black colleges and universities. However, Trump overstated his own standing within history. It’s exceedingly difficult for Trump to top the landmark efforts by his predecessors in the White House, including Abraham Lincoln, who fought the Civil War and pushed the constitutional amendments that ended slavery, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who fought for and signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Because Trump’s boast is ultimately an opinion, we won’t put it to the Truth-O-Meter. However, we’ll take a look at the evidence and share the views of presidential historians. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/01/donald-trump-said-hes-done-more-african-americans-/ via @PolitiFact

Trump said 'perhaps' more needs to be done on gun control following two mass shootings https://news.yahoo.com/trump-said-perhaps-more-needs-205235106.html

Donald Trump once again promoted controversial British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins on Twitter. Trump retweeted two posts from Katie Hopkins on Saturday morning. She has also previously called for a “final solution” for Muslims. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-katie-hopkins-germany_n_5d457c95e4b0aca3411e5cff

Celebrities, royals and politicians brace themselves as court orders release of explosive Jeffrey Epstein files. The files contain explosive allegations in the case of Giuffre v Maxwell, in which Virginia Giuffre, a woman who claims to have been Jeffrey Epstein's teenage "sex slave", sued Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and the billionaire's former girlfriend, for defamation. The case was settled in May 2017 on the eve of the trial but the details were not disclosed and the final judgment and supporting documents were sealed, with the court noting the "highly sensitive nature of the underlying allegations." According to other court documents that have been published, Ms Giuffre has made allegations of sexual abuse against "numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well‐known Prime Minister, and other world leaders." last month the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered their release, ruling that the public's right to know outweighed the privacy rights of the high-profile individuals named. https://news.yahoo.com/celebrities-royals-politicians-brace-themselves-173401321.html

Trump Calls Bannon His 'Best' Pupil After He Said 'Sloppy Steve' Was 'Dumped Like A Dog' Trump’s dramatic turnabout came after Bannon, on CNBC Friday, talked up Trump’s chances of winning in 2020 as he slammed the current field of Democratic candidates. Bannon also defended Trump’s latest announced round of tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods that sent stocks tumbling Friday. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/steve-bannon-trump-best-pupil-dog-010005864.html

Fans removed from Baltimore Orioles game after unfurling Donald Trump banner https://sports.yahoo.com/fans-removed-from-baltimore-orioles-game-after-unfurling-donald-trump-banner-220421006.html

Trump urges rally attendees not to chant 'send her back'; he also says Harris had 'bad' debate night. President Trump told reporters outside the White House on Thursday that he hopes attendees at his evening rally in Cincinnati don't chant about sending members of Congress back to their home countries -- but added that the situation might be beyond his control. Last month, a Trump rally in North Carolina led to a "send her back" chant directed at Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. Trump said the next day he disagreed with the chant, and was "not happy with it." "I don't know that you can stop people," Trump said. "We'll see what we can do. I'd prefer that they don't. But if they do it, we'll have to make a decision then." https://fxn.ws/2yvRSiE #FoxNews

Marco Rubio’s Biblical ‘Abomination’ Tweet Backfires: 'Talking About Trump?' There are 6 things the LORD hates,7 are an abomination;

  • arrogant eyes
  • a lying tongue
  • hands that shed innocent blood
  • a heart that plots wicked schemes
  • feet that are quick to run to evil
  • the false witness who utters lies
  • the one who sows discord among kindred.

Prov 6:16-19 https://www.yahoo.com/news/marco-rubio-biblical-abomination-tweet-backfires-115304461.html

So called President Trump, Racist, rapist, liar, archived August 01, 2019

‘Serving under Trump is embarrassing’: Fifth Republican congressman retires in just two weeks as GOP fears more exits. Representative Mike Conaway will not seek re-election to his Texas seat in 2020, the Politico website reported. He has not confirmed his decision or reason for retiring but he is set to make a statement to the media. The move has prompted worries within the party that others will follow suit and step down, because of the difficulties that come with serving under Mr Trump and working with a Democratic majority in Congress. “Serving in the era of Trump has few rewards,” Tom Davis, a former senior Republican congressman, told The Hill website. “He has made an already hostile political environment worse. https://news.yahoo.com/serving-under-trump-embarrassing-fifth-104531664.html

Hours after Trump retweet, Twitter account suspended. Twitter reportedly suspended an account on Tuesday night that had been retweeted by President Trump just hours earlier. Trump on Tuesday afternoon retweeted the account, which went by the name “LYNN THOMAS” and had posted a tweet that called Democrats “THE TRUE ENEMIES OF AMERICA," the Daily Beast reports. “DEMOCRATS ARE THE ONLY ONES INTERFERING IN OUR ELECTIONS. WHY DO YOU THINK THEY SO STRONGLY OPPOSE VOTER ID,” read the tweet, which was accompanied by a graphic that read “DEMOCRATS ARE THE TRUE ENEMIES OF AMERICA.” Twitter told CNN that the account was suspended for violating its terms and conditions but did not specify which rule had been broken. The platform bans users from artificially amplifying or disrupting conversations through multiple accounts. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/455487-hours-after-trump-retweet-twitter-account-suspended

Have We No Decency? A Response to President Trump. The escalation of racialized rhetoric from the President of the United States has evoked responses from all sides of the political spectrum. On one side, African American leaders have led the way in rightfully expressing outrage. On the other, those aligned with the President seek to downplay the racial overtones of his attacks, or remain silent. As faith leaders who serve at Washington National Cathedral ¬– the sacred space where America gathers at moments of national significance – we feel compelled to ask: After two years of President Trump’s words and actions, when will Americans have enough? As Americans, we have had such moments before, and as a people we have acted. Events of the last week call to mind a similarly dark period in our history: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” This week, President Trump crossed another threshold. Not only did he insult a leader in the fight for racial justice and equality for all persons; not only did he savage the nations from which immigrants to this country have come; but now he has condemned the residents of an entire American city. Where will he go from here? Make no mistake about it, words matter. And, Mr. Trump’s words are dangerous. https://cathedral.org/have-we-no-decency-a-response-to-president-trump.html

That was U.S. Army attorney Joseph Welch on June 9, 1954, when he confronted Senator Joseph McCarthy before a live television audience, effectively ending McCarthy’s notorious hold on the nation. Until then, under the guise of ridding the country of Communist infiltration, McCarthy had free rein to say and do whatever he wished. With unbridled speech, he stoked the fears of an anxious nation with lies; destroyed the careers of countless Americans; and bullied into submissive silence anyone who dared criticize him.

In retrospect, it’s clear that Welch’s question was directed less toward McCarthy and more to the nation as a whole. Had Americans had enough? Where was our sense of decency?

Trump: 'There's no strategy' in attacks on Cummings https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/455360-trump-theres-no-strategy-in-attacks-on-cummings

Trump warns China deal will get worse 'if & when' he's reelected. "The problem with them waiting ... is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now ... or no deal at all," Trump wrote on Twitter. "We have all the cards, our past leaders never got it!""We do not expect a written agreement between the two countries that would result in a reduction of existing tariffs until 2021, after the U.S. presidential election," Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at The Economist Intelligence Unit, said Tuesday in an analytical note. "I think if China had their wish, they'd wait until after the election. They'll pray that Trump loses, and then they'll make a deal with a stiff — somebody that doesn’t know what they're doing," Trump said, referring to one of his Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, and past presidents, including Barack Obama. https://politi.co/2GClzTt

Black leaders boycott Trump visit over 'racist, xenophobic rhetoric'. The US president said those who stayed away were acting “against their own people”, while claiming, as he left the White House to fly to the event, that his denigration of Baltimore was “helping” his political standing. The Pulitzer prize-winning historian Jon Meacham, who earlier in July compared Trump to Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States whose racism played a part in his impeachment, was among those to speak at the event, before Trump. Meacham said: “Extremism, racism, nativism, xenophobia and isolationism, driven by fear of the unknown, tend to spike in periods of stress. A period like our own. As we gather here faith in representative institutions is ebbing. Reflexive partisanship is the order of the day.” Before departing for the event, Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House and claimed he is “the least racist person that there is anywhere in the world”. He said: “The African American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy as [sic] what a president has done.” An hour later, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that 80% of black people think Trump is racist. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/30/trump-black-leaders-virginia-race-baltimore-attack

Saudi Arabia Edited a Trump "America First" Campaign Speech. Manafort Helped Them Do It. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnem3/saudia-arabia-edited-a-trump-america-first-campaign-speech-manafort-helped-them-do-it

.@realdonaldtrump says he “spent a lot of time” with 9/11 first responders. Here are the facts. Alles said he had no knowledge of Trump being at the site or sending 100 or so workers there to help. "I was in a supervisory role with the fire department at the time," said Alles, who said he was on the scene about 20 minutes after the second building collapsed. "I was there for several months — I have no knowledge of his being down there." If Trump had sent a crew of 100 workers, "there would be a record of it. Everybody worked under direct supervision of the police and fire department and the joint commander for emergency services. Is there a chance he was ever down there by himself and I didn’t know it? It’s possible, but I know of no one who ever witnessed him there." https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/jul/30/donald-trump-says-he-spent-lot-time-911-responders/ via @PolitiFact

A protester interrupted Trump’s speech Tuesday by referencing his racist attacks against four Democratic congresswomen of color: “Mr. President, you can’t send us back! Virginia is our home." A Democratic state lawmaker interrupted President Donald Trump’s speech in Virginia Tuesday by referencing his racist attacks against four Democratic congresswomen of color. “Mr. President, you can’t send us back! Virginia is our home,” Ibraheem Samirah, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, said at Trump’s speech, which was intended to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown ― home of the first representative legislative assembly in the Western Hemisphere. Police officers escorted out Samirah, who carried signs reading “Deport Hate” and “Go Back To Your Corrupted Home,” while audience members booed and chanted “Trump.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-protester-go-back-racism_n_5d4069bfe4b0d24cde068b79

Trump Rants Against Rat Infestation While His Properties Are Health Code Horror Shows. The presidents restaurants, resorts, and golf clubs have had some, shall we say, problematic sanitary records. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-rants-against-rat-infestation-while-his-properties-are-health-code-horror-shows

Virginia's black state lawmakers to boycott Jamestown event with Trump. African-American state legislators in Virginia are planning to skip events commemorating 400 years of representative democracy in Jamestown on Tuesday because of the presence of President Trump, who is again taking criticism for his attacks on minority lawmakers. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus (VLBC) announced the boycott on Monday, saying in a statement that the president's participation would tarnish the programs meant to celebrate the nation's origins. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/455246-virginias-black-lawmakers-to-boycott-jamestown-event-trumps-attending

Trump signs 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund — but doesn't invite bill's Democratic author to ceremony. Trump also made a series of unsubstantiated claims about his personal involvement with 9/11 recovery efforts https://www.salon.com/2019/07/29/trump-signs-9-11-victim-compensation-fund-but-doesnt-invite-bills-democratic-author-to-ceremony/

Trump announces seven pardons or sentence commutations https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/455183-trump-announces-pardons-and-sentence-commutations-for-seven-people

#CrimeInfested https://twitter.com/Zeddary/status/1155486497451184128

Jared Kushner’s Other Real Estate Empire in Baltimore https://nyti.ms/2qPRGrF

Trump's NYC eateries written up for 'live mice,' other 'critical' health code violations in recent months. Mice in the kitchen, filthy food prep areas and broken sewage systems are on the list of recent stomach-turning health code violations at a number of Trump-branded restaurants in the city, the Daily News has learned. Health inspections at Trump properties from Midtown Manhattan to the Bronx’s Ferry Point reveal the President’s eponymous company still struggles to keep its day-to-day operations clean — though similar infractions have been reported for years. Violations at the President’s crown jewel and Manhattan residence — Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue — are perhaps the most gag-inducing. City Department of Health inspectors visited the tower’s cafe and grill on July 11, 2018 and found “evidence of mice or live mice” in and around the kitchen, according to records that haven’t previously been reported. The inspectors categorized the violation as “critical.” https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-trump-restaurants-mice-health-20190207-story.html

The Wire' creator calls Trump an 'empty-suited, race hating fraud' over Baltimore remarks. David Simon, the creator of the HBO series set in Baltimore, "The Wire," on Saturday denounced President Trump as an "empty-suited, race hating fraud" following his attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and the Baltimore district he represents. "If this empty-suit, race-hating fraud had to actually visit West Baltimore for five minutes and meet any of the American citizens who endure there, he’d wet himself," Simon said on Twitter moments after Trump targeted Cummings and his congressional district. Simon added later that the "president is 'literally' a simplistic, racist moron." https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/455045-the-wire-creator-calls-trump-an-empty-suited-race-hating-fraud

148 black Obama administration staffers pen op-ed in support of 'the Squad'. “We stand with congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, as well as all those currently under attack by President Trump, along with his supporters and his enablers, who feel deputized to decide who belongs here — and who does not,” the 148 African-American ex-staffers wrote in the Washington Post op-ed. The group wrote that during their time in the Obama administration, they had seen firsthand the "relentless attacks" on the former president's legitimacy. “We refuse to sit idly by as racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia are wielded by the president and any elected official complicit in the poisoning of our democracy,” they added. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/454997-148-black-obama-administration-staffers-pen-op-ed-in-support-of

Trump 'rat-infested' attack on Elijah Cummings was racist, Pelosi says. Donald Trump kicked off his weekend with a stinging attack on Elijah Cummings, the Democratic chair of the House oversight committee, that opponents including House speaker Nancy Pelosi said was another example of the president deploying racist invective for political ends. Apparently responding to the Fox News magazine show Fox & Friends, the president called Cummings a “brutal bully” and said his congressional district was both “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” and “the worst run and most dangerous [district] anywhere in the United States”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/27/donald-trump-elijah-cummings-democrat-house-oversight-bully-rat-rodent

Obama says he's 'proud of' former staffers who slammed Trump for 'poisoning of our democracy' in fiery op-ed https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/455026-obama-says-hes-proud-of-former-staffers-who-slammed-trump-for

Trump slams Cummings as a 'brutal bully,' claims Baltimore district 'far worse' than southern border. The president's remarks early Saturday also come days after the House Oversight and Reform Committee authorized Cummings to subpoena for records from the White House in connection with an investigation into aides’ use of personal email and text applications for official business. “There are serious questions about this White House’s use of personal email and text accounts. We must issue these subpoenas to get our answers,” Cummings said Thursday. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/454995-trump-slams-cummings-as-a-brutal-bully-claims-baltimore-district-far

Trump calls for probe of Obama book deal. "They want to investigate, they want to go fishing and I watched Bob Mueller and they have nothing," Trump said of Democrats during an Oval Office gathering to announce an agreement with Guatemala. "It’s a disgrace," he continued. "We want to find out what happened the last Democrat president. Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked into me. From day one they’ve looked into everything we’ve done." "They could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let’s subpoena all of his records," Trump continued. "Let’s subpoena all of the records having to do with Hillary Clinton and all of the nonsense that went on with Clinton and her foundation and everything else." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/454953-trump-calls-for-probe-of-obama-book-deal

‘Very Innocent President’ Greets Mueller Testimony With Unhinged Tweetstorm. Read Trump’s early-morning meltdown decrying the Special Counsel’s testimony and the culmination of “the Greatest Witch Hunt In U.S. history, by far!” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-mueller-testimony-tweets-862775/ via @RollingStone

Trump Still Faces 9 Investigations Into His Finances https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bj9973/trump-still-faces-9-investigations-into-his-finances

On his way to pay respects to late justice, Trump hurls insults at 'The Squad'. President Donald Trump left the White House on Monday, headed to the Supreme Court with first lady Melania Trump to pay respects to the late Justice John Paul Stevens. But on the way, he decided to let loose another wave of criticism against the four congresswomen who have been the target of his ire of late. Referring to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley as “The Squad,” the president said that the lawmakers — all progressive freshmen and women of color — were “a very Racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart.” “They are pulling the once great Democrat Party far left, and were against humanitarian aid at the Border,” he wrote online minutes after his motorcade departed the White House, “And are now against ICE and Homeland Security. So bad for our Country!” https://politi.co/2M6XgAy

Trump calls victims of his racist tweets 'racist' in wild and unfounded attack. “The ‘Squad’ is a very Racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart,” the president wrote, referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. “They are pulling the once great Democrat Party far left, and were against humanitarian aid at the Border...And are now against ICE and Homeland Security.” He added, “So bad for our Country!” The president’s unfounded claims seemed to be an attempt to deflect from his own accusations of racism after the US House of Representatives voted in a historic move last week to rebuke the “racist comments” he aimed at the four congresswomen. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-twitter-the-squad-racist-justice-stevens-congresswomen-border-a9015936.html

Dubya Was Bad, but the Donald Might Be Worse: Richard Clarke. He’s worked for almost every president since Reagan, and Richard Clarke’s never been less hopeful about the future. Oh wait, there’s Mayor Pete. https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-w-bush-was-bad-but-trump-might-be-worse-richard-clarke

FOX NEWS: *plays Stephen Miller a montage of the most racist stuff Trump has said over the years - birtherism, Muslim ban, etc*
Why shouldn't people see that as racist?
MILLER: The term 'racist' has become a label that's deployed to suppress speech the left doesn't want to hear — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1152975779174735872 July 21, 2019

Stephen Miller’s Attempt to Gaslight Fox News Audience on Trump’s Racism Goes Nowhere. The senior White House policy adviser said the president’s recent remarks are “out of love for America” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/stephen-miller-gaslight-racism-fox-news-861669/ via @RollingStone

Americans Are Absolutely Terrified of Trump. “They say, ‘I’m scared.’ And I have not—I’ve never in my total of 37 years in public service ever heard a constituent say that they were scared of their leader,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/americans-are-absolutely-terrified-of-trump-861686/ via @RollingStone

Trump says Democratic congresswoman 'should apologize to America'. The Republican president's incendiary comments dovetail with the anti-immigrant stance he has embraced since his 2016 campaign for the White House, which included saying Mexico was sending rapists into the country and seeking to ban people from Muslim-majority nations. "I don't believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country. They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said," Trump said in a Twitter post. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-democratic-congresswoman-apologize-152531342.html

Trump knew about efforts to quash stories of alleged affairs, court records show. But despite Trump’s knowledge of those efforts— and the involvement of several others in his orbit — federal prosecutors in New York decided not to file any additional charges in their investigation of the illegal hush money payments made to silence both women who say they had sex with Trump before he was president, according to two people familiar with the matter. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-knew-about-efforts-to-quash-stories-of-alleged-affairs-court-records-show

I've fact-checked every word Trump has uttered since his inauguration. I can tell you that if this President relays an anecdote in which he has someone referring to him as "sir," then some major component of the anecdote is very likely to be wrong. Lots of people do call Trump "sir," of course. But the word seems to pop into his head more frequently when he is inventing or exaggerating a conversation than when he is faithfully relaying one. A "sir" is a flashing red light that he is speaking from his imagination rather than his memory. In poker parlance, it's a tell. https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/sir-trump-telltale-word-false/index.html

Trump says if you don’t love America, leave it.
He’s been bashing the U.S. for years. — VICE News (@vicenews)
https://twitter.com/vicenews/status/1152278752858202115 July 19, 2019

Trump Promised Worldwide Respect for America, You Know What Happened Next. As a citizen and then a candidate, Trump’s oft-repeated line: “The world is laughing at us,” has come to fruition https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-worldwide-respect-for-america-861637/ via @RollingStone

All the Things You Can No Longer Buy if You’re a True MAGA Trump Fan. The free market has its limitations when you’re a Trump supporter. Here’s everything Trump and MAGA Country have boycotted in the last few years. https://www.thedailybeast.com/all-the-things-you-can-no-longer-buy-if-youre-a-true-maga-trump-fan

Katie Hopkins: ‘I definitely identify with that murderer thing, where you click off’. The reality TV star and columnist mocks autism, but says her daughter is ‘on the spectrum’. She derides the ‘National Hotel Service’, but has epilepsy so severe it puts her in hospital. Is Katie Hopkins for real, asks Jon Ronson https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/katie-hopkins-jon-ronson-interview

"Go back to Africa," suggests camo-clad Trump supporter. Video: — Tony Dokoupil (@tonydokoupil) https://twitter.com/tonydokoupil/status/708759387909677056 March 12, 2016

“Incredible patriots” is the new “very fine people”: Trump defends racist chants. One day after trying to distance himself from “send her back,” the president abruptly reverses course. https://www.vox.com/2019/7/19/20700941/trump-racist-chants-incredible-patriots-ilhan-omar-apollo-11

Trump cancels appearance at NAACP national convention in Detroit. FOX 2: "What is your comment on him being called a racist (which isn't the) first time?" "If it speaks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck - it must be a duck," Anthony said. http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/trump-cancels-appearance-at-naacp-national-convention-in-detroit

Donald Trump's politics of hate began with a "cynical and evil" GOP memo. Decades before Gingrich was a Trump-adoring Fox News bloviator, he was speaker of the House. And before that he was a bomb-thrower. In fact, he became speaker partly because he weaponized hate. Elected in 1978, Gingrich was a back-bencher in the House of Representatives when the Republicans appeared to be in a permanent minority. His strategy was to blow up his own party so he could take control and lead it to the majority—and one of his big ideas was that the GOP, in order to succeed, had to create more division within the national discourse. He established a political action committee called GOPAC to help Republican candidates across the country become more effective campaigners. And in 1990, the group distributed to GOP contenders a pamphlet called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” which encouraged the candidates to “speak like Newt”—that is, to rely upon sharp and divisive rhetoric. It presented a list of 30 “optimistic positive” words to use, including “freedom,” “truth,” and “family.” It also provided a list of “contrasting” words: “crisis,” “decay,” and “red tape.” And this second list recommended going to extremes. Republican candidates, it noted, should call Democrats “shallow,” “radical,” “incompetent,” “pathetic,” “sick,” “bizarre,” and “traitors.” Gingrich’s group was urging GOPers to engage in all-out rhetorical war, going beyond arguing over policies to engaging in the politics of personal destruction. Which was one of Gingrich’s own favorite tools. (The good Newt loved to talk about policy; the bad Newt embraced and relished hostile name-calling and discordant combat.) https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/donald-trumps-politics-of-hate-began-with-a-cynical-and-evil-gop-memo/ via @MotherJones

Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump with Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl. A civil suit against Donald Trump alleging he raped a 13-year-old girl was dismissed in California in May 2016, refiled in New York in June 2016, and dropped again in November 2016. https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit/ via @snopes

‘Send Her Back’ Is Trump’s Most Honest Campaign Slogan. It’s what “Make America Great Again” was always really about https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-white-nationalism-rally-was-ilhan-omar-860480/ via @RollingStone

Trump regularly talked to Cohen during hush-money negotiations. Newly released court documents show Michael Cohen kept his boss in the know as he hammered out a deal with Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. From start to finish, Trump was in regular contact with his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, who arranged the payment. In October, Trump was brought in on a conference call with his longtime communications adviser, Hope Hicks, to discuss efforts to purchase and kill Daniels’ story. Over the coming weeks, Trump had numerous phone calls with Cohen as he went back and forth with Daniels’ attorney. And days before the November election, after The Wall Street Journal published a story detailing a similar hush-payment Cohen also made during the campaign to Playboy model Karen McDougal, Cohen texted “he’s pissed,” an apparent reference to Trump. https://politi.co/2LYf6Wp

Behind the scenes the night Trump partied at Mar-a-Lago with Jeffrey Epstein and NFL cheerleaders. Tom McMillen, a former NBA player who served as a Democratic member of Congress from Maryland from 1987 to 1993 and attended the gathering, said the cheerleaders were present because the party was “NFL-themed,” but he added that it was a large and diverse crowd. In the footage of the party, McMillen can be seen entering the gathering just behind Epstein. https://wapo.st/2LWAFXj

Jeffrey Epstein’s pilot deletes Instagram after Kellyanne Conway pic surfaces https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/jeffrey-epstein-pilot-kellyanne-conway/

Opinion: I used to work in US intelligence. This is the biggest threat to America today. Donald Trump and his coterie of criminals have done more in two years to weaken the United States than the Soviet Union was able to achieve in decades. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-gop-climate-change-fbi-russia-racism-us-intelligence-a9009441.html

Did Donald Trump's racist tweets violate federal laws against workplace discrimination? Ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities. Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person's foreign accent or comments like, "Go back to where you came from, " whether made by supervisors or by co-workers. https://boingboing.net/2019/07/16/trump-tweets-and-eeoc.html

READ: Here's The Resolution Condemning Trump's Racist Comments About Congresswomen https://n.pr/2lh7u6d

Trump ambushes Republicans with attacks on minority congresswomen. After a day of silence, many GOP lawmakers harshly criticized the president. The ambush plunged Trump back into a political crisis with his own party, with no coherent GOP response and little apparent coordination between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill over how to grapple with Trump’s comments that the liberal lawmakers, all women of color, “go back” to where they came from. https://politi.co/2JKKQvg via @politico

AOC 'squad' refers to Trump as 'occupant' of White House, condemns 'racist' remarks, as Trump fires back. In spirited remarks tinged with open animosity, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., standing side-by-side with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, declared at a news conference on Capitol Hill Monday that "it is time for us to impeach this president" for "openly violating" his constitutional oath. "The eyes of history are watching us" in this "pivotal moment," Omar said. Pressley, in her remarks, repeatedly referred to Trump as "the occupant of the White House" seeking to "marginalize and silence" the women, but quickly turned her focus to various issues, from gun violence to immigration. https://fxn.ws/32uAf03 #FoxNews

Trump demands apology from Democratic congresswomen he attacked in racist diatribe. Meanwhile, Theresa May condemned the president’s “go back” home tweets as “completely unacceptable.” "When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!" https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-demands-apology-from-democratic-congresswomen-he-attacked-in-racist-diatribe/ via @MotherJones

We will never be a Socialist or Communist Country. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY HERE, YOU CAN LEAVE! It is your choice, and your choice alone. This is about love for America. Certain people HATE our Country. ....They are anti-Israel, pro Al-Qaeda, and comment on the 9/11 attack, “some people did something.” Radical Left Democrats want Open Borders, which means drugs, crime, human trafficking, and much more.... ...Detention facilities are not Concentration Camps! America has never been stronger than it is now – rebuilt Military, highest Stock Market EVER, lowest unemployment and more people working than ever before. Keep America Great! .— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150874781744607232 July 15, 2019

So called President Trump, archived July 15, 2019

TRUMP: "I mean I look at the one, I look at Omar -- I don't know, I never met her -- I hear the way she talks about Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has killed many Americans ... these are people that in my opinion hate our country ... they can leave ... they have to love our country." — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1150812791072276480 July 15, 2019

Trump Said His Racist Tweets Are Fine Because "Many People" Agree With Him. He also claimed the tweets weren't racist. President Trump on Monday claimed his racist tweets attacking progressive congresswomen weren't racist, and he added that he's not concerned about backlash because "many people" hold his same views. The president also said the person guilty of making a racist statement was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who defended the congresswomen in a tweet. "When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to 'Make America Great Again' has always been about making America white again," Pelosi tweeted. "'Make America white again,' that's a very racist statement," Trump said on Monday. "I'm surprised she'd say that." He added that he believed voters would be on his side and warned Democrats against taking a stand in support of the congresswomen. "If they want to gear their wagons around these four people, I think it'll be a tough election," he said. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/claudiakoerner/trump-racist-tweets-many-people-agree via @claudiakoerner

Trump defends tweets as 'not at all' racist. “Not at all,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if his tweets about the lawmakers were racist. “If somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/453092-trump-defends-tweets-as-not-at-all-racist

Liz Crokin: Trump Appointed Alex Acosta to Force the Media to Cover Jeffrey Epstein’s Arrest | Right Wing Watch http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/liz-crokin-trump-appointed-alex-acosta-to-force-the-media-to-cover-jeffrey-epsteins-arrest/ https://twitter.com/i/status/1150785540654018561

Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019. Trump has repeatedly claimed he’s “the least racist person.” His history suggests otherwise. https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history

Trump digs in amid censure of racist tweets about lawmakers. “I don’t think that the president’s intent any way is racist,” said Short, repeatedly pointing to Trump’s decision to choose Elaine Chao, who was born outside the country, as his transportation secretary. “The administration is welcoming of all nationalities into the United States,” he said. Even as Short spoke, Trump, who has a long history of making racist remarks, continued to fan the flames, tweeting, “If Democrats want to unite around the foul language & racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular & unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.” https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-digs-in-amid-censure-of-racist-tweets-about-lawmakers-1.590390

Party of relentless bad faith: How Republican lies and hypocrisy hit an all-time high. Republican bad faith has come in many varieties over many decades. Has it corroded democracy beyond repair? https://www.salon.com/2019/07/14/party-of-relentless-bad-faith-how-republican-lies-and-hypocrisy-hit-an-all-time-high/

Trump doubles down after telling Democratic congresswomen to 'go back' to their countries. "So sad to see the Democrats sticking up for people who speak so badly of our Country and who, in addition, hate Israel with a true and unbridled passion. Whenever confronted, they call their adversaries, including Nancy Pelosi, 'RACIST,'" Trump said in a pair of tweets. "Their disgusting language and the many terrible things they say about the United States must not be allowed to go unchallenged. If the Democrat Party wants to continue to condone such disgraceful behavior, then we look even more forward to seeing you at the ballot box in 2020!" he continued. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/453021-trump-doubles-down-after-telling-democratic-congresswomen-to-go-back

‘I accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Now I sleep with a loaded gun’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/13/i-accused-donald-trump-of-sexual-assault-e-jean-carroll-ed-pilkington

Shepard Smith Fact-Checks Trump On Mueller Report Exoneration: 'Not True.' As for collusion, “as analyzed by a group at the NYU law school ... and detailed in the Mueller report itself, the redacted Mueller report documents 14 separate activities that show strong evidence of collusion,” Smith stated. Instances in the report demonstrate that Trump campaign associates “encouraged or gave support to the Russia-WikiLeaks election interference activities.” As for obstruction, Mueller said he “did not set out to indict the president because of his belief that doing so would go against” Department of Justice guidelines, Smith reported. “But he did document 10 instances of President Trump possibly obstructing justice and listed them in detail in his report. Any action on those instances could be taken up by the Congress while the president is still in office — or by the courts after his term is complete.” https://news.yahoo.com/shepard-smith-fox-news-fact-checks-trump-mueller-exoneration-032110539.html

Trump just found a way to unite AOC and Nancy Pelosi. Tlaib also chimed in, calling Trump “lawless” and a “complete failure as a president.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/aoc-and-pelosi-unite-in-response-to-racist-trump-tweets/ via @MotherJones

Daily Mail: Ex-British ambassador said Trump left Iran deal to spite Obama. "The Administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons – it was Obama’s deal," Darroch wrote, according to The Daily Mail. "Moreover, they can’t articulate any 'day-after' strategy; and contacts with State Department this morning suggest no sort of plan for reaching out to partners and allies, whether in Europe or the region." https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/452960-daily-mail-ex-british-ambassador-said-trump-left-iran-deal-to

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly.....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how.....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381394234941448 July 14, 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- Born New York City
Rep. Veronica Escobar -- Born El Paso, Texas
Rep. Rashida Tlaib -- Born Detroit, Michigan
Rep. Ayanna Pressley -- Born Chicago, Illinois
Rep. Ilhan Omar -- Born Mogadishu, Somalia, emigrated with family at age 10, U.S. citizen — Michael Biesecker (@mbieseck) https://twitter.com/mbieseck/status/1150422813636997124 July 14, 2019

Trump: Republicans like Paul Ryan are 'weak, ineffective & stupid'. Trump followed up his latest attack on Ryan by touting his current approval rating among Republicans. "94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, an all time high. Ronald Reagan was 87%. Thank you!" Trump wrote in a follow up tweet. Trump is polling at 90 percent with Republicans according to the latest Gallup poll. According to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, Trump has an 85 percent approval rating among potential GOP primary voters. https://politi.co/2Lktw3M

‘It’s time to move forward’: Maryland lawmakers react to Trump backing down from census citizenship question. “The President has just admitted what his Administration has been denying for two years — that he wants citizenship data in order to gerrymander legislative districts in partisan and discriminatory ways,” Cummings said in a statement. https://www.capitalgazette.com/bs-md-pol-trump-census-citizenship-20190712-3zvcz5ars5fm3gsr4tb75cvmq4-story.html

Why the Sexual Predator in the White House Needed Acosta to Go. Of course the cable-news-watcher in chief didn’t want Alexander Acosta hanging around. The longer he stayed, the more the story would turn to Trump himself. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-sexual-predator-in-the-white-house-needed-acosta-to-go

Things Donald Trump Said Today, Verbatim. We’ve transcribed some of the more astounding portions of Trump’s hour-long, rambling diatribe. Sorry. Some insights on tech from a man with a perfectly liquified brain. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/trump-social-media-summit.html via @slate

Trump riffs on Twitter typos: 'The fingers aren't as good as the brain'. "Any kind of a punctuation mistake they put it on," he added. "So I’m very, very careful. Really I’m actually a good speller, but everyone said the fingers aren’t as good as the brain." Trump offered praise for many of the attendees, remarking on the videos and images they create in support of the president. "Some of you are extraordinary. Can’t say everybody. No, but some of you are extraordinary," Trump said. "The crap you think of is unbelievable." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/452686-trump-riffs-on-twitter-typos-the-fingers-arent-as-good-as-the-brain

Laura Loomer is Very Upset She Wasn't Invited to Trump's Truly Dumb Social Media Summit https://theslot.jezebel.com/laura-loomer-is-very-upset-she-wasnt-invited-to-trumps-1836286989

Trump sent more than 20 tweets over six hours, bouncing between seemingly random subjects like the Pledge of Allegiance and his ability to secure loans from “prestigious banks” (if he wanted to). https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-latest-twitter-rant-even-worse_n_5d275f04e4b0bd7d1e18feca

Trump's labor secretary just defended his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Asked if he had a message for the victims, he responded, “The message to the victims is that you need to come forward.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/acosta-defends-his-handling-of-the-jeffrey-epstein-case/ via @MotherJones

Trump just backed down on the census citizenship question. Trump ordered the Census Bureau to gather existing data on citizenship from administrative records, and ordered other federal agencies to turn over their citizenship data to the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau. The administration could then use this information to draw districts based on citizenship rather than total population during the next redistricting cycle in 2021—something some Republicans have been advocating. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-backs-down-on-the-census-citizenship-question/ via @MotherJones

Trump's 'Salute to America' cost more than $5M: report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/452552-trumps-salute-to-america-cost-more-than-5m-report

...or a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1000/24th), as your President, rather than what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius! Sorry to say that even Social Media would be driven out of business along with, and finally, the Fake News Media! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1149279679045672961 July 11, 2019

Trump organization cancels golf event with stripper caddies - ABC News - https://abcn.ws/2XDBawt

The mayor says Trump's July 4 bash, plus his unpaid 2017 inauguration expenses, will leave the fund with a big deficit. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Trump’s “Salute to America” expenses will further deplete a fund that was never repaid for costs of the president’s inauguration. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dc-mayor-trump-july-4-salute-to-america_n_5d26090fe4b0583e482aa659

Fox News Cuts Into Trump Speech To Deliver A Brutal Real-Time Fact Check. Trump on Monday attempted to tout his administration’s environmental record, but Fox News host Shepard Smith interrupted to say those policies have been “widely criticized by environmentalists and academics.” The Fox News host cited a New York Times report that found that more than 80 environmental rules and regulations have been repealed and/or rolled back, including multiple regulations regarding drilling, air pollution and wildlife. Then Smith listed some of them: https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-fox-news-fact-check-041215307.html

British ambassador, now target of Trump’s ire, has D.C. wired. Kim Darroch is known as a garrulous and popular figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public at his famously lavish parties. https://politi.co/32kxD4T

Trump's most memorable insults and nicknames of 2018 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/421948-18-nicknames-trump-invented-in-2018

Trump says he will 'no longer deal with' UK's ambassador to US. Darroch wrote in secret cables to top officials in London that Trump is viewed as “insecure” and “incompetent.” He said there are doubts in Washington about whether the White House “is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.” Trump stirred controversy in 2016 by saying he would like to see pro-Brexit politician Nigel Farage become the British ambassador to the U.S., tweeting that “he would do a great job!” The president also raised eyebrows by meeting with Farage in June during his U.K. state visit. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/452024-trump-says-he-will-no-longer-deal-with-the-uks-ambassador-to-the-us

Bill Clinton 'knows nothing' about financier Jeffrey Epstein's 'terrible crimes,' former president's spokesman says. Trump told a reporter, "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." https://fxn.ws/2NI5b9X #FoxNews

Former admissions officer at Wharton said nothing about Trump suggested "a super genius.” Former Wharton Admissions Officer Says Trump Benefited From Family Connections. James Nolan told the Washington Post that Fred Trump Jr. asked him to help get his brother, Donald Trump, into the prestigious Wharton School of Business. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-wharton-school-family-help_n_5d239166e4b01000e1b6c573

Watch crowd chant “F**k Trump” during Fox News live shot after U.S. wins World Cup. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/watch-crowd-chant-trump-during-fox-news-world-cup.html via @slate

Russian state-run media mocked Trump’s July 4 celebration. talking heads on Russian news channel Rossiya 24 and the program 60 Minutes mocked the military equipment that was on display as laughably out of date and the parade itself as “low energy” and “weak,” according to journalist Julia Davis. The state-run media claimed the machinery was held together with “adhesive tape” and covered with “peeling paint,” according to the Washington Post. A co-host of the show said that the tanks on display were “used during World War II and withdrawn from service in 1957.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/russia-state-media-mocks-trump-july-4-parade.html via @slate

The Purell presidency: Trump aides learn the president’s real red line. A self-described germaphobe, the 45th president is strictly enforcing proper hygiene inside the White House — and wherever else he goes. https://politi.co/32cTICz

What Kim Darroch is reported to have said about Trump – and what it means. “For a man who has risen to the highest office on the planet, President Trump radiates insecurity … There is no filter [that prevents Trump making offensive comments] … We could also be at the beginning of a downward spiral, rather than just a rollercoaster; something could emerge that leads to disgrace and downfall” – Summer 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/07/what-kim-darroch-is-reported-to-have-said-about-trump

Donald Trump is rejecting Joe Biden's characterization of him as a "bully," claiming he just doesn't "like being taken advantage of." Trump dismissed the former vice president’s characterization that the president is “the bully that I knew my whole life.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-donald-trump-bully_n_5d1f9e97e4b0f3125683b814

Rustic sculpture of Melania Trump unveiled near Slovenian hometown https://www.yahoo.com/news/rustic-sculpture-melania-trump-unveiled-232430876.html

Trump's 'Salute to America' July 4th celebration not without controversy https://www.yahoo.com/gma/trumps-salute-america-july-4th-celebration-not-without-082316435--abc-news-topstories.html

Fox News learns the hard way not to ask a question if you're not prepared for the answer. Twitter Users School Fox News On Why Only 45% Of Americans Are ‘Extremely Proud’ Of U.S. “Fox & Friends First” was seriously mocked after asking why Americans are feeling less patriotic than ever. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-and-friends-first-gallup-poll-twitter_n_5d1cc3ece4b0f312567d7c57

Chaos, Fireworks, Political VIPs On Tap For Trump’s Last-Minute July 4 Bash https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-july-4-event-tanks-salute-america-planning via @TPM

Trump Says He's 'Never Had a Glass of Alcohol.' These People Say Otherwise. "I served him. And he drank at the bar," one bartender recalled. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmp7qe/does-donald-trump-drink-alcohol

Pentagon Warns That America Is Enabling Putin’s Plan for Global Dominance. Meanwhile, Trump thinks “Western-style liberalism” is a reference to California https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pentagon-warns-america-enabling-putin-plan-global-dominance-854009/ via @RollingStone

Susan Rice tears into Trump's claim that the Obama administration was "begging" for a meeting with Kim Jong Un. ‘Horses**t’: Susan Rice Throws Down On Trump’s Claim About Obama And North Korea. The former national security adviser said Trump’s lying ... again. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/susan-rice-donald-trump-north-korea_n_5d1964f2e4b082e5536b70d0

Trump's G20 trip was much more bizarre and embarrassing than you thought. Here are seven lowlights. Praise for autocrats. Putin pandering. North Korean jostling. Ignorance of “liberal democracy”. Insults allies. “If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III,” Trump said on Fox Business News, adding: “But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us at all. They can watch it on a Sony television.” Attacks Democrats from abroad. Awkward nepotism. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/trump-g20-weird-wild-moments-huh/ via @MotherJones

Donald Trump Stumped By Terms ‘Busing’ And Western ‘Liberalism’ At Press Conference. Trump calls 'busing' the primary way to transport school kids in bizarre comments at press conference. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-busing-liberalism-g20-press-conference_n_5d17df7de4b082e5536a499d

Jimmy Carter: Investigation would show Trump lost 2016 election https://news.yahoo.com/jimmy-carter-donald-trump-illegitimate-president-russia-154336913.html

Trump dismisses Carter's attacks on his legitimacy. Carter made his comments during a discussion on human rights at a resort in Leesburg, Virginia, on Friday. Carter had said there was "no doubt that the Russians did interfere" in 2016. The 39th president alleged that that interference, "though not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn't actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf." https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-dismisses-carter-s-attacks-on-his-legitimacy-1.588191

Evan Rachel Wood, Tom Arnold slam Trump's 'atrocious' denial of sexual assault claims: 'She's not my type'. Carroll, who is the 16th woman to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct, responded to his comments, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “I love that I’m not his type.” https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-ejean-carroll-shes-not-my-type-evan-rachel-wood-084715469.html

Sebastian Gorka argued that Trump made comments about groping women when he was a Democrat. "So, let’s not forget that. How do you know he did that?” Talking over her, Gorka sternly said: “Jane, stop talking ... How do you know he actually did that? Remember he said that when he was a Democrat. So, let’s not forget that. How do you know he did that?” “Oh, wow, Mr. Gorka,” exclaimed Jane in the background, frustrated at what she said was Gorka’s use of “semantics.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sebastian-gorka-trump-access-hollywood-groping-democrat_n_5d08f69fe4b0f7b74427206a

So what happens when Donald Trump refuses to leave office? The nightmare scenario could happen https://www.salon.com/2019/06/17/so-what-happens-when-donald-trump-refuses-to-leave-office-the-nightmare-scenario-could-happen/

Trump: ‘I run the country’ https://politi.co/2WHThAW via @politico

Trump rips 'horrible' New York Times, Washington Post, wonders if people will 'demand' he stay in White House https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448783-trump-rips-horrible-new-york-times-washington-post-wonders-if-people

Trump says Queen Elizabeth had more fun with him than 'in 25 years'. "I have such a great relationship, and we were laughing and having fun. And her people said she hasn't had so much fun in 25 years. Then I got criticized for it because they said we were having too much fun," Trump said in an interview with "Fox & Friends." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448600-trump-says-queen-elizabeth-had-more-fun-with-him-than-in-25-years

Trump accuses Pelosi of making a 'fascist statement' The president has repeatedly raged against the Speaker over the possibility the House could impeach him over his conduct in the Russia investigation. The Speaker has, in turn, accused Trump of projecting in his criticism of her. “What he does is he projects. Like when he says Nancy's a mess, that means he's a mess. When he says Nancy's nervous, that means he's nervous,” Pelosi said Thursday during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. “He's always talking about himself no matter who the subject of the sentence is.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448534-trump-accuses-pelosi-of-making-a-fascist-statement

Trump: Some say I gave 'the best speech ever made by a president in Europe' "I just had an incredible time. That speech was special from the standpoint of the people of Poland, and I know it was considered a very important speech. You people even gave me very high marks on that speech," he said of the press in the room. "I could say it, but I don’t want to say it, but some people said it was the best speech ever made by a president in Europe," he continued, declining to specify who had offered such praise. "But I did not say that. I’m just quoting other people. "But it was a great day. The two folks, you treated us so great, I’ll never forget it. We won’t forget our trip to Poland. Very, very tremendous, special people." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/448189-trump-some-say-i-gave-the-best-speech-ever-made-by-a-president-in#.XQFH0PJ_obI.twitter

Trump on NASCAR: ‘The Whole League Endorsed Me’. Monday saw Simon Pagenaud become the first Indy 500 winner to visit the White House since 2006, which, hm. Pagenaud did his assigned job of standing there and being relatively boring, but the real weirdness began when President Trump decided to just start riffing on NASCAR instead. https://jalopnik.com/trump-on-nascar-the-whole-league-endorsed-me-1835416751

Mexico crisis shows the limits of Trump's brinksmanship. The president's negotiating style has settled into a familiar — and increasingly ineffective — pattern. https://politi.co/2IrzFXN via @politico

House Democrats plan event to scrutinize Trump's mental health. House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said he and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) will host Dr. Bandy Lee, a Yale School of Medicine psychiatrist who edited the best-selling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” “We are planning to do something where she can make a presentation to other members, so that they'll be aware of what she's been working on,” Yarmuth told The Hill in a brief interview. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/447176-house-democrats-plan-event-to-scrutinize-trumps-mental-health

Memo of misunderstanding: Trump clashes with trade adviser over China talks. Tensions between Donald Trump and one of his top trade negotiators have been brought into the open as the two disagreed publicly about the definition of a memorandum of understanding. In a White House meeting between US officials and China’s top negotiator, which was televised and attended by journalists, Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, contradicted the president’s claim that memoranda of understanding (MOU) are non-binding. “I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything. To me they don’t mean anything. I think you’re better off just going into a document,” said Trump during Friday’s exchange. The two went back and forth, with Lighthizer saying they would no longer use the term “memorandum of understanding”, but would instead call it a “trade agreement”. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/25/memo-of-misunderstanding-trump-clashes-with-trade-adviser-over-china-talks

READ: US-Mexico joint declaration on migration @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2I1OH7D

Michael Wolff’s ‘Siege’ Is Like His Last Book — But Worse. The wannabe-Woodward of the Trump era goes for another quick buck https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/michael-wolff-siege-book-taibbi-review-844398/ via @RollingStone

Dems fume over Trump plans to address public from Lincoln Memorial on July 4. “President Trump’s efforts to insert politics into a celebration of our nation’s history is extremely alarming,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in a statement on Thursday. “Forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for what amounts to a political rally is irresponsible and a misuse of funds. I strongly urge the president to reconsider his proposed event.” https://fxn.ws/2MxbzAm #FoxNews

Trump likens Irish border to wall between US and Mexico https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/05/ireland-visit-donald-trump-arrives-leo-varadkar-discussions

So called President Trump, archived June 2019

Trump on Vietnam: Despite deferments, he’d have been ‘honored’ to serve https://wapo.st/2Inj4V5

NBC Reporter: Trump's London Fanfare Claim Is 'Delusional,' 'Deeply Disturbing' https://www.yahoo.com/news/richard-engel-nbc-trump-protests-london-213450815.html

Dressed to distress – fashion statements of the Trumps on tour. The Trumps have dressed for this trip with all the nuance and subtlety that is their trademark. After Melania flew to London dressed as Big Ben, Tiffany appears to have typed “Jane Austen World Book Day costume” into the Amazon search bar and came up with an evening gown in a shade of claret that gave her the vibe of a midwestern bridesmaid who is, like, really into Downton Abbey. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2019/jun/04/dressed-to-distress-fashion-statements-of-the-trumps-on-tour

Analysis | What to do about Trump’s tailoring? We asked a tailor. That was the case Monday evening, when the president and first lady joined Queen Elizabeth II and her family for a formal dinner at Buckingham Palace. Photos show a sullen-looking Trump standing next to the queen, hands at his side, a frown on his face. He looks uncomfortable, and one would be forgiven for assuming that he was. Photos of that meeting also made the rounds on social media for another reason: Trump’s formalwear didn’t quite appear to fit as one might expect. Charles, Prince of Wales, was similarly attired, in a jacket that appeared to be proportional. Trump’s, on the other hand, appeared to have some sort of apron, a splash of white fabric that didn’t quite seem to work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/04/what-do-about-trumps-tailoring-we-asked-tailor/

Amid London protests, Trump appears in denial over his standing abroad. The president’s claims in London were just as easily proved false. After the news conference, CNN aired footage of the demonstrators, including a giant Trump robot sitting on a toilet and repeating two of his catchphrases: “Fake news” and “witch hunt.” On social media, photos circulated of protesters holding signs reading “Trump climate disaster,” “Don’t attack Iran” and “Trump, you are a mind-bending [expletive] human being.” Organizers estimated that 75,000 people turned out for the demonstrations. https://wapo.st/2IhZn16

You All Were So Horrified by Trump's Hair That You Never Noticed the Rest. What is happening with his pants? The fit of Trump's pants has been getting more and more bizarre over the past year or so, like the man is shrinking in some inexplicable way, but these are truly next level. How are they somehow so long that the hems are dragging on the ground, but also so tight in the crotch that he definitely has a wedgie? And then, of course, there are the golf cleats. Yes, the President of the United States showed up to a memorial for the Virginia Beach mass shooting wearing his golfing clothes, like he was so focused on his tee time that he couldn't be bothered to change into some decent shoes before swinging by the church. That seems almost incomprehensibly disrespectful, but this was the guy who double fist pumped on September 11, so what else should we expect? https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k37zy/you-all-were-so-horrified-by-trumps-hair-that-you-never-noticed-the-rest

Pastor apologizes to congregation over Trump prayer https://politi.co/2HUZGA0

@realDonaldTrump: I never called Meghan Markle “nasty.” Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will @CNN, @nytimes and others apologize? Doubt it! Sir: Here's a tape of you saying the Duchess is "nasty." Perhaps you should apologize for lying? President Trump reacted to Meghan Markle's criticism of him during his 2016 campaign https://youtu.be/7pGXGZiWJRY?t=62 via @YouTube

The former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics urged the American public to pay careful attention to everything that’s going on with President Donald Trump’s administration. The former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics urged the American public on Friday to pay careful attention to everything that’s going on with President Donald Trump’s administration. “Heed the signs and don’t underestimate the threat to our republic from within,” tweeted Walter Shaub, who served in the high-ranking role under former President Barack Obama and then for six months under Trump until his resignation in July 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/walter-shaub-donald-trump-threat-republic-signs_n_5cf24b85e4b0e346ce7eb5f0

A Republican Consultant Died. His Progressive Daughter Then Found Documents That Might Affect The Census Citizenship Question. With the Supreme Court set to rule on whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the census, newly discovered documents suggest the plan was designed to help Republicans. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/citizenship-question-2020-census via @ambiej

Trump finally admits Russia was "helping me get elected", then denies it https://boingboing.net/2019/05/30/trump-finally-admits-russia.html

Trump: 'I was not informed about' reported request to move USS John McCain. The Wall Street Journal earlier Wednesday shared a May 15 email it obtained, which included instructions on what to do with the ship. “USS John McCain needs to be out of sight,” the email reportedly read. “Please confirm #3 will be satisfied." Officials were aware of the concern about the USS John McCain and approved measures so it would be hidden during Trump's state visit, an official told the Journal. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/446082-trump-i-was-not-informed-about-uss-john-mccain-request

A look at the cartoons, memes and paintings that praise the president. Ben Garrison Jon McNaughton https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-art-garrison-Mcnaughto_n_5c5b44cbe4b00187b557cb56

Democratic senator says McCain listed off names of dictators during Trump inaugural. “I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain, and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation,” she said. “He understood it. He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.” The new story from Klobuchar adds to a list of extensive criticism from McCain, who was one of few Republican senators to regularly oppose the president. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/445574-democratic-senator-says-mccain-listed-off-names-of-dictators-during-trump-inaugural

Trump's misspelling of Biden's name trends on Twitter. “North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump said in a tweet earlier on Saturday. “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?” he continued. But after the error, Trump deleted the tweet and reposted another containing the same words minus the misspelling of Biden. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/445569-trumps-misspelling-of-bidens-name-trends-on-twitter

President Trump Wants a Promotion. One of Snyder’s most poignant and subtle recommendations, arriving in chapter 17, is to listen for dangerous words. “Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary,” he writes, rather lyrically. That resonated as I listened Thursday to President Trump, after a reporter reminded him that the treason of which he’d been accusing his many adversaries is an actual crime punishable by death, and he merely nodded. When asked who might suffer that penalty, he named the former head of the FBI, his ex-deputy, and “people probably higher than that.” There aren’t too many people higher than that. Hours later, that dystopian rhetoric began transforming into authoritarian reality. Trump signed a directive allowing attorney general William Barr broad, unprecedented powers to conduct a review of the intelligence community’s investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign, ordering the CIA and the other 15 federal intelligence agencies to essentially to give Barr everything he needs. Whatever Barr wants declassified, he’ll declassify — which we can anticipate, given our experience with the Mueller report, to be a nightmare of misinformation tailored to the president’s narrative. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/president-trump-wants-a-promotion-840224/ via @RollingStone

And now, the race to be the first to claim that Trump is better than Lincoln begins. People of the Republican party: I know you will agree with me when I say our president has our utmost respect and our love. This job is not easy, for he’s battling the left and their absurd words of destruction. I’ve said this once and I’ll say this again, that our nation has been built on the solid ground of our forefathers. And there is a moral code of duty that has been passed on from President Lincoln. I’m here today to acknowledge the truth. And I’m here today to tell you, my fellow Americans, that our country …country is stronger, safer, and with more jobs because our president has made his every move correct. Don’t be fooled by the political left, because we are the people of this nation that is witnessing triumph. So let us stand with our president. Let us stand up for this truth: that President Trump is the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. God bless America. And may God continue to guide this nation. Much love. https://slate.com/culture/2019/05/jon-voight-donald-trump-abraham-lincoln-twitter-video.html via @slate

Trump's nastiest break-ups: A look at the president's most fiery feuds https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/445315-trumps-nastiest-breakups-a-look-at-the-presidents-fiery-feuds

Trump has reportedly raged at aides over headlines calling him quick-tempered and angry. Few recurring characterizations bother President Trump more than the (largely accurate) narrative that he has a hair-trigger temper behind the scenes, and that he can easily and frequently be sent into vulgar, sometimes volcanic hissy fits when he doesn't get his way. In the middle of last year, Trump once sat in the White House and angrily listed various words in headlines and cable-news chyrons he'd seen recently that described his mood — "fuming," "raged," "furious," and so forth — decrying them as inaccurate reporting, according to a source who was present for this. The president sounded increasingly irate as he rattled off headline after headline, the source said, noting the irony. https://theweek.com/speedreads/843355/trump-reportedly-raged-aides-over-headlines-calling-quicktempered-angry via @TheWeek

TRUMP: "I always got a lot of publicity. Even as a private builder or whatever I was doing at the time, I would get a lot of publicity. Without a lot of trying... I haven't changed very much. Been very consistent. I'm an extremely stable genius." Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1131670318458777612

'Extremely stable genius': Trump defends his mental fitness as he tears into Pelosi. But the greatest praise for the commander in chief came from Trump himself, who told the assembled members of the media during one non-sequitur: “I'm an extremely stable genius. OK?” https://politi.co/2wcEjn0

Trump on Pelosi's prayers: Thanks, 'I know you truly mean it' So sad that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will never be able to see or understand the great promise of our Country. They can continue the Witch Hunt which has already cost $40M and been a tremendous waste of time and energy for everyone in America, or get back to work.... ....But they really want a do-over! You can’t investigate and legislate simultaneously - it just doesn’t work that way. You can’t go down two tracks at the same time. Let Chuck, Nancy, Jerry, Adam and all of the rest finish playing their games.... ...Democrat leadership is tearing the United States apart, but I will continue to set records for the American People – and Nancy, thank you so much for your prayers, I know you truly mean it! https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/445041-trump-on-pelosis-prayers-thanks-i-know-you-truly-mean-it

Trump: Not possible for Democrats to 'investigate and legislate at the same time'. "The Democrats are getting nothing done in Congress. All of their effort is about a Re-Do of the Mueller Report, which didn’t turn out the way they wanted," Trump wrote on Twitter. "It is not possible for them to investigate and legislate at the same time." The president went on to accuse Democrats of being focused on "trying to find anything which will be bad for me." "Their heart is not into Infrastructure, lower...drug prices, pre-existing conditions and our great Vets. All they are geared up to do, six committees, is squander time, day after day, trying to find anything which will be bad for me," he tweeted. "A pure fishing expedition like this never happened before, & it should never happen again!" https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/445176-trump-not-possible-for-democrats-to-investigate-and-legislate-at-the

Trump blows up White House meeting over nasty feud with Pelosi. The president called off bipartisan negotiations on infrastructure after Pelosi accused him of a 'cover-up.' President Donald Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi engaged in a public and bitter feud on Wednesday, with the president breaking off bipartisan negotiations over Pelosi’s accusations of a cover-up and Pelosi bluntly responding: “I pray for the president of the United States.” https://politi.co/2QfA82V

Jeff Daniels: 'Democracy is at stake' if Trump is reelected https://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/21/jeff-daniels-msnbc-president-trump/3750919002/ via @freep

The biggest takeaway from Donald Trump's financial disclosure. Trump Already Owed More Money Than Any President in History—and Borrowed Millions More in 2018. A $11 million loan financed his sons’ purchase of an oceanfront, Mar-a-Lago mansion. The most significant change to Trump’s finances may be the addition of the new debt. According to the disclosure, Trump borrowed between $5 million and $25 million in May 2018 from Professional Bank, a small Florida outfit that specializes in construction and real estate loans. He borrowed the money at 4.5 percent interest through a limited liability company called 1125 South Ocean LLC. The loan was used to finance the purchase of 1125 South Ocean Avenue, a mansion located next door to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and owned by the president’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a former federal judge. (Barry formally retired in February, ending a judicial ethics investigation into the family’s finances.) The president and chief executive officer of Professional Bank, Abel Iglesias, was appointed to the board of directors of the Miami branch of the Atlanta Federal Reserve in January. Jean Tate, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Fed said it was the regional bank’s board of directors that had appointed Iglesias. Asked if the administration had any involvement with the appointment or if it had attempted to influence the decision, Tate would only say: “We are independent.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/trump-2018-financial-disclosure/ via @MotherJones

Trump lashes out after report bank found suspicious transactions. The president appeared to be responding to a Times report that anti-money laundering experts at the German bank noticed suspicious activity in accounts belonging to Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in 2016 and 2017. According to the Times, bank executives blocked employees from reporting the suspect transactions to the U.S. Treasury, and one former employee says she was fired for raising concerns about the bank’s scrutiny of certain clients. https://politi.co/2JXlVqp

This Evangelical Prayer-Coin Grift Is What the Age of Trump Is All About. For just $45, you can pray for the president with this coin that's sold by a guy who says God told him you need the coin. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a27478606/jim-bakker-pray-coin-president-donald-trump-45/

Bank staff highlighted 'suspicious activity' in Trump-, Kushner-controlled accounts: report. Deutsche Bank anti-money laundering personnel reportedly recommended turning over information about transactions by entities owned by President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to a government watchdog in 2016 and 2017, but the bank's executives apparently declined to do so. The transactions, including some connected to the now-dissolved Trump Foundation, were flagged by the bank's computer system, which was set up to find unlawful activity, five current and former employees told The New York Times. After this, staffers reportedly put together suspicious activity reports they thought should be sent to the Treasury Department for investigation. The reports, however, were not filed with the department, according to the newspaper. The Times reports that it was not clear what the transactions were, but some of them involved money going between the entities and foreign companies or individuals. https://thehill.com/policy/finance/444462-bank-staff-highlighted-suspicious-activity-in-trump-kushner-controlled

Atlantic City knew Trump was a grifter. His tax figures are proof | Editorial http://s.nj.com/IkY2TbK

Dozens of graduates walk out in protest of Pence address https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444396-graduates-walk-out-in-protest-of-pence-commencement-address

Trump tears into California for high-speed rails, wildfires. The high-speed rail project is one of Trump’s favorite lamentations, the subject of a number of his tweets since Newsom announced earlier this year that the full route — which would have connected San Francisco to Los Angeles — would not be constructed due to climbing costs and logistical challenges. On Friday, Trump reiterated his criticism of the revised project, which the president said links one “tiny little town to another tiny little town for billions of dollars.” Trump boasted that if he had had a say in the project, he would have introduced an even faster “bullet train” to the state. “And we also would have had it built on time,” the president said. “And we also would have had it built on budget.” Trump also claimed improper “forest management” was the reason the blazes broke out in California in the fall — not, he added, because of climate change like Newsom has said. “He blames it on global warming,” Trump said of the governor, who he described as “nice” and “young.” “I say, ‘Look, try cleaning the floor of the forest a little bit. So you don’t have four feet of leaves and broken trees that have sat there for 25 years.’” https://politi.co/2JNd8Y0

President Trump’s 2018 income from his D.C. hotel was almost $41 million. President Trump reported $40,842,294 in income from the Trump Hotel D.C. in 2018 in his financial disclosures, which the Office of Government Ethics released yesterday. Just read this from 1100 Pennsylvania https://zacheverson.substack.com/p/40842294

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A photo from the defunct website for Charles Lee’s United Nations Chinese Friendship Association
showing what it said was Lee with US President Donald Trump.
Chinese firm offering to sell Trump access in focus after Mar-a-Lago arrest https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3004574/chinese-firm-offering-sell-access-donald-trump-comes-spotlight via @scmpnews
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Cindy Yang helped Chinese tech stars get $50K photos with Trump. Who paid? https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227941749.html
FBI opens foreign money probe into Trump donor Cindy Yang https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3009644/fbi-opens-foreign-money-investigation-chinese via @scmpnews

Trump has reported earning an estimated $2.3 billion since announcing presidential run. As Trump’s reported income dropped, his total assets increased to $1.72 billion, up from $1.66 billion last year. When adding in an estimated $408 million in debts, much of which is held in Deutsche Bank, his net worth grew to an estimated $1.31 billion from $1.26 billion. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/trump-reported-2-3-billion-in-income/ via @OpenSecretsDC

Analysis | The very political pattern of Trump’s pardons. President Trump’s pardons were self-serving before, and they became even more so Wednesday night, after he pardoned two prominent conservatives who had already completed their sentences. Trump pardoned billionaire Conrad Black, who a year ago published a book called “Donald J. Trump: A president like no other.” The book is more hagiography than biography. It defends Trump against charges that he is a racist, stating flatly that he is not. It hails his “very successful” foreign policy ventures. It credits his “unquenchable energy,” “sheer entertainment talent” and “raw toughness.” It misleadingly hails his 2016 election win by saying he won “more votes than any previous Republican candidate for president,” without noting that this was mostly a function of population growth and that Trump lost the popular vote. He called Trump’s win a “stunning rebuff” of the media. The second pardon went to Patrick J. Nolan, the former Republican leader of the California state assembly. This one is less obviously self-serving, but it is. Nolan has been a prominent conservative voice for criminal justice reform since finishing his sentence and has served in prison ministry. But he, like Black, is close to the Trump family. Appearing at a White House ceremony celebrating the passage of criminal justice reform legislation, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner called Nolan “my friend,” and Nolan called Kushner “just a superstar. I’m impressed with him so much.” And last year Nolan criticized special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. He said it was symptomatic of how law enforcement personnel “decide who they’re going to prosecute and then hunt for a crime." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/16/very-political-pattern-trumps-pardons/

Trump's wealth in the spotlight with new disclosure forms. There are also signs that Trump's controversial presidency could be eating into his bottom line. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Trump's Doral golf resort in Florida was in steep decline. His Trump Tower landmark in Manhattan also seems to be a fading asset. Earlier this year, it became clear that new development deals have slowed badly at the Trump Organization since the President was elected. The company has also shelved plans for two hotel licensing concepts. Trump's son Eric blamed politics for the sluggish business prospects. Trump's refusal to fully divest himself of his business in office has prompted unwelcome questions about potential conflicts of interests involving foreign investors. The documents to be released on Thursday are unlikely to fully light up Trump's labyrinthine financial affairs. @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2WKWPhN

Trump’s prized Doral resort is in steep decline, according to company documents, showing his business problems are mounting https://wapo.st/2w0L7DW

Complaints grow that Trump staffers are campaigning for their boss https://politi.co/2vZY69a via @politico

Ignoring Trump’s Orders, Hoping He’ll Forget. Slow-walking or flat-out disobeying Trump’s fleeting obsessions has become common practice across various sectors of government. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/trump-aides-ignore-president/589489/

Trump Tower occupancy rate drops: report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/443529-trump-tower-occupancy-rate-drops

Dow takes massive plunge as Trump's trade war with China escalates http://hill.cm/MZaitdw

What's behind Donald Trump's bewildering avalanche of lies? Nothing good. Part 1 of 2 https://www.salon.com/2019/05/12/whats-behind-donald-trumps-bewildering-avalanche-of-lies-nothing-good-part-1-of-2/

Behind Donald Trump's bewildering avalanche of lies: Maybe the death of democracy. Part 2 of 2 https://www.salon.com/2019/05/13/behind-donald-trumps-bewildering-avalanche-of-lies-maybe-the-death-of-democracy-part-2-of-2/

The president has been fixated on the idea of a large, patriotic, and military-style celebration for two years, according to the Washington Post. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-july-4-celebration-national-mall.html via @slate

A Big Mac at the White House: Trump’s telling sports celebrations. Two trends in particular are notable. One is that many athletes of colour have boycotted a president who declares himself a nationalist, condemns the NFL player Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee in protest against racial injustice and insists there were “very fine people on both sides” of a neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.Second, Trump’s reverence for sporting success stands in vivid contrast to his attitude to arts and culture. Unlike during the John F Kennedy or Barack Obama eras, few actors, dancers, film makers, musicians, painters or poets now visit the White House. Instead, Trump rails against Hollywood liberals and reportedly eschews books and theatre.Furthermore, when the New England Patriots stopped by in 2017, far fewer players attended than when they won a Super Bowl under Obama. After several players on the Philadelphia Eagles and Golden State Warriors publicly declared that they would skip White House ceremonies, Trump disinvited the teams. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/09/a-big-mac-at-the-white-house-trumps-telling-sports-celebrations

Trump takes over Fourth of July celebration, changing its location and inserting himself into the program https://wapo.st/2PZX5af

Trump ‘declared himself winner of golf tournament after cheating against 10-year-old boy’ President claims he has won as many as 20 championship titles, which experts say is not true https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-golf-cheating-10-year-old-boy-mar-a-lago-a8909011.html

History will judge sycophantic Republicans harshly https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/443076-history-will-judge-sycophantic-republicans-harshly

Howard Stern: Donald Trump ‘Did Not Want to be President’ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/howard-stern-donald-trump-president-interview-833343/ via @RollingStone

Trump hosts Red Sox for celebratory visit amid high-profile absences. But manager Alex Cora and a handful of other players were absent. Cora, a native of Puerto Rico, said he did not feel comfortable visiting given the Trump administration's response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017. Reigning American League MVP Mookie Betts, pitcher David Price, third baseman Rafael Devers and center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. were among the players who did not make the trip. Price noted on Twitter ahead of the visit that those absent were mostly players of color. The pitcher on Tuesday shared a tweet from a columnist who quipped that "basically it's the white Sox who'll be going." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/443023-trump-hosts-red-sox-for-celebratory-visit-despite-high-profile

Exclusive: Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen. It was true that the carpets and drapes at his properties needed to be refreshed frequently, and the seats on the renamed Trump Shuttle required occasional reupholstering. But the main thing about fabric swatches was that they were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn’t. One of his aides once told me that every room at the Plaza could be filled at the “rack rate” (list price) every night, and the revenue still wouldn’t cover the monthly payment of the loan he’d taken out to buy the place. In other words, he’d made a ridiculous deal. Neither he nor the banks had done the math beforehand. Or perhaps Trump knew it because someone had told him, but didn’t want to think about it. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-the-billiondollar-loser-his-ghostwriter-recalls-the-king-midas-years-090000640.html

A Yale psychiatrist explains how Donald Trump’s mental incapacity was exposed by Robert Mueller. A Yale psychiatrist explains how Donald Trump’s mental incapacity was exposed by Robert Mueller. Bandy X. Lee discusses what prompted her to speak out about the president’s psychological problems. https://www.salon.com/2019/05/07/a-yale-psychiatrist-explains-how-donald-trumps-mental-incapacity-was-exposed-by-robert-mueller_partner/

NYT: Tax papers suggest Trump had $1 billion in business losses over a decade businesses lost nearly $1.2 billion between 1985 and 1994, according to The New York Times, citing IRS transcripts. In 1990 and 1991 alone, according to the Times, Trump’s business losses exceeded $250 million each year, more than twice those of the nearest taxpayer in the IRS information for the two years. The documents indicates he lost so much money during that decade that he avoided paying income tax for eight of the 10 years, according to the Times, although it was unclear whether the IRS asked him to make changes after audits. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/442614-irs-docs-show-trump-ran-up-over-1-billion-in-business-losses-over-a

The president railed against “the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS” on Twitter on Friday and Saturday. Here Are the Alt-Right Figures Trump Thinks Are the Innocent Victims of Censorship. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-rant-conservatives-facebook-ban.html via @slate

Trump goes on tear, sharing tweets about Putin, North Korea's Kim and far-right YouTube star https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/442125-trump-goes-on-tear-sharing-tweets-about-putin-kim-and-far-right

Trump tweets support for far-right figures banned by Facebook https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/04/trump-facebook-far-right-bans-support-twitter

I see that the president is having a very calm and normal Saturday morning. Also, one of the accounts he retweeted is one of the bigger Q conspiracy pages on here... bragging about how many times they’ve been retweeted by him.White Nationalists, Trump's most valued constituency. Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1124658352267714560

So called President Trump, archived May 2019

'Bigger than WATERGATE': Trump hails NYT report on FBI meeting with Papadopoulos https://politi.co/2PGMXCY

Working with Trump destroys your reputation, but who cares? https://boingboing.net/2019/05/03/working-with-trump-destroys-yo.html

Trump says he leaned on God to survive Mueller probe. President Donald Trump said Thursday he leaned on one thing to get through special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election: his faith. “People say, ‘How do you get through that whole stuff? How do you go through those witch hunts and everything else?’” Trump said at the White House during a National Day of Prayer service. He looked over to Vice President Mike Pence and shrugged. “We just do it, right?” the president continued. “And we think about God.” https://politi.co/2Jb6YjZ

LOL -- @MariaBartiromo desperately tried to wrap up her phone interview with Trump, but Trump refused to stop talking about "cleaning the swamp" and how Clapper is "a dumb guy." Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1122876480919359494

Trump sends support to NFL draft pick who called Kaepernick a 'clown'. The rookie defensive end had been a fervent Trump supporter on social media before he started scrubbing his posts. But he perhaps drew the most scrutiny for describing former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick as a “clown” and “Crappernick”. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/apr/27/trump-nick-bosa-49ers-colin-kaepernick

If anyone wonders why Trump chose to congratulate the NUMBER TWO draft pick, let me break it down for you:
The #2 pick was Nick Bosa. He's a "big Trump fan" who followed white supremacists on Twitter and liked racist & homophobic posts.
The #1 pick was Kyler Murray. He's black.
Translate Trump (@TranslateRealDT) https://twitter.com/TranslateRealDT/status/1122116496669519872
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Pseudonyms of Donald Trump: "John Barron" (1980s) "John Miller" (1991) "Carolin Gallego" (1992) "David Dennison" (2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_of_Donald_Trump

Poll: Mueller Report Sinks Trump’s Approval Rating To New 2019 Low. Fifty percent of the adults polled said they believe that President Trump tried to stop the Mueller investigation. And fifty percent said they think Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/poll-mueller-report-sinks-trumps-approval-rating-825079/ via @RollingStone

Here's what Mueller found: The videos the CIA, BBC, and this writer said existed *did exist*; Trump *knew* they existed; Trump's "blackmail fixer"—Cohen—negotiated with a Kremlin agent their suppression in October 2016, when they could have ended Trump's candidacy. Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1119654018794577922

Trump lashes out at Romney “If @MittRomney spent the same energy fighting Barack Obama as he does fighting Donald Trump, he could have won the race (maybe)!” Trump tweeted. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1119724814258843648 https://politi.co/2veRB1O

Two of Donald Trump's tweets in particular set Twitter alight. Donald Trump’s Masturbation-Themed Retweet Sets Twitter Abuzz. “Next time the religious right talks about morals in politics, please remind them of Trump’s behavior on Good Friday 2019.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-mueller-report-tweets_n_5cbac302e4b06605e3eed15c

Trump's 'total and complete exoneration' turns out to be fake news https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-total-and-complete-exoneration-turns-out-to-be-fake-news-193957445.html

Trump approval drops to 2019 low after Mueller report's release: poll. President Trump’s approval rating dropped three percentage points following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, marking the lowest level of 2019, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday.

About 37 percent of adults surveyed said they approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15, before the Mueller report's release. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439832-trump-approval-drops-to-2019-low-after-mueller-reports-release-poll

29 Things Trump Couldn’t Recall While Answering Mueller’s Questions https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mueller-trump-29-questions-824126/ via @RollingStone

Trump attacks 'total bulls***' in 'the Crazy Mueller Report' Trump went golfing with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and “a couple friends,” and he did not finish his thought until more than eight hours later. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-attacks-total-bull-in-the-crazy-mueller-report-134949958.html

Another Warning Sign. As Mueller’s report demonstrates, the willingness of his subordinates to be insubordinate has generally served Trump well, because his own judgement is often so shockingly bad that almost anyone else’s judgment (including that of some very shady characters) would be better. That willingness to ignore or contradict the president seems to have averted some criminal acts that might have endangered his presidency. And it has likely saved us from other dark fates. The peculiar willingness of Trump’s people to ignore or disobey him is a blessing and a curse. But more than anything it is a warning sign that ought to be taken seriously by anyone in Congress or in the executive branch who is in any way in a position to help prepare our government to handle serious emergencies. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/another-warning-sign-2/

HBO requests Trump stop using Game of Thrones memes 'for political purposes' President Trump tweeted another Game of Thrones meme following the release of the Mueller report. https://www.cnet.com/news/hbo-requests-trump-stop-using-game-of-thrones-memes-for-political-purposes/?utm_source=reddit.com

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Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1118876219381026818 April 18, 2019

Trump legal team hails Mueller report: 'A total victory' https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439556-trump-legal-team-says-mueller-report-completely-vindicates-trump-a

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"There is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks" AG Barr said. https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1118874158975324161 April 18, 2019

Michele Bachmann claimed that Donald Trump is 'highly biblical.' So ... One of the most unique -- and hard to grasp -- phenomena of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy (and his time in the White House) is the solid and unwavering support he has enjoyed from evangelical Christians. Witness former presidential candidate -- and former House member -- Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, in an interview over the weekend with a Christian conservative radio show called "Understanding These Times": "[Trump] is highly biblical, and I would say to your listeners, we will in all likelihood never see a more godly, biblical president again in our lifetime. So we need to be not only praying for him, we need to support him, in my opinion, in every possible way that we can." (The Bachmann interview, which runs in two parts, is explained this way on the "Understanding These Times" website: "Just what is the 'deep state' and how are they promoting end-time lawlessness? How does President Trump fulfill prophecy? A multi-billionaire cabal is pushing for global government and Michele explains who they are and why.") @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2DbauHl

Trump vetoes resolution to end U.S. participation in Yemen’s civil war. “This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future,” Trump said in a statement. The measure had passed the House on a 247-to-175 vote earlier this month and was approved by the Senate last month with the support of seven Republicans. https://wapo.st/2UHAYek

Pelosi: 'There's nobody in the country who knows better' than Trump 'that he should not be president' https://thehill.com/homenews/house/438955-pelosi-theres-nobody-in-the-country-who-knows-better-than-trump-that-he-should

Trump bulldozes across the presidency’s red lines https://politi.co/2G9Fqbx via @politico

BBC News - What Trump has said about Wikileaks https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-47902968/what-trump-has-said-about-wikileaks

Trump’s ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon. https://politi.co/2uXY1C8

New Book Chronicles How Trump Cheats at Golf. “To say ‘Donald Trump cheats’ is like saying ‘Michael Phelps swims,'” Reilly wrote. “He cheats at the highest level. He cheats when people are watching and he cheats when they aren’t. He cheats whether you like it or not. He cheats because that’s how he plays golf … if you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.” Trump’s cheating begins with his handicap—a number that is generated based on a player’s average score, ostensibly to allow players of different abilities to compete against one another. And, theoretically, the lower a player’s handicap, the better the player they are. For example, the Post points out, golfing legend Jack Nicklaus had a handicap of 3.4, higher (and therefore worse) than the 2.8 handicap Trump claims. “If Trump is a 2.8, Queen Elizabeth is a pole vaulter,” Reilly wrote. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-cheats-at-golf-815819/ via @RollingStone

Mulvaney vows Democrats will “never” see Trump’s tax returns. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/mulvaney-democrats-never-trump-tax-returns.html via @slate

George Conway Offers Fishy Explanation For Donald Trump's Lies. George Conway isn’t buying former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s claim that President Donald Trump lies “because he thinks it’s fun.” “Think of fish,” Conway wrote. “Fish don’t swim because they think it’s fun; they swim because they’re fish.” https://news.yahoo.com/george-conway-offers-fishy-explanation-100409713.html

I moved on her like a bitch. I did try and fuck her. She was married. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything. https://t.co/4DaUV2wwNt https://twitter.com/bob_smith_42/status/1113870373106274304

Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women https://nyti.ms/2dM7q94

A Cartoon History of Trumps, 1869–2018. If Donald Trump is confused about where his father was born , he should consult this handy Trump Family history from @stevebrodner. https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/06/14/a-cartoon-history-of-trumps-1869-2018/

Formal and casual White House photos show distance between Trump and increasingly diverse nation https://wapo.st/white-house-photos

Opinion | Trump is unraveling before our eyes. He isn’t fit for reelection. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/03/we-should-be-asking-if-trump-is-too-old-stand-re-election/

Sarah Palin: 'I was kind of surprised to be publicly disinvited' to McCain's funeral. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said Monday that she was “surprised” that she wasn’t invited to former running mate John McCain’s 2018 funeral, describing the snub as “kind of a gut punch.” “I was kind of surprised to be publicly disinvited to the funeral. I think that was an unnecessary step,” the former vice presidential hopeful said on Good Morning Britain in a clip spotted by Mediaite. “They didn’t have to embarrass me and embarrass others.” After the pair lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, McCain said that he regretted choosing Palin as a running mate. In August 2018, McCain died at 81 after a lengthy battle with cancer—and in the days after his death, People cited multiple sources claiming that both Palin and Trump had not been invited to his funeral (although Palin said in the interview that “there were good people in our campaign back in 2008 who were very, very loyal to Senator McCain” who had been snubbed, too). Trump has also railed against the late veteran and senator over the rejection, complaining in March that he didn’t “get [a] thank you” for approving his funeral. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/436751-sarah-palin-i-was-kind-of-surprised-to-be-publicly-disinvited-to-mccains

Donald Trump and racist violence: Research points to a clear connection https://www.salon.com/2019/03/30/donald-trump-and-racist-violence-research-points-to-a-clear-connection/

Hate crimes increased 226% in places Trump held a campaign rally in 2016, study claims. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-rally-hate-crimes-study-maga-2019-3

Analysis | Trump said America is more united than ever. A majority of Americans disagree. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/trump-said-hes-bringing-america-together-majority-americans-disagree/

National Cathedral says Trump didn't need to give 'approval' for McCain funeral https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/435152-national-cathedral-says-trump-didnt-need-to-give-approval-for

Trump visits tank factory and renews attack on war hero McCain. At a speech at an Ohio tank factory, President Trump complained that he wasn’t thanked for giving John McCain “the kind of funeral he wanted.” “I gave him the kind of funeral he wanted which as president I had to approve. I don’t care about this, I didn’t get thank you, that’s OK,” Trump said, to a crowd of workers at the Lima Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio. The audience, which had applauded and cheered through much of the speech, sat virtually silent during the attack on the late senator and decorated war hero. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-attacks-on-mc-cain-bomb-at-tank-factory-203505733.html

Donald Trump doesn’t think white nationalism is on the rise. Data shows otherwise https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/20/donald-trump-doesnt-think-white-nationalism-rise-d/ via @PolitiFact

Trump's ever-expanding list of grievances. Trump's scattershot comments in recent days paint a picture of a president who constantly feels underappreciated and under siege as he obsesses over his reelection bid. https://politi.co/2WaV4cZ

Trump denounces Kellyanne Conway’s 'loser' husband -- and he immediately fires back with the perfect response. narcissistic personality disorder and malignant narcissism. https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/trump-denounces-kellyanne-conways-loser-husband-immediately-fires-back-perfect-response/

For all the heat it’s taken, Twitter seems to have a better radar for identifying abusive racist accounts than the president. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/trump-white-nationalist-accounts-suspended-retweets.html via @slate

Analysis | In Sunday tweetstorm, Trump elevates a series of conspiracy theories — and theorists https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/18/sunday-tweetstorm-trump-elevates-series-conspiracy-theories-theorists/

Violent white nationalists think Trump is a white nationalist. Just read this by @JuddLegum https://popular.info/p/the-rise-of-white-nationalism

Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox ..... must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true.... to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine. Your competitors are jealous - they all want what you’ve got - NUMBER ONE. Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter. They can’t beat you, you can only beat yourselves! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1107276504415854592

1. Wow. This could be a coincidence but one of Trump's tweets this morning appears to contain a coded message of support to white nationalists. In defense of Jeanine Pirro, who said wearing a hijab was "antithetical" to the Constitution, Trump tweeted "be strong & prosper" https://t.co/GHQf0Yx3g5 Judd Legum (@JuddLegum)

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https://twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/status/1107030813198217217

Chris Cuomo clashes again with Kellyanne Conway in heated interview. “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-cuomo-kellyanne-conway-violence_n_5c8b1327e4b0db7da9f16761

President Donald Trump this week issued a thinly veiled threat of violence against his opponents. The president regularly encourages his base to commit violence against protesters and his political enemies. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-encourages-violence-from-his-supporters-theyre-listening_n_5c8bb977e4b0db7da9f29e07

Analysis | Everyone involved in the 2016 hush-money payments says they were campaign-related — except Trump https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/11/everyone-involved-hush-money-payments-says-they-were-campaign-related-except-trump/

Cohen should fear for his life: Psychiatrist explains how Trump gaslights America, embraces cruelty and 'attacks thought itself' https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/cohen-fear-life-psychiatrist-explains-trump-gaslights-america-embraces-cruelty-attacks-thought/

The massage parlor owner peddling access to Trump has ties to Chinese government-linked groups https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/the-massage-parlor-owner-peddling-access-to-trump-has-ties-to-chinese-government-linked-groups-cindy-yang/ via @MotherJones

Chase Donald Trump's Russia scandal way back to a beauty pageant and it starts to make real sense https://www.salon.com/2019/03/06/chase-donald-trumps-russia-scandal-way-back-to-a-beauty-pageant-and-it-starts-to-make-real-sense/

The 10 personas of Donald Trump in a single speech http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/09/feature/the-10-personas-of-donald-trump-in-a-single-speech/

The Sleaze of the Cindy Yang Affair, From Hand Jobs to Grip-and-Grins With Donald Trump, Should Not Obscure the Huge Security Risks https://www.thedailybeast.com/cindy-yang-affair-from-hand-jobs-to-grip-and-grins-with-donald-trump-should-not-obscure-the-huge-national-security-risks

A Florida massage parlor owner has been selling Chinese execs access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/ via @MotherJones

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Trump signs Bibles during disaster tour of Alabama https://politi.co/2J3u11I

Trump took a selfie with the founder of the day spa where Robert Kraft allegedly bought sex services https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbwjm9/trump-took-a-selfie-with-the-founder-of-the-day-spa-where-robert-kraft-allegedly-bought-sex-services

‘Grab that record’: How Trump’s high school transcript was hidden https://wapo.st/2IULTM2

The most bizarre moments from Donald Trump’s CPAC speech – video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/mar/03/donald-trump-mocks-green-new-deal-and-russia-investigation-at-cpac-video

Trump: "All of a sudden they're trying to take you out with bullshit." In a rambling two-hour speech, President Trump slams his foes, sings his own praises, and prepares for 2020. MARCH 2, 2019 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/trump-bizarro-speech-cpac/ via @MotherJones

Trump's 10 wildest CPAC quotes https://politi.co/2TrxIlI

A short history of threats received by Donald Trump’s opponents https://www.propublica.org/article/a-short-history-of-threats-received-by-donald-trumps-opponents

Today seems like a good day to remember all the women who have accused Trump of sexual assault. Just because he became president doesn't make their stories any less important Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1100053959652319233

Perspective | The 6 essential cons that define Trump’s success. Although Trump has threatened to sue reporters many times, the only time he followed through with a libel suit was in 2006, after O’Brien, in “TrumpNation,” reported that three experts close to Trump believed his true net worth to be between $150 million and $250 million — far from the $6 billion he claimed he was worth at the time. Trump lost the suit, appealed the ruling, then lost the appeal in 2011. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/22/essential-cons-that-define-trumps-success/

‘I think it’s a shame’: Trump comments on Coast Guard officer accused of plotting attacks. Asked by a reporter Friday whether he bears any personal responsibility from his own rhetoric, Trump said he did not. “I think my language is very nice,” the president replied. https://wapo.st/2TcjMvY

Sarah Sanders's Latest Lie Is Somehow Her Worst. When a US Coast Guard lieutenant and former Marine was arrested and charged with gun and drug crimes, it quickly became clear that the officer, Christopher Hasson, was allegedly plotting the mass murder of Democrats and journalists and subscribed to white nationalism. Trump has not weighed in on the case, though he had time to tweet about actor Jussie Smollett allegedly faking a hate crime. When his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked about it Friday, her response was brazen even by the standards of the administration:Here's Sarah Sanders saying Trump hasn't "at any point" done anything "but condemn violence, against journalists or anyone else." Obviously, Sanders is lying here—this is not a case where she might have incomplete information or have been deceived by her superiors. This is a conscious falsehood being uttered by a key voice atop the United States government. Anyone who knows anything about Trump knows that he has routinely praised violence, especially against the media. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzpxq/sarah-sanderss-latest-lie-is-somehow-her-worst

“I don’t know which report you’re talking about,” Trump said, when asked about news his administration was planning a campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality worldwide. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-homosexuality-decriminalization-plan_n_5c6eaaa7e4b0e37a1ed577a7

Being Raised by Two Narcissists Taught Me How to Deal with Trump https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kga4j/being-raised-by-two-narcissists-taught-me-how-to-deal-with-trump

9 of the most bizarre moments from Trump's rambling border wall press conference https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjq7aa/9-of-the-most-bizarre-moments-from-trumps-rambling-border-wall-press-conference

Analysis | Fact-checking Trump’s announcement of a national emergency https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/fact-checking-trumps-announcement-national-emergency/

Analysis | Trump referred to ‘gun violence’ in his Parkland remembrance. Hours later, he changed it to ‘school violence.’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/14/trumps-lengthy-parkland-shooting-remembrance-doesnt-meaningfully-mention-guns/

The End of Trump’s State of the Union Was Just Really, Hilariously Poorly Written. “We have not yet begun to dream”? https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/trump-state-of-the-union-badly-written.html via @slate

Pelosi gives Trump a standing ovation and nod of approval for his call to end "revenge politics." https://t.co/9X5pDtuhsn Daniel Lewis (@Daniel_Lewis3)

White House announces Trump guests for State of the Union https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/428456-white-house-announces-trump-guests-for-state-of-the-union

What it’s like to golf with the president. Trump is speedy too, often finishing 18 holes in three hours by playing through other groups and driving on the edge of the green — a no-no, except perhaps when one owns the course. He is surrounded by a Secret Service detail, which expedites his movement. (A round takes between four and five hours for most golfers.) The Washington Post reported in 2015 that playing partners said Trump often cheats. “When it comes to cheating, he’s an 11 on a scale of one to 10,” sportswriter Rick Reilly said in that story. https://wapo.st/2GhRmtE

Here's a handy video compilation of President Trump's birther comments https://t.co/JyN75aodXE David Frum (@davidfrum)

Opinion | In remarkable exchange, Trump offers startling view of role of free press https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/01/remarkable-exchange-trump-offers-startling-view-role-free-press/

Trump suggests FBI didn't find motive for Las Vegas mass shooting because they were busy with "Russian hoax" http://www.newsweek.com/trump-suggests-russia-hoax-hindered-las-vegas-shooting-investigation-1312959

Steve Bannon Takes Credit for Trump’s Presidential Win https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-takes-credit-for-trumps-presidential-victory-in-new-sundance-documentary

The 15 Things You Need to Know About Chris Christie’s Book https://thebulwark.com/the-15-things-you-need-to-know-about-chris-christies-book/ via @BulwarkOnline

By many accounts, Donald Trump is a lapsed Christian. That doesn’t stop him from touting conservative Christian causes. A Former Pastor Of Trump’s Church Says He Never Saw Him There. “He was not an active and visible member of the church, no,” Pastor David Lewicki recalled. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/former-marble-collegiate-pastor-says-he-never-saw-trump-at-church_us_5c51f51ee4b04f8645c728a8

Report: Majority of Clemson’s black players skipped White House visit https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/427533-majority-of-clemsons-black-players-skipped-white-house-visit

Robert Reich: 3 Signs Trump Is Becoming a Dictator https://www.truthdig.com/articles/robert-reich-3-signs-trump-is-becoming-a-dictator/

These Trump Memes Will End Up in History Books https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nexvw7/the-20-biggest-memes-of-the-trump-era-so-far

President Trump Posts Altered Photos to Facebook and Instagram That Make Him Look Thinner https://gizmodo.com/president-trump-posts-altered-photos-to-facebook-and-in-1831909849

The 'exhausting' work of factcheckers who track Trump's barrage of lies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/21/donald-trump-lies-factcheckers

Donald Trump began his Sunday morning with a bizarre tirade riddled with lies https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/trump-twitter-blast-pelosi-climate/ via @MotherJones

Scott Dworkin @funder Can you do me a favor? Can you retweet this? It’s video I found of Trump saying he: 1. Plans to build Trump Tower Moscow. 2. Is looking for deals not just in Moscow. 3. Says he met with a group of Russians in Moscow and talked about making deals https://twitter.com/funder/status/1086112223548919808

Cardi B's Viral Government Shutdown Rant Was Set To "Bodak Yellow" And It's Basically A New Bop https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/marcusjones/cardi-b-government-shutdown-video-song via @MarcusJonesNY

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith: Trump serving fast food to Clemson team was 'disgraceful' and 'classless' https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/425737-espns-stephen-a-smith-trump-serving-fast-food-to-clemson-team

It’s Already Collusion https://politi.co/2FuXzSv

Opinion | Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset https://wapo.st/2FpqV5u

October 19th, 2016 "you encouraged espionage against our people ... you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race." https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1084126128757985280

CNN's Navarro files nails during immigration debate with Trump ally https://thehill.com/homenews/media/424675-cnns-navarro-files-nails-during-immigration-debate-with-trump-ally

Here Is Donald Trump Struggling to Breathe for 36 Long, Agonizing Seconds https://splinternews.com/here-is-donald-trump-struggling-to-breathe-for-36-long-1831607446

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Kellyanne Conway, Bill Shine, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Dan Scavino, Donald Trump, Steven Miller, Jared Kushner Ivanka Trump, Mercedes Schlapp
@Scavino45 After this evenings Presidential Address, we joined our great POTUS for a photo. We are all on the right side of history! #FACT

Analysis | Ocasio-Cortez called Trump a racist. The White House response may have proved her point. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/08/ocasio-cortez-called-trump-racist-white-house-response-may-have-proven-her-point/

Trump claims support from past presidents for the wall: Clinton, Bush and Obama beg to differ https://politi.co/2F99YeE via @politico

President Trump Is An Expert On A Lot Of Things... According To Trump | ... https://youtu.be/07xU4JYPNKI via @YouTube

Trump, in profanity-laced meeting with lawmakers, said he preferred 'strike' to refer to government shutdown: reports https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/423990-trump-in-profanity-laced-meeting-with-lawmakers-said-he-preferred-the

All Of The Made-Up, Nonsensical, Hypocritical Highlights From Trump’s Cabinet Meeting. 2019 is already off to an interesting start. The president described generals "better looking than Tom Cruise," made up numbers about immigration and complained that his job is hard. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-cabinet-meeting_us_5c2d2363e4b08aaf7a958218

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@BarackObama In 2018 people stepped up and showed up like never before. Keep it up in 2019. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’ll be right there with you. Happy New Year, everybody! 8:19 AM - 1 Jan 2019

Predictions: Trump goes, unexpected candidate emerges in 2019 https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/423132-predictions-trump-goes-unexpected-candidate-emerges-in-2019

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HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA! 2019 WILL BE A FANTASTIC YEAR FOR THOSE NOT SUFFERING FROM TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. JUST CALM DOWN AND ENJOY THE RIDE, GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING FOR OUR COUNTRY! 5:08 AM - 1 Jan 2019

2018 Elections

A Cox victory is the final indignity for California GOP. Republican leaders were hoping a candidate named Cox might create some buzz in the November election. He did. Unfortunately for the GOP, it was the wrong Cox. Democrats had already achieved a blowout in California congressional races by the time T. J. Cox secured a come-from-behind victory last week in the Central Valley 21st district, defeating Republican incumbent David Valadao. Republicans will now hold just seven of California’s 53 House seats. That sounds bad on its face, but historical context shows just how bleak things are for the state GOP delegation. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnists/michael-smolens/sd-me-smolens-california-election-20181202-story.html

Sen. Joel Anderson's political trajectory screeches to a halt https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnists/michael-smolens/sd-me-smolens-joel-anderson-20181123-story.html

Dems won popular vote in House races by margin not seen since Watergate https://thehill.com/homenews/house/417953-dems-won-popular-vote-in-house-races-by-margin-not-seen-since-watergate

The Midterms Sent an Unmistakable Message to Republicans. So long as the GOP stays loyal to President Trump, its prospects on the electoral map will be sharply restricted. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/trumps-cost-gop-midterms/575884/

https://www.kpbs.org/news/election/election-results/

Jacky Rosen wins Nevada Senate race https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/democrat-jacky-rosen-just-won-dean-hellers-nevada-senate-seat-results/

Racists, demagogues, and other wildly divisive politicians who lost last night https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/racists-demagogues-divisive-politicians-who-lost-walker-kobach-davis/

Will Ryan Bundy help elect a Democrat as Nevada governor? https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/will-ryan-bundy-elect-democrat-nevada-governor-steve-sisolak-adam-laxalt/

Ex-CIA Agent's Congressional Campaign Says James O'Keefe's Project Veritas Infiltrated It https://thebea.st/2yE9rxl

Despite it all, Rep. Hunter's hanging in there as Election Day approaches http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnists/michael-smolens/sd-me-smolens-hunter-20181031-story.html

John Cox and the Sad State of California’s GOP https://politi.co/2q2VOTu

Dennis Hof, Brothel Owner and ‘Cathouse’ Star, Dies at 72. Hof died in his sleep after a celebration with porn star Ron Jeremy, ex-Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist. https://thebea.st/2J2qEof

HW9P6Sb.png
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/orourke-rakes-record-fundraising-haul-texas-senate-race/story?id=58463669&cid=social_twitter_tw

A Look At Competitive US House Races In California https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/oct/08/look-competitive-us-house-races-california/

115th Congress 2017-2018

Leadership

The current leaders are Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Speaker of the House Rep. Paul D. Ryan Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

Senate Judiciary Committee: head Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) member Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)

House

Why does every famous person accused of racism say, Paul Ryan says, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body”? By @jbouie https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/03/paul-ryans-inner-city-males-comment-the-republican-congressman-says-he-doesnt-have-a-racist-bone-in-his-body.html

Rep. Duncan Hunter says he's running for reelection http://fw.to/WXkRupi

Exclusive: Issa mulls running in neighboring district http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/368513-exclusive-issa-mulls-running-in-neighboring-district

Grand jury subpoena issued in Rep. Duncan Hunter criminal investigation http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-subpoenas-20180110-story.html

Issa meltdown could pose strategic dilemma for Democrats http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-jenkins-issa-20180111-story.html

FBI seized computers and documents in investigation of Rep. Duncan Hunter's campaign spending http://fw.to/iDJSzsG

In heavily Republican district, CA-50, little-known Democrat outraises GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter. Ammar Campa-Najjar raised $165,330 from April through June, besting Hunter, who raised $155,625.Another Democrat, Josh Butner, raised $141,117 and had $114,847 left in his treasury. http://fw.to/mLCKwQZ

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter discusses health care and international relations http://www.kusi.com/Clip/13473147/rep-duncan-d-hunter-discusses-health-care-and-international-relations

Kevin McCarthy, Trump’s man in Congress? http://clsndy.co/trump-kevin-mccarthy

List of Republicans Who Are Opposing the Obamacare Repeal Bill http://via.whotv.com/XIUqw via @whohd

The GOP has no Obamacare bill. It does have a new buzzword: LuntzCare http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/02/the_gop_s_new_obamacare_buzzword_repair.html

Senate

Duncan Hunter’s win in California’s 50th district should be chilling to Muslims—and all Americans: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/ammar-campa-najjar-duncan-hunter-loss-muslims-hate-islamophobia.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

John McCain is far more consistently bad than you've been led to believe; here are his greatest hits https://interc.pt/2tGsRNi by @mehdirhasan

This Is the World Mitch McConnell Gave Us. Mr. McConnell’s other form of aid for Mr. Trump was more hidden. As The Washington Post reported a month after the 2016 election, Mr. Obama had been prepared that September to go public with a C.I.A. assessment laying bare the extent of Russian intervention in the election. But he was largely dissuaded by a threat from Mr. McConnell. During a secret briefing for congressional leaders, The Post reported, Mr. McConnell “raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.” The Obama administration kept mum, and voters had to wait until after Mr. Trump’s election to learn the depth of Russian involvement. https://nyti.ms/2IzAz2G

Life in wartime: Roy Moore fights battles — and often goes looking for them http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/politics/southunionstreet/2017/09/21/life-wartime-roy-moore-fights-battles-and-often-goes-looking-them/678577001/ via @mgmadvertiser

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House http://wapo.st/2gl1tC9

SCOTUS

The end of this saga makes perfectly clear that America has no system for holding the very powerful accountable. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/brett-kavanaugh-ethics-complaints-dismissed.html

Chief Justice of California Supreme Court leaves GOP over Kavanaugh confirmation https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/421346-chief-justice-of-california-supreme-court-leaves-gop-over-kavanaugh

Dining club emails reveal Kavanaugh's close ties to Trump's solicitor general. Emails obtained by the Guardian show that Kavanaugh, who was narrowly confirmed to the supreme court earlier this month, participated in monthly evening cocktails and dinners from 2001 to 2003 with a group of men that included Noel Francisco, who now serves as the Trump administration’s solicitor general. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/25/brett-kavanaugh-eureka-club-noel-francisco-emails

Wife of Supreme Court justice spreads fake news about the migrant caravan https://on.mktw.net/2JecLmW

We attended the hexing of Brett Kavanaugh - this is what it was like https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/brett-kavanaugh-hexing-witches-new-york-catland-books-brooklyn-trump-a8595016.html

GovTrack. 🇺🇸 @govtrack In yesterday’s vote to confirm Justice Kavanaugh, the 50 senators voting yes represent states covering just 44% of the U.S. population or 143 million Americans. That’s less than a majority, less than the 181 million Americans represented by the senators voting no. https://twitter.com/govtrack/status/1049011370400915463

Justice Scalia 98-0
Justice Kennedy 97-0
Justice Souter 90-9
Pervert Thomas 52-48
Justice Ginsburg 96-3
Justice Breyer 87-9
Justice Roberts 78-22
Justice Alito 58-42
Justice Sotomayor 68-31
Justice Kagan 63-37
Stolen seat Gorsuch 54-45
Pervert Kavanaugh 50-48

Charlotte Clymer 🏳️‍🌈 @cmclymer Protesting right outside the front doors of the Supreme Court while Kavanaugh is being sworn-in. He can hear us, and I hope our voices today haunt his legacy. https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1048694076281905152

Brett Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook, the Cupola, from 1983 https://archive.org/details/cupola-1983/page/n0

HOW WE KNOW KAVANAUGH IS LYING. This man should not serve another day as any kind of judge… by NATHAN J. ROBINSON https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying

Kavanaugh's impartiality questioned after partisan attacks https://politi.co/2DM1Qls

‘I am innocent’: Inside the room for Kavanaugh’s testimony on sexual assault allegations https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/amp-stories/inside-the-room-for-kavanaugh-s-testimony/

The One Question I’d Ask Kavanaugh and Ford… Mary Matalin is a conservative political consultant and was campaign director for President George H.W. Bush in 1992. For Judge Kavanaugh: How can the venerable statesmen of the Senate apologize to your sweet wife and precious young girls for involuntarily casting them in this remake of Idiocracy? For Dr. Blasey Ford: Can you meet privately with Judge Kavanaugh’s family and repeat the charges you’ve brought against their father to their innocent little faces? Are you really a professor in a healing profession? At a prestigious university? https://politi.co/2R1Gymb via @politicomag

Avenatti: New Kavanaugh accuser '100 percent' prepared to testify before Senate Judiciary Committee https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/408517-avenatti-new-kavanaugh-accuser-100-percent-prepared-to-testify

Kavanaugh Was 'Aggressive And Belligerent' When Drunk, His Yale Roommate Says https://www.yahoo.com/news/kavanaugh-apos-aggressive-belligerent-apos-120031237.html

The Fox News interview with Brett Kavanaugh was a sham. Here are seven reasons why. http://mm4a.org/4UR

Kavanaugh’s Yearbook Page Is ‘Horrible, Hurtful’ to a Woman It Named https://nyti.ms/2xwCsKP

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New at https://ift.tt/2NgFY1T  : Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh: His Jurisprudence and Potential Impact on the Supreme Court

Corruption, Rep. Duncan Hunter

Former Green Beret major faces murder charge for 2010 Afghanistan incident. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, himself a Marine veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, stepped in on Golsteyn’s behalf, writing a letter to the Army secretary and making scathing public comments about the case, calling the Army’s investigation “retaliatory and vindictive.” The congressman called on Army leadership to “fix this stupidity,” describing Golsteyn as “a distinguished and well regarded Green Beret.” Unrelated to the Golsteyn case, Hunter was indicted earlier this year by federal prosecutors who are alleging conspiracy, wire fraud, falsification of records and prohibited use of campaign contributions. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/12/13/former-green-beret-major-faces-murder-charge-for-2010-afghanistan-incident/

In One of Southern California’s Reddest Districts, It’s a Race Between a Millennial Democrat and a Republican Incumbent Under Criminal Indictment https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/in-one-of-southern-californias-reddest-districts-its-a-race-between-a-millennial-democrat-and-a-republican-incumbent-under-criminal-indictment

Duncan Hunter Is That Bro https://obrag.org/2018/10/duncan-hunter-is-that-bro/

Evangelical Christian group holds rally to support Ammar Campa-Najjar http://via.kswbtv.com/TQzAZ

What happens if Duncan Hunter wins reelection and is convicted? It could depend on who's in charge http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/us-politics/la-pol-ca-duncan-hunter-midterms-20181025-story.html

The Cruel Congressional Campaign of Duncan Hunter Comes From a Familiar Playbook https://www.theringer.com/2018/10/22/18008496/duncan-hunter-congress-donald-trump-campaign-scandal-ammar-campa-najjar

Campa-Najjar defends contributions from CAIR board members amid attacks by Rep. Duncan Hunter http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-najjar-donors-20181018-story.html

Defense Lobbyists Hope to Scare Voters Into Voting for Indicted Congressman https://thebea.st/2OxE95i

Former Rep. Duncan Hunter goes to bat for his indicted son in bitter congressional re-election bid http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-hunter-father-20181016-story.html

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, Under Indictment, Launches False Attacks On Opponent https://n.pr/2RJJLXS

8jTNDL2.png

e-mail security alert from three Generals

  1. Terry Paul Brigadier General USMC ret
    1. EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT https://cassidy.com/terry-paul/
    2. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000000208
  2. Major Gen. Randall L. West, Ret, USMC (Ret)
    1. President at Robison International https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=48709106&privcapId=60807371
    2. Robison International lobbying https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000022224&year=2007
    3. https://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Victory-Gods-Desert-Storm/dp/0983556520#customerReviews
  3. Major General Tony Corwin, USMC (Ret.)
    1. Blank Rome http://blankromegr.com/index.cfm?contentID=10&bioID=3096
    2. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000023385&year=2018
  4. Capt. Joseph John, USNR/FBI (Ret) https://combatveteransforcongress.org/leader/59
    1. Capt. Joseph John: Muslim Brotherhood ‘Fifth Column’ Has Infiltrated U.S. Government | Breitbart http://bit.ly/2MwgPD5

California Dem hits Trump Jr. over claims of links to extremist groups https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/411061-california-dem-hits-trump-jr-over-claims-of-links-to-extremist-groups

Duncan Hunter’s Political Promise Foiled by Hard Partying and a Corruption Scandal https://nyti.ms/2MQ29ih

Given Duncan Hunter's indictment, is the House race even a contest? For folks in Ramona, the answer is nuanced http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/la-me-abcarian-hunter-ramona-20181009-story.html

Note to Rep. Duncan Hunter: Racism lives and breathes in California too. It always has http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-hunter-white-supremacists-charlottesville-20181004-story.html

Duncan Hunter's 'Red Scare' http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnists/michael-smolens/sd-me-smolens-hunter-20181001-story.html

Partisanship Often Trumps Scandal https://53eig.ht/2DNzfMp

Trump shell company pass through fraud. Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father https://nyti.ms/2P90UZD

Rep. Duncan Hunter's campaign denies he implied campaign rival is a radical Muslim http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/us-politics/la-pol-na-duncan-hunter-islam-20180926-story.html

State Sen. Joel Anderson reprimanded for 'completely unacceptable' behavior toward female lobbyist http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-may-2018-state-sen-joel-anderson-reprimanded-for-1537918800-htmlstory.html

Rep. Duncan Hunter praises Trump, goes off on DOJ 'corruption' and 'Islamist' opponent https://www.10news.com/news/rep-duncan-hunter-praises-trump-goes-off-on-doj-corruption-and-islamist-opponent

I'm sharing an article from Times of San Diego https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2018/09/24/duncan-hunter-rages-in-ramona-fire-sessions-beware-islamist-rival-rosenstein-coup/

Bunny Suit, Hazmat Inflatable Join Hunter Protest Outside Hearing for Rep Hunter, Wife https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/US-Rep-Duncan-Hunter-Margaret-Hunter-Expected-in-Court-for-Status-Hearing-494144851.html via @nbcsandiego

  1. Politico also reported that investigators have asked about a young woman, a former intern, that Hunter hired onto his staff, who had a spotty attendance record, was unfriendly with other staffers and people complained about inappropriate work attire. Politico, citing anonymous sources, also said she would frequently text the congressman and go to a restaurant with him.
  2. a female lobbyist with whom many people close to the congressman believe he had a romantic relationship, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation. female lobbyists they’d frequently dine with at night
  3. Individual 14 in Tahoe: January 25, 2010, in Incline Village, Nevada, DUNCAN HUNTER spent $1,008.72 in Campaign?funds at the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino for food, drinks, and three nights lodging during a personal ski trip with Individual 14. On this day, the HUNTER family bank account had a negative balance and incurred six separate insuf?cient funds fees (totaling $198). Also on this same day, DUNCAN HUNTER withdrew $20 from his personal bank account, leaving a balance of $15.02.
  4. Individual 16 dinner: June 2015, in Washington, DC, DUNCAN HUNTER spent $202.70 in Campaign funds at Street Country Club for a personal dinner with Individual 16, Individuals 2A and 2B, and Congressman and his date.
  5. June 12, 2015, in Washington, DC, DUNCAN HUNTER spent $352.60 in Campaign funds at Matchbox for, in his words, a nice family evening with his nephew, Individual 16, and Individuals 2A and 2B.
  6. August 4, 2016, in Palm Springs, California, DUNCAN HUNTER spent $592.63 in Campaign funds at Prime Steakhouse for dinner during a personal gol?ng weekend with Individual 1A, Individual 11, and Individual 12.
  7. September 15, 2016, at 7:40 am, in Washington, DC, DUNCAN HUNTER spent $32.27 in Campaign funds for an Uber ride from Individual 18's home to DUNCAN offce.
  8. Individual 11 lived in the San Diego area and was friends with DUNCAN HUNTER. Among other things, they played golf together on occasion.
  9. Individual 12? lived in the San Diego area and was friends with DUNCAN HUNTER. They played golf occasionally with mutual friends, including Individual 1A. Later, Individual 12 began working with DUNCAN HUNTER.
  10. Individual 14, Individual 15, Individual 16, Individual 17, and Individual 18 lived in the Washington, DC. area and had personal relationships with DUNCAN HUNTER. In addition, Individual 16 worked with DUNCAN HUNTER.

"Hunter's gotta go!" U.S. Rep. Duncan D. Hunter arrives at San Diego federal court for a motion setting hearing on charges that he and his wife misused more than $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses, amid chants from protesters: http://on.nbc7.com/pjDQC4U https://twitter.com/nbcsandiego/status/1037008170647003136

Hunter indictment sheds light on 'personal relationships' for congressman http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-liaisons-20180830-story.html

Protesters gathered under the #ElCajon sign, demanding representative #DuncanHunter resign. Yesterday Hunter and wife Margaret pled not guilty to misappropriation of campaign funds. Protesters urge the community to vote in November. @10News https://twitter.com/10NewsAndi/status/1033170862260674560

Calif. Congressman Duncan Hunter 'excited' to go to trial https://www.stripes.com/news/us/calif-congressman-duncan-hunter-excited-to-go-to-trial-1.543833

Meet @ACampaNajjar, the progressive running to take on indicted Congressman Duncan Hunter https://interc.pt/2Lgosst by @ryangrim @ZaidJilani

California congressman Duncan Hunter and wife charged with corruption https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/21/california-congressman-duncan-hunter-and-wife-charged-with-corruption https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4779655/Indictment.pdf

Actual question to Rep. Duncan Hunter during a constituent telephone town hall via “Dave” from El Cajon: “When are you gunna start draining the swamp?” https://twitter.com/kellylynndavis/status/1025197753209479169

Rep. Duncan Hunter's summer of discontent http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnists/michael-smolens/sd-me-smolens-hunter-20180727-story.html

Several Nevada candidates have criminal records https://lvrj.com/post/1403755

Duncan Hunter's New Take: Nothing Happened, No Mistake, Nothing https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/politics/duncan-hunters-new-take-nothing-happened-no-mistake-nothing/

Rep. Hunter Wants To Serve The Nation By Continuing To Represent 50th Congressional District http://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/may/03/rep-hunter-still-wants-serve-his-nation-continuing/

Bill Maher Embarrasses Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter Over John McCain Insults. "No. So… to be honest, we make fun… because we’re in the military, it’s hard to ask someone who’s been in the military and has made every crass joke known to man—worse than you’ve made, I mean really bad jokes,” offered a bumbling Rep. Hunter. “I’ve made the same John McCain joke with my friends, who are other Marines.” https://thebea.st/2KVbXUr

Rep. Duncan Hunter sets up legal fund amid criminal investigation http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-fund-20180424-story.html

High Tabs for Rep. Hunter in Campaign Expense Filings https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/High-Tabs-for-Rep-Hunter-in-Campaign-Expense-Filings-477975553.html

Rep. Duncan Hunter talks gun control, re-election plans on 10News https://youtu.be/tkGWx5q6oK0

Yes, Duncan Hunter was there for some of the improper charges he has repaid to his campaign http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-present-20180222-story.html

From Fallujah to FBI investigation: The undoing of Duncan Hunter http://politi.co/2E9QTpq

Grand jury subpoena issued in Rep. Duncan Hunter criminal investigation “There’s no oversight, and they can ruin your life and take you down if they feel like it,” congressman says. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-subpoenas-20180110-story.html

Man says he didn't make reported contributions to Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-donation-20180207-story.html

Trial nears for head of veterans charity co-founded by the elder Duncan Hunter http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-watchdog-charity-20170202-story.html

Only One Voter in Rep. Duncan Hunter’s District Contributed to His Campaign https://sandiegofreepress.org/2018/02/only-one-voter-in-rep-duncan-hunters-district-contributed-to-his-campaign/

Duncan Hunter is about to meet his match http://escondidograpevine.com/2017/11/27/duncan-hunter-is-about-to-meet-his-match/

Election forecasters say that Issa and Hunter are in less-than-safe seats http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-house-predictions-20171020-story.html

Which Democrats Did Harvey Weinstein Donate To? They're Giving His Money Away To Charities "During three-decades worth of sexual harassment allegations, Harvey Weinstein lined the pockets of Democrats to the tune of three quarters of a million dollars," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement, according to Variety. "If Democrats and the DNC truly stand up for women like they say they do, then returning this dirty money should be a no brainer." https://www.bustle.com/p/which-democrats-did-harvey-weinstein-donate-to-theyre-giving-his-money-away-to-charities-2802698

Rep. Hunter asks Trump to pardon border patrol agents who covered up their shooting of drug smuggler http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-hunter-pardon-20170927-story.html

My Father is an American War Hero Rep. Duncan Hunter Wanted to Deport and Ban https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/09/my-father-is-an-american-war-hero-rep-duncan-hunter-wanted-to-deport-and-ban/

Rep. Hunter calls for preemptive strike against North Korea http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-hunter-attack-20170921-story.html

Issa and Hunter's Staffing Merry-Go-Round https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/09/issa-and-hunters-staffing-merry-go-round/

"I know Hunter and I have fought hard over the years — and I’m leaving knowing together we’ve had an impact." http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-hunter-chief-20170907-story.html

Hunter's campaign paid for Costco memberships http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-costco-hunter-20170905-story.html

Rep. Hunter's older expenses also incurred at Vons and in Hawaii http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-hunter-expenses-20170905-story.html

Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Take on Trump: “He’s Our Asshole” https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/08/congressman-duncan-hunters-take-on-trump-hes-our-asshole/

Despite the scandal, Hunter's support runs deep in conservative district http://fw.to/0I7JbwV

The most recent reports show charges of $1,481 for “food/beverages” at Sage at Aria, on the Las Vegas Strip. http://fw.to/AuxBn2W

With FBI investigation looming, Rep. Duncan Hunter has spent $336,664 on lawyers http://fw.to/6JCYsRB

Arnold Schwarzenegger sexual harassment and groping

Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to make a comeback. It's time to talk about his long reported history of sexual harassment and groping. http://mm4a.org/ZBS

Economy

This is why some Trump supporters think investing in Iraq's worthless currency will make them millionaires https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/trump-supporters-think-investing-iraqs-worthless-currency-will-make-millionaires/

Slowing economy looms as 2020 challenge for GOP https://thehill.com/policy/finance/417531-slowing-economy-looms-as-2020-challenge-for-gop

Analysis | Is Trump country really better off under Trump? No. It’s falling further behind. https://wapo.st/2QM3sNV

Econometer: Will a divided Congress affect the economy? https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/economy/sd-fi-divided-congress-20181116-htmlstory.html

Trump wants voters to think the US economy is booming – is it? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/04/trump-economy-performance-reality-midterm-election-vote-2018

U.S. deficits and the debt in 5 charts: A 2018 midterm report https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/nov/02/five-charts-about-debt/

A Better Way To Think About This Month’s Jobs Numbers https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/jobs-report-growth-unemployment/

Watch out: 3 warning signs U.S. economy could be close to recession. Business investment is laggardly. Rather than using their $1.2 trillion tax cut on capital spending, companies are on track for the biggest-ever year of stock buybacks, possibly reaching $1 trillion. https://www.axios.com/jobs-report-questions-about-recession-65284103-bf55-4557-8eaa-2fedc6f9a857.html

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/estimating-impact-climate-change-cost-growth.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

How these penny-pinchers retired in their 30s https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-these-penny-pinchers-retired-in-their-30s

Video: An intro to MMT, as presented at September’s International MMT Conference in NYC http://dlvr.it/QplbLn

Ron Paul warns economy under Trump is 'not sound’ https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/412025-ron-paul-warns-economy-under-trump-is-not-sound

McConnell calls deficit ‘very disturbing,’ blames federal spending, dismisses criticism of tax cut https://wapo.st/2pXZJBb

Taibbi: Chatting With Bernie Sanders About a Looming Financial Crisis https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/taibbi-bernie-sanders-banks-732633/ via @RollingStone

Kaine is right: Record jobs growth streak precedes Trump https://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2018/sep/25/tim-kaine/ne-right-record-jobs-growth-streak-precedes-trump/ via @PolitiFactVA

Michael Hudson: 10 Years Since Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy – Did the Economy Really Recover? Posted on September 20, 2018 by Yves Smith. In this Real News Network segment, Michael Hudson revisits some of the issues he discussed in a post earlier this week on the implications of the crisis. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/09/michael-hudson-10-years-since-lehman-brothers-bankruptcy-did-the-economy-really-recover.html

The financial crisis was a crisis of democracy that taught middle-class families a grim lesson about who really mattered in American society ― and who didn’t count. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/financial-crisis-10-years-later-ben-bernanke-hank-paulson-timothy-geithner_us_5b9d7dc8e4b04d32ebf92396

Ten Years After the Crash, We’ve Learned Nothing https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/financial-crisis-ten-year-anniversary-723798/

10 Years After The Financial Crisis: Early Warning Signs. On the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Sheila Bair, the former FDIC chair who sounded an early warning about the financial crisis. https://n.pr/2MAOlnA

Ten Years After the Crash, We’ve Learned Nothing https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/financial-crisis-ten-year-anniversary-723798/ via @RollingStone

The Economy Under Trump: Business Optimism Combined with Inequality http://dlvr.it/Qk2VZ0

Media Sit in Silence as WH Economist Demolishes Obama’s Claim About Trump Economy - https://rightwingfolks.com/media-sit-in-silence-as-wh-economist-demolishes-obamas-claim-about-trump-economy/

California

Violence from white supremacist groups should be treated as terrorist acts, committee says. Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine), who asked to be added as a co-author, said his staff had suggestions for additional groups that should considered “given what was happening on college campuses.” “The whole point is hate is hate,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where it originates, it is all wrong.” http://fw.to/8OEgXeK

California Republicans sweat Trump effect http://politi.co/2tD8KR1

Sacramento Report: A Social Media Star Is Born in the Assembly Republican Assemblyman Randy Voepel is getting noticed. Part of that is thanks to his tie collection (a story for another day), but mostly it’s because of his social media presence. http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/government/sacramento-report-a-social-media-star-is-born-in-the-assembly/

Protest, Punch a Nazi

Don't Be a Sucker - 1947. How a 1947 US government anti-Nazi film went viral after Charlottesville. Don’t Be a Sucker, a 17-minute film made in 1947 by the US war department to warn against fascism. https://youtu.be/23X14HS4gLk

49ers cheerleader takes a knee during anthem before Raiders game https://sports.yahoo.com/49ers-cheerleader-takes-knee-anthem-raiders-game-005956945.html

Paid protesters? They're real — and a Beverly Hills firm that hires them stands accused of extortion in a... http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/la-fi-crowds-extortion-20181021-story.html

NYPD Looks to Charge 9 Proud Boys With Assault for Manhattan Fight https://thebea.st/2Ou1HrG

Pussy Riot's New Book Is Disruption 101 https://thebea.st/2On4vqr

Portland police declare Patriot Prayer, antifa protest a civil disturbance http://s.oregonlive.com/azf0zuB

Here's riot cops in Portland rushing and hitting me, @DonovanFarley, and others on the sidewalk. I don't know why they did this. #AllOutPDX #DefendPDX Thank god these brave boys in blue are here to *checks news* attack Portland citizens so outside Nazis can come in and do a Kristallnacht cosplay Followed for that tweet. KKKosplay indeed https://twitter.com/dougbrown8/status/1025870333671223296

Trump Inauguration Day rioting charges against 200+ people abruptly dropped by U.S. https://boingboing.net/2018/07/06/trump-inauguration-riot-charge.html

Portland Police Saw Right-Wing Protesters as “Much More Mainstream” Than Leftist Ones Deleted scenes from a protest review may bolster activist suspicions. http://www.wweek.com//news/courts/2018/06/27/portland-police-saw-right-wing-protesters-as-much-more-mainstream-than-leftist-ones/

Eagles Player Sends A Powerful Message About Racism Without Saying A Word https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malcolm-jenkins-silence-speaks-volumes_us_5b198316e4b09a09c004aeb9

Unidentified man takes knee during anthem at Trump's 'Celebration of America' event http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/AAygmTt

ANTIFA BTFO At Trump Rally | Border Wall California https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ0E9C4-tX4 Violence 12/9 near #Borderwall demos, same people associated w/protests at July #impeachment rally & @chicanopark_mus rally & arrested in #Berkeley in August https://twitter.com/LoriSaldanaSD/status/939687997347217409

1 arrested after fights break out at Patriot Prayer rally, counter-protest http://s.oregonlive.com/2nQuYwD

Black students sing "I love being black.I love the color of my skin. I love the texture of my hair.It's the skin that I'm in" #FREESPEECHWEEK https://twitter.com/JackAustinDC/status/913144582958751744

7 detained as rival rallies face off over Confederate statue in Richmond (PHOTOS, VIDEO) https://www.rt.com/usa/403585-richmond-confederate-rallies-detained/

Suspected neo-Nazi arraigned on felony assault charges in state Capitol melee http://sacb.ee/aUdI

Counter-protesters at Kid Rock show fooled by false rumors of Antifa in Detroit => http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2017/09/13/alt-right-kid-rock-fans-fooled-unfounded-rumors-antifa-detroit/

'Patriot Prayer' Rally Again Heavily Outnumbered, Again Ends With Violence, Close Call - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/09/12/patriot-prayer-rally-again-heavily-outnumbered-again-ends-violence-close-call

Photos & Video: Clashes in Portland and Vancouver During Sunday's "Patriot Prayer" Rallies http://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2017/09/11/19308138/photos-and-video-clashes-in-portland-and-vancouver-during-sundays-patriot-prayer-rallies

Counter-protesters threaten violence at anti-Kid Rock rally tonight => http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2017/09/12/counter-protesters-threaten-violence-anti-kid-rock-rally-tonight/

Demonstrators clash in Portland, Vancouver rallies; multiple arrests made http://s.oregonlive.com/8EJ1JCN

Portland braces for white nationalist protests Sunday http://koin.com/2017/09/08/portland-braces-for-white-nationalist-protests-sunday/

A Powerful and Peaceful Chicano Park Solidarity Rally - Photo Gallery https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/09/a-powerful-and-peaceful-chicano-park-solidarity-rally-photo-gallery/

Hundreds rally in Chicano Park to 'defend' murals http://via.kswbtv.com/gVmN6

Brief but explosive shouting match erupts at Chicano Park demonstration http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-chicano-park-20170903-story.html

Boston Free Speech rally - The Christian Science Monitor https://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Boston-Free-Speech-rally

Pussy Riot's Mariya Alyokhina: 'Politics is not something that exists in one or another White House. It is our lives' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/01/pussy-riot-mariya-alyokhina-russian-activist-jailed-white-house

What the media got wrong about last weekend's protests in Berkeley http://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/08/what-the-media-got-wrong-about-last-weekends-protests-in-berkeley/

Fascism spread in 1930s America. It could spread again today. http://fw.to/mXYArBR

Reveal host Al Letson shields man from beating at anti-hate rally https://www.revealnews.org/blog/reveal-host-al-letson-shields-man-from-beating-at-anti-hate-rally/

Black-clad anarchists storm Berkeley rally, assaulting 5 http://wapo.st/2ggHWTW

San Diego March Against Hate Says It Loud and Proud - Photo Gallery https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/08/san-diego-march-against-hate-says-it-loud-and-proud-photo-gallery/

Turmoil Erupts at Berkeley Rally After Civil Start https://www.truthdig.com/articles/protesters-keep-peace-berkeley-rally/

Perspective | I was detained for protesting Trump. Here's what the Secret Service asked me. http://wapo.st/2xq3fpJ

Dr. @CornelWest says anti-fascist and anarchist protesters protected clergy from white nationalists Friday night: "They saved our lives" https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/897161123706933248

Cornel West & Rev. Traci Blackmon: Clergy in Charlottesville Were Trapped by Torch-Wielding Nazis https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/cornel_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy

Proud Boys & Alt-Knights Try To Invade San Diego’s Impeachment March https://itsgoingdown.org/proud-boys-alt-knights-try-invade-san-diegos-impeachment-march/ via @IGD_NEWS

SD Sheriffs Stand By as Alt-Reich ‘Proud Boys’ Disrupt Impeachment Rally https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/07/sd-sheriffs-stand-by-as-alt-reich-proud-boys-disrupt-impeachment-rally/ via @SDFreePressorg

Pussy Riot has a wake up call for America's youth in the Trump era http://read.bi/2uOGzh6

Pro-, anti-Trump forces face off at Hollywood Boulevard star; 1 man arrested http://www.dailynews.com/article/LA/20170715/NEWS/170719630 via @ladailynews

Violence Erupts At Nationalist Protest. The counterdemonstrators, some covering their faces with masks or bandanas, marched from the corner of Elm and College Streets to the lower Green. “Run Nazi run!” they chanted. “Welcome to hell,” read a banner. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/proud_boys/

KKK Overwhelmed by Counterdemonstrators at Virginia Rally - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/07/10/kkk-overwhelmed-counterdemonstrators-virginia-rally

SD Sheriffs Stand By as Alt-Reich ‘Proud Boys’ Disrupt Impeachment Rally: https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/07/sd-sheriffs-stand-by-as-alt-reich-proud-boys-disrupt-impeachment-rally/

Restaurateur shuts down Milo Yiannopoulos' book party http://pge.sx/2tCiR8e

Anti-Muslim hate marches across u.s. draw violence, arrests http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anti-muslim-hate-marches-across-us-draw-violence-arrests_us_593c5971e4b0c5a35ca01d01

Arrest Erdogans Bodyguards who left #Kurds bloody-faced for daring to protest their President Erdogan in Washington DC @AnonymousVideo https://twitter.com/channeldraw/status/864839687852240896

Torch-Wielding Mob Led by White Nationalist Protests Confederate Statue Removal: https://sputniknews.com/us/201705151053612601-torch-bearing-protest-confederate/

This Reporter Couldn't Be More Wrong About Anti-Trump Activism http://mm4a.org/2q8m1Ci

In 1937, a judge quietly asked Meyer Lansky to form a squad of Nazi-punching gangsters to raid Bund meetings http://boingboing.net/2017/02/26/nazi-punching.html

Ferguson Painting Removal is ‘Closed Matter’ The painting by student David Pulphus was inspired by the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. It was part of the annual Capitol high school art competition. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo https://shar.es/191pPp via @RollCall

MARCH FOR SCIENCE: knitted Brain Hat http://www.studioknitsf.com/2017/01/how-to-knit-a-brain-hat-for-halloween/

The Left, Antifa

"Sailor Socialism" Dasha Nekrasova Explains Her Viral "Infowars" Interview. "I just want people to have free healthcare, honey." https://www.teenvogue.com/story/sailor-socialism-dasha-nekrasova-viral-infowars-interview

http://fuckyeahanarchistposters.tumblr.com

Nazis march in Tennessee today. Last time that happened, i ended up with antifa in a high-speed car chase https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nazis-are-marching-in-tennessee-today-last-time-that-happened-i-ended-up-in-a-high-speed-car-chase-with-antifa_us_5a64103be4b0022830036bd5

"Nazi punks fuck off!": 'Antifa' drowns out Nazi rally at the White House today http://www.newsweek.com/nazis-take-anger-over-kate-steinle-verdict-white-house-where-they-are-729722

THE TALE OF TJENTISTE: Antifascism, Artistic Brutalism, and the Death of a United Modernist Future https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/909113477012303873

Antifa: Guardians against fascism or lawless thrill-seekers? http://wapo.st/2eZwqc3

Antifa Still Doesn't Care What the Media Thinks https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyyz4w/antifa-still-doesnt-care-what-the-media-thinks

The ‘paradox of tolerance’ meets a bedrock American value https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2017/20170830/The-paradox-of-tolerance-meets-a-bedrock-American-value

My "Nonviolent" Stance Was Met With Heavily Armed Men https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2017/08/23/my-nonviolent-stance-was-met-with-heavily-armed-men/

What Is Antifa? An Activist and Scholar Of the Movement Explains https://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2017/08/26/what-is-antifa-an-activist-and-scholar-of-the-movement-explains/

Antifa and Leftists Organize Mutual Aid and Rescue Networks in Houston http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41803-antifa-and-leftists-organize-mutual-aid-and-rescue-networks-in-houston

http://reverepress.com/news/antifa-ground-texas-helping-relief-efforts/

Inside the Elizabeth Warren merchandising empire http://politi.co/2vtHKWD

Full David Brock confidential memo on fighting Donald Trump obtained by the Washington Free Beacon at the Jan. 19-21, 2017, 'Democracy Matters' Florida donor retreat at Turnberry Isle Resort in Aventura, Fla. https://www.scribd.com/document/337535680/Full-David-Brock-Confidential-Memo-On-Fighting-Trump

Leftwing Breitbart? Chapo Trap House is strong new voice in resistance to Trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/23/chapo-trap-house-leftwing-breitbart

Soros' Ideology Exposed: A Post-Modern, Post-Family, Post-Border New World Order: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201702201050878788-soros-ideology-explained/ via @SputnikInt

Special Counsel, FBI, Congress hearings, Russia, Trump Jr e-mails

Legal Bombshell: Mueller Flipped Trump’s Confidant’s Lawyer’s Friend’s Associate Gorpman (Who Could Testify Against Bleemer!) And It’s Not Even Lunchtime. First thing in the morning, it’s the end of the road for the Trump administration, because Robert Mueller is using Gorpman to use Bleemer to lead the president into an inescapable legal trap. Either Trump can try to disavow Feldermeyer’s parents’ actions, betraying Brenchler, or take credit for Feldermeyer’s parents’ actions, infuriating Feldermeyer, who would then have no reason to protect Thranghorst. Donald Trump may be stupid, but he’s not stupid enough to make an enemy out of Thranghorst, not considering what Thranghorst’s brother’s wife’s brother knows about Trump’s collaborator’s ally’s colleague’s crimes. However, Trump’s other option, taking on Brenchler on Brenchler’s own turf, is no more appealing for the president. https://www.clickhole.com/legal-bombshell-mueller-flipped-trump-s-confidant-s-la-1830939751

New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep. A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Trump — and worked even harder to support him while in office. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/16/new-report-russian-disinformation-prepared-senate-shows-operations-scale-sweep/

Butina Boss Alexander Torshin: The Kremlin's No-Longer-Secret Weapon https://www.thedailybeast.com/butina-boss-alexander-torshin-the-kremlins-no-longer-secret-weapon

The Russia Investigations: An Unfinished Case Looks Weaker Than Ever https://n.pr/2Qwu9Kr

Maria Butina pleads guilty to participating in a Russian conspiracy against the United States https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/12/maria-butina-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-russia/ via @MotherJones

Fox News Judge Patiently Bats Down ‘Fox & Friends’ on Cohen https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-judge-napolitano-patiently-bats-down-fox-and-friends-talking-points-on-michael-cohen

Maria Butina pleads GUILTY. Russian spy “knowingly engaged in conspiracy against the United States” https://boingboing.net/2018/12/13/butina-flipped.html

Attorney Robert Driscoll Defends Client Maria Butina https://n.pr/2LxQEbh

Russians interacted with at least 14 Trump associates during the campaign and transition https://wapo.st/2rrBAUn

The two filings against Michael Cohen tell us a great deal about the special counsel’s intentions. 3. The special counsel ties Trump directly to possible Russia collusion. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/michael-cohen-mueller-sdny-sentencing-trump-russia-takeaways.html

Roger Stone Continues to Deny Ever Doing Anything Wrong https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/roger-stone-assange-this-week-762324/ via @RollingStone

CBS interview Manafort about DNC hack: https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1068302761991663616

Mueller might soon bring charges that even Trump die-hards can’t trivialize https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-litman-mueller-probe-blockbuster-developments-20181120-story.html

Russian-US tycoon boasted of ‘active’ involvement in Trump election campaign https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/28/russian-us-tycoon-boasted-of-active-involvement-in-trump-election-campaign-simon-kukes

Speed Read: ‘Obama Jews’ and Other Shocking Highlights From New Manafort Docs https://thebea.st/2NHN1E5

Russian election interference: an on-the-record timeline https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jul/16/russia-investigation-donald-trump-timeline-updated/

Why We’re Sharing 3 Million Russian Troll Tweets https://53eig.ht/2mRI6Bo

FACT CHECK: Why Didn't Obama Stop Russia's Election Interference In 2016? https://n.pr/2GusKdZ

WATCH Raskin remind everyone that insults toward Donald Trump do not mean deep state conspiracy as he points out overwhelming Republican hypocrisy. These greatest hits insults are delicious. https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1017543754910224385

FBI Agent Peter Strzok Scorches GOP in Testimony Fit for Aaron Sorkin Script http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/peter-strzok-transcript-hearing-watch-fbi-agents-searing-testimony.html

Senate Intel backs assessment of Russian election meddling https://politi.co/2KNxtNP

The Untold Story of Robert Mueller's Time in Combat “Second Lieutenant Mueller’s courage, aggressive initiative and unwavering devotion to duty at great personal risk were instrumental in the defeat of the enemy force and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.” https://www.wired.com/story/robert-mueller-vietnam/

F3gJwG2.jpg

Bob Mueller’s Investigation Is Larger—and Further Along—Than You Think https://www.wired.com/story/bob-muellers-investigation-is-largerand-further-alongthan-you-think/

Scoop: FBI director threatened to resign amid Trump, Sessions pressure https://www.axios.com/scoop-1516661397-877adb3e-5f8d-44a1-8a2f-d4f0894ca6a7.html

Inside the room: What Steve Bannon told Congress yesterday https://www.axios.com/steve-bannon-congress-testimony-inside-room-e30bd797-3720-44f0-bf32-5760cb6882e9.html

There's a new report about the US activities of the Russian troll farm that has me scratching my head. 1/ http://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/17/10/2017/59e0c17d9a79470e05a9e6c1?from=center_1 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rbc.ru%2Ftechnology_and_media%2F17%2F10%2F2017%2F59e0c17d9a79470e05a9e6c1%3Ffrom%3Dcenter_1&edit-text=&act=url https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/920342674821079041

Russophobia: RT rates the top 10 Kremlin critics & their hilarious hate campaigns https://www.rt.com/uk/404930-russophobia-kremlin-critics-paranoia/

The Trump Russia investigation is closing in http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-investigation-dossier-christopher-steele-us-robert-mueller-us-election-senate-a7970821.html

Mueller just obtained a new warrant that could change the entire nature of the Russia probe http://read.bi/2x4mLeL

Russian Memes https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMVSmRR2HxJbTwm4eytdv5VxDUqKheSiWseoIVuUC0h4qhJPLvh0gjthwYq1vRqjg?key=SnVYb1JNSEltTWtVWVNtaXROM3puelNlUWtPSnJn

Trump dictated son’s misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer http://wapo.st/2vh7dmA

Two Notorious 'Alt-Right' Figures May Play Key Roles in Russia Investigation - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/07/26/two-notorious-alt-right-figures-may-play-key-roles-russia-investigation

Justice spokeswoman questions report of Sessions' exchange with Russian officials http://politi.co/2toaGfk

Jeff Sessions discussed Trump campaign with Russian ambassador – report https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/21/jeff-sessions-meeting-russian-ambassador-trump-campaign

Exclusive: Moscow lawyer who met Trump Jr. had Russian spy agency as client http://reut.rs/2uGkBAO

Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya says Magnitsky Act lobbyist Browder behind Trump Jr. scandal https://www.rt.com/news/396728-russian-lawyer-scandal-america/

Eighth person in Trump Tower meeting is identified http://wapo.st/2uw9Ukm

Co-founder of firm behind Trump-Russia dossier will not testify before Senate next week. Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. hired the British spy Christopher Steele http://politi.co/2tk6oVF

Peter W. Smith, GOP operative who sought Clinton's emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records... http://fw.to/8e8jaIj

Exclusive: DOJ let Russian lawyer into US before she met with Trump team http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341788-exclusive-doj-let-russian-lawyer-into-us-before-she-met-with-trump

These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html

Russian oligarch who plotted to aid Trump was named in private intelligence dossier https://interc.pt/2sO0Cfe

BREAKING: Exclusive video shows Donald Trump with associates tied to email controversy http://cnn.it/2tfyPUq

Dems: Why did DOJ dismiss fraud case connected to Russian lawyer? http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/341695-democrats-want-to-know-why-doj-dismissed-money-laundering-case

Analysis | Donald Trump Jr.’s emails about meeting a ‘Russian government attorney,’ annotated http://wapo.st/2v8P3QH

What does Robert Mueller's team tell us about the Russia investigation? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/15/robert-mueller-trump-russia-investigation-team-members

Troll finder

Troll finder https://makeadverbsgreatagain.us/mlp/

Welcome to Hamilton 68 Dashboard Tracking Russian Propaganda - Here's what #Putin wants Americans talking about http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org

Maps

The Racism of American Monuments Goes Well Beyond Confederate Statues @atlasobscura https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/confederate-monument-map-2018 https://www.splcenter.org/data-projects/whose-heritage

09-kenneth-field-map-1.w710.h473.jpg
A New 2016 Election Voting Map Promotes … Subtlety http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/a-new-2016-election-voting-map-promotes-subtlety.html

Media, Propaganda, VOICE, Sarah Huckabee Sanders

MSNBC ratings top Fox News for first time in 18 years https://politi.co/2ESBWff via @politico

Anderson Cooper had to pause for thought while talking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders' wish to be remembered as "transparent and honest." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anderson-cooper-sarah-huckabee-sanders_us_5c1210e9e4b0449012f69f04

Layoffs hit the NRA’s media operation NRATV. The launch of NRATV in 2016 presaged a sharp change in tone for the NRA’s media operation. Going beyond misinformation about the debate over gun laws, new programming on the network struck such a hateful, bigoted, and conspiratorial tone that Media Matters termed the operation a “hybrid of Breitbart and Infowars.” NRATV has also essentially served as state TV for the Trump administration, in its early days attacking the press for reporting on then-candidate Donald Trump’s admission on tape that he has sexually assaulted women. The pro-Trump propaganda has continued since then, with one recent example being NRATV host Grant Stinchfield’s declaration that Trump was the real winner of the 2018 midterm elections, where Democrats won the House of Representatives by historic margins. http://mm4a.org/4Y4

Sheriffs who cheered Trump's attack on press have their own media run-ins https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/08/sheriffs-donald-trump-media-scrutiny

Paxton said Texas has "had over 600,000 crimes committed by illegals since 2011. Over 1,200 homicides." Both of these numbers--which we’ve twice debunked in detail since 2010--exceed what the state estimates by more than 400 percent. DPS-posted figures lately suggest that since mid-2011, Texas-jailed individuals believed to be living in the U.S. without legal permission account for 229 homicide convictions among more than 114,000 convictions across a range of mostly minor offenses. Ken Paxton makes a PANTS ON FIRE claim about 'illegals' committing 600,000 Texas crimes since June 2011. https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2018/sep/07/ken-paxton/ken-paxton-draws-debunked-figures-says-illegals-co/ via @PolitiFactTexas

Alex Jones, Rubio trade insults, threats: 'You are literally like a little gangster thug' http://thehill.com/policy/technology/405150-sen-rubio-and-alex-jones-spat-outside-senate-intelligence-hearing

Trump Mollie Tibbetts video suggests separating families at the border prevents American families from being “permanently separated” from their children: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/trump-mollie-tibbetts-video-suggests-separating-families-at-the-border-prevents-american-families-from-being-permanently-separated-from-their-children.html

Pentagon punishes reporters over tough coverage https://politi.co/2Mpl2bJ

Fact-checking the victimhood of Sarah Huckabee Sanders (spoiler: she lied) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/8/3/1785571/-Fact-checking-the-victimhood-of-Sarah-Huckabee-Sanders-spoiler-she-lied

Fact vs. fiction on Fox News: Shep Smith regularly debunks Sean Hannity's lies and propaganda http://mm4a.org/ZFK

Trump blasts back after Times publisher decries 'enemy of the people' attacks https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jul/29/new-york-times-washington-post-trump-attacks-press-warning

BBC News - New York Times tells Trump: Don't call reporters enemies of the people https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44999364

Trump Created An Office To Highlight Immigrant Crime. A Year Later, The Results Are Underwhelming. https://www.buzzfeed.com/verabergengruen/trump-immigrant-crime-calls-voice-john-kelly

Abby Hunstman, host of the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends, said a few minutes ago that the summit between NK leader Kim Jong-un and Trump is a meeting between “two dictators.” She is the daughter of US Russian Ambassador Jon Huntsman. https://twitter.com/riotwomennn/status/1005810019596734464

New Illinois news site designed to counter Breitbart, IPI https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/30/one-illinois-news-site-559765

Baby Breitbarts to pop up across the country? https://politi.co/2w2kWQg

The New Conservative Media Establishment https://politi.co/2r6rRCb

The sinister pro-Trump propaganda of Lou Dobbs http://mm4a.org/ZWU

James O'Keefe Project Veritas says he never 'intended to plant a fake story' in The Washington Post http://wapo.st/2Dwn568

Donald Trump faces backlash as he reveals 'Fake News Awards' winners https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/17/trump-fake-news-awards-winners

Donald Trump hands out fake news awards to the press. We fact-checked them http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jan/18/fact-checking-donald-trumps-fake-news-awards/

  1. Most liberal: Buzzfeed, Salon, Slate, New Yorker
  2. Very liberal: CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, Politico, LA Times, The Guardian, SF Chronicle
  3. Liberal: NBC, Bloomberg, Washington Post
  4. Left-Leaning: USA Today, BBC, Irish Times, The Hill
  5. Right-Leaning: The Economist
  6. Moderately Conservative: The Wall Street Journal, The Times & Sunday Times (U.K.)
  7. Very Conservative: Fox News, The Drudge Report, Washington Examiner, Daily Wire, National Review
  8. Far Right: Breitbart, Infowars

Huge Blunder: Breitbart Accidentally Published Its Prewritten Article Template For Smearing Any Woman Who Accuses A Conservative Of Sexual Assault http://clckhl.co/JCicSQ2

Fox anchor on Miller: 'Don't put that guy in front of cameras again' http://thehill.com/homenews/media/345066-foxs-bolling-dont-put-that-guy-in-front-of-cameras-again

Conservatives call for end to on-camera White House briefings after explosive exchanges http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/345062-conservatives-call-for-end-to-on-camera-briefings-after-explosive-day

White House aide battles reporters over Trump immigration plan http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/345037-white-house-aide-battles-reporters-over-trump-immigration-plan

White House aide blasts CNN reporter for 'cosmopolitan bias' in bizarre exchange http://politi.co/2u1Dv1o

Troll finder https://makeadverbsgreatagain.us/mlp/

Welcome to Hamilton 68 Dashboard Tracking Russian Propaganda - Here's what #Putin wants Americans talking about http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org

Scaramucci's fed-up wife filed for divorce while nine months pregnant http://pge.sx/2uMccJT via @pagesix

Hate groups from across extremist ideologies are joining forces to discredit their hate group designation https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/07/24/hate-groups-across-spectrum-are-joining-forces-discredit-their-hate-group-designation/217358

Atlanta group protests CNN coverage of Trump http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-group-protests-cnn-coverage-trump/k94ylzDMiRHkAtNqaSKn8M/ Americans Protest 'Very Fake News' CNN Outside of Atlanta Headquarters - Breitbart http://bit.ly/2uTRgDn

Breitbart Editor: The Goal Is The ‘Full Destruction And Elimination Of The Entire Mainstream Media’ | Right Wing Watch http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/breitbart-editor-the-goal-is-the-full-destruction-and-elimination-of-the-entire-mainstream-media/

Breitbart is hemorrhaging advertisers http://www.avclub.com/article/breitbart-hemorrhaging-advertisers-256615

Top military journals:

  • Joint Forces Quarterly
  • AirSpace Power Journal
  • NWC Review
  • Parameters
  • Military Review
  • PRISM
  • Strategic Studies Quarterly

The Far Right’s Most Common Memes Explained For Normal People https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/a-normal-persons-guide-to-how-far-right-trolls-talk-to-each?utm_term=.mcko76pPp via @katienotopoulos

Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

“On the Milo Bus With the Lost Boys of America’s New Right” by @PennyRed https://psmag.com/on-the-milo-bus-with-the-lost-boys-of-americas-new-right-629a77e87986

The implosion of Milo Yiannopoulos only took four days http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/22/14690718/milo-yiannopoulos-pedophilia-cpac-book-deal-resignation-timeline

Ranking the media from liberal to conservative, based on their audiences http://wapo.st/1sLzBnI

Media Chart https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/5q52tt/fight_fake_news_updated_and_larger_guide_to/

Free Speech Has a Milo Problem. Ben Shapiro to explain: Jews run the media; earlier this month he characterized a Jewish BuzzFeed writer as a “a typical example of a sort of thick-as-pig shit media Jew”; he justifies anti-Semitic memes as playful trollery and pats racist sites like American Renaissance on the head; he describes himself as a “chronicler of, and occasional fellow traveler with the alt-right” while simultaneously recognizing that their “dangerously bright” intellectuals believe that “culture is inseparable from race”; back in his days going under the name Milo Wagner, he reportedly posed with his hand atop a Hitler biography, posted a Hitler meme about killing 6 million Jews, and wore an Iron Cross; last week he berated a Muslim woman in the audience of one of his speeches for wearing a hijab in the United States; his alt-right followers routinely spammed my Twitter account with anti-Semitic propaganda he tut-tutted before his banning (the amount of anti-Semitism in my feed dropped by at least 70 percent after his ban, which I opposed); he personally Tweeted a picture of a black baby at me on the day of my son’s birth, because according to the alt-right I’m a “cuck” who wants to see the races mixed; he sees the Constitution as a hackneyed remnant of the past, to be replaced by a new right he leads. http://bit.ly/2l0IomP

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos

UPDATED: Milo Yiannopoulos loses book deal, speaking gig over pedophilia “jokes” http://www.avclub.com/r/250668tsd via @TheAVClub

“4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump” by @DaleBeran https://medium.com/@DaleBeran/4chan-the-skeleton-key-to-the-rise-of-trump-624e7cb798cb#.6a0ehmxub

How a right-wing Ferndale fringe group is building a multimedia empire http://on.freep.com/2lvlhEa via @freep

Proud Boys, Charlottesville, Berkeley, Confederate statues

New video shows far-right 'Proud Boys' starting New York street brawl https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/422684-new-video-shows-far-right-proud-boys-starting-new-york-street

A White Supremacist Has Been Found Guilty Of Murder For Killing A Unite The Right Counterprotester https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/blakemontgomery/white-supremacist-guilty-murder-charlottesville

Two additional members of the far-right Proud Boys group were arrested and charged Thursday for their alleged roles in a vicious October attack on the streets of Manhattan. Authorities confirmed to The Daily Beast that Jake Freijo, 25, and David Kuriakose, 35, both face riot and assault charges stemming from an October 12 incident that occurred around 8:40 p.m. in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. After leaving a speech by group founder Gavin McInnes, a group of more than a dozen Proud Boys got into a fight with a passerby on the street. The Proud Boys can be seen kicking and stomping on the victim in video of the encounter, and one man can be heard yelling “faggot” before the fight was broken up. Three men were arrested and charged the night of the incident, and three more were arrested and charged 10 days later. https://www.thedailybeast.com/two-more-proud-boys-arrested-charged-in-nyc-attack-nypd

Last month, a Manhattan GOP club invited Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes to give a speech. New documents show the FBI considers the Proud Boys to be an "extremist" group. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-proud-boys-extremist-group_us_5bf317bee4b0376c9e67be53

Alleged member of white supremacist fight club signs plea agreement. Tyler Laube, 22, signed a plea agreement Tuesday in which he agreed to plead guilty to a count of conspiracy, according to court documents. He is expected to formally enter his plea in Los Angeles federal court court next week. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to court documents. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rise-above-guilty-plea-20181115-story.html

Gavin McInnes Whines His Fellow Rich Neighbors Don’t Like Him. Online, Gavin McInnes is the gung-ho, ex-punk leader of a hate group who rails against liberal decadence. At home in his wealthy New York suburb, he’s upset that liberals won’t accept him. “I blame [George] Soros for all of this,” McInnes said during a September broadcast of Infowars, on which he bemoaned what he claimed was his supposedly degraded social status. “Soros is terrorizing me and trying to shut down my fraternal club, the Proud Boys. And he’s paying people to mess with my life, and spread these lies about me, spread fake news.” https://thebea.st/2T8erTx

The 'Oregonian' Faces Heavy Criticism After Publishing a Piece Sympathizing With a Far-Right Group https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-oregonian-faces-heavy-criticism-after-publishing-a-piece-sympathizing-with-a-far-right-group

Three members of Rise Above Movement arrested in California, fourth sought as fugitive turns himself in. Robert Rundo, a 28-year-old Huntington Beach, California, resident, 29-year-old Michael Paul Miselis, of Lawndale, California, and 25-year-old Benjamin Drake Daley of Redondo Beach went to Germany, Italy and Ukraine in spring 2018 not only to celebrate, but also to meet with European white supremacist groups, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint against Rundo unsealed this week. 38-year-old Aaron Eason of Anza, California, surrendered to the FBI over the weekend. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/29/three-members-rise-above-movement-arrested-california-fourth-sought-fugitive-turns-himself

4th Southern California-based white-supremacist group member charged in attacks surrenders to FBI in Westwood. Aaron Eason, 38, turned himself in at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s local headquarters in Westwood about 2 p.m. https://www.dailynews.com/2018/10/28/4th-southern-california-based-white-supremacist-group-member-charged-in-attacks-surrenders-to-fbi-in-westwood/ via @ladailynews

Alleged Proud Boys member from Jackson Heights turns himself in following vicious Upper East Side attack: NYPD. Irvin Antillon, 41, was arrested and charged with riot and assault for his role in the Oct. 12 beat down that took place just blocks away from the Metropolitan Republican Club following a speech by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. https://www.timesledger.com/stories/2018/43/proudboys_2018_10_26_q.html

F.B.I. Arrests White Nationalist Leader Who Fled the Country for Central America.Robert Rundo, 28, of Huntington Beach, Calif., is being held at the federal jail in downtown Los Angeles. He and three other Californians associated with the group — Robert Boman, 25, Tyler Laube, 22, and Aaron Eason, 38 — were charged with inciting riots, according to court documents. Mr. Boman and Mr. Laube were arrested on Tuesday morning in Southern California. The F.B.I. said it was still searching for Mr. Eason. Earlier this month, another four members of the Rise Above Movement — Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis, Thomas Gillen and Cole White — were indicted on conspiracy to riot charges for attacking counterprotesters during last year’s Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. https://nyti.ms/2JgEbZh

Four Local Members of White Supremacy Group Face Federal Charges in Attacks at Political Rallies across California https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/four-local-members-white-supremacy-group-face-federal-charges-attacks-political-rallies

Skinhead 'Irv' among five charged in Proud Boys' New York City assault - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/22/skinhead-irv-among-five-charged-proud-boys-new-york-city-assault

Pelosi heckled by Miami Republicans, Proud Boys at campaign event https://thehill.com/homenews/house/412405-pelosi-heckled-by-miami-republicans-proud-boys-at-campaign-event

Not just a ‘provocateur’: Gavin McInnes should not be allowed into Australia | Jason Wilson https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/19/not-just-a-provocateur-gavin-mcinnes-should-not-be-allowed-into-australia

Pelosi heckled by Miami Republicans, Proud Boys at campaign event https://thehill.com/homenews/house/412405-pelosi-heckled-by-miami-republicans-proud-boys-at-campaign-event

The Poisonous Allure of Right-Wing Violence By RICH LOWRY https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/gavin-mcinnes-proud-boys-poisonous-violence/

De Blasio: No evidence NYPD is sympathetic to Proud Boys http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-deblasio-nypd-proud-boys-20181019-story.html

Skinhead 'Irv' among five charged in Proud Boys' New York City assault - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/22/skinhead-irv-among-five-charged-proud-boys-new-york-city-assault

Skinheads? Check. Connections to white nationalist groups? Yep. Violence in the streets? Yes. These are the Proud Boys. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/proud-boys-arrests-fascist-groups_us_5bce15bbe4b0d38b587afe5f

NYPD Arrests Three More Proud Boys for Manhattan Brawl With Antifa. The newly arrested Proud Boys include Irvin Antillon, Douglas Lennan, and Maxwell Hare, the NYPD said. Antillon, of Queens, and Lennan, of Northport, New York, were both arrested on charges of riot and assault. Hare, of Harrisburg, Penn., faces charges of assault and riot, as well as gang assault and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the NYPD. https://thebea.st/2NZSySJ

In this disturbing interview from 10/16, Proud Boy Tiny Toese and the host discuss committing violence w/ guns, encourage people to murder antifa, call for the mayor of Portland to be tried by military tribunal and for Democrats to be electrocuted and smashed. https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1053786004014809088

The Proud Boys’ acceptance at a fancy Republican club looks a lot like the courtship between conservatives and fascists before WWI: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/proud-boys-republican-club-wwii-fascists.html

Weekend Read: Violence and hate, that's The Proud Boys in a nutshell - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/news/2018/10/18/weekend-read-violence-and-hate-thats-proud-boys-nutshell

Police Have Made Their Second Arrest Of Members Of The Far-Right Men's Group That Beat Up Protesters In New York. Geoffrey Young, 38, of New City, New York, was arrested at his home Thursday night on charges of riot and attempted assault. John Kinsman was arrested Friday. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/police-have-arrested-their-first-member-of-the-far-right via @juliareinstein

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes has been using the same anti-gay slur hurled in the NYC attack for at least 15 years - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/19/proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes-has-been-using-same-anti-gay-slur-hurled-nyc-attack-least

NYPD Arrests First Proud Boy for Manhattan Fight With Antifa. Geoffrey Young was charged with riot and attempted assault for his role in the brawl between the right-wing group led by Gavin McInnes and protesters. https://thebea.st/2J54VMh

Why are the Proud Boys so violent? Ask Gavin McInnes - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/18/why-are-proud-boys-so-violent-ask-gavin-mcinnes

Mob of white nationalist 'Proud Boys' brutally beat several men: 'Are you brave now faggot?!' https://thinkprogress.org/proud-boys-violent-mob-after-gavin-mcinnes-lecture-899d32404a75/ via @thinkprogress

Four members of Rise Above Movement indicted in Charlottesville, one went to Europe to meet with white supremacist groups before 'Unite the Right' - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/11/four-members-rise-above-movement-indicted-charlottesville-one-went-europe-meet-white#.W8FaYazpsbk.twitter

Charlottesville rioting defendant linked to earlier violence in California - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/03/charlottesville-rioting-defendant-linked-earlier-violence-california

Four members of racist, antisemitic 'Rise Above Movement' charged with rioting at 'Unite the Right' tiki-torch march - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/02/four-members-racist-antisemitic-rise-above-movement-charged-rioting-unite-right-tiki-torch

Unite the Right 2 was a failure — but American fascism is not dead https://www.salon.com/2018/08/13/unite-the-right-2-was-a-failure-but-american-fascism-is-not-dead/ In a 1944 op-ed for the New York Times, Vice President Henry A. Wallace described an “American Fascist” as a person “whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions, or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” Umberto Eco, an Italian writer who grew up in the 1930s, saw fascism as an inherently adaptable system: “Fascism had no quintessence. Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions.” And to quote George Orwell: “Almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist.’ That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.”

The Alt-Right is Taking Over Renaissance Fairs https://thebea.st/2JXPkgd?source=twitter&via=desktop via @thedailybeast

Activists Disappointed By Pitifully Low Turnout Numbers at Pro-Gun Marches https://jezebel.com/activists-disappointed-by-pitifully-low-turnout-numbers-1827436273

Major defense contractor fires employee who allegedly attended violent Charlottesville rally. Northrop Grumman confirmed on Friday that Michael Miselis, a PhD student who had a government security clearance as part of his work as a systems engineer at the company, would no longer be working for the company. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/395895-major-defense-contractor-fires-outed-white-supremacist

Which Confederate statues were removed? A running list https://fxn.ws/2t552Rh

Inside the Chaos and Hate at Charlottesville https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzz8we/inside-the-chaos-and-hate-at-charlottesville

Chicano Park Murals Targeted as Revenge for Confederate Statue Removals https://sandiegofreepress.org/2017/08/chicano-park-murals-targeted-as-revenge-for-confederate-statue-removals/

Why are there still Nazis? These eight questions can help explain. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0814/Why-are-there-still-Nazis-These-eight-questions-can-help-explain

There is No Valid Counterpart to Right-Wing Violence https://www.truthdig.com/articles/no-valid-counterpart-right-wing-violence/

Help "Topple" the Monument to Communism in California https://patriot-fire.net/2017/08/19/topple-the-monument-to-commmunism/

Why the Media Refuses to Understand Antifa https://psmag.com/social-justice/understanding-antifa

Opinion | Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis. Marc Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Follow @marcthiessen http://wapo.st/2iHaeYS

What the media got wrong about last weekend's protests in Berkeley http://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/08/what-the-media-got-wrong-about-last-weekends-protests-in-berkeley/

Virginia received DHS warning before Charlottesville rally http://politi.co/2x2Cn1S

Leaked Chats Show White Nationalists Planned Use Of Brutal Force In C’Ville http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/unite-the-right-participants-premeditated-use-violence-leaked-chats-unicorn

Three men charged in Charlottesville attacks on counterprotesters http://wapo.st/2iBkFgl

As White Nationalist in Charlottesville Fired, Police ‘Never Moved’ https://nyti.ms/2w5BCo5

Lots Of Americans Aren't Sure If We Should Take Down Confederate Statues http://53eig.ht/2wgVUfm

Analysis | The whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy http://wapo.st/2uOXelp

Confederate Statues Were Built To Further A 'White Supremacist Future' https://n.pr/2vMPh1h

In Their Own Words: What Some of the Charlottesville Rally Participants Stand For https://nyti.ms/2vaQ8XO

Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy

Trump is wrong: There's no equivalence between antifa and white supremacists, writes @PeterBeinart: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/what-trump-gets-wrong-about-antifa/537048/

Disturbing Pictures From The History Of America's Nazis https://www.buzzfeed.com/gabrielsanchez/american-hate

Anti-Semitism on Full Display in Charlottesville https://www.adl.org/blog/anti-semitism-on-full-display-in-charlottesville

Militia, Police Riots and Violence, ICE family separation, Khashoggi murder

Trump ICE director nominee called administration 'heartless' for forcing him out: report. In January 2017 emails acquired by Axios, then-U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan told then-acting Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, who is now acting Homeland Security secretary, that the administration’s push for him to leave immediately was “heartless and void of any decency and compassion." In other emails, Morgan wrote to McAleenan "I am being removed in the name of politics — and politics at its worst. … I will not have them believe I willingly left under these circumstances” and "This is wrong on many levels. I have several questions but I need to process through a bit more." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444485-trump-ice-director-nominee-called-administration-heartless-for

Khashoggi’s body parts found in garden of Saudi consul general’s home – sources — RT World News https://www.rt.com/news/442023-khashoggis-body-parts-found/

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes: "I have a lot of support in the NYPD and I very much appreciate that" http://mm4a.org/4SV

ezmb0R4.jpg
Jasper police officers suspended for 'white power' hand symbol in post-arrest photo http://s.al.com/MqMYERM

Scenes From an American Tragedy: The Texas Border Crisis https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/immigration-border-crisis-molly-crabapple-713991/ via @RollingStone

'It's definitely intimidation': police accused over raids on activist's family https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/26/memphis-police-raids-activists-family-black-lives-matter

Anti-fascists say police post mugshots on Twitter to 'intimidate and silence' https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/16/anti-fascist-protesters-antifa-police-doxing-twitter-mugshots

Charlottesville survivors call on Americans to 'fight the everyday white supremacy' Those hurt in the Charlottesville attack a year ago want white people to go beyond merely marking the anniversary – ‘join anti-racist organizations, self-educate and support people of color’ “We saw from last year, they will always protect white supremacists and not counterprotesters,” Schectman said. “The police do not protect us. They will always harm black and brown communities and anti-racist activists.” https://gu.com/p/96nxz/stw

Police violence, cliques, and secret tattoos: fears rise over LA sheriff 'gangs' https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/05/police-violence-cliques-and-secret-tattoos-fears-rise-over-la-sheriff-gangs

Trump says white supremacist terror is fake news. These chilling cases prove otherwise. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/07/donald-trump-white-supremacists-terrorism/ via @MotherJones

Police worked with violent pro-Trump activist to prosecute leftwing group https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/15/police-pro-trump-berkeley-leftwing-activists-court-case

Stabbed at a neo-Nazi rally, called a criminal: how police targeted a black activist https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/25/neo-nazi-rally-california-stabbing-police-target-black-activist

Fatal encounters: 97 deaths point to pattern of border agent violence across America https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/02/fatal-encounters-97-deaths-point-to-pattern-of-border-agent-violence-across-america

Militarized cops at a neo-Nazi rally in Georgia arrested counterprotesters for wearing masks. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/georgia-neo-nazi-rally-police-militarized-arrests_us_5adbf0f6e4b075b631e65f49

Neo-Nazi counterprotesters met by aggressive military police force in Georgia. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/neo-nazi-counterprotesters-met-by-aggressive-military-police-force-in-newnan-georgia.html

Newnan police violence https://twitter.com/xshularx/status/987762130773475328

A Leaked Message Board Shows What White Supremacists Think of the Police https://rewirenews.link/2p0g9YQ

Did police help neo-Nazis? Protesters say yes http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article199384044.html

California police worked with neo-Nazis to pursue 'anti-racist' activists, documents show https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/09/california-police-white-supremacists-counter-protest

After Church Shooting, Stewart Rhodes Tells Oath Keepers To ‘Go Armed At All Times, In All Places’ To Prepare For ‘Full Blown Civil War’ | Right Wing Watch http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/after-church-shooting-stewart-rhodes-tells-oath-keepers-to-go-armed-at-all-times-in-all-places-to-prepare-for-full-blown-civil-war/

The Hate Report: Another white man accused of randomly killing black men https://www.revealnews.org/blog/hate-report-another-white-man-accused-of-randomly-killing-black-men/

Militia extremists are being agitated to take up arms against Antifa. https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/911652673002266624

Democratic Candidate Violently Arrested @Trump Rally: After another violent Donald Trump rally, San Diego police arrested over 30 people, including a man they could soon be working with quite closely. Bryan Pease, a 1st amendment and animal rights attorney, is on the ballot Tuesday's California primary for San Diego City Attorney. Pease attended the Trump rally to protect the free speech rights of fellow Californians and ended up getting swept up in a massive show of force by militarized law enforcement. https://youtu.be/hVhmENlR_3s

Pence, Sessions, Kelly, Bolton, Sheriff Clarke, Alt-Right Nazis, Birthers

John Kelly Confirms He Was Lying All Along: The White House Is in Chaos https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kelly-exit-interview-773739/ via @RollingStone

Neo-Nazis Are Organizing Secretive Paramilitary Training Across America https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mexp/neo-nazis-are-organizing-secretive-paramilitary-training-across-america

Ted Nugent upset that Michigan is turning 'into a California s***hole' after Election Day https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ted-nugent-upset-michigan-turning-california-shole-election-day-184242032.html

Are White Men America's Biggest Terror Threat? We Checked https://www.theroot.com/are-white-men-americas-biggest-terror-threat-we-checke-1830175112

“We Are at a Turning Point”: Counterterrorism Experts Say Trump Is Inspiring a New Era of Right-Wing Violence. “These are all extremist messages that I saw on Stormfront and other white-supremacist message boards 10 or 15 years ago,” says one former Homeland Security analyst. “Now they are being endorsed as policy by the president.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/trump-administration-tree-of-life-shooting-domestic-terrorism

Richard Spencer's Wife Says He Physically Abused Her, Including While She Was Pregnant https://jezebel.com/richard-spencers-wife-says-he-physically-abused-her-in-1829945399

On the 45 year anniversary of being awarded his Nobel Peace Prize, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was interrupted four times and told to “rot in hell” by protestors on Tuesday evening during a talk at NYU’s Stern School of Business. https://twitter.com/vivafalastin/status/1052332178879721473 https://nyunews.com/2018/10/16/10-17-news-kissinger/

Is that an OK sign? A white power symbol? Or just a right-wing troll? - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll

A Coast Guard officer on hurricane duty made a hand signal on TV. Some saw a white-power sign. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/a-coast-guard-officer-on-hurricane-duty-made-a-hand-signal-on-tv-some-saw-a-white-power-sign-1.547629

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Zina Bash giving 'White Power' Republican gang signal

John Bolton threatens war crimes court with sanctions in virulent attack https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/10/john-bolton-castigate-icc-washington-speech

MOAR 2018 https://www.flickr.com/photos/isisdc/albums/72157697917652082

As ethics questions swirl, Zinke knows how to work a crowd - https://www.hcn.org/articles/politics-as-ethics-questions-swirl-zinke-knows-how-to-work-a-crowd @highcountrynews

A Study Says That 24 Million Americans Have Alt-Right Beliefs. What Does that Number Mean? Respondents were asked how important their race was to their identity on a five-point scale ranging from “not at all important” to “extremely important.” They were also asked a question measuring their feelings of white solidarity: “How important is it that whites work together to change laws that are unfair to whites?” This followed the same five-point scale. Finally, we can assess survey respondents’ feelings of white victimization from their answers to the question of how much discrimination whites face in the U.S., also on a five-point scale, ranging from “none at all” to a “great deal.” http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/study-24-million-white-americans-have-alt-right-beliefs.html

More of Mike Pence's Old Writing Unearthed to Prove He's a Complete Fucking Hypocrite Who Also Sucks  https://theslot.jezebel.com/more-of-mike-pences-old-writing-unearthed-to-prove-hes-1828157503

Disturbing images reveal inside America’s White Nationalist Movement where members boast about their racism, anti-semitism and love of the KKK https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6907181/white-nationalist-movement-kkk-us-anti-semitism/

John Bolton's Curious Appearance In A Russian Gun Rights Video https://n.pr/2FZhXbS

Pence family's failed gas stations cost taxpayers $20M https://apnews.com/07f9256ae1984362ba3eff192b4d6dd0

Oregon ranchers pardoned by Trump fly home on Pence donor's private jet http://thehill.com/homenews/396688-oregon-ranchers-pardoned-by-trump-fly-home-on-pence-donors-private-jet

The Hate Report: The hate behind the immigration crackdown. White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller has been one of the driving forces behind the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families. Quiz: Who said it: The president of the United States or a commenter on the neo-Nazi site Stormfront? https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?e=ce336956f5&u=cb5ac439b0222506e9eb7736c

Melania Trump Asks To See Barack Obama's Birth Certificate - Supported B... https://youtu.be/sSTx1ZODEcQ

Sessions cites Bible in defense of breaking up families, blames migrant parents. "Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order," Sessions said. "Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful." He called on religious leaders to "speak up strongly to urge anyone who would come here to apply lawfully, to wait their turn and not violate the law." Later Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders doubled down on Sessions' comments, saying it is "very biblical to enforce the law." https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/sessions-cites-bible-defense-breaking-families-blames-migrant-parents-n883296 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.

Another Former Marine veteran Erik Sailors heads the Texas chapter of Patriot Front Is Using His Military Training to Help White Supremacists  http://theslot.jezebel.com/another-former-marine-is-using-his-military-training-to-1826729485 Marine Veteran Trains White Supremacists in Military Tactics https://thebea.st/2sV5WPn

JUN 07 2018 U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) delivered remarks today at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference. Offering his vision for a “civic nationalism based on shared American citizenship,” Rubio spoke about how fully restoring American prosperity and leadership in the world can only be brought about by replenishing the strength of the classic American institutions of work, family, community, and country. https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Press-Releases&id=47FAA9F1-0B4B-46AD-97C3-DAC336EA6CA2

Marines Open Investigation into Active Duty White Supremacist https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/marines-open-investigation-into-active-duty-white-supremacist/

Ranks of notorious hate group include active-duty military https://www.propublica.org/article/atomwaffen-division-hate-group-active-duty-military

Seeing Through the Rhetoric of the Alt-Right | West Virginia News | US News https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/west-virginia/articles/2018-04-29/seeing-through-the-rhetoric-of-the-alt-right

Emails Show That Cops Focused on Counterprotesters at Tennessee Rally but Were Totally Cool With Nazis http://www.theroot.com/emails-show-cops-focused-on-counterprotesters-at-tenn-1825662357

Want to know about the new White Power symbols? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/4/23/1759298/-Want-to-know-about-the-new-White-Power-symbols

YouTube temporarily hid a video of Richard Spencer declaring ‘Hail, Trump,’ as his supporters threw Nazi salutes, @yayitsrob reports https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/youtube-removes-the-atlantics-hail-trump-video-from-search/555941/

John Bolton’s Cambridge Analytica connection: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/john-boltons-cambridge-analytica-connection.html

The alt-right is fractured, more violent headed into Trump's second year | Analysis http://www.newsweek.com/alt-right-fractured-violent-headed-trump-second-year-785552

Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group’s Campaign of Menace. They train to fight. They post their beatings online. And so far, they have little reason to fear the authorities. https://www.propublica.org/article/white-hate-group-campaign-of-menace-rise-above-movement

Alt-America: the time for talking about white terrorism is now https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/26/alt-america-terrorism-rightwing-hate-crimes

Armed resistance, lone wolves, and media messaging: meet the godfather of the ‘alt-right’ https://timeline.com/amp/p/20d028315d

‘White Lives Matter’ organizers cancel second rally after taunts from counterprotesters https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/white-lives-matter-organizers-cancel-second-rally-after-being-taunted-by-counterprotesters/2017/10/28/a6fee0d2-bc1f-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

One in four troops sees white nationalism in the ranks https://goo.gl/Q6rXz1

It didn't just start now: John Kelly has always been a hard-right bully https://interc.pt/2yFiluP by @tinyrevolution

Homeland Security’s John Kelly is unhinged https://goo.gl/XB0aI2

When white nationalists chant their weird slogans, what do they mean? Explaining ‘You Will Not Replace Us,’ ‘Blood and Soil,’ ‘Russia is Our Friend,’ and other catchphrases from torch-bearing marchers in Charlottesville. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/10/10/when-white-nationalists-chant-their-weird-slogans-what-do-they-mean

Our search for a secret white supremacist meeting in a Tennessee forest https://goo.gl/QwWBLd

Reveal host Al Letson @al_letson shields man from beating at anti-hate rally. The man Letson protected identifies himself as Trump supporter and video blogger Keith Campbell. Later, the man Letson protected reached out to him on social media. His name is Keith Campbell, 54, a President Donald Trump supporter and video blogger who was live streaming the rally on Sunday. He says antifa members know him from his conservative youtube channel Patriot Warrior Media – where he’s known as @KPikklefield – and targeted him specifically. https://www.revealnews.org/blog/reveal-host-al-letson-shields-man-from-beating-at-anti-hate-rally/

Full speaker list released for ‘Free Speech Week’ at UC Berkeley https://goo.gl/JpJknM

Sept. 24: “Feminism Awareness Day”
Miss Elaine
Lucian Wintrich
Lisa DePasquale
Chadwick Moore
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sept. 25: “Zuck 2020”
Heather Mac Donald
Monica Crowley
SABO
Professor Jordan Peterson
James Damore
Sept. 26: “Islamic Peace and Tolerance Day”
Michael Malice
Raheem Kassam
Katie Hopkins
Erik Prince
Pamela Geller
David Horowitz
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sept. 27: “Mario Savio is Dead”
Mike Cernovich
Charles Murray
Ariana Rowlands
Stelion Onufrei
Alex Marlow
Milo Yiannopoulos
Steve Bannon
Ann Coulter

Marine Booted From Corps For Flying White Nationalist Banner Amid Crackdown On Extremism via @TaskandPurpose https://goo.gl/6mZ32u

‘White nationalist’ arrested after LGBT attack in Asbury Park, group says https://goo.gl/JL1bgK

Milo Yiannapolous Scheduled to Speak at Cal State Fullerton—And Students Ain't Having It https://goo.gl/CFcr4p

Televangelist Jim Bakker: Christians will start a civil war if Trump is impeached https://goo.gl/BGU4LB

An exclusive look at the controversial memo that cost an NSC staffer his job. @RosieGray reports: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/a-national-security-council-staffer-is-forced-out-over-a-controversial-memo/535725/ https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3922874/Political-Warfare.pdf

OPINION | The real threat to our republic is the Orwellian Antifa. Ned Ryun is a former presidential adviser for George W. Bush and the founder and CEO of American Majority. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/348137-the-real-threat-to-our-republic-is-the-orwellian-antifa

Did Sebastian Gorka Bolt From the White House—Or Was He Pushed? http://thebea.st/2ixyH2v

Flags and Other Symbols Used By Far-Right Groups in Anti-Semitism on Full Display in Charlottesville https://www.adl.org/blog/anti-semitism-on-full-display-in-charlottesville - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/12/flags-and-other-symbols-used-far-right-groups-charlottesville

FBI and DHS Warned of Growing Threat From White Supremacists Months Ago http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/14/fbi-and-dhs-warned-of-growing-threat-from-white-supremacists-months-ago/

Californian Who Helped Lead Charlottesville Protests Used Berkeley as a Test Run https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/08/14/californian-who-helped-organize-charlottesville-protests-used-berkeley-as-a-test-run/

Reno student marching in Virginia rally denounces violence. Reno television station KTVN on Saturday identified 20-year-old Peter Cvjetanovic among the marchers at Friday night’s “Unite the Right” rally, staged to protest the mandated removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A photo of an open-mouthed, tiki-torch-toting Cvjetanovic at the rally went viral on social media Saturday. https://lvrj.com/post/1151094

Fear of 'violent left' preceded events in Charlottesville http://wapo.st/2uDOMFD

Sebastian Gorka, the West Wing's Phony Foreign-Policy Guru http://rol.st/2vFU476

Extremists' "Unite the Right" Rally: A Possible Historic Alt-Right Showcase? - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/07/extremists-unite-right-rally-possible-historic-alt-right-showcase

Fox guest Dinesh D’Souza: Hitler took three "very destructive, genocidal ideas from the Democratic Party" https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/08/01/fox-guest-dinesh-d-souza-hitler-took-three-very-destructive-genocidal-ideas-democratic-party/217465

Tennessee White Supremacist Group Confederate Blood and Honour Returns - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/02/tennessee-white-supremacist-group-confederate-blood-and-honour-returns

Neo-Nazi Misfits Join Unite the Right - Southern Poverty Law Center. The National Socialist Movement (NSM) published a YouTube video and flier announcing that NSM members and their leader, Jeff Schoep, will attend the Unite the Right rally on August 12. Michael Hill, leader of the neo-confederate group League of the South, and Traditionalist Worker Party chairman Matthew Heimbach, are among 10 scheduled speakers. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/07/26/neo-nazi-misfits-join-unite-right

“Why did everyone stop asking Sebastian Gorka about Nazis?” by Addy Baird https://thinkprogress.org/why-did-everyone-stop-asking-sebastian-gorka-about-nazis-91236f795dc4

Farewell, Sean Spicer, we hardly knew what the hell ye were doing http://www.avclub.com/article/farewell-sean-spicer-we-hardly-knew-what-hell-ye-w-258408 via @TheAVClub

‘Pizzagate’ Promoter Responds To ADL’s Alt-Right List With Video From Auschwitz http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jack-posobiec-responds-to-adl-alt-right-list-auschwitz

Pro-Trump internet personalities throw tantrums after ADL identifies their hateful rhetoric https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/07/19/Pro-Trump-internet-personalities-throw-tantrums-after-ADL-identifies-their-hateful-rhetori/217316

From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/from-alt-right-to-alt-lite-naming-the-hate

BBC News - Invite-only as Trump voter fraud commission meets http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40663759

Bannon’s 2016: ‘Rootless White Males,’ ‘Pure Evil’ And A ‘F*cking Hammerhead’ http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/joshua-green-steve-bannon-trump-campaign

A Conservative Media Site Just Published Jeff Sessions’ No-Press-Allowed Religious Freedom Speech https://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/jeff-sessions-speech-relgious-freedom

Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Address Anti-LGBT Hate Group in Closed-Door Event - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/07/11/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-address-anti-lgbt-hate-group-closed-door-event

The state of hate in America https://usat.ly/2u7pqDj

Guns and KKK members at Gettysburg Confederate rally, but no foes to fight http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gettysburg-confederate-rally-kkk-antifa_us_59592bd8e4b05c37bb7f0ca4

Dueling Alt-Right Rallies, Separated by Anti-Semitism, Face Off in DC Despite Calls to "Unite the Right"; - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/06/26/dueling-alt-right-rallies-separated-anti-semitism-face-dc-despite-calls-unite-right

The Far-Right Alliance Is Over. Across from the White House in shady Lafayette Park, a who’s who of right wing Twitterati whom the vast majority Americans still have never heard of—Mike Cernovich, Laura Loomer, Jack Posobiec, Cassandra Fairbanks, Lucian Wintrich, Kyle Prescott—were posing for selfies with fans and taking turns at a makeshift podium. But despite over 600,000 Twitter followers combined and direct access to mid-level conservative outlets like The Rebel, Big League Politics, and Gateway Pundit, the Rally Against Political Violence managed to draw 150 people at most to the nation’s capitol. Gathering to cheerlead the president was the typical cadre of young, white, meme-fluent men, but families and veterans as well. Many on the outskirts claimed to be tourists, and Lafayette Park’s crowd was outnumbered by the anti-abortion gaggle in front of the White House gates. The event’s keynote speaker, former Trump advisor Roger Stone, was a no-show. Richard Spencer http://gizmodo.com/the-far-right-alliance-is-over-1796418882

Hatewatch‏ @Hatewatch At the "Rally Against Political Violence" in DC, this speaker just said "It's time to put George Soros in a gas chamber!" https://twitter.com/Hatewatch/status/879008791228035072

FBI Fired Sebastian Gorka for Anti-Muslim Diatribes http://thebea.st/2sXeeZ8

Mike Pence’s private emails are costing Indiana $100,000 in records requests http://www.newsweek.com/mike-pences-private-email-account-costing-indiana-100000-627000

Syrian archives add new details to Henry Kissinger’s disastrous record in the Middle East https://interc.pt/2sotWcO by @CharlesMGlass

Pence retains outside counsel as Russia probes deepen http://politi.co/2s6qkxH

Club for Hollywood Republicans locked in dispute – caused in part by Trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/13/hollywood-republicans-friends-of-abe-club-trump

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-ambassador-to-the-us-sergey-kislyak-leaves-after-a-news-photo/650712408?#russian-ambassador-to-the-us-sergey-kislyak-leaves-after-a-foreign-picture-id650712408

Protests erupt over university inviting Palestinian-American activist to speak at graduation http://www.10news.com/news/national/protests-erupt-over-university-inviting-palestinian-american-activist-to-speak-at-graduation

Bice: Sheriff Clarke directed staff to hassle plane passenger after brief exchange http://jsonl.in/2rkIjBB via @journalsentinel

Army vet goes in on Sheriff Clarke's 'toy uniform' with its 'novelty pins' http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/18/1663660/-Army-vet-goes-in-on-Sheriff-Clarke-s-toy-uniform-with-its-novelty-pins

A Nazi-linked group was "proud" after Trump aide Sebastian Gorka wore its medal http://nbcnews.to/2oPtMfw

It’s Not Just Milo: Five Of The Wildest CPAC Speakers Steve Bannon Frank Gaffney Clare Lopez David Clarke Trevor Loudon | Right Wing Watch http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its-not-just-milo-five-of-the-wildest-cpac-speakers/

CPAC Got Rid Of Milo, But Not The Rest Of Their Bigoted Lineup http://mm4a.org/2kJM68h

Dick Cheney will intro Pence at Republican Jewish Coalition event http://politi.co/2lkTNRg

Pence visits former Nazi concentration camp @CNNPolitics Jews in first sentence total 5 times http://cnn.it/2lyX7ZJ

US VICE PRESIDENT VISITS FORMER NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP Jews in 5th paragraph total 2 times http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EUROPE_PENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today

Trump Pushes New Tax Cuts Before Election Day https://shar.es/a1Nm7F https://twitter.com/RiegerReport/status/1053760188250050560 Two weeks ago, Trump said he was “studying very deeply" a “major tax cut … around the 1st of November, maybe a little before that." On Wednesday, the White House acknowledged there would be no tax cut this year. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-statement-house-ways-means-committee-republicans-regarding-taxes/

August 04, 2018: Trump on GDP: It's going a lot higher http://thehill.com/policy/finance/400425-trump-on-41-percent-gdp-its-going-a-lot-higher

Trump made the remarks during a signing ceremony for a right-to-try drug bill while touting the work his administration is doing to combat the rising cost of prescription drugs. “We’re going to have some of the big drug companies in in two weeks and they’re going to announce — because of what we did — they’re going to announce voluntary massive drops in prices, so that’s great,” Trump said. He added, “For the first time ever in this country, there will be a major drop in the cost of prescription drugs.” https://politi.co/2ssfWzh

Trump touts renewed 'spirit' at State Dept. under Pompeo. “You'll be doing things that you don't even know about,” Trump said. “Right now, they're not even a glimmer in your eye.” "you'll see why over the coming years, probably over the coming months,” the president said. https://politi.co/2IaDoLs

Trump: I know things about Tester that would cause him to lose an election http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385363-trump-i-know-things-about-tester-that-would-cause-him-to-lose-an

Trump says U.S. will leave Syria ‘very soon’ — despite promises not to telegraph military moves. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/03/29/trump-says-u-s-will-leave-syria-very-soon-despite-promises-not-to-telegraph-military-moves/

Trump moves back 'Fake News Awards,' citing high interest http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367834-trump-moves-back-fake-news-awards

White House says it will provide list of eyewitness reports refuting Trump's accusers http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/364318-white-house-says-it-will-provide-list-of-eyewitnesses-refuting-trumps

Trump pledges to declare opioid emergency 'next week' — again http://politi.co/2izQvdQ

Trump at gathering of military leaders: 'Maybe this is the calm before the storm'. "You'll be hearing about Iran very shortly,” Trump said when asked by reporters. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/354173-trump-at-gathering-of-military-leaders-maybe-this-is-the-calm-before

Las Vegas shooter recalled as intelligent gambler well-versed on gun rights. On Tuesday, asked about the prospect of gun control measures in response to the murders, the president said “we’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/04/las-vegas-shooter-stephen-paddock-intelligent-gambler-gun-rights

Trump: 'I have decided' what to do with the Iran deal. What's that? He won't say http://fw.to/sklgq5a

Trump said he'd declare an opioid state of emergency. Guess what hasn't happened… http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/trump-said-hed-declare-an-opioid-state-of-emergency-guess-what-hasnt-happened/

The Trump administration is refusing to meet the deadlines it sets for itself https://interc.pt/2v5AwK5

Trump signals Arpaio pardon coming 08/22/2017 11:02 PM EDT http://politi.co/2xbd3UX

Trump promises press conference on Melania's immigration story http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/290935-trump-on-wifes-immigration-story-she-came-in-totally

Executive order tracker: @realDonaldTrump is creating deadlines for himself and blowing them left and right https://projects.theintercept.com/eo-tracker/

Who will Trump fire next? His July 4 White House shake-up deadline has passed http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-white-house-shakeup-youre-fired-reince-priebus-who-next-632284

Trump previewed a 'major Clinton speech' after Trump Jr set up meeting http://dailym.ai/2vbW1o9

Trump Promised to Find the ‘Other’ Election Hackers. He Still Hasn’t. The president said he would have his own election hacking report in 90 days. That was seven months ago. http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-promised-to-find-the-other-election-hackers-he-still-hasnt

Trump teases 'big surprise' on Senate Obamacare repeal effort http://politi.co/2smQnxp

Trump misses his own deadline for ISIS news conference. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/26/politics/donald-trump-isis-press-conference-deadline/index.html

Analysis | Trump's bluff on White House tapes wasn't just dishonest — it was also a failure http://wapo.st/2rZl63m

Spicer may disclose if there are Comey tapes later this week http://nydn.us/2rx2bh1

House, Senate investigators seek Trump tapes, Comey memos. The House requested Comey and the White House provide the records, including tapes if they exist, by June 23. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/09/politics/comey-tape-request-congress/index.html

Trump refuses to commit to Paris climate agreement, vows decision “next week.” http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/27/trump_refuses_to_commit_to_paris_climate_agreement_vows_decision_next_week.html

APRIL 23, 2017 Trump and his aides take hard line on border wall, as threat of government shutdown looms. In a pair of tweets, Trump attacked Democrats for opposing the wall and insisted that Mexico would pay for it “at a later date,” despite his repeated campaign promises not including that qualifier. http://wapo.st/2oi6a3K

April 21, 2017 Trump says 'massive tax cut' plan coming as soon as Wednesday http://thehill.com/policy/finance/329939-trump-to-unveil-tax-plan-next-week#.WPrWb81FPAc.twitter

MARCH 15, 2017 President Trump Tells Fox News Tucker Carlson “Some Very Interesting Items Will Come To Light In The Next Two Weeks.” - http://investmentwatchblog.com/president-trump-tells-fox-news-tucker-carlson-some-very-interesting-items-will-come-to-light-in-the-next-two-weeks/

January 02, 2017 Trump: I know things about this supposed Russian hacking that others don’t, and you’ll find out Tuesday or Wednesay - Hot Air http://hotair.com/archives/2017/01/02/trump-i-know-things-about-this-supposed-russian-hacking-that-others-dont-and-youll-find-out-tuesday-or-wednesay/

DOJ, Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions, Religious Liberty, SCOTUS

MSNBC host: Barr 'the most dangerous person' who works for Trump https://thehill.com/homenews/media/444385-msnbc-host-barr-the-most-dangerous-person-that-works-for-trump

Trump touts new faith-based protections for health-care workers at National Day of Prayer ceremony. “Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but it doesn’t include the right to discriminate or harm others,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This rule threatens to prevent people from accessing critical medical care and may endanger people’s lives. … Medical standards, not religious belief, should guide medical care.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/05/02/trump-touts-new-faith-based-protections-health-care-workers-national-day-prayer-ceremony/

Read the memo from Brett Kavanaugh to Judge Starr https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/read-the-memo-from-brett-kavanaugh-to-judge-starr/2322

Project Blitz: the legislative assault by Christian nationalists to reshape America https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/04/project-blitz-the-legislative-assault-by-christian-nationalists-to-reshape-america Playbook https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwfCh32HsC3UYmV0NUp5cXZjT28/view

Jeff Sessions' 'religious liberty task force' part of a dangerous Christian nationalist campaign of discrimination. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna895941

Jeff Sessions has announced the creation of a “Religious Liberty Task Force” for the DOJ: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/jeff-sessions-announces-religious-liberty-task-force-at-doj-summit.html

Principles of Religious Liberty https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1001891/download

GUIDELINES ON RELIGIOUS EXERCISE AND RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN THE FEDERAL WORKPLACE August 14, 1997 https://clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov/WH/New/html/19970819-3275.html

FBI Director James B. Comey's termination: Letters from the White House, Attorney General. https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/politics/fbi-director-james-b-comeys-termination-letters-from-the-white-house-attorney-general/2430/

Trump Terrorists: MAGA bomber, Pittsburgh synagogue, Kentucky supermarket killings

Pittsburgh rabbi told Trump that hate speech led to synagogue massacre @CNN https://cnn.it/2RDQTV9

Feds Label Cesar Sayoc 'Domestic Terrorist,' Reveal Alleged Online Search History Involving Targets https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/feds-label-cesar-sayoc-domestic-terrorist-reveal-alleged-online-search-history-involving-targets/

Great Twitter Thread on The Trump Protest in Pittsburgh Yesterday. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808706/-Great-Twitter-Thread-on-The-Trump-Protest-in-Pittsburgh-Yesterday

Pittsburgh shooting: thousands march to remember victims and denounce Trump's visit https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/30/thousand-march-remember-pittsburgh-shooting-victims-oppose-trump

Thousands Gather In Squirrel Hill For Protest, Turn Backs On President Trump’s Motorcade https://cbsloc.al/2DdP8KS

A high school dropout and trucker, Robert Bowers left few footprints — except online http://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/10/29/Robert-Bowers-suspect-gunman-Pittsburgh-Tree-of-Life-synagogue-massacre-attack-federal-court/stories/201810290090 via @PittsburghPG

Timeline of terror: A moment-by-moment account of Squirrel Hill mass shooting http://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/10/28/TIMELINE-20-minutes-of-terror-gripped-Squirrel-Hill-during-Saturday-synagogue-attack/stories/201810280197 via @PittsburghPG

Kentucky supermarket shooting investigated as hate crime. Gregory Bush, 51, a white man, has been charged with shooting Maurice Stallard, 69, in front of his grandson as they shopped in a Kroger Inc grocery store in Jeffersontown, some 15 miles (24 km) from downtown Louisville. According to an arrest citation, he then went to the parking lot and shot Vickie Jones, 67. https://reut.rs/2JjvTA2

Analyzing a terrorist's social media manifesto: the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter's posts on Gab. Late Saturday night, federal prosecutors filed 29 counts of crimes of violence and firearms offenses against Robert D. Bowers, 46, for killing 11 and wounding six — including several police officers. Bowers stormed a Pittsburgh area synagogue with semi-automatic weapons shouting “All Jews must die.” It was the single deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. - Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/28/analyzing-terrorists-social-media-manifesto-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooters-posts-gab

Annotated: the Trump memes stuck to Cesar Sayoc's van https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/26/annotated-trump-memes-cesar-sayoc-van-pipe-bombs

Analysis | The mail-bomb suspect’s van, annotated https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/26/mail-bomb-suspects-van-annotated/

Man in Florida arrested, charged in connection with mail bombs sent to public figures https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/26/suspected-explosive-devices-addressed-cory-booker-james-clapper-probe-expands-packages/

Who is Cesar Sayoc? What we know about the suspected mail bomber arrested in Florida. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/26/who-is-cesar-altieri-sayoc-what-we-know-about-suspected-mail-bomber-arrested-florida/

Cesar Sayoc has been named as the person suspected of sending explosive devices to leading liberal public figures.https://heavy.com/news/2018/10/cesar-sayoc/

Cesar Sayoc Jr., Alleged Mail Bomber, Threatened Democrats on Twitter https://thebea.st/2OVdXlm

Promises, Promises Broken

Trump is failing to bring back American jobs http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/404629-trump-is-failing-to-bring-back-american-jobs

Coal jobs have dropped in Eastern Kentucky. Income has followed, new report shows https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article216946520.html

So-called First Lady Ivanka/Melania Trump

Melania Trump: Some comedians, journalists use Trump name to ‘advance themselves’ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/421167-melania-trump-labels-some-comedians-journalists-as-opportunists

When will liberals give Melania Trump the credit she deserves? https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/419501-when-will-liberals-give-melania-trump-the-credit-she-deserves

What languages does Melania speak fluently? Melania Trump (born Melanija Knavs-1970), claims she speaks Slovenian, French, Serbo-Crotian, German, Italian and English. In reality, she most likely only speaks three languages with any fluency. Slovene and Serbo-Croatian. English. She claims she speaks French and Italian. Video shows she does not really speak it. She claims she speaks German. She has no recorded use of this language. https://www.quora.com/What-languages-does-Melania-speak-fluently https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-proof-that-Melania-Trump-is-fluent-in-five-languages

Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year https://wapo.st/2qWuTcu

So-called President Trump

Trump rails at CNN over military MAGA hat signings https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/423064-trump-rails-at-cnn-over-military-maga-hat-signings

Watergate reporter pens op-ed on 'inevitability' of Trump's impeachment https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/423074-watergate-reporter-pens-op-ed-on-inevitability-of-trumps

AF says nothing was improper about airmen displaying pro-Trump merchandise at Ramstein https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/af-says-nothing-was-improper-about-airmen-displaying-pro-trump-merchandise-at-ramstein-1.562274

Trump 'accidentally reveals location and identities of US Navy Seals in Iraq' https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/27/trump-iraq-location-tweet-troops-visit-revealed

Trump hails foreign policy shift on surprise visit to US troops in Iraq https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/26/trump-iraq-visit-us-troops-shutdown

18 Numbers That Explain Trump’s 2018 https://politi.co/2ENBMFb via @politicomag

Trump in Christmas remarks says shutdown won't end until he gets money for wall. “It's a disgrace what's happening in our country. But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas,” he concluded. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422821-trump-digs-in-as-shutdown-enters-fourth-day

Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam? In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam. Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump. The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father. Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said. https://nyti.ms/2RodHvD

‘We don’t have to yell’: Wolf Blitzer tells Stephen Miller to ‘calm down’ during border-wall interview https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/21/we-dont-have-yell-wolf-blitzer-tells-stephen-miller-calm-down-during-border-wall-interview/

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis Announces Resignation in Brutal Letter to Trump https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-defense-secretary-jim-mattis-retiring-in-february

I’m not the Tariff Man is Bigfoot, but I’ve never seen the Tariff Man and Bigfoot in the same room together. https://twitter.com/coolcam101/status/1070041682320621568

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Nearly everything related to Donald Trump seems to be under investigation. CNN put them all on screen in an alarming graphic. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alarming-cnn-graphic-shows-just-how-many-investigations-relate-to-president-trump_us_5c156fa3e4b009b8aea7cd38

Rolling Thunder to end annual Memorial Day ride in DC after 2019 https://www.stripes.com/news/rolling-thunder-to-end-annual-memorial-day-ride-in-dc-after-2019-1.560494

Slain Charlottesville activist's mom rips Trump for hosting neo-Nazi bikers on anniversary of her daughter’s death. When asked to assess how the president handled her daughter’s death, Bro again talked about the “erratic” calls she got from the White House. “I turned my phone off on the way to the funeral because I was trying to concentrate and I already had one politician call me. I just turned my phone off,” she said. “By the time I turned my phone on… I saw that there had been three phone calls from the White House during the funeral itself. They each sounded a bit increasingly frantic, which I thought was odd… The only thing I particularly had to say to him is ‘Please, think before you speak.'” https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/slain-charlottesville-activists-mom-rips-trump-hosting-neo-nazi-bikers-anniversary-daughters-death/

Senate votes to condemn Saudi crown prince for Khashoggi killing, end support for Yemen war. The unanimous vote to hold Mohammed responsible for Khashoggi’s killing reflects the extent to which senators in both parties have grown tired of Trump’s continued defense of Mohammed’s denials. It also puts significant pressure on leaders in the House — where the president’s Saudi policy is far more divisive — to allow for a similar vote to condemn the crown prince before the end of the year. Senators voted 56 to 41 on Thursday to support the Yemen resolution, put forward by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), after seven Republicans joined all Senate Democrats to back the measure. https://wapo.st/2rBEV2Z

Noel Casler 12 1 18 Gotham Vet Show https://youtu.be/T9afSmPEQDo?t=207 via @YouTube

Catholic nun on tweeting a daily prayer to Trump: 'The hardest spiritual practice I’ve ever committed to' https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/420465-catholic-nun-on-tweeting-a-daily-prayer-to-trump-the-hardest

Bigfoot https://twitter.com/i/status/1071606582633410560

Inspiring reminder: In America anyone can grow up and become Individual-1 Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1071250363418857472 December 8, 2018

‏Joshua McKerrow: Today I did the annual story on holiday decorations at the Governor's residence. I've done it every year, for years. A very light but very fun story. Every year my reporting partner was Wendi Winters. This year, it was Selene. Wendi was murdered in June. https://twitter.com/joshuamckerrow/status/1070898889757212672

Push Trump Off A Cliff Again https://www.pushtrumpoffacliffagain.com/

Tucker Carlson: Trump has not kept his promises. "I don't think he's capable of sustained focus," Carlson said. "I don't think he understands the system. I don't think the Congress is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him." https://thehill.com/homenews/media/420137-tucker-carlson-trump-has-not-kept-his-promises

Why was Trump uncomfortable at H.W.’s funeral? Was Trump offended by Mulroney’s words that historians would say Bush was “more courageous, more principled, and more honorable” than any other president, including Trump? Did it cross Trump’s mind about what would be said at his funeral and whether it would match up to the praises heaped on Bush? https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/420084-why-was-trump-uncomfortable-at-hws-funeral

Trump handles Bush's death with abnormal normality. Trump is not repeating past mistakes. The White House wasted no time issuing a formal statement on Saturday, even citing the late president’s famous slogan about volunteerism — “a thousand points of light” — that Trump mocked as recently as this summer at a campaign rally in Montana. “Thousand points of light, what the hell is that?" Trump asked a crowd in July. "Has anyone ever figured that one out? ... A thousand points of light, I never really got that one." https://politi.co/2BQTZjv

Trump is building a new liberal world order, says Pompeo https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/04/us-president-donald-trump-is-building-a-new-liberal-world-order-says-mike-pompeo

Trump Jr. shares Christmas tree meme calling father ‘an angel’ and ‘a star’ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/419582-trump-jr-shares-christmas-tree-meme-calling-his-father-an-angel

Trump first: U.S. foreign policy is now in the service of one man. By GARRY KASPAROV Trump’s team has a far higher crime rate than any of the immigrant or refugee groups he demonizes. https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-trump-first-20181130-story.html

Cliven Bundy rebukes Trump over attack on migrants: 'We should have a heart' https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/28/cliven-ammon-bundy-criticizes-trump-immigration-border-wall

“I’m doing deals and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post. “They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/418562-trump-blasts-fed-chair-over-stock-market-slide-gm-layoffs

Trump on climate change: ‘People like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers.’ https://wapo.st/2rayP9S

Fact-checking Donald Trump's statement on Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi murder. "After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States." The $450 billion Trump repeatedly mentions comes without evidence. We have asked the White House to show us what lies behind the $450 billion and have yet to get an answer. Hossein Askari, a business professor at George Washington University, analyzes international trade in the Middle East. He knows of no tally of contracts to back up Trump’s assertion. "There is absolutely no such number that could support the $450 billion," Askari said. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/nov/27/fact-checking-donald-trumps-statement-saudi-arabia/

All the ways Trump’s closest confidants insult his intelligence. https://qz.com/1267508/all-the-people-close-to-donald-trump-who-called-him-an-idiot/

White House discusses possible Trump visit to troops in Iraq or Afghanistan https://wapo.st/2qTWF9J

Analysis | President Trump’s crowd-size estimates: Increasingly unbelievable https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/19/president-trumps-crowd-size-estimates-increasingly-unbelievable/

Is Donald Trump an authoritarian? Experts examine telltale signs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/18/is-donald-trump-an-authoritarian-experts-examine-telltale-signs

During wildfire tour, Trump suggests doing more raking like Finland could prevent California wildfires: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/during-wildfire-tour-trump-suggests-doing-more-raking-like-finland-could-prevent-california-wildfires.html

The 13 Most Bizarre Things Donald Trump Apparently Believes https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gy7q8q/the-13-most-bizarre-things-donald-trump-apparently-believes

So Just What Was That Melania Power Play About? https://thebea.st/2Tf0G5j

Support for Trump is fading among active-duty troops, new poll shows https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/10/15/support-for-trump-is-fading-among-active-duty-troops-new-poll-shows/

Global leaders snub Trump and his nationalistic vision https://politi.co/2FidWTS

The walls have crumbled for Trump https://boingboing.net/2018/11/10/the-walls-have-crumbled-for-tr.html

Trump’s rain decision casts dark clouds over his Paris trip. “President@realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow — & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president,” wrote former Secretary of State John Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam War. https://politi.co/2JVdV71

Expert: Acosta video distributed by White House was doctored. A video distributed by the Trump administration to support its argument for banning CNN reporter Jim Acosta from the White House appears to have been doctored to make Acosta look more aggressive than he was during an exchange with a White House intern, an independent expert said Thursday. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted the video, which shows Acosta asking President Donald Trump a question on Wednesday as the intern tries to take his microphone away. But a frame-by-frame comparison with an Associated Press video of the same incident shows that the one tweeted by Sanders appears to have been altered to speed up Acosta's arm movement as he touches the intern's arm, according to Abba Shapiro, an independent video producer who examined the footage at AP's request. https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article221383220.html

Analysis | Michael Cohen alleges 4 racist things Trump said. Here’s why it’s increasingly believable he said them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/02/michael-cohen-says-trump-said-racist-things-heres-why-thats-increasingly-believable/

Trump surprise rattles GOP in final stretch. President Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship has tossed a grenade into the final stretch of the midterm elections, roiling centrist Republicans and further endangering a House majority already at risk of slipping away. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was silent about the issue Tuesday. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/413980-trump-surprise-rattles-gop-in-final-stretch

Trump: When I can, I try to tell the truth https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/414229-trump-when-i-can-i-try-to-tell-the-truth

Trump blames violence on hate speech—just not when the perpetrators are white: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/trump-rhetoric-extremist-violence-response.html

Daily Dem Panic Meter: Trump shares deranged video blaming Democrats for undocumented murderer, showing there is nothing he won’t do or say: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/daily-dem-panic-meter-trump-twitter-video-bracamontes-blaming-democrats-undocumented-cop-murderer.html

Trump praises Pennsylvania congressman for 'inspiring' level of compassion after synagogue shooting. "Yesterday in Pittsburgh I was really impressed with Congressman Keith Rothfus (far more so than any other local political figure). His sincere level of compassion, grief and sorrow for the events that took place was, in its own way, very inspiring. Vote for Keith!" Trump wrote. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/414148-trump-praises-pennsylvania-congressman-for-inspiring-level-of

Trump, at Florida rally, raises synagogue shooting to slam media. “After this day of unity and togetherness, I came home and, sadly, turned on the news and watched as the far-left media once again used tragedy to sow anger and division,” Trump said. “Sadly, they took a small group of protesters [who were] far away from where we were. We could not have been treated better, the first lady and myself.” “But we’re representing the presidency, and [the media] did everything in their power to try to play it up and push people apart,” he added. “That’s what’s happening. They’re pushing people apart.” https://politi.co/2EXmJKR

Analysis | Here’s the ‘small protest’ Trump says he didn’t see in Pittsburgh https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/31/heres-small-protest-trump-says-he-didnt-see-pittsburgh/

Pittsburgh didn't want Trump to visit. The president came anyway, appearing in a city reeling from white nationalist terror just hours after he again spoke about his support for ending birthright citizenship, a stunningly white nationalist proposal. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-pittsburgh-protest-mourning_us_5bd92a8de4b019a7ab5841c5

Paul Ryan just discovered what happens when you disagree with Trump https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/paul-ryan-just-discovered-what-happens-when-you-disagree-with-trump/

Shooting victim’s family shuns President Trump in Pittsburgh as top officials decline to join him https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/30/despite-calls-stay-away-trump-heads-pittsburgh-after-synagogue-massacre/

‘Nazis are here again’: He hid in a storeroom during Tree of Life shooting. Now, he feels unsafe in home https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/29/pittsburgh-shooting-survivor-barry-werber-nazis-here-again/1814726002/

So-called President Trump, earlier

Lawsuit accuses President Trump and his family of misleading investors https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/lawsuit-accuses-president-trump-his-family-misleading-investors-n925851

the complaint concerns Trump's relationship with ACN, a multi-level marketing scheme. Trump was paid millions to promote the company, which tries to get people to sell business and communications products to their friends. https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1057259005217779712

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you commit yourself to compassionate, democratic policies that recognize the dignity of all of us. For the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement. You yourself called the murderer evil, but yesterday’s violence is the direct culmination of your influence. President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism. Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted. You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country. https://www.bendthearc.us/open_letter_to_president_trump

Ronald Reagan’s message to bigots and antisemites: https://twitter.com/ReaganBattalion/status/1056558062063026177

'Our faith compels us': Christian resistance to Trump gathers steam. Progressive churchgoers are becoming increasingly vocal about “toxic Christianity” and the “gospel of Trump” while promoting biblical commands to protect the poor. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/26/trump-christian-vote-midterms-resistance-protest-tax-cuts-policies

Trump’s comfort zone this year: Smaller venues and rapturous fans in places where he remains popular https://wapo.st/2R2x0qn

Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father https://nyti.ms/2P90UZD

How Fascism Works review: a vital read for a nation under Trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/15/how-fascism-works-jason-stanley-review-trump

If You’re Not Scared About Fascism in the U.S., You Should Be https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000006154922/fascism-leaders-america-trump.html

USA Today published a Trump Oped filled with fake news and lies https://twitter.com/GlennKesslerWP/status/1049988374780628992

Republicans Will Pay for This https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj94vb/the-great-economy-cant-save-republicans-from-trump?utm_campaign=sharebutton via @vice

‘Presidential Alert’: 3 reasons to be concerned https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/409826-presidential-alert-3-reasons-to-be-concerned#.W7doyF1URc4.twitter

The 63 most outrageous lines from Donald Trump's New York press conference @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2R1fJP7

Opinion | Trump is the laughingstock of the world https://wapo.st/2NHF1DW

World Leaders Laughed At Trump's Claim That Things Are Going Great Since He Took Over https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hayesbrown/trump-laugh-un-general-assembly-speech via @hayesbrown

Aaron Rupar Trump is about to speak at the UN. Follow me for a video thread. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1044597320984276992

WATCH: UN audience laughs when Trump boasts of achievements http://hill.cm/zL0ZdkP

‘The Apprentice’ book excerpt: At CIA’s ‘Russia House,’ growing alarm about 2016 election interference https://wapo.st/2QJOfgX

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Trump throws paper towels into crowd in Puerto Rico https://youtu.be/kEe7_zgZbuI

Facing a Midterm Wipeout, Trump’s Alternate Reality Comes Crashing Down https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/facing-2018-midterm-wipeout-trump-alternate-reality-comes-crashing-down

Donald Trump used a noticeably out-of-date photo to commemorate 9/11. Ugh. https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-used-noticeably-date-175947805.html

Trump supporter demanded to see a list of impeachable offenses; someone happily obliged https://boingboing.net/2018/09/12/trump-support-demanded-to-see.html

In Monana Trump support wipe nose with American flag https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1038240051552047104

We Found the ‘Plaid Shirt Guy’ Who Trolled Trump’s Rally With Hilarious Faces https://thebea.st/2QejYXc

Ron Howard @RealRonHoward Ron Howard Retweeted Morning Joe I know a lot of people who know Trump well. they say he will bankrupt us like he has so many of his companies..but get richer himself. this 3rd World demagogue’s propaganda is insulting. He thinks voters will accept this total attempt at brainwashing in place of real leadership? https://twitter.com/RealRonHoward/status/1035512140663123968

A Member Of Trump's Advance Team Blocked A Photographer From Taking A Picture Of A Protester https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jimdalrympleii/a-member-of-trumps-advance-team-blocked-a-photographer-from via @dalrymple

Paula White Gives Trump Bible Signed by Evangelical Leaders During White House Dinner. "First Lady and President, you are in our prayers always. Thank you for your courageous and bold stand for religious liberty, and for your timeless service to all Americans. We appreciate the price that you have paid to walk in the high calling. History will record the greatness that you have brought for generations." https://www.christianpost.com/news/paula-white-gives-trump-bible-signed-by-evangelical-leaders-during-white-house-dinner-227062/

It’s Official: Hurricane Maria Led to as Many Deaths as 9/11 https://thebea.st/2Nv3hVP

Axios has obtained a spreadsheet that's circulated through Republican circles on and off Capitol Hill — including at least one leadership office — that meticulously previews the investigations Democrats will likely launch if they flip the House. https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-e5749da8-cdc3-4c8c-8a4c-623a0dabe5f9.html?chunk=0#story0

Trump meets with promoter of 'QAnon' conspiracy theory in Oval Office http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/403549-trump-meets-with-promoter-of-qanon-conspiracy-theory-in-oval

The 487 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List UPDATED July 10, 2018 https://nyti.ms/2jS6zDv via @UpshotNYT

When Trump says he's "playing with the bank's money" he means your money. You're the bank. And if past is prologue, that means you're going to get screwed.. Trump says stock market gains since election give him opportunity to wage a trade war: 'We’re playing with the bank's money' https://cnb.cx/2NuOauQ

"It was like a predator in action." Tonight's programme is about @realDonaldTrump's alleged behaviour towards women in the 80s and 90s. Watch Trump: Is the President a Sex Pest? On @BBCOne at 8:30pm. https://twitter.com/BBCPanorama/status/1016351270750294017

Trump tells wild lies about Brexit, NATO and Obama, in 57-false-claim week https://www.thestar.com/news/world/analysis/2018/07/18/trump-tells-wild-lies-about-brexit-nato-and-obama-in-57-false-claim-week.html via @torontostar

London's Trump protesters – in portraits https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2018/jul/13/london-trump-protesters-in-portraits

The scene as thousands take to London’s streets to protest https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-scene-as-thousands-take-to-london-streets-to-protest-trump/2018/07/13/fc801e42-86b1-11e8-8f6c-46cb43e3f306_gallery.html?utm_term=.f16cd35e8842

Do Trump Tweets Spur Hate Crimes? Study makes strong case that president’s Twitter activity encourages anti-Muslim crimes https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-trump-tweets-spur-hate-crimes1/

Read Scott Pruitt’s totally unapologetic resignation letter https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538086/scott-pruitt-resignation-why-letter

Kimberly Guilfoyle poses for photo with Pizzagate conspiracy theorist https://dailym.ai/2KyEpih

President Washington lived by 110 rules of civility. President Trump does not. https://wapo.st/2tOsy4D

CNN plays montage of Trump attacking media after he praised reporters. Berman’s comments were followed by a montage of Trump attacking the press in past speeches and rallies, including calling media “fake news,” “absolute scum,” “disgusting” and “very dishonest.” Much of Trump’s criticism of the press has been directed at CNN, which he has repeatedly labeled “Fake News.” http://thehill.com/homenews/media/394955-cnn-plays-montage-of-trump-attacking-media-after-he-praised-reporters

Dave Eggers: A Cultural Vacuum in Trump’s White House. When we are without art, we are a diminished people — myopic, unlearned and cruel. https://nyti.ms/2lK3esX

Trump claims North Korea has returned the remains of 200 service members. The actual number is zero. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-korean-war-vets_us_5b352c42e4b007aa2f7e5080

We examine the language by both political figures that their critics have said was incendiary http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jun/26/have-us-rep-maxine-waters-and-president-donald-tru/

Maxine Waters reads list of times Trump has called for violence http://thehill.com/homenews/house/394087-maxine-waters-reads-list-of-times-trump-has-called-for-violence

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1009135868202889218

Emmanuel Macron shook Trump’s hand so intensely he left his thumb imprint. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/emmanuel-macron-shook-trumps-hand-so-intensely-he-left-his-thumb-imprint.html

Emmanuel Macron leaves his mark on Donald Trump with white-knuckle handshake at G7 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/09/emmanuel-macron-leaves-mark-donald-trump-white-knuckle-handshake/

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WTF? Donald Trump is wooing black voters and killing the Democratic party https://on.freep.com/2M9I5Er via @freep

Of Course Trump Doesn't Know the Words to ‘God Bless America’ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pavqqg/of-course-trump-doesnt-know-the-words-to-god-bless-america-vgtrn

Unidentified man takes knee during anthem at Trump's 'Celebration of America' event http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/390841-man-takes-a-knee-during-anthem-at-trumps-celebration-of-america

Analysis | Another careless admission by Trump: He came within seconds of wasting nearly $1 billion https://wapo.st/2HSKBjb

Trumpology: A Master Class https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/donald-trump-2016-campaign-biography-psychology-history-barrett-hurt-dantiono-blair-obrien-213835

12 Photos Of Trump Boarding Air Force One On A Very Windy Day https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/trump-hair-wind-air-force-one

Trump tweet attacks woman who accused him of forcibly kissing her on the mouth. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/trump-tweet-attacks-woman-who-accused-him-of-unwanted-sexual-advances/

Finally, a Clip That Unlocks the Mysteries of Trump's Hair Helmet https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj454y/trumps-bald-spot-clip-vgtrn

Alleged payment to porn star was illegal donation to Trump campaign, watchdog says http://politi.co/2DvzZW1

Stormy Daniels, star of the latest Trump sideshow, took her act to a strip club. It was a scene. http://wapo.st/2n05mNs

WH releases photos of Trump working through shutdown http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369962-wh-releases-photos-of-trump-working-through-shutdown

Excerpts From Trump’s Interview With The Times https://nyti.ms/2E8f0Fn White House surprised, frustrated by Trump's New York Times interview: report http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/366841-white-house-surprised-frustrated-by-trump-nyt-interview-report

Trump greeted by thousands of Utah protesters, some who blocked downtown Salt Lake City streets and faced off with cops in riot gear, via @sltrib http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/12/04/thousands-of-protesters-in-utah-decry-hatch-trump-and-the-revision-of-national-monuments

Brian Krassenstein What I've seen this week pretty much puts a nail in Trump's coffin. I'm holding a lot back because i'm still verifying a few things but I am now 99.9% certain that within 6 months America will be amazed shocked & distraught over just how horrible a person he is. Mark this tweet https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/933819826115678208

Analysis | President Trump and accusations of sexual misconduct: The complete list http://wapo.st/2zqBena

A cyclist flipped off Trump’s motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests http://wapo.st/2gKWZCD

'Trump is messing with the wrong woman' Of President Trump’s many opponents in Congress, none looks or sounds remotely like Rep. Frederica Wilson, the Miami Democrat known for her bedazzled, sequined-blinged hats, her vibrant matching outfits and her reputation in Florida for never backing down from a fight. http://politi.co/2gybmhg

Donald Trump May Have Done a Lot More Than Just Take a Photo With the President of Azerbaijan http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/donald-trump-may-have-done-a-lot-more-than-just-take-a-photo-with-the-president-of-azerbaijan/

Donald Trump Is the First White President - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/

Tom Arnold on the 'Apprentice' tapes: 'Trump’s been trying to get the footage' https://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/featured/tom-arnold-on-the-apprentice-tapes-trumps-been-trying-to-get-the-footage-too/

Analysis | Trump's inflammatory Air Force One gaggle, annotated http://wapo.st/2floHW6

Congress just told Trump to go after a rising terror threat—from white supremacists http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/congress-trump-white-supremacists-terrorism-threat/

John le Carré on Trump: ‘Something seriously bad is happening’ “Something truly, seriously bad is happening and from my point of view we have to be awake to that,” he told an audience at the Royal Festival Hall in London. “These stages that Trump is going through in the United States and the stirring of racial hatred … a kind of burning of the books as he attacks, as he declares real news as fake news, the law becomes fake news, everything becomes fake news. “I think of all things that were happening across Europe in the 1930s, in Spain, in Japan, obviously in Germany. To me, these are absolutely comparable signs of the rise of fascism and it’s contagious, it’s infectious. Fascism is up and running in Poland and Hungary. There’s an encouragement about.” Even today, Le Carré said, Ang Sang Suu Kyi is speaking of “fake news” in Burma. “These are infectious forms of demagogic behaviour and they are toxic.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/07/john-le-carre-on-trump-something-truly-seriously-bad-is-happening

Social media mocks Trump over disaster relief photo op http://sacb.ee/aPBv loading pickup truck "That's good exercise"

WATCH: President Trump meets religious leaders on National Day of Prayer https://youtu.be/QKlk443i7ag

Trump signs proclamation for day of prayer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Y0qTemRko

Blowing the whistle on Trump's mistreatment of civil servants http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/348604-blowing-the-whistle-on-trumps-mistreatment-of-civil

Analysis | Trump claimed he witnessed Harvey's devastation 'first hand.' The White House basically admits he didn't. http://wapo.st/2xPdZ14

Trump unusually silent after aides challenge him. Some close to the president, who has seen his approval ratings plummet, say he needs Tillerson and Cohn more than they need him. http://politi.co/2xsWxQi

Trump's Jewish aide: I faced 'enormous pressure' to resign. Gary Cohn, top White House economic official, says he was pressured to resign over Charlottesville but feels a duty to the American people. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/234534

Jim Mattis tells US troops America has 'problems', urges them to 'hold the line' https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/27/jim-mattis-us-america-military-donald-trump

Tillerson Says Trump 'Speaks for Himself'. Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace 8/27/17 - Fox News Sunday August 27, ... https://youtu.be/Ol4kF10lzSs?t=28m10s

Chris Wallace One-on-One Interview with Rex Tillerson (8/27/17) https://youtu.be/EWfLW6pmQp4

Tillerson vows to boost people of color at State — and at Exxon, he did http://providencejournal.com/news/20170825/tillerson-vows-to-boost-people-of-color-at-state---and-at-exxon-he-did

Full text: Trump’s comments on white supremacists, ‘alt-left’ in Charlottesville. The following is a transcript of President Donald Trump’s remarks at a news conference on infrastructure at Trump Tower on Aug. 15, 2017, and the Q&A with the media that followed. http://politi.co/2wbV6YD

GOP strategist Navarro: Trump is ‘unfit to be a human’ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/346516-gop-strategist-trump-is-unfit-to-be-a-human

After Charlottesville, Trump retweets — then deletes — image of train running over CNN reporter http://wapo.st/2uKEhAc

Trump retweets Twitter user calling him a fascist http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/346571-trump-retweets-twitter-user-calling-him-a-fascist

Trump calls for violence video https://twitter.com/PuestoLoco/status/897173041406513152

Full text: Trump’s statement on white supremacists in Charlottesville. As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence – it has no place in America. And as I have said many times before, no matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws. We all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God. We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence. We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans. Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator, we are equal under the law and we are equal under our constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry, strike at the very core of America. We will spare no resource in fighting so that every American child can grow up free from violence and fear. We will defend and protect the sacred rights of all Americans and we will work together so that every citizen in this blessed land is free to follow their dreams in their hearts and to express the love and joy in their souls. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you very much. http://politi.co/2w6QzGz

Stephen Miller: "President #Trump's the most gifted politician of our time, and he's the best orator to hold that office in generations." https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/895081686681124864

‘This deal will make me look terrible’: Full transcripts of Trump’s calls with Mexico and Australia https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/australia-mexico-transcripts/

White House admits Trump now just lying about the pettiest little shit http://www.avclub.com/article/white-house-admits-trump-now-just-lying-about-pett-258958

Boy Scouts and Mexico both deny claims of calling Trump to offer praise https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/02/boy-scouts-and-mexico-both-deny-claims-of-calling-trump-to-offer-praise

Trump says Boy Scouts head called to praise his speech, but group ‘unaware’ of ‘such call’ https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/08/02/trump-says-boy-scouts-head-called-to-praise-his-speech-but-group-unaware-of-such-call.html

What happened in Ohio proves that Trump is only going to get worse http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/what-happened-in-ohio-proves-that-trump-is-only-going-to-get-worse/

Read Anthony Scaramucci's old tweets. You'll understand why he deleted them. http://wapo.st/2uM4qSd

Trump Made Several Misleading Claims in Times Interview https://nyti.ms/2tjoLLa

Interior Dept. ordered Glacier park chief, other climate expert pulled from Zuckerberg tour http://wapo.st/2tjXdFp

Trump Jr shares tweet showing ‘Top Gun’ president shooting down ‘CNN fighter jet’ https://www.rt.com/viral/395856-trump-cnn-meme-top-gun/

Trump 'has no desire and no capacity to lead the world' Donald Trump managed to isolate his nation, to confuse and alienate his allies and to diminish America says ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann when speaking with Insiders host Barrie Cassidy. https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/883888246152765445

President’s son met with Russian lawyer during presidential campaign after being promised information helpful to father’s effort http://wapo.st/2t2GeGO

‘Uneasy, lonely, awkward’: Australian reporter says Trump has no capacity to lead world – video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/jul/09/uneasy-lonely-awkward-australian-journalist-says-trump-has-no-capacity-to-lead-world-video

Trump's Secret Plan To Defeat ISIS Is The Exact Same Plan Obama Had http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/trumps-secret-plan-to-defeat-isis-is-the-exact-same-pla-1796657918

Has Donald Trump never 'promoted or encouraged violence,' as Sarah Huckabee Sanders said? http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/05/sarah-huckabee-sanders/has-donald-trump-never-promoted-or-encouraged-viol/

Trump Uses Fake Wrestling Clip to Incite Real Violence [UPDATED] http://www.peacock-panache.com/2017/07/trump-cnn-incitement-violence-31673.html

'It has to be something, but it could be infinity': Trump ponders space in strange ceremony http://wapo.st/2uvt7iv

Why ‘Morning Joe’ hosts think Trump keeps attacking them: blackmail http://sacb.ee/aekM

How Nixon Would Have Tweeted Watergate http://politi.co/2sBwXs2

President Trump’s Lies, the Definitive List https://nyti.ms/2sZqacl

Trump says pretending to have Comey tapes “wasn’t very stupid” http://www.avclub.com/article/trump-says-pretending-have-comey-tapes-wasnt-very--257239 via @TheAVClub

Analysis | Trump once figured he'd be the first person to make money running for president. He didn't. http://wapo.st/2sBYBnm

Analysis | The big problem with what Trump just said about religion in schools http://wapo.st/2s2GJSh

Help wanted: Why Republicans won’t work for the Trump administration http://wapo.st/2sdV0xb

Trump adds Washington lawyer John Dowd to his legal team http://reut.rs/2sCpquo

In accusing Comey of perjury, Trump may have finally uttered a lie he can’t escape: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/06/trump_s_claims_that_comey_lied_under_oath_put_him_in_a_pickle.html

http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/hbo/2017/jun/12/cutline-contest-61217/

My lawyers got Trump to admit to 30 lies under oath. New column by @TimOBrien https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-12/trump-s-history-of-lies-according-to-biographer-timothy-o-brien

In accusing Comey of perjury, Trump may have finally uttered a lie he can’t escape: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/06/trump_s_claims_that_comey_lied_under_oath_put_him_in_a_pickle.html

How Trump and His Allies Have Run With Russian Propaganda. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/russian-active-measures-trump-propaganda-conspiracy-theories

The DNC wasn’t hacked, the NYT is lying, and other thoughts from Putin’s American defender: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/05/stephen_f_cohen_just_wants_trump_and_putin_to_get_along.html

Hope Hicks' ode in praise of Donald Trump reads like a hostage statement: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/29/a_nutso_white_house_statement_lauds_donald_trump_s_magnetic_personality.html

Arrest Erdogans Bodyguards who left #Kurds bloody-faced for daring to protest their President Erdogan in Washington DC @AnonymousVideo https://twitter.com/channeldraw/status/864839687852240896

The Republican’s Guide to Presidential Behavior https://nyti.ms/2qdUgYq

What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of Donald Trump? idiot 39 QU Poll Release Detail https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail

Donald Trump's ignorance is becoming more evident with each passing day | David Cay Johnston https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/08/donald-trumps-ignorance-evident-by-the-day

Trump rally altercations could add to legal woes http://politi.co/2p3FVtY

Donald Trump in his own words Financial Times February 2, 2017 https://www.ft.com/content/9ae777ea-17ac-11e7-a53d-df09f373be87

Melania adds $100,000 to Trump's growing travel tab with Fla. trip http://dailym.ai/2oH8Cj2 via @MailOnline

The note was signed only "Americans for a Better Way" and appeared to be written by someone who claims to support President Trump. The note made Holocaust references, saying Trump is "going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews." It warned Muslims to "pack your bags and get out of Dodge." http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/20/anti-islam-note-des-moines/99401366/

MARCH 15, 2017 President Trump Tells Fox News Tucker Carlson “Some Very Interesting Items Will Come To Light In The Next Two Weeks.” - http://investmentwatchblog.com/president-trump-tells-fox-news-tucker-carlson-some-very-interesting-items-will-come-to-light-in-the-next-two-weeks/

National Park Service Releases Photos That Confirm No One Came to Trump's Party http://theslot.jezebel.com/national-park-service-releases-photos-that-confirm-no-o-1793019708

Slain SEAL’s dad wants answers: ‘Don’t hide behind my son’s death’ “I’m sorry, I don’t want to see him,’’ Owens recalled telling the chaplain who informed him that Trump was on his way from Washington. “I told them I don’t want to meet the President.” http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article135064074.html

“Trump broke 64 promises in his first month in office” by @koronet https://thinkprogress.org/trump-broke-64-promises-in-his-first-month-in-office-5470f2c337e1

A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him: February 24th Mass Ritual https://extranewsfeed.com/a-spell-to-bind-donald-trump-and-all-those-who-abet-him-february-24th-mass-ritual-51f3d94f62f4

'Demonic activity was palpable' at Trump rally, says Florida pastor http://boingboing.net/2017/02/22/not-today-satan.html

Thanks, Liberals, For Being INSANE AND MEAN About Melania Doing The Lord’s Prayer http://wonkette.com/613177/thanks-liberals-for-being-insane-and-mean-about-melania-doing-the-lords-prayer via @Wonkette

Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. https://www.quora.com/Does-Donald-Trump-read-books

The husband-and-wife team driving Trump's national security policy. Before they became a Trump administration power couple, Sebastian and Katharine Gorka were prolific collaborators on research about the threat of Islamist terrorism. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-national-security-gorka-234950

Justice Department warned White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, officials say. James R. Clapper Jr., who was the director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, the CIA director at the time, shared Yates’s concerns and concurred with her recommendation to inform the Trump White House. They feared that “Flynn had put himself in a compromising position” and thought that Pence had a right to know that he had been misled, according to one of the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. https://wpo.st/dHNb2

Why is Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka wearing a medal honoring notorious Nazi collaborators? http://lobelog.com/why-is-trump-adviser-wearing-medal-of-nazi-collaborators/ via @lobelog

Via @NPR: FACT CHECK: Trump's Yemen Raid — 'Winning Mission' Or 'Failure'? It's Not So Simple https://n.pr/2lwmnNq

One Type Of Terrorism Really Is Underreported -- Right-Wing Terrorism http://mm4a.org/2jZwbm3

What was Mitch McConnell thinking? http://politi.co/2k3WaUs

Ordinary Americans carried out inhumane acts for Trump. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-airport-inhumanity-20170206-story,amp.html

The Trump team's list of 78 'underreported' terrorist attacks is a mess http://wpo.st/ugw_2

ISIS goes global: 143 attacks in 29 countries have killed 2,043 http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/world/mapping-isis-attacks-around-the-world/

President Trump used his first speech to military service members Monday to accuse the news media of refusing to report on terrorist attacks. Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., Trump rattled off a series of strikes carried out by “radical Islamic terrorists,” including Sept. 11 and the more recent violence in Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif.; Paris; and Nice, France. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported,” he told a group of senior commanders. “And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it.” The president implied that media organizations have an ulterior motive to bury coverage of such attacks. “They have their reasons, and you understand that,” he said. Trump provided no evidence to back up his comments. Terror attacks both at home and abroad often spark blanket coverage on cable news networks, in newspapers and among online outlets. Two of the earliest American victims of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were James Foley and Steven Sotloff, journalists who were covering the war in Syria. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318100-trump-dishonest-press-wont-report-terrorist-attacks

Monday Night Massacre acting Attorney General Sally Yates Watergate Veterans: Just Like Nixon, Donald Trump Appears to Think He is Above the Law https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/31/watergate_veterans_just_like_nixon_donald

Trump Promise Tracker https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-promise-tracker/

Trump and the auto industry: An inaugural reality check http://on.freep.com/2jLSs5H via @freep

Overhead shots show massive Women's March crowds in cities across the country: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/21/overhead_shots_show_massive_women_s_march_crowds_across_america.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru via @slate

“Trump said he wrote his bleak inaugural speech. It was actually co-authored by a white nationalist.” by @atrupar https://thinkprogress.org/trump-did-not-write-inaugural-address-despite-saying-he-did-3d2e50b55709#.niuhvagib

Weird Video: Donald Trump, Melania Trump Thank Supporters at Luncheon http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/donald-trump-melania-trump-supporters-luncheon-44893037

2016 Election Results

Perspective | Five myths about the 2016 election https://wapo.st/2PeUPuo

  1. Angry voters drove the results.
  2. Trump can say or do anything without losing support.
  3. Hillary Clinton's inept campaign cost her the election.
  4. Trump's victory was due to economic anxiety.
  5. Democratic voters are ideologically divided.


Mitch McConnell, Kentucky 806,787 votes 2014
Kamala Harris, California, 7,542,753 votes 2016 thats over 9 times the votes that McConnell got

Senate popular votes:

Republicans: 40,402,790 42.4%
Democrats and Independent: 51,496,682+562,935=52,059,617, 54.3%

The popular vote in the Senate was 52 million Dems and Independents to 40.4 million Republicans. That's 54.3% to 42.4%. When Mitch McConnell talks about the American people he is only talking about way less than half of the American people.

Donald Trump Republican 62,984,828 45.93% 304
Hillary Clinton Democrat 65,853,514 48.02% 227
Johnson / Weld Libertarian 4,489,341 3.28%
Stein / Baraka Green 1,457,218 1.07%
McMullin / Finn Independent 731,991 0.54%
Castle / Bradley Constitution 203,090 0.15%
against Trump 72,735,054
135719882

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/election-2016-voting-precinct-maps.html/#12.07/32.8054/-116.9193/97834

Popular vote ranking

  1. 69,498,516 Barak Obama 2008
  2. 65,915,795 Barak Obama 2012
  3. 65,853,514 Hillary Clinton 2016
  4. 62,984,828 Donald Trump 2016
  5. 62,040,610 George W Bush 2004
  6. 60,933,504 Mitt Romney 2012
  7. 59,948,323 John McCain 2008
  8. 59,028,444 John Kerry 2004
  9. 50,999,897 Al Gore 2000
  10. 50,456,002 George W Bush 2000

2016 Post Elections

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-neighborhood-election-results/

Trump: I know things about this supposed Russian hacking that others don’t, and you’ll find out Tuesday or Wednesay - Hot Air http://hotair.com/archives/2017/01/02/trump-i-know-things-about-this-supposed-russian-hacking-that-others-dont-and-youll-find-out-tuesday-or-wednesay/

Trump: I 'know things that other people don't know' about hacking http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/312335-trump-i-know-things-about-hacking-that-other-people-dont

Trump's approach might seem new, but Arnold Schwarzenegger tried it first. It was a disaster. Gingrich predicted that the new administration won’t change course when challenged, suggesting Schwarzenegger did. “They’ll say, ‘OK, we’ve got to double, or triple or quadruple our energy level, and break through,’” Gingrich said. That is spectacularly bad advice, according to former Schwarzenegger aides. “That kind of attitude is what almost put Arnold Schwarzenegger off the rails,” said Susan Kennedy, who successfully rebooted Schwarzenegger’s administration after being hired as chief of staff during one of its lowest points. “If that strategy worked, they would have built a statue to Newt Gingrich when he shut down government instead of running him out of town,” said Kennedy, who had to clean up the mess after Schwarzenegger tried to outmaneuver obstinate lawmakers with a slate of incendiary austerity and anti-union ballot measures. Voters rejected every one of them. http://fw.to/oCDvR3c

A Firestorm of Protests Will Take Aim at Donald Trump's Inauguration. It's a lot more than the one march. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/trump-inauguration-protest-rally

Golden showers Via @NPR: Trump Denies Allegations Of Secret Ties, Collusion Between Campaign And Russia https://n.pr/2ieadG5

Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2016/12/16/indivisible-resisting-trump-agenda.pdf

California: How did your neighborhood vote? http://fw.to/soZxkmU

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will give President-elect Donald Trump important support in his struggle against a Washington consensus hostile to Russia, Jim Jatras, a former foreign policy adviser to US Senate Republican leaders, told Sputnik. Although he is now 93 years old, Kissinger retains a clear understanding of the value of good relations between Washington and Moscow and has not succumbed to the anti-Russian sentiments held by many in the Washington establishment, Jatras pointed out. "Even at his advanced age, Kissinger is capable of articulating a soberness too often lacking in our needless and gratuitous antagonism toward Russia and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin personally," he noted. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201612291049089544-kissinger-trump-adviser-usa-russia-ties/

Americans - especially but not exclusively Trump voters - believe crazy, wrong things http://wpo.st/9PsO2

Donald Trump supporter appears to shout 'kill Obama' during his victory speech http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-kill-obama-supporter-shouts-what-did-he-say-victory-speech-video-watch-a7407776.html

Inside the hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/18/gab-the-social-network-for-the-alt-right

Congressman responds to coverage of his personal spending of campaign funds http://fw.to/kiMW0pP

Hunter strikes back https://www.facebook.com/DuncanHunter/posts/10154429632974039

http://boingboing.net/2016/12/17/thats-trump-a-pete-seegeres.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/09/1609029/-Yale-History-Prof-Timothy-Snyder-s-20-Pts-for-Defending-Democracy-under-a-Trump-presidency

Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say http://wpo.st/Q2cJ2 On Russian Propaganda Network Mapping https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byj_1ybuSGp_NmYtRF95VTJTeUk/view http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html

What I Learned Binge-Watching Steve Bannon’s Documentaries .He has the next president’s ear. Here’s what 13 hours and 11 minutes of fever-dream conservative viewing says about his dark worldview. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/steve-bannon-films-movies-documentaries-trump-hollywood-214495

A Short, Terrifying Introduction to the Insurrectionist, Anti-Government Sheriff Trump May Put in His Cabinet http://theslot.jezebel.com/a-short-terrifying-introduction-to-the-insurrectionist-1789501266

Issa: 'Liberals trying to steal the election' http://fw.to/keYDiSm

How to Resist President Donald Trump http://www.vice.com/read/what-is-to-be-done via @vice

Obama Is Warning America About Trump’s Presidency. Are You Listening? https://newrepublic.com/article/138757/obama-warning-america-trumps-presidency-listening

NavyJack – Treasonous Conspiracies Against the Government of the United States of America (Updated 11/15/2016) https://www.oathkeepers.org/navyjack-globalist-elite-plan/

A Very Long List of Dumb and Awful Things Newt Gingrich Has Said and Done. Still, he may have a prominent role in the Trump campaign. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/very-long-list-dumb-and-awful-things-newt-gingrich-has-said-and-done

Trump Backer Pushes for New CIA ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ http://thebea.st/2fRQ8rX via @thedailybeast

Autocracy: Rules for Survival http://www2.nybooks.com/daily/s3/nov/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival.html

Election Results in San Diego's November 8, 2016 General Election. http://data.inewsource.org/elections/san-diego-2016-election-results

CLINTON= 60,274,974, 48% TRUMP= 59,937,338 47% Clinton over Trump by 337,636

Meet Trump's Cabinet-in-waiting http://politi.co/2fBIfXO

2016 Elections

Report: Duncan Hunter Staunch in Support of Donald Trump. Rep. Duncan Hunter compares Trump's remarks to conversations among Marines serving in the U.S. military. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Report-Rep-Duncan-Hunter-Staunch-in-Support-of-Donald-Trump-396939521.html

A Look Into The Pro-Trump, Alt-Right Twitterverse. Analysis conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch staff has found that when it comes to hate speech on Twitter, many of the most prominent and prolific associated hashtags stem from a small number of users on the far right whose content is retweeted by other users, massively amplifying what are otherwise niche views on the radical fringe. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/07/look-pro-trump-alt-right-twitterverse

A Catholic priest put an aborted fetus on the altar in an appeal for Donald Trump http://wpo.st/nA_C2

Paramedia: How Alt-Right Fake News and Hoax Sites Trick America http://anewdomain.net/2016/11/05/paramedia-how-rumor-mongers-and-pretend-journalists-are-tricking-america/ via @anewdomain

Paramedia: How 9 Fake News Stories Scammed Trump Fans for Clicks, Cash http://anewdomain.net/2016/11/06/paramedia-these-13-fake-news-posts-scammed-trump-fans-for-cash-clicks/ via @anewdomain

Language: A Key Mechanism of Control. Newt Gingrich's 1996 GOPAC memo Frank Luntz http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm

Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things. The Star’s Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump’s campaign for months. He has fact checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/uselection/2016/11/04/donald-trump-the-unauthorized-database-of-false-things.html

.#SavePepe: cartoon frog's creator tries to take meme back from alt-right https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/04/save-pepe-cartoon-frog-meme-matt-furie-trump

JJ MacNab ‏@jjmacnab. The Oath Keepers org has identified which groups are most likely to go violent before, during, and after the upcoming election. https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/794349924573794305

Melania Trump leaves the media scratching its head — again http://wpo.st/E_VB2

Trump in private has joked that he knows the pool camera that he shouts about can't move, says @KatyTurNBC Really amazing reflection by @KatyTurNBC about what it was like to be taunted by Trump today in FL. Worth a watch, from @11thHour tonight https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/794030431620493313

David A. Clarke, Jr. ‏@SheriffClarke 4h4 hours ago Guard against over confidence. Keep your boot on the neck of the Clinton campaign. She's a snake. To kill a snake you cut off its head. https://twitter.com/MJMcKean/status/793656066387083264

Political Road Map: The California Republican brand has become radioactive. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-roadmap-column-20161030-snap-story.html

Fox News fans pessimistic about the country, and Clinton. http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/28/media/fox-news-conservative-media-poll/index.html

Why Donald Trump doesn't deserve even one vote. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/303366-why-donald-trump-doesnt-deserve-even-one-vote

The most challenging job of the 2016 race: Editing the candidates’ Wikipedia pages http://wapo.st/2eyIyBJ

‘You are fascinated with sex’: That Megyn Kelly-Newt Gingrich showdown was one for the ages http://wpo.st/3Qk82

The 282 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html

CPJ chairman says Trump is threat to press freedom. New York, October 13, 2016--In an unprecedented step, the Committee to Protect Journalists today released a statement recognizing that a Donald Trump presidency would represent a threat to press freedom. In response to Trump's threats and vilification of the media during his campaign, the chairman of CPJ's board, Sandra Mims Rowe, issued the following statement on behalf of the organization: https://cpj.org/2016/10/cpj-chairman-says-trump-is-threat-to-press-freedom.php

Law & Order https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/786472154661527552

People Are Disrupting Clinton Rallies With 'Bill Clinton Is a Rapist' Shirts So They Can Win Money  http://theslot.jezebel.com/people-are-disrupting-clinton-rallies-with-bill-clinton-1787711958

These days, being a Republican and supporting your presidential nominee can be a lonely place. A new USA Today survey finds that more than a quarter of top elected GOP officials won't endorse or have rescinded their endorsement of Donald Trump. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) thinks pulling away from Trump this close to an election is "ludicrous." He was one of the first GOP members of Congress to endorse Trump, back in February, and he's still very much on board. The Fix caught up with Hunter to hear what it's like to be on an increasingly shrinking island of Trump backers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/12/what-its-like-to-be-on-the-shrinking-island-of-donald-trump-political-backers/

Notorious Troll Chuck C. Johnson: I Sent a Clinton Accuser to the Debate http://thebea.st/2d8cNLu via @thedailybeast

Trump wanted to put Bill Clinton’s accusers in his family box. Debate officials said no. “We were going to put the four women in the VIP box,” said former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who represents Trump in debate negotiations. “We had it all set. We wanted to have them shake hands with Bill, to see if Bill would shake hands with them.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/10/trumps-debate-plan-to-seat-bill-clintons-accusers-in-family-box-was-thwarted/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/09/trump-holds-pre-debate-press-conference-with-bill-clinton-accusers.html

Donald Trump appears with Bill Clinton accusers before presidential debate. Trump refused to answer questions from reporters about the video during his meeting in a hotel conference room with Paula Jones, Kathy Shelton, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey. Some of the women seated alongside him, however, were graphic in their accusations against the Clintons. “Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me,” Broaddrick said. “I don’t think there’s any comparison.” http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/election-2016/donald-trump-appears-bill-clinton-accusers-presidential-debate

Here's a guide to the sex allegations that Donald Trump may raise in the presidential debate http://wpo.st/6Q942

kmxja4L.jpg
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/714891184867508224

‏@MonicaCrowley At the Berlin Wall last week. Walls work. https://twitter.com/MonicaCrowley/status/651043858541879296

Trump's rise draws white supremacists into political mainstream: 'I am winning,' says David Duke. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-david-duke-20160928-snap-story.html

Pence refuses to answer questions on political 'puppetry' and big donations. Trump VP struggles with questions about Clinton ‘pay to play’ claims. Indiana governor counts Koch brothers among key donors. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/25/mike-pence-donald-trump-political-donations-koch-brothers

Trump's debate preparation survey: refer to 'crooked Hillary on stage' or not? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/22/donald-trump-debate-preparation-survey-supporters-input

Trump campaign chair in Ohio resigns over ‘no racism before Obama' remarks. Kathy Miller, chair in a crucial Ohio county, resigned after the Guardian released video of her saying, ‘It’s their own fault’ if black people haven’t succeeded. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/22/trump-campaign-chair-kathy-miller-resigns-ohio-racism-obama

Donald Trump's police: officers backing Republican have murky legal histories. David Clarke has been accused of covering up a deputy’s misdeeds while Joe Arpaio has been called ‘unrepentantly lawless’. Meet the prominent officers who want the businessman in the Oval Office. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/18/donald-trumps-police-officers-backing-republican-have-murky-legal-histories

Via @NPR: What Does Trump's Promise of a Nation 'Under One God' Really Mean? https://n.pr/2cWIw3p

Trump stumbles after surge in polls. After several weeks of positive news cycles and polling gains brought about by a more disciplined campaign, Donald Trump has committed a series of stumbles in recent days that experts see as a return to “bad Trump.” GOP strategists are urging Trump to get back on track before the first presidential debate in nine days, while Democrats are exhaling after a week of panic brought on by Hillary Clinton's own setbacks. Trump has seemed to slip back into his primary-election style, stirring up controversy and lashing out at critics as he rode a wave of quickly improving poll numbers. http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/296470-trump-stumbles-after-surge-in-polls

Donald Trump just made his most direct comment yet about violence against Hillary Clinton http://wpo.st/_gJz1

Via @NPR: Trump Criticizes Flint Pastor — But Misstates Key Facts About Their Encounter https://n.pr/2czfjO1

Clinton has 20 questions for Trump on his 'dangerous foreign business ties' and national security risks http://boingboing.net/2016/09/14/clinton-has-20-questions-for-t.html

Trump blasts Flint pastor as a ‘nervous mess’ bent on sabotaging him. http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2016/09/15/trump-blasts-flint-pastor-nervous-mess-bent-sabotaging/

Clinton ad: Trump Management was charged with discriminating against black people http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/14/hillary-clinton/clinton-ad-trump-management-was-charged-discrimina/ via @PolitiFact true

Donald Trump's foreign ties may conflict with U.S. national security interests http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-national-security-498081.html

Some minority voters in Las Vegas area see Donald Trump's rhetoric as a threat http://lat.ms/2cFUdy4

Pepe the Frog artist supports Clinton 'even though she's talking smack'. The creator of the stoned frog and his three unambitious roommates says Pepe is ‘all about diversity’ despite the cartoon having been used in a Trump meme. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/14/pepe-the-frog-artist-supports-hillary-clinton

Not in my house, pastor tells Trump. The GOP nominee was rebuked for attacking Clinton in black church. Trump was attempting to fit Flint's water problem into his broader argument that government incompetency is to blame for most problems and that he will be able to fix things. But as he was wrapping up, a few people seated in the pews had questions. “You’ve discriminated against black tenants,” one said, seeming to reference a New York Times report detailing how Trump and his father frequently denied African-Americans applying to buy or rent in their buildings. “No, I never,” Trump said, as he was leaving. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/flint-pastor-cuts-off-trump-228172

Flint residents bristle at Donald Trump's visit to beleaguered city. Republican nominee interrupted mid-speech by pastor who asked him not to talk politics as residents elsewhere viewed trip as an opportunistic photo-op. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/donald-trump-flint-visit-water-plant-tour

Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist http://wpo.st/gn8y1

How Christian is Donald Trump, really?: Guest commentary http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20160913/how-christian-is-donald-trump-really-guest-commentary via @ladailynews

HOT: 10 Hechos y fotos que no has visto de Melania Trump http://mqltv.com/hot-10-hechos-y-fotos-que-no-has-visto-de-melania-trump/

Trump Made No Donations To 9/11 Charities | The Smoking Gun http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/donald-trump-empathy-gap-754693 via @tsgnews

Media Blackout: New Poll Oversamples Democrats by 140% Masking Trump Surge: https://sputniknews.com/us/20160911/1045201371/trump-surge-hillary-cooked-poll.html via @SputnikInt

White Nationalists See Trump As A Chance To Break Into The Media Mainstream. Hours Before Clinton Highlighted Trump’s Racist Supporters, Three “Alt-Right” Leaders Gathered To Salute The GOP Nominee. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/09/10/white-nationalists-see-trump-chance-break-media-mainstream/212984

Dick Cheney and @Liz_Cheney: Dangers rise as America retreats http://on.wsj.com/2cxllOc via @WSJ

Roger Stone: I’m Proud To Be Deplorable http://www.joemygod.com/2016/09/10/roger-stone-im-proud-to-be-deplorable/

'I'm just lost.' Voters find it hard to commit to Clinton or Trump http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-poll-uncertain-voters-20160908-snap-story.html

Hillary Clinton's emails with Colin Powell released "What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient). So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels," Powell wrote. @CNNPolitics http://cnn.it/2clOqxe

Trump’s clueless generals: No one should be impressed by the military minds backing The Donald. We have no choice but to question the judgment of any general who's in Trump's corner. http://www.salon.com/2016/09/07/trumps-clueless-generals-no-one-should-be-impressed-by-the-military-minds-backing-the-donald/

The Disgraced and Little-Known Generals Backing Donald Trump. Retired military leaders who have been brushed by scandal and even talked about America’s war with Satan are among those backing his campaign. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/06/the-disgraced-and-little-known-generals-backing-donald-trump.html

Trump announces 88 top former military officials backing him. Romney had 500. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/trump-miltiary-officials-letter-romney via @MotherJones

Latinos for Trump founder: 'You're gonna have taco trucks on every corner' http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-latinos-for-trump-founder-you-re-1472779338-htmlstory.html

Conservative media heavyweights at war over Donald Trump http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/31/media/conservative-media-limbaugh-beck-hannity-trump/index.html via @CNNMoney

Donald Trump introduced us to “angel moms.” Here’s why they matter. http://www.vox.com/2016/9/1/12751434/donald-trump-angel-moms-explained

Trump’s Hispanic allies are self-deporting from his campaign: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/09/01/trump_s_hispanic_allies_are_self_deporting_from_his_campaign.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru via @slate

The two political operatives chosen earlier this month to lead Donald Trump’s presidential campaign after two former managers departed have been members of the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP), Hatewatch has learned. Longtime Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News operation, were named on Aug. 17 as, respectively, the Trump campaign’s manager and its chief executive officer. The appointment of Bannon was by far the more controversial choice, given his role at a “news” outlet known for bashing immigrants, Muslims, women and others. The CNP is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as “the most powerful conservatives in the country.” It is so tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is also forbidden. The organization, which can only be joined by invitation and at a cost of thousands of dollars, strives mightily to keep its membership rolls secret. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/08/31/revealed-conway-bannon-members-secretive-group

Donald Trump's Mexican press conference, annotated http://wpo.st/qXtv1

Trump said he could put several blue states in play. It's clear he can't. http://wpo.st/vXTv1 For months, Donald Trump and members of his political team promised to put reliably Democratic states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Oregon into play. But now, with only two months until Election Day, it’s clear that those promises were empty boasts. The presidential electoral map shows Trump losing key swing states and barely holding on in some GOP bastions. Given the current numbers, the major question is the size of Hillary Clinton’s electoral-vote victory.

Donald Trump losing by a landslide would heal the nation http://ti.me/2bveDsk via @TIMEIdeas

Meet the man siphoning money from Donald Trump. A 25-year-old with no Trump ties raises $1 million by dangling 'dinner' with the GOP nominee. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-fundraiser-hawes-227486

Trump might already be out of time http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-campaign-turn-around-out-of-time-227457

Before Breitbart, before Trump, Bannon bullied people in Biosphere 2 http://boingboing.net/2016/08/26/before-breitbart-new-trump-ca.html

Bannon's ex-wife: 'He didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews'. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/293532-bannons-ex-wife-he-didnt-want-the-girls-going-to-school

Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon is registered voter at vacant Florida home. Exclusive: Bannon’s enrollment is apparent violation of crucial swing state’s election law requiring voters to be legal residents of county they register in. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/26/steve-bannon-florida-registered-vote-donald-trump

Trump said the Hollywood celebrities endorsing Hillary Clinton are "in many cases celebrities that aren’t very hot anymore." Trump has a point that out of hundreds of celebrities endorsing Clinton, some have faded. But the data doesn’t lie. Many prolific Clinton-backing stars remain popular according to several metrics: social media influence, earning potential, and popularity on celebrity news blogs and websites. Supporters like Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Meryl Streep and George Clooney are arguably the most visible and enthusiastic. Trump’s statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/25/donald-trump/donald-trump-clintons-celebrity-backers-arent-very/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e9B56Co5tWZmrzCjXw0CtbFTTy72RjPwwAhqZssxmiY/edit

Did Donald Trump make donations for flood relief in Louisiana? Here's what we know. http://wpo.st/4sdt1

The rise of irreligion is the GOP’s real demographic crisis. A widening "Godless gap" presents Christian conservatives with a choice: Get with the times or shrink to obscurity. MATTHEW SHEFFIELD http://www.salon.com/2016/08/20/the-rise-of-irreligion-is-the-gops-real-demographic-crisis/

When Trump doesn’t love you back “Students for Trump” has members at more than 100 colleges. It has a foothold in 41 states. And it has more than 33,000 followers on Twitter, more than five times the following of rival “Students for Hillary.” What it can’t get, however, is any attention from Donald Trump — or the time of day from Trump’s campaign. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-students-for-trump-227219

Irony: FBI, DOJ Launch Criminal Probe of Hillary Campaign Chair Over Putin Links. The FBI and Department of Justice have launched an investigation into whether the Podesta Group has any connections to alleged corruption that occurred in the administration of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160821/1044476988/fbi-doj-podesta-clinton-yanukovych.html

Inside the fall of Paul Manafort. Donald Trump’s campaign chairman thought he could weather the scrutiny of his lucrative foreign political consulting. He was wrong. The week of personnel upheaval has left an aura of uncertainty looming over Trump’s White House bid, even at its upper levels, said multiple sources around the campaign. As of noon Friday, Trump’s senior-level staff had not had a conference call, said the operative who has worked with the campaign. “It’s complete chaos,” the operative said. “No one is in charge.” http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-fall-trump-campaign-227212

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-fall-trump-campaign-227212#ixzz4HtMKgyRo Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-fall-trump-campaign-227212#ixzz4HtKWKrao Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

Report: FBI, Justice Department looking at Manafort in Ukraine investigation http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/292063-report-fbi-justice-department-looking-at-manafort-in

All Lives Matter https://twitter.com/MCmuckraker/status/766748609782149120

The post-truth election? Comparing 2016 to past elections on the Truth-O-Meter. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/aug/16/post-truth-election-comparing-2016-past-elections-/

Donald Trump tries out a new campaign tactic: saying sorry. Republican takes new tone in North Carolina after campaign team shake-up, while supporter’s photography of each journalist sparks complaints. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/19/donald-trump-tries-out-a-new-campaign-tactic-saying-sorry

CBS This Morning: Paul Manafort May Be Guilty Of "Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, And Illegally Providing Funds For Lobbyists" UPDATE: Paul Manafort Has Reportedly Resigned From The Trump Campaign http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/19/cbs-morning-paul-manafort-may-be-guilty-tax-evasion-money-laundering-and-illegally-providing-funds/212522

Naked Hilary http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/153401/ http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/08/02/artist-covers-up-offensive-and-naked-hillary-clinton-swimsuit-mural-with-controversial-clothing-item/

LAPD Chief Beck, Former Chief Bratton Talk Police-Community Relations With Clinton http://cbsloc.al/2b3nJxH

Naked Trump

  1. Why Cleveland Hts was chosen as spot for naked Trump statue--and why it came down quickest https://twitter.com/HomaBash/status/766448582002085888 https://twitter.com/ClevelandScene/status/766369322595942400
  2. Apparently another Naked Trump statue has popped up in Seattle. A friend just sent me this photo. https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/766395385959120898 https://twitter.com/PushaMD/status/766403541829165057
  3. Naked Donald Trump statue pops up in Los Feliz, https://twitter.com/CBSLA/status/766341436845404160
  4. Supervisor tries to save naked Trump statue in SF’s Castro https://twitter.com/SFnewsnow/status/766620839970086912 https://twitter.com/SFnewsnow/status/766547529513119745
  5. New York https://twitter.com/DNAinfoNY/status/766615702258257920 https://twitter.com/Omojuwa/status/766569256980844545

Trump spokeswoman diagnoses Hillary Clinton with 'dysphasia,' despite not being doctor http://wpo.st/QGks1

Donald Trump's town hall hosted by Sean Hannity was absolutely priceless http://wpo.st/UEks1

These protesters wanted to humiliate 'Emperor' Trump. So they took off his clothes. http://wpo.st/tDks1

Donald Trump Statue, 'The Emperor Has No Balls,' Appears In The Castro [NSFW] http://hoodline.com/2016/08/donald-trump-statue-the-emperor-has-no-balls-appears-in-the-castro-nsfw via @HoodlineSF

Co-chair of Trump veterans' group pleads guilty in 2014 Bundy standoff. Gerald DeLemus, co-chair of the Trump for President Veteran’s Coalition, is accused of helping organize the infamous armed standoff with the government. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/17/nevada-cliven-bundy-donald-trump-gerald-delemus-guilty

Trump’s ‘Second Amendment People’ Already Think They Have the Right to Fight the Government with Guns http://www.vice.com/read/some-of-trumps-second-amendment-people-already-believe-they-have-the-right-to-fight-government-tyranny-with-guns via @vice

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence made some now-eyebrow raising comments about the use of condoms in disease prevention back in 2002. http://www.snopes.com/mike-pence-condoms-are-too-modern-and-liberal/

A Donald Trump campaign spokeswoman on Saturday claimed President Obama brought U.S. forces into Afghanistan — something that happened eight years before his presidency began. “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time," Katrina Pierson told CNN, referring to the withdrawal of troops from Iraq in 2011. "Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.” “That was Obama’s war,” she added when pressed by CNN's Victor Blackwell. The Afghanistan war actually began in 2001 under President George W. Bush, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that year. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/291345-trump-spokesperson-claims-obama-brought-us-into

Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus joined in an op-ed piece Wednesday that said doomsday predictions of a growing military readiness gap were largely a myth. "While there are areas of concern, there is no crisis in military readiness," Petraeus and Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote for The Wall Street Journal. http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/08/10/petraeus-argues-military-readiness-crisis-is-a-myth.html

I love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can't! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/764064821000056832

Trump hints at assassination of Hillary Clinton by gun rights supporters. Republican presidential nominee says ‘second amendment people’ could stop Democrat choosing undesirable supreme court justices if she is elected. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/09/trump-gun-owners-clinton-judges-second-amendment

How Trump supporters tried to disrupt peaceful rally in Detroit. http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2016/08/08/trump-supporters-tried-disrupt-peaceful-rally-detroit/

Donald Trump’s Oregon campaign manager, Jacob Daniels, is scheduled this weekend to address a meeting of Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR), a nativist extremist organization based in Salem. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/08/08/trump’s-oregon-campaign-manager-set-address-nativist-extremist-group-weekend


2016 Elections older August 08, 2016

Former GOP national security officials: Trump would be ‘most reckless’ American president in history. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/group-of-50-former-gop-national-security-officials-trump-would-be-most-reckless-president-in-american-history/2016/08/08/6715042c-5d9f-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html

WSJ's Bret Stephens: Right-Wing Media "Echo Chamber" Has Pushed Republicans To Be "Increasingly Divorced From Reality" Stephens: "If You Spend Your Time Listening To Certain Cable Shows ... You End Up Having This Kind Of Conversation That's Just Increasingly Divorced From Reality" http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/08/wsjs-bret-stephens-right-wing-media-echo-chamber-has-pushed-republicans-be-increasingly-divorced/212236

There are growing signs that veteran Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, could be headed for an election dogfight. Issa has breezed to re-election seven times since taking office in 2001, but the landscape is different this time. His support for Donald Trump could undermine this year’s bid. The Republican edge in his two-county district’s voter registration is shrinking. And his Democratic opponent’s background as a Marine colonel holds particular appeal in a district that includes and surrounds Camp Pendleton. In the 2012 and 2014 primaries, Issa prevailed by at least 30 percentage points. In June, he beat Democrat Doug Applegate by a relatively modest 5.3 percentage points. That’s less than the GOP’s 8.4-point advantage in voter registration -- an advantage that has shrunk from 10.7 points since the beginning of the year. Applegate’s primary performance came despite much weaker name recognition and despite being outspent by Issa, $740,000 to $50,000. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/issa-724752-trump-applegate.html

Police union: Clinton snubbed us. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/290586-police-union-clinton-snubbed-us

Questions raised about Melania's marriage history. A former lawyer for the Trump Organization adds to doubts about Melania Trump's immigration status, and how she earned U.S. residency. In an interview with Larry King Live in 2005 Melania Trump said that she had never been married before meeting Donald Trump. But, Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney who worked for the Trump Organization, told Univision's investigative unit that she obtained a green card four years earlier in 2001, “based on marriage.” Melania and Donald Trump were not married until Jan. 22, 2005 at Bethesda-by-the Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida. When asked to explain the marriage discrepancy, Wildes said he would seek clarification, presumably from the Trump Organization. He later sent an email saying “I didn’t hear back, sorry.” http://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/questions-raised-about-melanias-marriage-history

Meet Freidrich—Pimp, Profiteer and Patriarch of the Trump Line. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/02/meet-freidrich-pimp-profiteer-and-patriarch-of-the-trump-line.html

Melania Trump like you’ve never seen her before. "The Ogle Office." http://nypost.com/2016/07/30/melania-trump-like-youve-never-seen-her-before/

15 Reasons Why Socks Was The Best Cat Of All Time https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/15-reasons-why-socks-was-the-best-cat-of-all-time via @BrianGalindo

The 21 harshest Trump burns from DNC Day 3 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/democratic-convention-donald-trump-226347

New Kasich ad: If Trump becomes president, ‘you better hope there’s someone left to help you’. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/24/the-ad-in-which-john-kasichs-campaign-seems-to-compare-donald-trump-to-hitler/

Trump speech circulates at convention. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/288802-trump-speech-circulates-at-convention

The 2016 RNC, or the Week Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Went Mainstream on the Floor of the Convention Hall. Posted By Jon Ronson. http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/07/21/the-2016-rnc-or-the-week-conspiracy-theorist-alex-jones-went-mainstream-on-the-floor-of-the-convention-hall

Read This: Jon Ronson on the rise of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. http://www.avclub.com/article/read-jon-ronson-rise-conspiracy-theorist-alex-jone-239901

Portrait of Democratic Party's congressional interns. http://boingboing.net/2016/07/20/portrait-of-democratic-party.html

GOP Platform Committee, Made Up of A Number of Racists, Includes Extremist Policy Positions. Echoing the anti-immigrant movement’s call to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and the anti-LGBT movement’s cries to restrict marriage to a union between a man and a woman, the GOP has released its official 2016 policy platform. The Platform Committee met last week to debate its 2016 policy positions before the Republican National Convention, which opened Monday in Cleveland. Coming in the midst of a highly publicized identity crisis for the GOP, members of hate groups and antigovernment extremists met alongside hard right lawmakers to draft the platform. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/07/19/margins-mainstream-extremists-have-influenced-gop-2016-policy-platform

GOP raises eyebrows with 'white elevators' signs in Cleveland http://wpo.st/ovwm1

Hunter hires law firm amid campaign review. After months of questions about personal use of campaign funds, Rep. Duncan Hunter’s campaign committee has hired a law firm that specializes in political law, according to financial reports released Friday. Did Hunter campaign pay for his kids' school lunches? His office won’t confirm it, but unexplained expenses from Rep. Duncan Hunter’s campaign account may have gone to buy lunches for his children at their private school in El Cajon. Hunter, R-Alpine, has already reimbursed his campaign account for $12,000 of expenses he identified as personal or mistaken on campaign finance reports, including video games, oral surgery, private school tuition, a garage door and unspecified items at a Coronado surf shop. Federal law does not allow use of campaign funds for personal expenses, to protect against contributors such as defense contractors from having undue influence on someone like Hunter, who is on the House Armed Services Committee. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/18/hunter-law-firm/

5 words that could sink Trump: Jill Lawrence. Paul Manafort just admitted that Trump is an emotional reality TV star, not a war-time leader. Donald Trump’s campaign manager may have just lost the presidential race for him, and it only took five words. “He emotionally reacted to it,” Paul Manafort told Chris Cuomo on CNN, explaining why Trump postponed a press conference to announce his vice presidential pick in the wake of the attack that killed dozens of people in Nice, France. http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/2016/07/15/five-words-donald-trump-president-campaign-jill-lawrence-column/87130160/

In announcing Mike Pence, Donald Trump talks mostly about himself. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-announcing-mike-pence-donald-trump-talks-mostly-about-himself/2016/07/16/655eb2f4-4b75-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html

GOP shows disdain for California Republicans by lodging them 60 miles from Cleveland convention. http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20160716/gop-shows-disdain-for-california-republicans-by-lodging-them-60-miles-from-cleveland-convention

Former Donald Trump campaign staffer Sam Nunberg has filed sensational legal papers against the presidential hopeful’s campaign, alleging he was wrongly accused of leaking a story to Page Six about a “lovers’ quarrel” between the mogul’s publicist and campaign manager. Nunberg, who worked as a strategic adviser for Trump but was fired last year, claims in the papers that, because he then endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign is “attempting to bring a frivolous and retaliatory arbitration proceeding against me essentially to punish me and shut me up.” Things further soured between him and the Trump campaign after Page Six exclusively reported in May on a public “screaming row” between the mogul’s polarizing former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, 42, and Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, 27, who deny rumors they had an affair. Lewandowski is married with four kids. http://pagesix.com/2016/07/13/former-staffer-sues-trump-campaign-for-leaked-page-six-story/

Here’s Why Donald Trump Is Horrifying, According To Historians. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/historians-donald-trump_us_578644dee4b03fc3ee4e9da7

Palin: Black Lives Matter is a 'farce'. “#BlackLivesMatter is a Farce and Hyphenating America Destroys Us,” Palin wrote as an apparent title to her post, explaining later that "self-descriptions that put any race in front of being an American are now used to further divide our nation." Palin said blood is on the "complicit hands" of the media and blamed the press for “claiming the rioters are ‘peaceful’ as they stomp on our stomp on our flag, shout 'death to cops!’ and celebrate violence." "Black Lives Matter? Yes — more than BLM 'protestors' can grasp, as evidenced by their self-destructive provocateurism. Doesn't it go without saying that Native lives matter, too? And Asian; and Eskimo; and Hispanic; and Indian... and every other race comprised of people who see clearly the agenda at play to weaken America through disunity," she continued. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/287097-palin-black-lives-matter-is-a-farce

GOP angst grows over Trump. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/287091-gop-angst-grows-over-trump

Donald Trump Lyin' Trump: a weekly fact-check The lies Trump told this week: from Saddam to the concept of losing a war. In the latest of a continuing series, the Guardian looks at some of the tallest tales the presumptive Republican nominee has told over the past seven days. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/08/donald-trump-lies-saddam-hussein-terrorists-clinton-petraeus https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/lyin-trump-a-weekly-fact-check

Companies bail out on GOP convention after facing pressure. http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20160709/companies-bail-out-on-gop-convention-after-facing-pressure

Hillary Clinton Speaks, Addresses Recent Police-Involved Shootings, At AME Conference. http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/07/08/hillary-clinton-speaks-addresses-recent-police-involved-shootings-at-ame-conference/

The most interesting word in Donald Trump’s Dallas statement: "senseless." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/08/the-most-interesting-word-in-donald-trumps-dallas-statement/

Last night’s horrific execution-style shootings of 12 Dallas law enforcement officers – five of whom were killed and seven wounded — is an attack on our country. It is a coordinated, premeditated assault on the men and women who keep us safe. We must restore law and order. We must restore the confidence of our people to be safe and secure in their homes and on the street. The senseless, tragic deaths of two motorists in Louisiana and Minnesota reminds us how much more needs to be done. This morning I offer my thoughts and prayers for all of the victims’ families, and we pray for our brave police officers and first responders who risk their lives to protect us every single day. Our nation has become too divided. Too many Americans feel like they’ve lost hope. Crime is harming too many citizens. Racial tensions have gotten worse, not better. This isn’t the American Dream we all want for our children. This is a time, perhaps more than ever, for strong leadership, love and compassion. We will pull through these tragedies.

Right-Wing Extremists Make Plans For GOP Convention. http://blog.adl.org/anti-semitism/right-wing-extremists-make-plans-for-gop-convention

We Asked a Cybersecurity Expert if Clinton's Email System Could Have Jeopardized National Security. http://www.vice.com/read/clinton-emails-national-security

The Trump Files: His Football Team Treated Its Cheerleaders "Like Hookers". "I've never been involved with anything so shabby before," the team's choreographer said. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/trump-files-donalds-football-team-treated-its-cheerleaders-hookers

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee and ardent waterboarding supporter Donald Trump wants America to be much tougher on suspected terrorists. So tough, in fact, that we must to do “the unthinkable” when it comes to prisoner interrogation, he said Thursday. Trump, during an interview with New Hampshire’s NH1, was asked about his calls to reinstate waterboarding following Tuesday’s attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport that killed at least 44 people. Trump has enthusiastically endorsed tactics now widely regarded as torture, and has discounted recent criticism from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who said the interrogation technique “was not the American way.“ “Well it’s not the American way to have heads chopped off and have people drowning in steel cages,” Trump said, presumably referring to videos released by the Islamic State that show such execution methods. “And so we can have our disagreements, but we’re going to have to get much tougher as a country. We’re going to have to be a lot sharper and we’re going to have to do things that are unthinkable almost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-torture-waterboarding_us_5775d740e4b04164640f6597

TV Critics Laugh at Trump for Wrongly Boasting About Apprentice Ratings. This week, “Celebrity Apprentice” was behind “Mike & Molly” and a “Big Bang Theory” repeat. http://www.mediaite.com/online/tv-critics-laugh-at-trump-for-wrongly-boasting-about-apprentice-ratings/

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

White Power Group Involved in Stabby Sacramento Rally Is Going to the RNC To Protect Trump Supporters http://theslot.jezebel.com/white-power-group-involved-in-stabby-sacramento-rally-i-1782730311

Clinton regains double-digit lead over Trump: Reuters/Ipsos poll. Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton regained a double-digit lead over Republican rival Donald Trump this week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. Meanwhile, Republican leaders including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker continued to express reservations about their new standard bearer, who has angered some in the party with his fiery rhetoric. Ryan and Walker both said over the past week that they felt Republicans should follow their "conscience" when deciding to support the party's likely nominee, instead of urging party members to support him. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN0ZA3KG

The June 20-24 poll showed that 46.6 percent of likely American voters supported Clinton while 33.3 percent supported Trump. Another 20.1 percent said they would support neither candidate.

Many experienced GOP strategists unwilling to work for Trump. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f873962acf334563a1ec585cab0766c4/need-help-trump-finds-few-willing-work-him

Here's How That Wild Lawsuit Accusing Trump of Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl Hit The Headlines . http://jezebel.com/heres-how-that-wild-lawsuit-accusing-trump-of-raping-a-1782447083

The Religion of Trump. Will evangelicals balk at pulling the lever for him? http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-religion-of-trump/article/2000601

What do we know about Hillary Clinton's religion? A lot, actually. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/24/donald-trump/what-do-we-know-about-hillary-clintons-religion-lo/

Nobody brings the crazy quite like Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nobody-brings-the-crazy-quite-like-trump/2016/06/22/74ba5692-38bd-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html

This Video of a Trump Supporter Yelling Racist Stuff at a Guy in a Donkey Suit Is America. Every great narrative begins with a stunner of a first line. "Call me Ishmael"; "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"; "Just a small town girl livin' in a lonely world"; that whole Snot Boogie America scene in The Wire; and now: "Donkey boy, I'm comin' for you! Take off that mask!" http://www.vice.com/read/this-video-of-a-trump-supporter-yelling-racistly-at-a-guy-in-a-donkey-suit-is-america

Hey, Donald Trump, We Know Plenty About Hillary Clinton’s Religion. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-religion_us_576ad918e4b065534f4891bc

1000 Evangelicals Gather to Hear the Gospel According to Donald. "All of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes," Trump said. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/trump-has-closed-door-meeting-1000-evangelicals

Trump’s Benghazi Lies Came From Fox News. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/06/22/trump-s-benghazi-lies-came-fox-news/211105

Trump’s Toxic Trickledown Leaves Rep. Issa Vulnerable. http://sandiegofreepress.org/2016/06/trumps-toxic-trickledown-leaves-rep-issa-vulnerable/

The Portland State University Students for Trump gathered on a Friday afternoon in June on the downtown campus to build a replica of “the great wall of Trump.” The wall was four pieces of plywood painted to look like red bricks, and plastered with a black “T” and photocopies of Trump’s head. The Facebook post for the event announced, “Mexico and Black Lives Matter are going to need help paying for the wall so we’ll be holding a collection.” http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/meet-the-shock-troops-of-trumps-america/

Donald Trump Has a Super-PAC Problem. But it's not a lack of them. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/donald-trump-super-pac-problem

Even one of Donald Trump’s most ardent Capitol Hill backers is exasperated. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/17/even-one-of-donald-trumps-most-ardent-capitol-hill-backers-is-exasperated/

U.S. officials say American Muslims do report extremist threats. Muslim-Americans have repeatedly informed authorities of fellow Muslims they fear might be turning to extremism, law enforcement officials say, contrary to a claim by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this week. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-cooperation-idUSKCN0Z213U

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Trump implodes in real time http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/16/1539045/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Trump-implodes-in-real-time

I can't stop watching this bizarre, terrifying and beautiful Trump ad http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/06/japanese-trump-commericial-mike-diva-wow-wow-wow via @MotherJones

Did Hunter campaign pay for his kids' school lunches? Congressman has opposed increases in federal spending on school nutrition for the poor. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jun/15/hunter-school-lunch/

Rising Republican star makes mind-blowingly stupid comparison to Trump’s 'Mexican' judge. If you don’t know who California Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is, you are a lucky person. Duncan Hunter comes from a long line of Californian lawmakers, he vapes! and his foreign policy plan includes bombing Iran with nuclear weaponry (seriously). Rep. Hunter is also a Donald Trump supporter and this is getting him that much desired microphone time he clearly needs. He went on Sean Hannity’s radio show the other day to discuss how Donald Trump keeps saying stupid racist stuff. After Rep. Duncan began by making a rather astute campaign analysis of the Donald’s problems (he needs to stick to just talking about political platforms and stop involving his business “issues”), he began to go off the deep end. Hannity brought up the fact that the law firm trying Donald Trump’s case paid the Clintons to speak for them back in 2009, then Duncan started saying this crazy grouping of words: What I like to do Sean, is take these arguments out to their logical extreme: So let’s say that Chris Kyle, the American Sniper, is still alive and and he was on trial for something, and his judge was a Muslim-American of Iraqi descent. Here you have Chris Kyle, who’s killed a whole bunch of bad guys in Iraq. Would that be a fair trial for Chris Kyle? If you had that judge there? Probably not. And Chris Kyle could probably say, ‘This guy’s not gonna like me.’ http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/10/1537196/-Rising-Republican-star-makes-mind-blowingly-stupid-comparison-to-Trump-s-Mexican-judge

The Absolute Best, Most Terrific Reporting on Trump University. Here are the stories on Trump U. that you should read. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-absolute-best-most-terrific-reporting-on-trump-university

Clinton Scandals: A Guide From Whitewater To The Clinton Foundation. http://www.npr.org/2016/06/12/481718785/clinton-scandals-a-guide-from-whitewater-to-the-clinton-foundation

Fact checkers confirm Hillary Clinton is more honest than any of her 2016 opponents http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/fact-checkers-confirm-hillary-clinton-is-more-honest-than-any-of-her-2016-opponents/24196/

'You were born in a Taco Bell': Trump's rhetoric fuels school bullies across US. The xenophobic spirit of the presumptive Republican nominee has led to playground spats and ugly exchanges in classrooms across the country. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/09/california-primary-trump-rhetoric-school-bully

Inside Yet Another Trump Victory Party. http://www.vice.com/read/inside-trumps-angry-victory-party

These Photographs Capture the Intrigue and Insanity of the 2016 Campaign MARK MURRMANNJUN. 8, 2016 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/remembering-2016-primary

2016 Primary Popular Vote http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/republican_vote_count.html

Jake Tapper asks Donald Trump if judge attack was racist 23 times — VIDEO http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/trending/the-feed/jake-tapper-asks-donald-trump-if-judge-attack-was-racist-23-times-video

Trump gets cold shoulder from Silicon Valley http://thehill.com/policy/technology/282152-trump-gets-cold-shoulder-from-silicon-valley

Trump fails to right a wrong with nation’s veterans http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/columns-blogs/paul-harasim/trump-fails-right-wrong-nation-s-veterans

Trump and the World: What Could Actually Go Wrong http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-international-foreign-policy-global-risk-security-guide-213936

Barrio Logan community leaders are not happy about how protesters were treated by police last Friday following the Donald Trump rally at the Convention Center, saying their neighborhood was put under "martial law." http://www.cbs8.com/story/32103446/barrio-logan-neighborhood-put-under-martial-law

San Diego City Attorney Candidate Among 35 Arrested Following Trump Rally. Zimmerman said the thousands of people in the crowd were mostly peaceful and it was only a handful of protesters who sparked the violence. "I couldn't be more proud of everybody today, all law enforcement and public safety personnel who went out there and really showed just tremendous, tremendous patience and professionalism what they did today," she said Friday night. Trump tweeted his praise of the San Diego Police Department on Friday: "Fantastic job on handling the thugs who tried to disrupt our very peaceful and well attended rally. Greatly appreciated!" http://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/may/30/san-diego-city-attorney-candidate-among-35-arreste/

SDPD looking into officer selfie during Trump rally. According to reporter Wendy Fry at NBC 7 San Diego, the officer posted a photograph of herself in riot gear to Instagram with the caption, "Waiting waiting waiting!! Just riot all ready people!!! #waitingsucks." http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/may/29/sdpd-officer-selfie-riot-gear-trump-rally/

35 protesters arrested outside Trump rally in San Diego http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/05/28/trump-protesters-arrested-san-diego/85079482/

Police Riot at Trump Rally https://twitter.com/vosdscott/status/736407619850489857 http://www.nbcsandiego.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Pease-Arrest-POV_San-Diego-381208971.html

Trump tells California 'there is no drought' http://www.10news.com/news/national/trump-tells-california-there-is-no-drought

Will Hunter’s financial issues be a liability? But it may take more than a minor scandal for opponent to make headway East County district. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/apr/15/patrick-malloy-duncan-hunter-campaign-finance/

Hunter under fire from GOP conservatives. http://escondidograpevine.com/2016/04/13/hunter-under-fire-from-conservatives/

Stone, 64, is the white-haired, body-building, fashion-obsessed, sex-club-visiting former aide to Richard Nixon with a portrait of Nixon’s face tattooed between his shoulder blades. Donald Trump’s Pals Say Hillary Clinton Is a Lesbian Murderer, Bill Is a Cocaine Fiend http://thebea.st/27iD9SN

Which Republicans have endorsed Donald Trump? http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-gop-endorsements-222894

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Illma Gore: 'If anyone is going to be threatened by a small penis, it's Trump'. Artist whose painting of nude Trump went viral gives her account of being the target of his campaign’s hate machine and being physically attacked in LA. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/07/donald-trump-penis-painting-ilma-gore

Donald Trump scorns Republican opponents as well as Democrats. Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton is a “nasty, mean enabler” and calls liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren a “goofus,” lashing out at leading Democrats while hardly sparing Republicans bigwigs repulsed by his chokehold on their party’s presidential nomination. At rallies Friday in Nebraska and Oregon, Trump pounded away at Democratic front-runner Clinton — “crooked Hillary,” his preferred nickname. But Trump also raised President Bill Clinton’s marital infidelities and dismissed her criticism of how the billionaire businessman treated women. “Bill Clinton was the worst in history and I have to listen to her talking about it?” Trump said. “Just remember this: She was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler. And what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful. So put that in her bonnet and let’s see what happens.” Some Republicans were not shy about expressing their displeasure with Ryan, the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2012 who may have designs on the 2020 presidential nomination. Ryan’s position “emboldens others to be equally publicly difficult. And that runs the risk of creating a Goldwater kind of moment where the party really does split,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Associated Press. Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater was the 1964 Republican presidential nominee. His candidacy divided the GOP and was followed by a big Democratic victory by President Lyndon Johnson. “I don’t necessarily know that that’s his role, to be a sticking point for the Republican nominee,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, one of a growing number of Trump supporters in the House. Added Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania: “The voters of our party have spoken loud and clear, and it’s their voice that matters.” http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20160507/donald-trump-scorns-republican-opponents-as-well-as-democrats

Since the fateful day Ted Cruz announced his now-suspended presidential campaign, his daughters Caroline Cruz, age 7, along with her sister Catherine, 5, have been trotted out regularly, always in matching outfits, in a largely ineffective bid to help their father pretend that he is not the golem of Prague. Caroline Cruz, in particular, has made a name for herself in this election—sprinting away from her father, flinching from his embrace, staunchly refusing when her mother prompted her to say, prior to the New York primary, that her favorite state is New York. (Heidi: please.) In honor of the first day of Caroline Cruz’s retirement, let’s take a brief look back at her quiet, expressive rebellion, and imagine what our young heroine might have been thinking. In Memory of the Best Times Ted Cruz Got Owned on the Campaign Trail http://gawker.com/in-memory-of-the-greatest-times-ted-cruz-got-owned-on-t-1774718230 http://theslot.jezebel.com/a-collection-of-caroline-cruzs-most-embittered-expressi-1774685452

Ted Cruz Is Wrong: Owning Guns Doesn't Make Women Safer http://www.vice.com/read/gun-rights-advocates-claim-owning-a-gun-makes-a-woman-safer-research-says-theyre-wrong

Satanists balk at Cruz comparison. A leading Satanist group is trying to distance itself from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after the presidential candidate was compared to Lucifer this week. “Cruz’s failures of reason, compassion, decency and humanity are products of his Christian pandering, if not an actual Christian faith,” Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves said on Thursday, according to The Friendly Atheist. “It grows tedious when pedophile priests and loathsome politicians are conveniently dismissed as Satanic, even as they spew Biblical verse and prostrate themselves before the cross, recruiting the Christian faithful. Satanists will have nothing to do with them.” The Satanic Temple seeks “to be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will,” according to its website. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/278130-the-satanic-temple-dont-link-us-with-cruz

8 Stories Ted Cruz Should Probably Have Read Before Picking Carly Fiorina. Did he know all this when he decided she'd be a good vice president? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/ted-cruz-should-probably-have-read-these-stories-about-carly-fiorina-appointing-her

2016 Presidential Primaries Results http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president

Donald Trump's campaign advisers believe the billionaire mogul is emerging as the "prohibitive favorite" in the Republican presidential race and project that he will accumulate more than 1,400 delegates to secure the nomination on the first round of balloting at the party's Cleveland convention, according to an internal campaign memorandum. The projections come in a memo distributed to Trump surrogates late Tuesday night containing talking points for use in media interviews this week. The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, describes Trump's commanding win in the New York primary as "YUGE" and encourages his supporters to speak out about what Trump has described as a "rigged" process of selecting delegates for the Republican National Convention in July. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/20/internal-campaign-memo-projects-trump-will-win-1400-delegates-at-gop-convention/

2016 Elections older

Trump’s national field director quits amid major staff changes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/18/trumps-national-field-director-quits-amid-major-staff-changes/

Delegate tracker: who's winning the presidential nomination? Chart the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates’ path to the nomination as they rack up delegates with each primary contest http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/mar/25/us-election-2016-delegate-tracker-trump-cruz-kasich-sanders-clinton

Trump campaign in disarray. Morale sinks as key battleground state staff laid off, including senior data operative. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/donald-trump-campaign-staff-disarray-221557

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Trump poses for a picture like this at most campaign stops. https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/716959903261175808

An Open Letter to Trump Voters from His Top Strategist-Turned-Defector. I respect Trump's fans. That's why I can no longer support the man himself. STEPHANIE CEGIELSKI MAR 28, 2016 http://www.xojane.com/issues/stephanie-cegielski-donald-trump-campaign-defector

It pains me to say, but he is the presidential equivalent of Sanjaya on American Idol. http://www.xojane.com/issues/donald-trump-presidential-campaign

Poll: Romney's favorability lower than Trump's http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/274814-poll-romneys-favorability-lower-than-trumps

Newt Gingrich: Wives spat is Trump's 'wake-up call' http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/newt-gingrich-trump-ted-cruz-wives-221326

Trump goes after ex-Breitbart reporter: 'Can I press charges?' http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-corey-lewandowski-charge-response-221339

Secret Service: No guns in GOP convention http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/274473-secret-service-no-guns-in-convention#.Vvl7fiSGU_4.twitter

Ted Cruz Just Involved Himself in a Crazy Conspiracy Theory That’s Dividing the NRA http://www.vice.com/read/ted-cruz-may-have-just-stepped-into-a-fight-that-is-dividing-nra-members

How Far Jeb Bush Is Going To Stop Trump http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-far-jeb-bush-is-going-to-stop-trump/

Two Weeks in Trump Nation. Photographer Scott Mahaskey traveled the country with the passionate, fed-up supporters of The Donald. http://www.politico.com/magazine/gallery/2016/03/two-weeks-in-trump-nation-000624

AIPAC rebukes Trump for anti-Obama comments http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/273861-aipac-scolds-trump-for-anti-obama-comments

Schwarzenegger walks out of interview when asked about Trump http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/273708-schwarzenegger-walks-out-of-interview-when-asked-about-trump

Trump’s History of Encouraging Violence http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004269364/trump-and-violence.html

For Donald Trump, ‘Get ’Em Out’ Is the New ‘You’re Fired’ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/us/politics/donald-trump-security.html

Ted Cruz for President http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432691/ted-cruz-national-reviews-endorsement?target=author&tid=900170 Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432682/ted-cruz-national-review-endorses-texas-senator-president

This Is What It Looks Like to Get Beat Up at a Trump Rally http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/trump-violence via @motherjones

Time photographer roughed up by security at Trump event. Tensions have run high at previous Trump events, with reporters being restricted to specific "press pens" and at other points, threatening insults directed at reporters from Trump rally attendees. "Unlike other presidential campaigns, which generally allow reporters and photographers to move around at events, Trump has a strict policy requiring reporters and cameramen to stay inside a gated area, which the candidate often singles out for ridicule during his speeches," Time said in their statement. "The entrance to the penned area is generally monitored by the Secret Service detail, which also screens attendees at his events and personally protects the candidate." http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/time-photographer-roughed-up-by-security-at-trump-event-219983#ixzz41cWYPwke

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/02/29/viewers-guide-to-who-is-supporting-whom-in-the/208850

What a Donald Trump presidency might actually look like http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-trump-presidency-20160228-story.html

Did Christie just spark 'draft Romney' move? February 26, 2016 http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/270966-did-christie-just-spark-draft-romney-move

Jeb Bush drops out of White House race. The decision to suspend his campaign comes after the former Florida governor delivered a poor showing in South Carolina. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/breaking-news-jeb-bush-is-suspending-his-presidential-campaign-219564

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/breaking-news-jeb-bush-is-suspending-his-presidential-campaign-219564#ixzz40lO0j9xc

Donald Trump has a secret shame: Every playground bully has a toxic fuel. Playground thugs play to the crowd but they're always afraid of something, an expert tells us. Like being a loser. http://www.salon.com/2016/02/20/donald_trump_has_a_secret_shame_every_playground_bully_has_a_toxic_fuel/

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https://twitter.com/coopah/status/700887296912982017

Anderson Drops Out of Supervisor Race, Dodging Campaign Finance Restrictions http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/politics/anderson-drops-out-of-supervisor-race-dodging-campaign-finance-restrictions/

Donald Trump Honors Men Who ‘Took Action’ Against A Young Protester http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/02/17/3750224/trump-sc-protest/

If you or someone you love can’t name 10 Henry Kissinger war crimes you should read this https://theintercept.com/2016/02/12/henry-kissingers-war-crimes-are-central-to-the-divide-between-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders/

Carly Fiorina Drops Out Of 2016 Race http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fiorina-expected-to-drop-out

Bernie Sanders' Jumpshot Is More Impressive Than His Primary Win. This gives "Feeling the Bern" a brand new meaning. https://giphy.com/gifs/3o6gb16MRguiPO9XJS http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-jumpshot-new-hampshire-primary_us_56bb44fee4b0c3c5504f7b10

Bill Clinton’s ‘Bimbos’ Flock to Team Trump. Political consultant and ex-Trump adviser Roger Stone built a career smearing his foes. And now he’s re-surfacing some of the most troubling allegations from Clinton’s past. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/09/bill-clinton-s-bimbos-flock-to-team-trump.html

Sarah Palin Freaks Out on ‘Today Show’ Over PTSD Question. Donald Trump's highest-profile endorser had a meltdown Monday morning. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/01/sarah-palin-freaks-out-on-today-show-over-ptsd-question.html

Famous @AnnTelnaes Ted Cruz cartoon, generated TONS of misogynist hate mail which continues today. #FreeExpression https://twitter.com/laloalcaraz/status/690701576197910528

White House responds to Palin: Domestic violence 'not a joke' At a rally following her endorsement of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, Palin linked her son’s recent arrest to the president’s treatment of combat veterans. "They come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country," she said. "It starts from the top, the question though that comes from our own president, where they have to look at him and wonder, 'Do you know what we go through, do you know what we're trying to do to secure America and to secure the freedoms that have been bequeathed us?' " she added. Trump has backed Palin up on the comments, saying he urged the Tea Party favorite to mention her son’s arrest. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/266606-white-house-palin-domestic-violence-comments-not-a-joke

Carly Fiorina incorrect that U.S. has a 'record number of abortions year after year' http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/20/carly-fiorina/carly-fiorina-incorrect-us-has-record-number-abort/

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Carly Fiorina Hijacks Preschool Field Trip to Hold Anti-Abortion Rally. http://theslot.jezebel.com/carly-fiorina-hijacks-preschool-field-trip-to-hold-anti-1754253966

Juan Williams: GOP to blame for civility's breakdown. http://thehill.com/opinion/juan-williams/266155-juan-williams-gop-to-blame-for-civilitys-breakdown

Benghazi film flops at the box office http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/266241-benghazi-film-flops-at-the-box-office

Ryan and Cruze https://t.co/wVCPkZwC4Z

Carly Fiorina's Rose Bowl tweet draws Twitter scorn, hashtag http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/carly-fiorina-rose-bowl-tweet-217285

Is America better off under Obama? | Editorial http://s.nj.com/yDFQriL via @njdotcom

January 24, 2007 It's hard to succeed when they aren't even tuning in http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7004904

Carson: It’s ‘very likely’ I’m a one-term president http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/263519-carson-its-very-likely-im-a-one-term-president

By his own account, Carson’s career moved along relatively smoothly, even while performing as many as 400 operations per year – a high caseload for neurosurgeons. Ben Carson's patients claim malpractice in star doctor's path to politics http://gu.com/p/48442/stw

You get five points if a candidate drops out (or “suspends his campaign”) in December, three points if he does so in January, and one point in February. No points for dropouts after that.
Harry: Paul, Fiorina, Trump
Clare: Graham, Santorum, Huckabee >5
Nate: Kasich, Bush, Christie
Micah: Pataki, Carson, Rubio >5

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-republican-primary-dropout-draft/

Trump Picks Fellow Conspiracy Theorist Wayne Allyn Root To Emcee Nevada Rally - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/trump-picks-fellow-conspiracy-theorist-wayne-allyn-root-emcee-nevada-rally

Fiorina says she'll be one of few GOP candidates last standing https://shar.es/1Gu3md via @reviewjournal

Carly Fiorina comes in a so;id ninth with 1% in Washington Post-ABC News poll Dec. 10-13 http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/politics/washington-post-abc-news-poll-dec-10-13-2015/1914/

After San Bernardino Attack, Republican Candidates Talk ‘War’ http://nyti.ms/1SDUxZm

How This Company—and Mike Huckabee—Cashed In by Scaring Conservatives. A little-known publisher has built an empire on selling Bible cures and apocalyptic stock tips. Agora's subsidiaries have tapped into a network of conservative heavyweights, including Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich, who sell access to their massive email lists to advertise Agora's products. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/agora-huckabee-conservative-bible-cures

Creationism isn't just an ideology – it's a weapon of political control | Gayatri Devi http://gu.com/p/4eb6q/stw

The Republican Party must transform itself into a more accurate reflection of the nation if it wants to survive, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky tells Newsmax TV. Until the Republican Party looks like the rest of America — black, white, rich, poor, with earrings, without earrings, with tattoos, and without tattoos, working class folks in our party thinking what we're offering is the best for working class people — until that happens, we're not going to win again," Paul said in an interview aired Wednesday on "The Hard Line" with Ed Berliner. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/rand-paul-gop-republicans-presidential-run/2015/10/21/id/697368/

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/rand-paul-gop-republicans-presidential-run/2015/10/21/id/697368/#ixzz3rti1J1YM Urgent: Rate Obama on His Job Performance. Vote Here Now!

The GOP Race for Delegates: An Interactive Tool | RealClearPolitics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/11/17/the_gop_race_for_delegates_an_interactive_tool.html

Day one promises pile up for GOP hopefuls http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/260136-day-one-promises-pile-up-for-gop-hopefuls

Republican presidential candidates would jump straight into war with Russia | Trevor Timm http://gu.com/p/4e7ma/stw

Coulter after Paris attacks: 'Trump was elected president tonight' http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/260155-coulter-after-paris-attacks-trump-was-elected-president-tonight

The story of the surgery that made Ben Carson famous — and its complicated aftermath It soon became apparent, though, that the boys were hopelessly delayed, according to a 1993 interview with the Revue. Benjamin would moan occasionally, but Patrick remained completely silent; he had had a setback in the Baltimore hospital when he choked on a piece of food, going without oxygen for a short time. Years later, neither boy could get around on his own, nor feed himself. http://wpo.st/OXFn0

Spitting and Sweating, Anti-Gay Pastor Kevin Swanson Welcomes Huckabee and Jindal to Weird, Weird Conference. http://theslot.jezebel.com/spitting-and-sweating-anti-gay-pastor-kevin-swanson-we-1741031868

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Ben Carson is terrible for African Americans http://ti.me/1kaYSs6

BBC News - Five reasons Marco Rubio may stumble http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34683766

GOP “death spiral” shocker: “We’ve gone beyond the tipping point on the demographic changes” Pollster Stanley Greenberg lays out why the deck is stacked against the Republican Party in 2016. http://www.salon.com/2015/10/30/gop_death_spiral_shocker_weve_gone_beyond_the_tipping_point_on_the_demographic_changes/

Who’s Winning the Presidential Campaign? History suggests that each party’s eventual nominee will emerge from 2015 in one of the top two or three positions, as measured by endorsements, fund-raising and polling Who’s Winning the Presidential Campaign? http://nyti.ms/1igQntP

The Very Best of the Benghazi Hearing http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/very-best-benghazi-hearing

Trump implies Bush deserves some blame for 9/11: 'The World Trade Center came down during his reign' http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-implies-bush-deserves-blame-9-11-article-1.2400524

Dem files Ethics complaint on Benghazi panel. http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/256194-dem-files-ethics-complaint-on-benghazi-panel

“Right from the get-go with Carly, it seemed like it was a two-class company. It was her and the rest of us,” Soderstrom said. “Many of her employees were very disenchanted by her. When she was let go, I think for the right reasons, there was a lot of singing ‘Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.’” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/30/hp-employees-won-t-give-carly-fiorina-a-dime.html

Fiorina Campaign Makes Its Own Abortion Video http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/09/carly-fiorinas-campaign-made-its-own-abortion-video

“Carly is a bold and dynamic conservative leader,” Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) said in a video posted on her Facebook page. “The more people who have an opportunity to hear her message, to listen to her vision and to hear about her ideas about how she will lead America, the more people are responding and the higher she continues to rise,” Miller, who announced earlier this year that she is not seeking reelection, said. “I believe that rise will carry her all the way to the White House.” “Carly is a woman who has more than proven that she is a serious contender,” added Miller, chairwoman of the House Administration Committee. “I am proud to support the next president of the United States, Carly Fiorina.” http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/254658-fiorina-nabs-second-lawmaker-endorsement

Fiorina: Founders would be 'outraged' by US today. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/254641-fiorina-founders-would-be-outraged-by-us-today

The outside spending group CARLY for America — which is not legally allowed to coordinate with Fiorina’s presidential campaign but can spend millions on her behalf — hosted Fiorina’s family, roughly 100 supporters and more than a dozen journalists at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse for the debut screening of “Citizen Carly,” a documentary that doubles as an hour-long campaign commercial. The film begins and is salted throughout with testimonials from friends and former colleagues of Fiorina’s. Fiorina, they say, is “indefatigable,” “enormously compassionate” and always “standing up for the little people.” Hers is a “classic American story.” As the testimonies are told, large words circle in the background: “strength,” “leader,” “compassion.” But the film, narrated by actor James Woods, is also intimate, sometimes surprisingly so. Sitting on a chair beside her husband Frank, Carly’s voice breaks as she recalls the 2009 death of their daughter due to drug addiction. “Her poor little body. She was always a little girl. I think it just gave out,” Fiorina said. She said her “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” saved her. http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/254596-super-pac-debuts-pro-fiorina-documentary

Many have already picked apart what appear to be Fiorina’s flat-out lies about the Planned Parenthood videos. I haven’t watched those videos in their entirety, so I can’t say with personal authority. But Sarah Kliff of Vox has, and Kliff writes that all that business about a fetus with legs still kicking and people talking about needing to “harvest its brain” just isn’t true. Doesn’t exist. The charitable explanation, according to Kliff, is that Fiorina was confusing the Planned Parenthood videos with another that includes stock footage of the sort Fiorina described and maybe she confused them in her mind. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just lied. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/18/carly-fiorina-crackpot-warmonger.html

stop this childish back and forth! http://www.vice.com/read/gop-republican-debate-2015-who-won-916

Or take her biggest applause line of the night: a riff on the Planned Parenthood tapes that set conservative Twitter afire. "I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it's heart beating, it's legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain." The only problem? Nothing like that happens in the Planned Parenthood tapes. As Sarah Kliff, who has watched all the tapes, wrote, "either Fiorina hasn't watched the Planned Parenthood videos or she is knowingly misrepresenting the footage." This has become something of a habit for Fiorina, who has a notable facility for delivering answers that thrill conservatives but fall apart under close examination. In a recent interview with Katie Couric, for instance, Fiorina delivered a four-minute riff on climate change that the National Review enthused "shows how to address the left on climate change." The only problem, as David Roberts pointed out, was that every single thing she said in it was wrong. http://www.vox.com/2015/9/16/9342761/carly-fiorina-debate

The Tea Party Movement in 2015 http://www.irehr.org/2015/09/15/the-tea-party-movement-in-2015/

Palin gave remarks condemning the Iran deal, including the memorable utterance that “only in an Orwellian Obama world full of sprinkly fairy dust floating from atop a unicorn as he’s peeking through a pretty pink kaleidoscope would he ever see victory or safety for America or Israel in this treaty”. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/09/rally-iran-deal-tea-party-trumped-by-trump

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, calling nearly all of his foreign policy decisions spanning the last three decades a "disaster for this country. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rand-paul-dick-cheney-iraq_55e86077e4b0aec9f3563f73

http://mashable.com/2015/02/06/republicans-vaccines-climate-evolution/

A Democrat will win the White House next year by the narrowest of margins, according to a well-known election forecaster. Moody’s Analytics is predicting that the Democratic presidential nominee will capture 270 electoral votes in 2016, edging out the Republican nominee’s total of 268. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/250367-election-model-predicts-nail-biter-in-2016

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http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/podcast-totally-subjective-presidential-odds-early-august-edition/

William Shatner shoots down Ted Cruz’s “Kirk was a Republican” theory. Star Trek wasn't political. I'm not political; I can't even vote in the US. So to put a geocentric label on interstellar characters is silly. http://www.avclub.com/article/william-shatner-shoots-down-ted-cruzs-kirk-was-rep-222827

Republican Support for Trump Surges but his Unfavorable Ratings are Also Rising. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/25/republican_support_for_trump_surges_but_his_unfavorable_ratings_are_also.html

Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said he stood with Donald Trump on immigration, telling Fox Business News that many of his fellow Republicans who criticized the real estate mogul’s remarks on the topic were “vocal advocates of amnesty.” “I am proud to stand with Donald Trump,” said Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas. Trump, who is also running for president as a Republican, has been criticized for saying that many illegal immigrants to the United States are criminals. Other Republicans have called the comments “offensive.” http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/elections/presidential-candidate-cruz-defends-trump-immigration

Donald Trump's Latino comments are just GOP orthodoxy in a cruder shell. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/07/donald-trump-mexico-immigration-republican-politics

With just one month to go before the first GOP presidential debate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has surfed a bounce from his official campaign launch to claim the top spot in The Hill’s rankings. Bush placed second in our most recent rankings in May. The leader in May, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), has drifted to third place as questions deepen over whether his undoubted strengths will translate into victories in early states. Among the other big movers: Ben Carson has climbed three places to fourth, largely on the back of some surprisingly strong poll results, while Donald Trump, unranked in May, now demands inclusion. The businessman is at No. 8. http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/246778-the-10-republicans-most-likely-to-win-the-gops-2016-nod

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy says that during the 45-minutes he and his wife spent Tuesday with Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, he and Paul agreed on Nevada's right to sovereignty. Bundy said Paul told him: "If I was president of the United States, Nevada would have their sovereignty," Bundy told KNPR's State of Nevada program. "He said, 'One of your biggest problems is getting Nevada to recognize its sovereignty and to stand up for its sovereignty," Bundy also said. "He said he would turn over the jurisdiction authority and allow the state of Nevada to act like a sovereign state. He said it would be up to we the people to govern ourselves." Bundy said Paul's campaign people set up an impromptu meeting in a room at the Eureka Casino. Bundy and his wife, Carol, were with Paul, he said, for about 45 minutes. For now, Bundy said he isn't committing to any presidential candidate, Republican or Democratic. But he believes his support for a candidate will definitely sway other voters. "I believe so in the western United States," Bundy said. "If I would endorse a candidate, I think it would mean something to him, yes." http://knpr.org/knpr/2015-07/cliven-bundy-rand-paul-and-i-see-eye-eye http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/07/03/cliven-bundy-claims-rand-paul-promised-him-as-president-hed-make-nevada-a-sovereign-state/

Rand Paul met privately with Cliven Bundy on Monday, the Nevada rancher and anti-government activist “I don’t want to sell this land to private ownership, because I believe I already have stewardship.” He added, “I educated Rand on that point,” and said that the candidate seemed sympathetic to his point of view. “I don’t claim ownership,” Bundy said. “I claim rights.” http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/rand-paul-cliven-bundy-meeting-119576.html#ixzz3eaMydisr

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul met with southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy on Monday during a question-and-answer session in the town of Mesquite with supporters and activists interested in land rights. The Kentucky senator stopped at casino resorts and ballrooms Monday as part of his “Stand with Rand” tour in advance of Nevada’s February presidential caucus. Paul’s meeting with Bundy recalled one of the more dramatic conflicts over land rights in recent years. Hundreds of armed supporters joined Bundy in April 2013 to stop a roundup of his cattle near Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The Bureau of Land Management says Bundy owes more than $1 million in grazing fees over more than 20 years. Bundy argues the federal government has no authority there. http://www.salon.com/2015/06/30/rand_paul_meets_with_cliven_bundy_on_nevada_campaign_stop/

Oops! Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) had the most memorable moment of Wednesday night's CNBC debate, even though it was a moment when he couldn't remember what he was talking about. Perry tried to name the three federal agencies he would like to eliminate if he is elected president, but he was able to name just two: the Commerce and Education Departments. About 15 minutes later in the debate, Perry said he meant to say that the Department of Energy is the third agency he wanted to eliminate. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/rick-perry-forgets-agencies_n_1085249.html

97% think that Carly Fiorina has zero chance to be nominated. Republican's only listen to the 3% so feel her chances are excellent. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/two-background-players-join-the-2016-fray-carly-fiorina-and-ben-carson/

Carly Fiorina will run for president as a successful tech CEO. Silicon Valley says that's a fantasy. Former Hewlett-Packard chief questions Hillary Clinton’s record in hunt for female voters and startup cash on campaign trail, but ex-colleagues insist Fiorina ‘didn’t know what she was doing’. those who watched what Fiorina did to HP – mishandling the $25bn acquisition of Compaq, getting ousted by the board in 2005 with a $21m golden parachute, repeatedly being named one of the worst CEOs in American corporate history – say those supposed accomplishments are already coming back to “haunt” her run for the White House. “She put herself ahead of the interests of the company and I fear she would do the same as president,” Jason Burnett, a grandson of the late HP co-founder David Packard and a member of the Packard Foundation board of trustees, told the Guardian. “I don’t want her to do harm to this country.” http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/03/carly-fiorina-run-for-president-hewlett-packard

Sen. Ted Cruz argued Saturday that Democrats have become so extreme and "intolerant" of religious views that "there is no room for Christians in today's Democratic Party." "There is a liberal fascism that is dedicated to going after believing Christians who follow the biblical teaching on marriage," the Texas Republican said in his speech before a Christian conservative audience in Waukee, Iowa. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/26/politics/ted-cruz-liberal-fascism-iowa-speech/index.html

A Return to the Peace Party Republicans once stood for peace through strength, not endless war. By REP. JOHN J. DUNCAN JR. • April 24, 2015 http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-return-to-the-peace-party/

Syndicated radio host Michael Berry commented on the beating of a teenage girl at a New York City restaurant by saying, "You know why white lives matter? Because that's what white people believe. The dirty little secret is, black people don't believe that black lives matter." On the March 12 edition of his Houston-based show, Berry described video footage of the beating, in which four girls attacked a 15-year-old girl at a McDonald's in Brooklyn. At first, Berry claimed, "I'm not going to tell y'all the skin color because it's not relevant." After delivering his description of the brutal attack, Berry asserted that "you can blame this problem on anything other than the root cause. But the reality -- and this is what makes people so uncomfortable with our show -- is this one fact that we are about to state. We have people living in our country who are savages. Absolutely, positively savages. To engage in this kind of behavior." http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/13/syndicated-radio-host-michael-berry-white-peopl/202895

Too Much Prayer in Politics. Republicans, the Religious Right and Evolution. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-republicans-the-religious-right-and-evolution.html

Jeb Bush was a pot-smoking bully, say former classmates. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/231328-jeb-bush-was-a-pot-smoking-bully-say-former-classmates https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/02/01/tumultuous-four-years-phillips-academy-helped-shape-jeb-bush/q6ccyHNOtP1n6kqDokMBfK/story.html

Jeb ‘Put Me Through Hell’ Michael Schiavo knows as well as anyone what Jeb Bush can do with executive power. He thinks you ought to know too. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-terri-schiavo-114730.html#ixzz3QMV7Rssr

Sarah Palin is considered the 2016 presidential front runner after stirring speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Saturday in Des Moines. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sarah-palin-and-her-one-time-fans-on-the-right-its-so-over/2015/01/28/20625eb8-a70b-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/27/sarah-palin-running-for-president-great-thing-for-america

Romney And The GOP’s Five-Ring Circus http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/romney-and-the-gops-five-ring-circus/ https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/silver-datalab-candidate-venn1.png?w=610&h=613

B7VjfPzIgAAi4m8.jpg

114th Congress 2015-2016

SCOTUS

Antonin Scalia: the billion-dollar Supreme Court justice http://interc.pt/1XRkV4X by @ddayen

Justice Scalia spent his last hours with members of this secretive society of elite hunters. When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died 11 days ago at a West Texas ranch, he was among high-ranking members of an exclusive fraternity for hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s. For the hunting weekend earlier this month, Poindexter told The Washington Post that Scalia traveled to Houston with his friend and U.S. marshals, who provide security for Supreme Court justices. The Post obtained a Presidio County Sheriff’s Office report that named Foster as Scalia’s close friend on the trip. Sheriff Danny Dominguez confirmed that a photograph of Washington lawyer C. Allen Foster is the same man he interviewed at the ranch the day of Scalia’s death. From Houston, Scalia and Foster chartered a plane without the marshals to the Cibolo Creek Ranch airstrip. In a statement after Scalia died, the U.S. Marshals Service said that Scalia had declined a security detail while at the ranch. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-scalia-spent-his-last-hours-with-members-of-this-secretive-society-of-elite-hunters/2016/02/24/1d77af38-db20-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.html

Scalia's death probably linked to obesity, diabetes and coronary artery disease, physician says http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-scalia-death-cause-20160223-story.html

A Brief List of Some of the Many Terrible Things Antonin Scalia Said and Wrote http://theslot.jezebel.com/a-brief-list-of-some-of-the-many-terrible-things-antoni-1759174371

House

The Vaping Congressman Is the Only Congressman Worth Writing About. He had a grand old time on the taxpayers' dime. Duncan Hunter's father, who is also named Duncan Hunter, took his shot at the big prize in 2008 and scooped one entire delegate. This must be distinctly understood or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. (Thanks, Charlie D.) It seems that the younger Hunter, who took over his father's congressional seat after the failed presidential bid, found it a bit difficult to tell his money from his campaign's money. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44731/duncan-hunter-taxpayer-money/

Paul Ryan says he got an earful about Obama, Trump on his foreign trip. The speaker warned against what he described as Trump's call for a 'Fortress America' approach to the world. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/paul-ryan-middle-east-visit-trump-obama-221939

Oh my God, a U.S. congressman just vaped while legislating http://gaw.kr/wCrCZfn http://gawker.com/oh-my-god-a-u-s-congressman-just-vaped-while-legislat-1758511544 https://twitter.com/Gawker/status/697839769829687296

Senate vote on omnibus spending bill: yay 65 (27R+37D) nay 33 (26R+6D) so the Republicans are split https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/114-2015/s339

House vote on omnibus spending bill. yea 316 nay 113 Republican 150-95 Dem 166-18 so it's like Ryan is leading Dems https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/114-2015/h705

Lawmakers on Thursday elected Rep. Paul Ryan as the 54th Speaker of the House, putting an end to weeks of uncertainty over who would lead the raucous 247-member GOP conference after John Boehner’s surprise resignation. On a day filled with pomp and excitement, the Wisconsin Republican received 236 votes for Speaker — more than the 218 needed to win on the first ballot. His only challenger, little-known Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), whom Ryan defeated in an internal GOP election Wednesday, received 9 votes on the floor. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a former Speaker herself who will present the gavel to Ryan, received 184 votes, all from Democrats. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/258516-house-elects-paul-ryan-as-speaker

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/228628-the-republicans-who-voted-against-boehner-for-speaker

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/04/1345599/-Your-guide-to-2014-s-election-results-and-the-114th-Congress-members-and-their-nbspdistricts

http://thehill.com/new-members-guide-2014

Republicans

Republicans pick a bale of Cotton http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/14/1370875/-Republicans-pick-a-bale-of-Cotton?detail=email#

The Conservative Movement Is Infected With Scams. Politico Details "The Rise Of 'Scam PACs'" On The Right. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/01/26/the-conservative-movement-is-infected-with-scam/202272 http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/super-pac-scams-114581_full.html

113th Congress 2013-2014

Presidency

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/27-shocking-numbers-that-reveal-the-true-state-of-the-union-20140128

End Times for Obama? Why This Crisis Will Also Pass. by Michael Tomasky Nov 8, 2013 8:15 PM EST The Obamacare website situation is bad—but it’s not a make-or-break moment for this presidency. It’s just another round of the media’s trumped-up crises. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/08/end-times-for-obama-why-this-crisis-will-also-pass.html

States

“This isn’t about protecting abortion. It’s about protecting women,” she said. “It’s about trusting women to make good decisions for themselves and empowering them with the tools to do that.” Davis does not want to portray herself as a one-issue candidate, noting that her job on the campaign trail is to allow voters to see who she really is. “(I’m) a woman who wants desperately for others who are coming up in poverty to receive the same kind of partnership from the state that I once received so that they too can become a part of the success of Texas,” she said. Davis suggested that her views on abortion access do not mean she does not care about life.

“I am pro-life,” she said, borrowing from the label anti-abortion activists assign themselves. “I care about the life of every child: every child that goes to bed hungry, every child that goes to bed without a proper education, every child that goes to bed without being able to be a part of the Texas dream, every woman and man who worry about their children’s future and their ability to provide for that future. I care about life and I have a record of fighting for people above all else.”

And through fighting payday lending, insurance abuses, and for education, health care and transparent use of the state’s Enterprise Fund, Davis said she hopes voters will see her record speaks for itself. http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_5374c1f2-469e-11e3-bc9f-001a4bcf6878.html

Left

The Left Fights Back. This weekend’s massive protest in North Carolina shows that the GOP doesn’t own morality. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/02/moral_march_on_raleigh_how_the_moral_mondays_movement_is_redefining_the.html

Occupy Wall Street

San Diego City Council To Vote On $60,000 Settlement For Occupy Protestor. http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/dec/09/occupy-protestor-win-60000-settlement-city-san-die/

Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans' personal debt. Rolling Jubilee spent $400,000 to purchase debt cheaply from banks before 'abolishing' it, freeing individuals from their bills. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/12/occupy-wall-street-activists-15m-personal-debt

As It Spied on Occupy Wall Street, Department of Homeland Security Fixated on Media Coverage http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/04/as-it-spied-on-occupy-wall-street-department-of-homeland-security-fixated-on-media-coverage/

NYPD lied under oath to prosecute Occupy activist. http://rt.com/usa/nypd-occupy-michael-premo-703/

Feds Say Man Deserved Arrest Because Jacket Said ‘Occupy Everything’ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/man-deserved-arrest/

Republicanism is a Mental Disease

Meet Your New Craziest Republicans. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/05/1342284/-Meet-your-new-Craziest-Republicans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_of_2013#End_of_shutdown_and_temporary_debt_limit_suspension

Are You a J. Crew Democrat or a Pizza Hut Republican? http://time.com/3559482/stores-politics/#57

when the new, GOP-controlled Senate opens its first session next January, it will be strikingly unrepresentative of the voters who elected its members. A ThinkProgress review of the electoral results from 2010, 2012 and 2014 Senate races reveals that millions more Americans actually cast a vote for a Democratic Senate candidate than voted for a Republican candidate during the three election cycles that built the incoming Senate. For 2010 and 2012, we relied on official tallies of the total votes cast in all Senate races released by the Federal Elections Commission. Those results show that Republican Senate candidates outperformed Democrats by 2,733,121 votes in 2010, while Democrats outperformed Republicans by a much larger 10,867,709 votes in 2012. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/05/3589157/millions-more-votes-were-cast-for-democrats-in-the-incoming-senate-than-for-republicans/

Tea Party Endorsed Candidates - US House. http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/610-tea-party-election-2014

If you believe in one-party rule, Republicans are for you. If you believe in government by and for the wealthy and corporate special interests, Republicans are for you. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/03/1341253/-Perhaps-the-biggest-difference-between-Republicans-and-Democrats

In short, guns are much more likely to be used to kill or injure people than to maintain any semblance of actual order. Roving gangs of heavily armed white dudes are not going to be the solution to any national crises. Try shooting Ebola or “social unrest.” But don’t expect the NRA to ease up on the fearmongering. How do you debate people who literally believe ISIS might be sneaking over the border, knives in hand, and the only way to prevent them from killing your family is to stock up on guns and ammo? You can’t.” With elections right around the corner, the NRA is trying their damndest to translate terror into victory in the ballot box. And considering how far to the right groups like the NRA are already pushing the national agenda, it’s only going to get worse. Read more at http://thedailybanter.com/2014/11/wayne-lapierre-trys-mobilizes-base-going-full-crazy/#lfLdxmpOZf0hItiJ.99

By voting for me, you will be voting for yourself. I'm here to serve you- the people of El Cajon. I'm not here to lie to you or make campaign promises. I'm here to help make our city, the city of El Cajon, the best place to live and work. I believe in lower taxes and more jobs. To achieve my goals, I will seek out existing and new companies to help in creating more jobs in El Cajon. By creating jobs it will help our tax base and will decrease our taxes. I support and believe in small businesses because it's the small businesses that grow into major corporations and help to create more jobs as they grow. http://www.thejonathanwright.com/index.php

“I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He's a Republican." I said, "Then I am a Republican!"” Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes (Austrian born American Actor and Governor, b.1947) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9HtoWea72A

Kashkari compared Brown’s move to Watergate. "A lifetime of public service for Richard Nixon has been overshadowed by one terrible decision he made at the end of his presidency," he says. "Jerry Brown has had a lifetime of public service. But when the neediest kids of California, black and brown kids, ask him for help, he didn’t help them. He fought them, he betrayed them. And I’m going to make sure everyone in California knows what he’s done." Kashkari admitted Brown had not done anything criminal in appealing the teacher tenure ruling. "But betraying needy kids who are begging for a fair chance at a good education? It may as well be criminal," he says. In a statement, the Brown campaign says Kashkari’s ad would be funny if it weren’t so "offensive and disturbing." http://www.capradio.org/articles/2014/10/21/kashkari-steps-up-attacks-on-brown/

Ted Nugent called for "freedom" or the "evil carcasses" of President Obama and other progressive politicians in a Facebook post where he told followers to support the National Rifle Association and discredited gun advocate John Lott's Crime Prevention Research Center. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/14/nras-ted-nugent-calls-for-the-evil-carcasses-of/201154

OCTOBER 13--Today marks the tenth anniversary of the filing of the greatest lawsuit ever. On this date in 2004, Bill O’Reilly was accused of sexual harassment by Andrea Mackris, an associate producer who worked with the TV host at Fox News Channel. Mackris’s New York State Supreme Court complaint is bursting with examples of the 65-year-old O’Reilly’s alleged sleaziness (which apparently was surreptitiously memorialized via Mackris’s tape recorder). The lawsuit was settled within two weeks and the parties agreed to confidentiality provisions intended to shroud O’Reilly’s purportedly pervy ways. The legal settlement reportedly included a fat check for the 43-year-old Mackris, who said that O’Reilly could be “paternal and engaging” and then “tyrannical and menacing.” http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/oreilly/bill-oreilly-falafel-lawsuit-turns-ten-897562

during this cycle, Republican crazy just hasn’t broken through at all. It’s almost as if the national press has just come to accept as normal the degree to which the GOP has moved dramatically to the right. At this point so many prominent Republicans have said insane things that after a while they go by with barely a notice. This is an era when a prominent Republican governor who wants to be president can muse about the possibility that his state might secede from the union, when the most popular radio host in the country suggests that liberals like Barack Obama want Ebola to come to America to punish us for slavery, and when the President of the United States had to show his birth certificate to prove that he isn’t a foreigner. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/10/10/how-the-media-has-helped-normalize-gop-crazy/?tid=rssfeed

The Other Congressional Races in San Diego: The 50th’s Duncan Hunter, Best Party Animal on Capitol Hill http://sandiegofreepress.org/2014/10/the-other-congressional-races-in-san-diego-the-50ths-duncan-hunter-best-party-animal-on-capitol-hill/ http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/the-best-worst-of-congress-2014/ http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_11/-48646-1.html?pg=2&dczone=news

Rove has never cared about conservatism and has spent his entire career opposing any Republican who might be successful in promoting or implementing a conservative agenda. Rove belongs to the same tradition of moderates who fought Barry Goldwater in 1964, who pushed back against Ronald Reagan in 1976 and did everything they could to stop Reagan again in 1980. They said Reagan would be a disaster for the party and even the country. Today, Reagan is one of the most well-remembered American presidents and remains the standard-bearer for what it means to be a conservative Republican, popularizing a small government message that GOP moderates said was too extreme to resonate with voters. As with Rove’s predictions about Mitt Romney’s chances in 2012, GOP moderates couldn’t have been more wrong about Reagan. Rove and his ilk have opposed every significant conservative leader who has ever dared to challenge liberal or moderate Republican orthodoxy. A history lesson: Moderates wanted Gerald Ford and then George H.W. Bush over Ronald Reagan in 1976 and 1980. Similarly, Karl Rove and his friends wanted Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2010. They wanted Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio in 2010. They wanted David Dewhurst over Ted Cruz in 2012. Karl Rove kneecapped tea party candidates in 2010. He called Rick Perry’s policy prescriptions, many which have had great success in Texas, “toxic.” Rove said Sarah Palin lacked “gravitas.” He has said Rand Paul “causes GOP squeamishness.” And what does he think about conservatives in general? He’s called us the Republican Party’s “nutty fringe.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/karl-rove-is-ruining-the-gop-111674.html#ixzz3Fay4Hr39

Wake up, America! While everyone is up in arms about Ebola, and we must remain vigilant and fight it with all we have, there is another virus that has already taken hold of Americans in every state: liberalism. Truth, transparency, freedom and liberty. The flag, "Under God" patriotism have all been tossed out the window. They are being replaced by "everybody gets a trophy," "share the wealth," "government knows what's best for your business," your family and even what should go on in your bedroom. Be careful, America. Liberalism is a dangerous virus. [...] Wake up, America. Liberalism is a virus, too. Try not to catch it. And if you do, for goodness sake, don't spread it!! http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/06/foxs-bolling-calls-liberalism-a-dangerous-virus/201037

If GOP is so right, why are red states so far behind? Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/03/238428_leonard-pitts-jr-if-gop-is-so.html

Why Do Newspapers Keep Publishing Op-Eds by John McCain? Looking back at the Arizona senator's track record, it's hard to see why anyone still treats him as a source of insight into what will happen next in geopolitics. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/why-do-newspapers-keep-publishing-op-eds-by-john-mccain/379512/

As a candidate in the 51st Congressional District, Stephen Meade's politics are a problem. He's a conservative Republican in a district where voter registration is more than 2-to-1 Democratic. The district is 70% Latino, but Meade does not speak Spanish. He has no money to campaign. And his opponent, Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas, has the power of incumbency. There's another thing that may make things difficult for the 88-year-old political novice: He wears women's clothing. "I'm straight, but I just have this thing about loving ladies' clothes," Meade said. http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-pol-candidate-20140901-story.html

Perry said he wants to scrap the federal Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy (even though that last one eluded him for a while). http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/rick-perry-wants-scrap-three-government-departments-mean-212919120.html

Ask Andrew W.K.: My Dad Is a Right-Wing Asshole http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2014/08/ask_andrew_wk_right_wing_dad.php

Ronald Kessler Q: Does a recent book quote Secret Service agents saying denigrating things about Obama and other recent Democratic presidents while praising only Republicans? A: No. The book's author, Ronald Kessler, states that a viral e-mail's descriptions of Obama and Clinton "are completely wrong." His book quotes both flattering and unflattering observations about presidents of both parties. http://www.factcheck.org/2011/06/secret-service-tattletales/

Music Industry Experts Say Ted Nugent's Ongoing Diatribes Damaging Concert Promotion. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/25/music-industry-experts-say-ted-nugents-ongoing/200209

At Some Point, Progressives Need to Grow a Pair and Stop Having Anything To Do With the Democratic Party. http://rall.com/2014/07/03/syndicated-column-at-some-point-progressives-need-to-grow-a-pair-and-stop-having-anything-to-do-with-the-democratic-party

“Can you imagine all the things Kreep’s done, and he’s sitting in judgment on your behavior?” Thompson said. “It’s almost crazy that he’s signing judgments to make other people pay when he won’t pay his own. Something’s got to be wrong that he can do this.” http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-13133-judge-gary-kreep-overcharged-former-client-thousands-of-dollars.html

'Being On The Wrong Side Of Dick Cheney Is Being On The Right Side Of History' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/harry-reid-dick-cheney_n_5507113.html

Republican Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama's handling of foreign policy, telling financial backers at his annual conference Friday that everything the nation fought for during the lengthy Iraq war could vanish. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee said at the start of his annual ideas summit at a luxurious Utah resort that the foreign policy agenda pushed by Obama, his former rival, Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a "monumental bust." "Tragically, all we've fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing," Romney said. Romney added his voice to a number of Republicans who have accused Obama of being slow to respond in Iraq following the capture of two cities by an al-Qaida inspired militant group and concerns it could push toward Baghdad. He spoke shortly before Obama told reporters from the South Lawn that he was weighing a range of options to halt the violent Islamic insurgency. In his 15-minute address to about 300 former campaign donors and supporters, Romney pointed to a number of global hot spots, noting that Syria is in its third year of civil war, North Korea has carried out nuclear missile tests and Russia has captured Crimea. The conference is expected to include speeches by a number of potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates, including Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Romney has quietly worked to develop a kingmaker status in the Republican party's effort to capture a majority in the Senate this fall and win back the White House in 2016. "I lost the election. We lost the election," Romney said. "But I and we will continue to fight." http://bigstory.ap.org/article/romney-all-us-fought-iraq-could-vanish

Cantor loss sparks GOP frenzy. The jockeying among Republicans to replace Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.) as House majority leader began Wednesday within hours of his stunning primary loss. The No. 3 Republican, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), is expected to seek Cantor’s post as majority leader, the second-ranking post behind Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). http://thehill.com/homenews/house/208983-cantor-loss-sparks-gop-frenzy

During the George W. Bush period, there were 13 attacks on various embassies and consulates around the world. Sixty people died. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/12/john-garamendi/prior-benghazi-were-there-13-attacks-embassies-and/

Utah ATV protest peaceful; BLM unhappy. http://durangoherald.com/article/20140510/NEWS01/140519967/-1/s/Utah-ATV-protest-peaceful-

Republicanism is a Mental Disease archived May 10, 2014

Ted Cruz, the reckless accuser. Sen. Ted Cruz, in a speech to fellow conservatives at the Federalist Society this week, provided detailed evidence of what the right calls the “lawlessness” of the Obama administration. The Texas Republican, in his latest McCar­thyesque flourish, said he had a list of “76 instances of lawlessness and other abuses of power.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-ted-cruzs-dirty-laundry-list-of-lawlessness/2014/05/09/70bb03d8-d7b3-11e3-8a78-8fe50322a72c_story.html

Sarah Palin: "Waterboarding Is How We Baptize Terrorists" http://gawker.com/sarah-palin-waterboarding-is-how-we-baptize-terrorist-1568887569

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0420/Nevada-range-war-Western-states-move-to-take-over-federal-land

A rancher's armed battle against the US government is standard libertarian fare. Cliven Bundy's standoff with the BLM is over a paltry monthly grazing fee. But it's also over more - the idea of the public interest. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/19/cliven-bundy-nevada-blm-libertarian

'Wake up America,' says family involved in BLM cattle dispute. A federal judge in Las Vegas first ordered Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to remove his trespassing cattle in 1998, according to reports from the Associated Press. Similar orders were issued in July 2013, and again in October. Saturday, the BLM began taking some of the 908 cattle from Bundy. The BLM says Bundy's cattle have been trespassing on U.S. land without required grazing permits for over 25 years. However, Bundy said he doesn't recognize federal authority on land that he says belongs to the state of Nevada. The BLM released a statement on its website saying, "Cattle have been in trespass on public lands in Southern Nevada for more than two decades. This is unfair to the thousands of other ranchers who graze livestock in compliance with federal laws and regulations throughout the west. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Park Service (NPS) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially." The situation escalated Saturday after Cliven Bundy's son, Dave Bundy, 37, was arrested. Members of the Bundy family had gathered to film and take pictures of the removal of their cattle in an effort to document the event, according to Cliven Bundy's daughter, Bailey Bundy Logue. The family members had parked on the side of Nevada state Route 170, but the highway was included in the temporary closure of public lands, according to BLM representative Kirsten Cannon. Dave Bundy was arrested and cited with a criminal charge of refusing to disperse and resisting officers. Cannon said all public lands are closed within the designated closure area during the removal of the trespassing cattle. Read more at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=29387272

Fox Champions Bundy Supporters Who Threatened Violence Against Federal Agents. Bundy Supporter: "We Were Actually Strategizing To Put All The Women Up At The Front" http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/04/18/fox-champions-bundy-supporters-who-threatened-v/198947

Glenn Beck worked the crowd like a preacher at a rally this month in Louisville, Ky., declaring that God had responded to conservatives’ prayers by sending a slate of tea party candidates to wrest control of the Republican Party from Mitch McConnell. But there was a more earthly benefit to the arrangement that brought Beck to the rally. It was organized by the tea party nonprofit group FreedomWorks, which had endorsed the candidates — and which has paid more than $6 million in recent years to have Beck promote the group, its initiatives and events. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/ansel-adams-manzanar_n_5155579.html

The president's power grab. Obama is not a dictator, but there is a danger in his aggregation of executive power. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley-obama-separation-of-powers-20140309,0,5262266.story

The words "subhuman mongrel," which Ted Nugent called President Barack Obama, were used by the Nazis to "justify the genocide of the Jewish community." Wolf Blitzer: Ted Nugent used Nazi terminology, 'subhuman mongrel,' to describe President Barack Obama. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/feb/18/wolf-blitzer/wolf-blitzer-ted-nugent-used-nazi-terminology-subh/

While Ted Nugent's reference to President Barack Obama as a "subhuman mongrel" has received strong criticism from all corners of the media and political landscape, two major organizations with key ties to Nugent -- the National Rifle Association (NRA) and The Outdoor Channel -- have yet to weigh in on the controversy. Nugent is an NRA board member and perhaps the group's most-well known public advocate. He serves as a spokesman for the Outdoor Channel, where he also hosts a hunting show. Last month, Nugent told Guns.com that President Obama is a "subhuman mongrel" and argued that he and other liberal politicians should be punished for treason. The offensive remark drew new attention this past week after Nugent was scheduled to appear at a campaign event with Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/21/nra-and-outdoor-channel-silent-on-spokesman-nug/198172

Issa rails against Obama's 'imperial presidency'. The Republican congressman spearheading investigations of President Barack Obama's administration by the GOP-run House urged his party Tuesday to unite against Obama's "imperial presidency". At the same time, Rep. Darrell Issa of California questioned former the leadership abilities of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Issa heads the House Overight and Government Reform Committee, and in this role has led a host of investigations into administration controversies. Issa's remarks came as he made a rare New Hampshire tour, telling audiences he's not interested in running for the White House. http://news.yahoo.com/issa-rails-against-obama-39-39-imperial-presidency-072739075--election.html

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/feb/14/boehner-fights-back-against-tea-party-again/

Here Are All The Republicans Who Voted To Avoid A Potential Economic Calamity. http://www.businessinsider.com/who-voted-to-raise-debt-ceiling-republicans-2014-2#ixzz2t56YMOI0

The House passed a clean debt-ceiling suspension on Tuesday — a vote that alienated dozens of Republicans and led some conservative groups to call for the removal of Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) as Speaker. The bill was approved in a 221-201 vote, largely on the backs of Democrats. Only 28 Republicans voted for it, while 199 voted against. http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/198132-house-approves-clean-debt-ceiling-bill

A rare look inside the Koch brothers political empire. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/02/05/a-rare-look-inside-the-koch-brothers-political-empire/

Study: Watching Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News. http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/01/30/does_watching_fox_news_make_you_less_informed.html

Congressman who threatened reporter on TV is Marine veteran. “What?” Mr. Scotto said. Before he could explain that he was just trying to ask him a question, Mr. Grimm became unhinged. “Let me be clear to you,” he said in a low voice, before using a profanity and warning that he would hurl Mr. Scotto from the balcony. There is some cross talk between the two men which was not audible on the video before Mr. Grimm concluded with an insult and another threat. “No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough,” he said. “I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.” Rep. Michael Grimm is in the right. You push to hard, we as Marines will push back harder! That reporter should have known his place and been respect full and great full that he got an interview in the first place at all. I support u Rep. Michael Grimm, Semper Fi Brother. As much as I support former marines (myself included) and respect the service/sacrifice that he has made, I think he was 100% wrong in threatening the reporter. That’s not how problems get solved. Rep Grimm is under investigation by the FBI, it’s not a rumor or unsubstantiated investigation. He should have expected that this sort of question could come up and even if he was ambushed by the reporter, he could have and should have handled it differently. If you get off track we marines will put you back on track . What’s the problem? Violence is the best solution to every problem. Grimm told the interviewer on NY1’s Inside City Hall that Allegretti “sleep[s] under a blanket of freedom that I helped provide… you should just say thank you.” The original line, said by Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep to Tom Cruise’s Lieutenant Kaffee in the film, was that Kaffee “sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I’d prefer you just said ‘thank you’ and went on your way.” When I kill you you will be safe! The problem is that we don't have enough violence. People need to be thankful for the violence we provide to make the world safer for violence. http://blogs.militarytimes.com/battle-rattle/2014/01/29/congressman-who-threatened-reporter-on-tv-is-marine-veteran/

Republican Congressman threatens to kill reporter after State of the Union. Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY/Staten Island) felt a little tense after the State of the Union. After giving a terse statement to an NY1 reporter, he was asked about the ongoing issue of his campaign finance. He declined to discuss the matter and stormed off, then returned a moment later, apparently unaware that the camera was still rolling, and threatened to "throw [the reporter] off this fucking balcony." Grimm followed this with "you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy." Grimm is a former US Marine who served in Iraq, and then worked for the FBI. While at the Bureau, he was investigated for abusing his authority: threatening his date's husband ("I'll fucking make him disappear where nobody will find him") and pulling a gun in a nightclub. Grimm argued that reports of the incident were a "witch hunt" but the NYPD and FBi refused to release their files on the matter, and the New Yorker reporter who wrote the original story produced supplemental documents supporting his account. Grimm is a Tea Party darling who was endorsed by Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani. http://boingboing.net/2014/01/28/republican-congressman-threate.html#more-283536

If millionaires in the United States formed their own political party, that party would make up just 3 percent of the country, but it would have a majority in the House of Representatives, a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate, a 5 to 4 majority on the Supreme Court and a man in the White House. If working-class Americans — people with manual-labor and service-industry jobs — were a political party, that party would have made up more than half of the country since the start of the 20th century, but its legislators (those who last worked in blue-collar jobs before getting into politics) would never have held more than 2 percent of the seats in Congress. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/01/07/millionaires-run-our-government-heres-why-that-matters/

The most unproductive and least popular US Congress in history can count on another distinction: For the first time ever, most members of the Legislative Branch are millionaires. At least 268 of the 534 current members of the 113th US Congress have an average net worth of US$1 million or more, according to personal financial disclosure data members registered last year on 2012 net worth, the Center for Responsive Politics reported Thursday. Republican Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is the richest member of Congress, with a net worth of $464 million in 2012. http://rt.com/usa/us-congress-millionaire-investments-392/

Why I fled libertarianism — and became a liberal. I was a Ron Paul delegate back in 2008 -- now I'm a Democrat. Here's my personal tale of disgust and self-discovery. I don’t want to gloss over the good things about libertarians. They are generally supportive of the gay community, completely behind marijuana legalization and are often against ill-considered foreign wars, but a few good ideas don’t make up for some spectacularly bad ones. Their saving grace is a complete lack of organizational ability, which is why they are always trying to take over the Republican Party, rather than create a party of their own. http://www.salon.com/2013/12/28/why_i_fled_libertarianism_and_became_a_liberal/

Darrell Issa Hid The Truth About Benghazi For a Year While Attacking President Obama. Issa has wasted taxpayer time and money for three years looking for Obama Administration scandals he subsequently never found, including the tragic deaths of 4 American diplomats in Benghazi Libya on September 11 2012. Issa’s scandalous investigations aside, it was revealed yesterday that an extensive investigation into the attack on the diplomatic outpost that claimed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three diplomats’ lives found no involvement of al-Qaeda or other international terrorists groups whatsoever like Republicans have claimed for over a year. Instead, the attack was precipitated by, as first reported, extremist Christians in the United States. A lengthy and comprehensive New York Times investigation informed what Republicans are desperate to keep under wraps because it revealed the Benghazi attack was “accelerated in part by anger at a U.S.-made video denigrating Islam.” The report parroted what any American with half-a-mind has known since Republicans began their relentless propaganda campaign that the Obama administration attempted to cover up al-Qaeda’s alleged role in the attack. According to the chairman of the House Intelligent Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, who kept the al-Qaeda meme alive last month on Fox News, “It was very clear to the individuals on the ground that this was an al-Qaeda-led event.” http://www.politicususa.com/2013/12/29/darrell-issa-hid-truth-benghazi-year-attacking-president-obama.html http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/?hp#/?chapt=0

The war on bicycles. 4. WSJ Editorial Board Member: New York City's Bike Share Program Part Of "Totalitarian" Plot. With a straight face, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Dorothy Rabinowitz said that bicyclists were the "most important danger" facing New York City, and raged against bike share programs that are pursued by the "all powerful" "bike lobby" emboldened by "totalitarians." She emphasizes that "the city is helpless" before the driven ambitions of its "autocratic" mayor. Rabinowitz's overly hyped attack of a bike-share program attracted criticism, notably from Comedy Central's The Daily Show. However, Rabinowitz stuck by her attack, saying the bike racks are "instruments of aesthetic torture" and told a bicyclist who asked her a question to instead ask "the therapist we hope this biker is consulting." http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/23/8-most-absurd-attacks-on-clean-tech-in-2013/197306

House GOP:
47 Votes to Repeal Obamacare
44 Abortion Bills
99 Religion Bills
36 Marriage Bills
0 Jobs Bills

Conservatives’ new enemy: Bikes. The bicycle is emerging as a new conservative front in the culture wars. http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/12/15/conservatives-new-enemy-bikes/NoLMjnocHg28jZ4hw3F4oI/story.html

EL CAJON, Calif. - Some members of the local Middle Eastern community are outraged over the controversial comments made on C-SPAN by local Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-50th District). "In the Middle Eastern culture, it is looked upon with very high regard to get the best deal possible, no matter what it takes, that includes lying," Hunter said in an interview that aired Monday. 10News showed two minutes of the interview to Ben Kalasho, president of the newly formed San Diego-East County Chaldean American Chamber Of Commerce. "It's not in good taste at all. I think a lot of people will take offense to that, especially that he's an elected official," said Kalasho, who is a Democrat running for the vacant El Cajon City Council seat. Kalasho said the East County is home to more than 80,000 Middle Easterners, and he believes Hunter should not make these generalizations, especially when many of his own constituents are from the Middle East. http://www.10news.com/news/some-local-middle-easterners-outraged-comments-made-by-congressman-duncan-d-hunter

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/DuncanH

A hawkish House Republican says the United States should use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities if war with the Islamic republic becomes necessary. House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., threw down that bold gauntlet Wednesday morning during a C-SPAN interview in which he also suggested Middle East “culture” fosters dishonest negotiators. Asked if war with Iran is inevitable, Hunter replied: “I sure as Hell hope not.” But if push came to shove and US officials deemed strikes necessary, Hunter turned hawkish. He said any American strike would be a “massive aerial bombing campaign,” adding that such a mission should not feature any “boots on ground.” Then, Hunter said the US should use its “tactical nuclear weapons” on Iranian targets. Hunter also slammed the recent preliminary pact between Tehran and the UN Security Council, under which Iran has agreed to cease some nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief and facility inspections. “Iran has to do nothing,” Hunter said, saying the Obama administration intends to merely “pray Iran will act differently” than its various leaders have “for the last 40 years.” Echoing other congressional Republicans and conservative pundits, Hunter said the White House and other Security Council nations erred in inking a preliminary Iran deal that allows Tehran to enrich any uranium. Hunter said Iranian officials are “not trustworthy,” then said all Middle Easterners — due to their “culture” — cannot be trusted at the negotiating table. “It is part of the Middle East culture” to “do anything you can … to get the best deal,” Hunter said. Asked by a C-SPAN host if he believes all Middle Easterners are liars, Hunter did not directly discount the notion. The conservative HASC member also accused, citing the Iran deal, the Obama administration of “making friends with our former enemies” while purposely distancing America from longtime allies in the region like Saudi Arabia. http://www.militarytimes.com/article/20131204/NEWS05/312040013

Eight Tea Party Morons Destroying America. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/pictures/eight-tea-party-morons-destroying-america-20131008

3 Secret Plaintiffs File 5 Court Requests to Block Latest John Doe Probe in Wisconsin. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/19/1256802/-3-Secret-Plaitiffs-File-5-Court-Requests-to-Block-Latest-John-Doe-Probe-in-Wisconsin

More problems for Rand Paul. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/08/1254153/-More-problems-for-Rand-Paul

How the Tea Party’s Apocalyptic Politics Are Destroying the Republican Party. by Joe McLean Nov 11, 2013 5:45 AM EST. Leaders of the Tea Party are willing to wreck the Republican Party, the government, and the economy to prove that Obama is evil and God is on their side. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/11/how-the-tea-party-s-apocalyptic-politics-are-destroying-the-republican-party.html

Meet The 37 House Republicans Who Could Lose Their Jobs For Shutting Down The Government. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/house-republicans-2014-elections_n_4152818.html

Rep. Hunter, when are you going to start making those hard choices? Cutting a bloated military budget and raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to cover guaranteed entitlements and education. When are you going to tell your sacred Republican Party that every day they block a real budget it continues to weaken the US economy and damages the United States’ credit around the globe? It is certainly true that the budget is a political statement but playing politics with the budget has detrimental consequences. So Rep. Hunter, are you aware of the consequences? http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/14216

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/rachel-maddow-shutdown-republican-chart_n_4114662.html

Addressing the differences between his own Democratic Party and the GOP, Obama urged lawmakers on both side of the aisle Thursday to no longer let partisan issues polarize Congress to such a degree that catastrophe occurs. “I understand we will not suddenly agree on everything now that the cloud of crisis has passed. Democrats and Republicans are far apart on a lot of issues, and I recognize there are folks on the other side who think my policies are misguided. That’s putting it mildly. That’s okay. That’s democracy. That’s how it works. We can debate those differences, vigorously, passionately, in good faith, through the normal democratic process. And some times, we’ll be just two far apart to forget an agreement. But that should not hold back our efforts in areas where we do agree. We shouldn’t fail to act on areas that we do agree or could agree just because we don’t think it’s good politics. Just because the extremes in our party don’t like the word “compromise.” I will look for willing partners wherever I can to get important work done. And there’s no good reason why we can’t govern responsibly, despite our differences, without lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis,” Obama said. http://rt.com/usa/obama-reopen-government-address-315/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30835791@N07/sets/72157614241935013/

House Roll Call: Vote to end govt shutdown. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/House-Roll-Call-Vote-to-end-govt-shutdown-4902272.php#page-1

Senate vote on ending shutdown, raising debt limit. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Senate-vote-on-ending-shutdown-raising-debt-limit-4902100.php

32 Republicans Who Caused the Government Shutdown. Meet the House conservative hardliners. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/32-republicans-who-caused-the-government-shutdown/280236/

Some of Rush Limbaugh's thoughts about the GOP's surrender on the shutdown and the debt ceiling: "I was trying to think if ever in my life, I could remember any major political party being so irrelevant. I have never seen it. I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican party has been doing. There has not been any serious opposition...against what's happening in this country. The Republicans have done everything they can to try to make everyone like them and what they've ended up doing is creating one of the greatest political disasters I've ever seen in my lifetime...I was pondering if I could ever remember...a time when a political party just made a decision not to exist, for all intents and purposes." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/rush-limbaugh-gop-shutdown-disaster-exist_n_4109640.html

Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has infuriated Democrats this week by commandeering the Senate floor, demanding a vote on his amendment repealing federal contributions to help pay for lawmakers’ health care coverage. But Democratic senators are preparing a legislative response targeting a sordid Vitter episode. If Vitter continues to insist on a vote on his proposal, Democrats could counter with one of their own: Lawmakers will be denied those government contributions if there is “probable cause” they solicited prostitutes. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/david-vitter-obamacare-democrats-secret-weapon-96744.html

Reid released emails last week in which the Speaker asked for help in protecting the benefits for people working on Capitol Hill while publicly supporting legislation to end the subsidies. His public posturing was pandering to outside conservative critics. It is a low moment for the Speaker. Boehner’s tenure has left Republicans in Congress with a 17 percent approval rating in the latest Quinnipiac poll, the lowest in history. Democrats have now jumped to a 9-point lead when voters are asked which party they are more likely to support in the next congressional election. History will also make note of that. Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel. Read more: http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/juan-williams/326823-opinion-boehner-is-leader-in-name-only

Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Political Parties. When it comes to major policy battles, since 2009 the GOP is 0-3. Before it fails again, David Frum offers up seven ways the party is shooting itself in the foot. - See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/08/seven-habits-of-highly-ineffective-political-parties-part-one.html

Five Boehner Quotes—From One Interview—That Explain Everything. Wonder why the government is still shuttered? You may have missed this interview, in which the speaker issued talking points from another dimension. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/07/five-boehner-quotes-from-one-interview-that-explain-everything.html

19 Times Democrats Tried to Negotiate With RepublicansThe GOP's biggest talking point of the shutdown is only true if you ignore everything that happened before last week. http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/19-times-democrats-tried-to-negotiate-with-republicans-20131007

Why the U.S. government is shut down: 5 theories from abroad Our friends overseas can only watch in awe as Congress implodes. http://theweek.com/article/index/250623/why-the-us-government-is-shut-down-five-theories-from-abroad

The GOP's Obamacare Suicide. With a main component of the health care law kicking in and proving popular, the Republicans' fundamental narrative—that government is the problem—could take a major hit. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/obamacare-gop-shutdown

Tea party agenda may be ascendant on Hill, but not on Main Street Support for the tea party among Americans has slipped to 22 percent, a Gallup poll shows. Even as tea party politics (and a possible government shutdown) are center stage in Congress, the survey reflects public dissatisfaction with the tea party's push for conflict over compromise. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2013/0926/Tea-party-agenda-may-be-ascendant-on-Hill-but-not-on-Main-Street

According to new data, Palin’s political action committee spends more than it makes—and burns most of its cash on consultants’ fees. But contributors tell Ben Jacobs they couldn’t care less. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/02/sarah-palin-s-donors-don-t-care-where-money-s-going.html

Hatetriot's Day: July 4th Is America's Crappiest Holiday. http://gawker.com/hatetriots-day-july-4th-is-americas-crappiest-holida-631149319

Moral Monday. http://www.indyweek.com/citizen/archives/2013/05/24/scenes-from-moral-monday-at-the-general-assembly-monday-june-3-should-be-the-biggest-yet

Art Pope-funded group launches database targeting Moral Monday arrestees http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/06/art-pope-funded-group-launches-database-targeting-.html

The reason there are leakers is precisely because the govt is filled with people like Dianne Feinstein who do horrendous things in secret. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/glenn-greenwald-us-privacy-92400.html?hp=l1

http://www.ivyleagueexorcist.blogspot.com/2012/07/jack-chick-parody-tract-used-to-promote.html

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RICK PERRY CONTROVERSY: Sacramento Bee’s JACK OHMAN ‘stunned’ by governor’s response to his hot-button cartoon http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/rick-perry-controversy-sacramento-bees-jack-ohman-stunned-by-governors-response-to-his-hot-button-cartoon/2013/04/29/3e9245ca-b116-11e2-baf7-5bc2a9dc6f44_blog.html

Kathleen Taylor, Neuroscientist, Says Religious Fundamentalism Could Be Treated As A Mental Illness. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/kathleen-taylor-religious-fundamentalism-mental-illness_n_3365896.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Letters: How does GOP expect the rest of us to achieve the American Dream? http://www.freep.com/article/20130511/OPINION/305110028/Letters-How-does-GOP-expect-rest-us-achieve-American-Dream-

Greg Ball, New York State Senator, On Boston Suspect: 'Who Wouldn't Use Torture On This Punk'? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/greg-ball-torture_n_3122524.html

Bob Perry: a Good Republican http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/bob-perry-gop-donor-dies-90059.html

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/15/174383207/at-cpac-gop-makes-push-for-young-voters

enhanced-buzz-26933-1352378889-3.jpg

http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/durex-compares-the-candidates-imagined-penis-sizes

A columnist for conservative site the National Review Online has written a piece suggesting female soldiers who have been raped struggle after they leave the military because of their own bad decisions. Heather Mac Donald wrote the piece Thursday as a rebuttal of sorts to The New York Times' in-depth feature on military sexual trauma, which was published Wednesday. In its piece, The Times describes the pain of veterans, such as Tiffany Jackson, who was raped by a fellow service member in South Korea and has since struggled with homelessness, addiction and depression. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/national-review-columnist-veterans-raped-bad-decision-making_n_2791850.html

“It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done,” Romney told Wallace. “The president is the leader of the nation. The president knocks the heads together; the president leads. We are at war with liberals and moderates and I don't see that kind of leadership happening right now.” He blames the infamous “47 percent” he said it is what he believes. http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2013/03/03/romney-convinced-we-d-win.html http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-criticizes-obama-20130303,0,6867614.story

Republicans love Republicans. Republicans hate America. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/15/1187349/-John-McCain-s-very-very-reasonable-explanation-for-why-Republicans-filibustered-Chuck-Hagel

Boehner, along with Newt Gingrich and several other Republican lawmakers, was one of the engineers of the Contract with America in 1994 that politically helped Republicans during the 1994 congressional elections during which they won the majority in Congress for the first time in four decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner#U.S._House_of_Representatives

112th Congress 2011-2012

Occupy Wall Street

Government and Big Banks Joined Forces to Violently Crush Peaceful Protests. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/government-and-big-banks-joined-forces-to-violently-crush-peaceful-protests.html

FBI, Homeland Security and Local Police Coordinated the Crackdown of the Occupy Movement with Big Banks. New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent. It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves -was coordinated with the big banks themselves. http://obrag.org/?p=69295

At ArtWalk, chalk one up to excessive police response. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-artwalk-chalk-protest-20120713,0,766901.story

17 arrested during ArtWalk clashes in downtown L.A., police now say. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/07/lapd-update-17-people-arrested-during-artwalk-melee.html

July 4th commemorates both our Declaration of Independence and the call to arms that eventually freed our nation from British dominion. Today we find ourselves bound in the shackles of economic enslavement and a Republican agenda dedicated to handing our country over – lock, stock, and barrel – to corporate and 1% rule. The Republican “record” is a litany of disgrace. Their doctrinaire invasion of Iraq, renditions, secret prisons, black ops, and torture policies brought shame upon America. Their tax cuts for the rich and concomitant borrowing brought our nation to the precipice of an all-out economic disaster. They slashed funding to education and welfare, and wanted to “reform” (get rid of) disaster relief, Social Security, Medicare, and all other programs they successfully (but mistakenly) labeled “entitlements.” They supported the criminals of Wall Street while they persecuted minorities and repressed women (or “sluts,” in their vernacular). Via an all-time record of filibusters they willfully obstructed all legislation that might kick-start jobs and our economy – not out of loyalty to their country but solely from a goose-stepping allegiance to their ethically-challenged party. They filed egregious lawsuits against any passed legislation that might help the poor and middle-class, like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act...or they pledged not to implement such measures in states they control. Their actions resulted in the most dysfunctional Congress in our history. Their false words and Neanderthal manners poisoned our civic discourse as surely as toxic clouds gathered from their denial of climate change. http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/25154/Fighting-Back/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h8JJo1RrgVc

Occupy invades “America’s storage shed” Faced with protest, Walmart unilaterally shuts down three warehouses in Southern California. http://www.salon.com/2012/03/02/occupy_invades_americas_storage_shed/singleton/

Dozens of police maintained a late-night guard around City Hall in Oakland, California, following daylong protests that resulted in 300 arrests. Earlier, Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, and officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center. Saturday's protests -- the most turbulent since Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment in November -- came just days after the group said it planned to use a vacant building as a social center and political hub and threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the airport and take over City Hall. An exasperated Mayor Jean Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-mew-occupy-oakland-20120130,0,2890529.story

What really happened when the San Diego Occupiers got kicked off the Greyhound bus in Amarillo, Texas. http://obrag.org/?p=52673

Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, have turned to populist rhetoric to bludgeon Romney for his work leading Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Perry was admonished by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for sounding more like an Occupy Wall Street demonstrator than the governor of a conservative state. “You can see the power in the movement by the fact that Republican presidential candidates are starting to adopt some of its language,” said Roy Behr, a Democratic political consultant. “It puts them in a terrible position of completely invalidating everything they stand for. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/15/election-campaigns-take-on-occupy-themes/

“This was not one rough cop,” said Jennings. “[He] was out of control, lost his temper, and did not follow policy, but he is doing what somebody is telling him to do, and that is the problem. For the first time, you see people from every class, all colors and all ages, uniting together because our common interest are stronger than our individual interests, and that frightens the leaders.” Michael Garcia, the night’s other detainee, said he was sitting in a chair passing out free-speech material and was arrested under an encroachment law. Jennings, who is filing a formal complaint with the Citizens Review Board, is due in court on February 25. The charge against her is “battery committed against the person of a peace officer.” Although attorney Bryan Pease thinks the charges are ridiculous and do not merit an indictment, Jennings faces a $10,000 fine. Earlier this week, Sgt. Milano’s police report remained incomplete, and SDPD personnel refused to comment on what they said could be a potential ongoing investigation. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/jan/13/stringers-occupy-san-diego-protester-recou/

an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor. It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist. My hands were then zipcuffed very tightly behind my back, where they turned blue. I am now suffering nerve damage in my right thumb and palm. http://obrag.org/?p=50803

A manifesto for the Occupy movement. The Times attempts to pair the ideals and impulses that have powered the Occupy movement with some practical changes in public policy worth fighting for.

  • Financial reform. Although Occupy Wall Street has sprung up as far afield as the University of California, it originally was an occupation of the actual Wall Street in New York, or at least of nearby Zuccotti Park. What motivated this (we think) was resentment of the financial industry, particularly the Wall Street financiers whose irresponsible behavior produced a worldwide economic downturn but who seem not to have paid much of a price. The banks that were bailed out at monstrous taxpayer expense are now returning to profitability, and busily repossessing homes that never should have been financed to begin with but that might yield fewer losses if their mortgages were modified instead of foreclosed upon. Meanwhile, little has been done to reduce the speculative trading that contributes to bubbles and busts.
  • Protesters and their backers could make a difference by pushing the banks to modify defaulting mortgages and allow more "underwater" borrowers to refinance their loans. That would mean writing off some debt and cutting into profits in the short term, but would yield better results in the long term than repossessing thousands of homes and reselling them in a depressed market. Consumers demonstrated their power over banks when, by closing or threatening to close their accounts, they persuaded Bank of America to drop its plans to impose a charge on debit-card users; a similar economic boycott of banks that are too eager to default could get a new message across. Meanwhile, protesters could pressure Congress to explore a financial transactions tax — a fee on every Wall Street trade. Presuming that other big trading markets in Europe and Asia did the same (the European Union is considering such a move) and that the tax were small enough to avoid discouraging long-term investing, it could shave hundreds of billions off the national debt and slow speculative trading without hurting overall savings or investment rates.
  • Taxation. You know the rhetoric: It's the 99% versus the 1%. The gap between rich and poor has indeed grown precipitously in the last decade, thanks in part to tax changes that have disproportionately benefited the rich and, in turn, helped fuel Occupy Wall Street. For a model of how to fix taxes the right way, we look to the Reagan reforms of 1986, when loopholes and tax shelters were eliminated, top rates were reduced and capital gains (collected mostly by the wealthy) were taxed at the same rate as other kinds of income. Since then, Congress has reinserted the loopholes and reduced capital gains taxes. Republicans are far more unyielding on taxes than they were during the Reagan era and won't return to 1986 without a fight, but if the Occupy movement can rally reform-minded Democrats to turn out at the polls the way the tea party has rallied Republicans, it could achieve a great deal.
  • Corporate influence. The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission was a prime example of the kind of judicial activism that conservatives hate, except when it benefits their cause. By granting corporations the same 1st Amendment rights as individuals when it comes to expenditures on independent political advertising, it overturned legal precedent and increased the power of special interests to influence elections. Congress could undo part of the damage by approving laws that would enssure that shareholders, or rank-and-file union members, approve of their organization's political spending. There's also a movement afoot among a handful of Democratic senators for a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United, but that's a quixotic quest. Feel free to back it, Occupiers, but prepare to have your hearts broken when it goes nowhere.
  • Campaign Finance Reform.
  • Education. Occupy Wall Street might be about financial reform, but Occupy the University of California, which produced appalling scenes such as the pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis now trending on YouTube, seems to be largely about rising tuition. And students have good reason to be angry. Tuition in the UC system has more than doubled in the last decade, and without an infusion of state funds, the inflation will accelerate. Unfortunately, solving this problem isn't as easy as complaining about it. But the state budget proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown would have avoided some of the draconian higher-education increases now on the table by maintaining vehicle, sales and income taxes at their 2010 levels, a move that was thwarted by legislative Republicans, who blocked the proposal from going to the polls. If pepper-sprayed students can raise awareness of how devastating this is to students and families, and how harmful it will ultimately be for California's economic future, their mucus membranes might not have been burned for nothing.
  • Marijuana. Speaking of red eyes, the pungent smoke wafting across Occupy encampments in California, including the erstwhile Occupy L.A., indicates that many demonstrators would favor more sensible cannabis laws. Actually, they appear to favor legalization of even recreational marijuana, but that's not going to happen any time soon. A good start, though, would be to lobby for the federal government to stop treating marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, an absurd designation that asserts it has no medicinal value and has as high a potential for abuse as heroin. A more reasonable classification would encourage much-needed medical research and hopefully lead to lesser criminal penalties for possession. As for untangling the legal web California has created by legitimizing medical marijuana in the face of a federal ban — good luck on that one. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-manifesto-20111204,0,463446.story
  • end to violence
  • prosecution of war crimes
  • prosecution of financial crimes
  • public healthcare

Yasha Levine was forced to surrender his freedom, as well as his shoe laces…for his own protection. I finally got home Thursday afternoon after spending two nights in jail, and have had a hard time getting my bearings. On top of severe dehydration and sleep deprivation, I’ve got one hell of pounding migraine. So I’ll have to keep this brief for now. But I wanted to write down a few things that I witnessed and heard while locked up by LA’s finest… First off, don’t believe the PR bullshit. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD’s attack on Occupy LA–not unless you think that people peacefully protesting against the power of the financial oligarchy deserve to be treated the way I saw Russian cops treating the protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were demonstrating against the oligarchy under Putin and Yeltsin, before we at The eXiled all got tossed out in 2008. Back then, everyone in the West protested and criticized the way the Russian cops brutally snuffed out dissent, myself included. Now I’m in America, at a demonstration, watching exactly the same brutal crackdown… http://exiledonline.com/yasha-levine-released-from-jail-exposes-lapds-appalling-treatment-of-detained-occupy-la-protesters/

Video of Police Pepper-Spraying U.C. Davis Students Provokes Outrage. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/video-of-police-pepper-spraying-u-c-davis-students-provokes-outrage/

The police in their own way are symbols of the problem. All over the country, thousands of armed cops have been deployed to stand around and surveil and even assault the polite crowds of Occupy protesters. This deployment of law-enforcement resources already dwarfs the amount of money and manpower that the government “committed” to fighting crime and corruption during the financial crisis. One OWS protester steps in the wrong place, and she immediately has police roping her off like wayward cattle. But in the skyscrapers above the protests, anything goes. http://obrag.org/?p=49214

Ray Lutz, Public agency watchdog, COPs, Suggested Manifesto for the Occupy Movement: Progress in 4 Core Areas. http://santee.patch.com/blog_posts/suggested-manifesto-for-the-occupy-movement-progress-in-4-core-areas

the barons of the chemical and nuclear industries don't live next to the radioactive or toxic-waste dumps that their corporations create; on the other hand, impoverished black and brown people often do live near such ecological sacrifice zones because they can't afford better. Similarly, the gated communities of the hyper-wealthy are not built next to cesspool rivers or skylines filled with fuming smokestacks, but the slums of the planet are. Don't think, though, that it's just a matter of property values or scenery. It's about health, about whether your kids have lead or dioxins running through their veins. It's a simple formula, in fact: Wealth disparities become health disparities. And here's another formula: When there's money to be made, both workers and the environment are expendable. Just as jobs migrate if labour can be had cheaper overseas, I know workers who were tossed aside when they became ill from the foul air or poisonous chemicals they encountered on the job. The fact is: We won't free ourselves from a dysfunctional and unfair economic order until we begin to see ourselves as communities, not commodities. That is one clear message from Zuccotti Park. Polluters routinely walk away from the ground they poison and expect taxpayers to clean up after them. By "externalising" such costs, profits are increased. Examples of land abuse and abandonment are too legion to list, but most of us can refer to a familiar "superfund site" in our own backyard. Clearly, Mother Nature is among the disenfranchised, exploited and struggling. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011116132856199157.html

Post Consumerism. The occupiers, and the homeless, are still consumers. Why are we so involved with collecting and holding on to stuff?

Occupy Wall Street may not have laid out all of its demands in a perfectly cogent one-sentence bumper sticker for you, Mr. Pundit, but it knows precisely what it doesn’t want. It doesn’t want you. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/how_ows_confuses_and_ignores_fox_news_and_the_pundit_class_.html

"broadly criticizing corporate dominance and government corruption"

He was mad about bailouts alright, but not the Wall Street bailouts. What sparked his fury was the proposed plan to help average homeowners in trouble with their mortgages. Santelli raved: "Do we really want to subsidise the losers' mortgages? This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbour's mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It's a moral hazard." "Do we really want to subsidise the losers?" Here's how his colleague Lawrence Kudlow characterised the outburst: "Santelli called for a new Tea Party in support of capitalism. He's right." Support for capitalism - and antipathy toward government interference in it - is the very essence of Tea Party populism. There wasn't much talk about the moral hazard of a "too big to fail" banking system but there was plenty of fulminating about government interference in "the market" and righteous anger about the stimulus plan and what they characterised as the "government takeover" of the healthcare system. It was never about corporate greed, but was about the usual right wing resentment at the government spending their tax money on people they don't think have earned it. These are not billionaire bankers - they are the people on the lower rungs of the ladder. Unsurprisingly, this attitude turned out to be useful to corporate interests looking to allay any real populist impulses among the citizenry, and they soon moved in through various means to help the "movement" organise itself. Contrary to various accounts surfacing lately ostensibly to warn the Occupy Wall Street supporters of the dangers of being similarly "co-opted" it was a very happy love match, not a marriage of convenience. Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, while being endlessly harrangued by wags and pundits about its alleged lack of goals and lists of grievances, is actually focused pretty clearly on the same thing as the populists of the Gilded Age - those whom Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth". Their rallying cry is "we are the 99 per cent" which represents the huge number of those of us who have been treading water or losing ground over the past 30 years, while and the upper one per cent of the population swallows up more and more of the nation's wealth. This shocking income inequality is finally reaching a critical mass that is animating the OWS movement. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011101883450141716.html

Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD. The Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for a month. And it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters. Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan. As part of their intelligence-gathering operation, the group gained access to a listserv used by Occupy Wall Street organizers called September17discuss. On September17discuss, organizers hash out tactics and plan events, conduct post-mortems of media appearances, and trade the latest protest gossip. On Friday, Ryan leaked thousands of September17discuss emails to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who is now using them to try to smear Occupy Wall Street as an anarchist conspiracy to disrupt global markets. http://gawker.com/5850054/meet-the-guy-who-snitched-on-occupy-wall-street-to-the-fbi-and-nypd?tag=occupy-wall-street

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/

CNN's Erin Burnett ventured down to Occupy Wall Street and told some protesters that "taxpayers actually made money on the Wall St. bailout." She made fun of the protesters on-air and derided their knowledge of the bailouts. The only problem for Erin, is that she's the one who didn't get her facts straight. That's right, the banking apologista, who is engaged to a Citigroup executive, and is infamous for having her ass handed to her on camera by Congressman Brad Sherman over AIG bonuses, didn't do her bailout research before she decided to ridicule protesters for not doing doing their bailout research. According to the U.S. Treasury's own figures, available publicly to any reader, including pneumatic (we understand if you need a dictionary for that one, Erin) and arrogant CNN reporters, as of TODAY, taxpayers are still more than $95 BILLION IN THE RED on TARP. And that's including all interest and other income. There is still $122 BILLION of TARP funds that have NOT yet been paid back. We understand that Burnett was excluding GM, but she somehow missed that AIG, alone, still owes over $50 BILLION. The "we made money on the bailout" meme just won't die. Facts and in the case of Burnett, poor research, be damned... http://robalini.blogspot.com/2011/10/true-cost-of-wall-street-bailout.html

Photos: San Diego’s Occupation Underway. http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/credentialed/article_c9b071ca-f157-11e0-bc84-001cc4c002e0.html

Second night of "Occupy Wall Street" protests in San Diego. A loosely structured protest movement that formed in New York City three weeks ago to decry the perceived sins of banks, corporations, political elites and other power brokers materialized in the opposite corner of the nation Saturday as hundreds of chanting, sign-waving demonstrators took to the streets of San Diego. Supporters of the social network-driven campaign, which began last month as a rally dubbed "Occupy Wall Street," began gathering at Children's Park in the Marina district in the late afternoon before marching north to Civic Center Plaza at City Hall for a demonstration and sit-in. There were no immediate reports of unruly behavior or illegal activity among participants, who expressed an array of reasons for becoming involved in the nascent local crusade, christened "Occupy San Diego." "We are all here for different reasons, but we stand in solidarity against Wall Street," 19-year-old Amanda Santoni remarked while serving free food at the initial meet-up spot at First and Island avenues. Ray Lutz, an organizer and spokesman for the activists, said the protest would not be short-lived. "This is going to be going on until we get a response," Lutz said. http://www.cbs8.com/story/15640951/second-night-of-occupy-wall-street-protests-in-san-diego

News

The Senate early on New Year's Day voted overwhelmingly in favor of a fiscal cliff deal that would extend tax rates on annual household income under $450,000 and postpones automatic spending cuts for two months. The bill was approved in an 89-8 vote that came after only 10 minutes of formal floor debate and no official score from the Congressional Budget Office. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated it would reduce federal revenue by $3.93 trillion over the next decade compared to current law. Five Republicans and three Democrats voted against the bill: Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) missed the vote. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/275069-senate-approves-fiscal-cliff-deal

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/27/meet-the-real-founding-fathers-the-shocking-truth-about-washington-madison-and-martin.html

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) $451.1 million
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) $435.4 million
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) $366.2 million
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) $294.9 million
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) $285.1 million
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) $283.1 million
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) $231.2 million
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) $201.5 million
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) $136.2 million
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)$108.1 million
combined net worth: $2.8 billion
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

House Republican leaders have a simple strategy for dealing with Rep. Michele Bachmann: Ignore her. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_77/-203095-1.html

In their quest to deny reproductive rights to as many women as possible, Republican congressmen are seeking to narrow the federal government’s definition of rape in order to exclude many victims from abortion coverage. “The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” or H.R. 3, is “one of the most extreme bills that we’ve seen,” says Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. If enacted, it would affect tens of millions of women’s health insurance, whether or not the federal government subsidizes their plans. And the bill will send a message to all women that certain kinds of sexual assault don’t count as rape at all. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-31/gop-abortion-bill-redefines-rape/

Republicans won dozens of elections last fall after claiming Democrats had focused too little on creating jobs. Now GOP lawmakers stand accused of the same thing, using their new House majority to push to repeal the president's health care law, restrict abortions and highlight other social issues important to their most conservative supporters. Republican leaders say they have a jobs agenda, which began with their attempt to unravel what they call the Democrats' "jobs-killing" health overhaul. Democrats scoff, and they're hounding Republicans to show how they can put more people to work. "It's astonishing to me how tone-deaf the Republicans have been in the first weeks of the session," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "They've talked about everything but jobs." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

To hear the Republican leadership tell it, the once-sacred Pentagon budget, protected by the party for generations, is suddenly on the table. But a closer look shows that even as Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, insist on the need for military cuts, divisions have opened among Republicans about whether, and how much, to chop Pentagon spending that comes to more than a half trillion dollars a year. Those differences were on display Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where the traditional Republican who now leads the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Howard P. McKeon, fought back against proposed cuts in the Pentagon budget even as fledgling committee members supported by the Tea Party said that the nation’s debts amounted to a national security risk. “I cannot say it strongly enough: I will not support any measures that stress our forces and jeopardize the lives of our men and women in uniform,” Mr. McKeon said in an opening statement that followed up on a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urging him not to stop work on the Marines’ $14.4. billion Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a combined landing craft and tank for amphibious assaults that Mr. Gates canceled this month. But Representative Chris Gibson, a Tea Party-endorsed freshman Republican and a retired Army colonel from New York’s Hudson River Valley, made it clear that no part of the Pentagon’s $550 billion budget — some $700 billion including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — was immune. “This deficit that we have threatens our very way of life, and everything needs to be on the table,” Mr. Gibson told William J. Lynn III, the deputy defense secretary, who testified at the hearing along with Gen. Peter J. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army, and other service vice chiefs. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/us/politics/27pentagon.html

'Tea party' gathering a tepid draw among senators. Many won election with the aid of the tea party movement, but only four attend the first Senate Tea Party Caucus meeting. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-tea-party-20110128,0,3387154.story

John A. Boehner declares "War on Gravity".

GOP Lie: Healthcare law not "job-killing" http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail

Sen. Coburn and Sen. Chuck Schumer discussed the role of political discourse in the Arizona shooting. When asked if the real problem is the apocalyptic nature of political rhetoric, Coburn replied that he’s tired of the media on the right and the left: “We’re spending all this time talking about political discourse rather than talking about the real risk to our country.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-16/arizona-shooting-aftermath-and-more-sunday-talk/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," said the sheriff. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." "I didn't really think that that had any part in a law enforcement briefing last night," Kyl said. "It was speculation." Kyl said the only thing about Jared Lee Loughner that seems clear is that he is a "very mentally unstable" person. "It's probably giving him too much credit to ascribe a coherent political philosophy to him," he said. "We just have to acknowledge that there are mentally unstable people in this country. Who knows what motivates them to do what they do? Then they commit terrible crimes like this." Kyl said that Giffords would be the first one "to say don't rush to judgment here." "She herself was a proponent of the Second Amendment," the senator said. "She read, as has been pointed out several times, the First Amendment part of the constitution on the floor of the House the other day. She was doing what she likes to do most with her constituents. She meets constituents all the time. And she would not want to be restrained in any way from her ability to do that." Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he agreed with the sheriff's comments. "Far too many broadcasts now and so many outlets have the intent of inciting, and inciting people to opposition, to anger, to thinking the other side is less than moral," he said. "And I think that is a context in which somebody who is mentally unbalanced can somehow feel justified in taking this kind of action." Hoyer said he had talked to Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, who is "very angry, Very angry about the level of angry rhetoric that he believes incites people." "We're going to have to find out exactly what the motivation here was," Hoyer said, adding that everyone in the public square needed to "fashion our rhetoric so that it does not incite but informs." http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/136869-kyl-too-much-credit-to-give-shooter-coherent-political-philosophy

While there is no hard evidence at this point to suggest that the shooting was politically motivated, Matt Yglesias points out that an anti-Giffords event was held in June with the billing: "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." Rep. Giffords was also on Sarah Palin's "target list." As noted earlier, a gun was dropped at a Giffords event in 2009, and her office was vandalized in March. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/gabrielle-giffords-shot-c_n_806211.html

CPAC infiltrated by radical gays, radical Muslims. http://www.salon.com/news/cpac/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/01/05/cpac_infiltrated_by_gays_muslims

Some right-wing groups to skip GOP event. The presence of gay conservative groups at the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference angers the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation and other organizations. Some prominent right-wing groups say they will not attend a major Republican gathering in Washington next month, objecting to the presence of gay groups and other organizations whose aims they say are incompatible with conservatism. An estimated 10,000 people are expected to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to hear aspiring presidential candidates and vote in one of the first straw polls of the 2012 cycle. Among the missing will be the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group and once a sponsor of CPAC; the Heritage Foundation; and the American Family Assn., which opposes same-sex marriage. The Family Research Council has been disenchanted for several years with CPAC, said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the group's legislative arm. Among its complaints: A new gay conservative group has been invited for the second year in a row, and CPAC has refused to schedule a panel about traditional marriage. "Conservatives and homosexuals cannot coexist in a movement predicated on social values," wrote the group's president, Tony Perkins, in an e-mail to supporters. "Organizations whose whole reason for existence is to promote the forced public affirmation of homosexual conduct should not be welcomed at CPAC." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cpac-20110108,0,4410541.story

Healthcare for all Republican politicians. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/gop-disclosure-rule-government-health-care_n_805146.html

Boehner declares: "This is the rich people's house." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/two-house-republicans-vot_n_805423.html

Liberals read the Constitution before the election.

Republicans in the House of Representatives read the entire Constitution for the first time. Many have trouble with the words. Several key sections omitted on purpose. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-constitution-congress-20110106,0,7572470.story

Obama's chief antagonist may be Rep. Darrell Issa (R- Vista), who will chair the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Darrell Issa of California, Age: 57. Background: Issa became wealthy through the development of the Viper car alarm, which featured a recording of his voice saying, "Step away from the car." He was elected to Congress in 2000. Coming flashpoints: Issa's ascension has prompted fears among Democrats of a return to the days of Rep. Dan Burton. (The Indiana Republican made life miserable for the Clinton administration in the 1990s by focusing on, among other things, the suicide of White House lawyer Vince Foster, who Burton contended was murdered.) Issa, however, has said that he wants to pursue more bureaucratic targets, such as the implementation of the healthcare overhaul, the powers of the Federal Reserve, and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Issa once called Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times."Issa has promised not to use the position to mount grandstanding investigations into political arcana, such as subpoenaing the president's birth certificate, but will instead use his committee to try to uncover fraud and waste within the federal government. But Issa made it clear that Obama's legislative accomplishments are a ripe target. "After a trillion-dollar stimulus that didn't create jobs, a trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and a trillion-dollar healthcare overhaul, the American people believe we need more oversight, not less," he said in an interview. "But that oversight must lead to reform so that we produce a federal government that serves the people better and without excess spending.... We need to be better stewards of the people's money." http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-new-chairmen-20110101,0,5855531.story

Under the auspices of keeping federal spending under control, Republican congressmen have launched yet another attack on the basic scientific research that could lead to useful, potentially job-creating discoveries. House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) announced last week that the YouCut Citizen Review, a crowdsourcing tool for identifying “wasteful spending that should be cut,” would make its very first target the National Science Foundation. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nsf-youcut-review/

Republicanism is a Mental Disease

Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) faces a choice: defeat and failure or failure and defeat: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/275087-boehners-100-loyal-soldiers-might-give-him-political-cover-on-fiscal-cliff

As Washington staggers into a new year, one side of the political spectrum polarizes and paralyzes all ongoing debates due to its irrational reliance on a higher power. The problem isn’t religious conservatives and their abiding faith in God; it’s mainstream liberals and their blind confidence in government. Consider the current dispute over the right response to gun violence. At its core, this argument comes down to a visceral disagreement between relying on self-defense or on government protection. Gun-rights enthusiasts insist that the best security for law-abiding citizens comes from placing formidable firearms into their hands; gun-control advocates believe we can protect the public far more effectively by taking guns away from as many Americans as possible. In other words, conservatives want to address the threat of gun violence by giving individuals more power while liberals seek to improve the situation by concentrating more power in the hands of the government. The right preaches self-reliance while the left places its trust in the higher power of government. Michael Medved http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/28/the-liberal-god-delusion.html

Economy

Bonehead backfires http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/21/boehner-fiscal-cliff-bill-withdrawn

Boner bites it http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/dec/20/house-gop-puts-vote-boehners-plan-b/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=kpbsnews-twitter&utm_term=kpbs-evening

Meet the 0.01 Percent: War Profiteers. http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/27/meet-the-0-01-percent-war-profiteers/?

Republicans are demanding deficit reduction through spending cuts alone - but the Bush-era tax cuts are the real culprit. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/star-spangled-staggers/2011/07/tax-cuts-obama-republicans

Poor little Bonehead, is he gonna cry? oh him so sad. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/25/tea-party-scores-another-victory-with-boehner-debt-proposal_n_908771.html

Dear John Boehner: fat stupid and drunk is no way to go through life.

Bonehead John Boehner the plan being crafted by the Ohio Republican would potentially lead to a downgrading of the AAA credit rating of the United States.

Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform, accused Coburn of wanting to “trick Republicans into voting for a teeny tax increase” that would shatter the sacred pledge. Coburn says the activist is playing “the typical Washington game of gotcha.” Norquist explained that the Republican base of the Bush class is prepared to move off shore to Saudi Arabia or South America to weather the economic disaster. "Bring it on!" he challenged. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/08/obama-republicans-duke-it-out-in-public-while-advancing-debt-deal-in-private.html

Daley said Sunday that Republicans were “concentrating on trying to bring continued tax relief to the wealthy." http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/sc-dc-obama-debt-talks-20110710,0,6853686.story

Our Pathetic Debt Debate A grand bargain on the deficit was crushed when Speaker Boehner pulled out of talks, refusing to budge on revenue increases. John Avlon on the childish rhetoric that’s pushing America to the brink. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/10/boehner-pulls-out-of-debt-talks-how-the-debate-has-become-pathetic.html

"It's Not a Revenue Problem. It's a Spending Problem." Tracing the history of a GOP talking point. http://www.slate.com/id/2291530/

Minnesota Moves to Make the Rich Pay More. http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/raising_minnesota_20110226/

A windfall for California. The state benefits after Wisconsin and Ohio forgo billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trains-20101211,0,7552797.story

Attacks on Labor

"The mistake I made early on is, I looked at it almost like the head of a small business: identify a problem, identify a solution and go out and do it," Walker told Reuters at the National Governor's Association meeting in Salt Lake City. "I don't think we built enough of a political case, so we let ... the national organizations come in and define the debate while we were busy just getting the job done," he said. Note: the government is not a business. Ed. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/16/scott-walker-mistakes-policies_n_900820.html

Wrong in Wisconsin. The state's attack on unions is misguided, but that doesn't mean the status quo is sustainable. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-wisconsin-20110224,0,1618981.story

"Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside. Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: 'We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what's right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!' Unreal." http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/26/wisconsin-cops-for-t.html

Foreign Policy

As protesters in Egypt continued to call for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Vice President Dick Cheney urged U.S. leaders to remember that Mubarak was "a good man" and important friend to the United States and said he hoped that the Obama administration would seek "balance" in its approach to the fast-moving events overseas. Cheney's remarks came in the midst of a discussion of former President Ronald Reagan's legacy at a panel in Santa Barbara on Saturday night. The former vice president noted that he began working with Mubarak in 1990 when he was defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush. Bush had sent him to Saudi Arabia to arrange for the deployment of U.S. forces with the goal of liberating Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion. Mubarak worked as a partner "right at the outset," Cheney said, agreeing to allow U.S. aircraft to fly over his country and sending two divisions of the Egyptian army to fight alongside U.S. troops. "He's been a good friend and ally of the United States and we need to remember that," Cheney said. "It's also important when you get into these circumstances that you try to have an open channel of communications that is private to whoever it is you are dealing with out there. It is very hard for some foreign leader to act on U.S. advice in a visible way." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0206-cheney-reagan-20110206,0,5507253.story

Republican malfeasance

"Republican Insiders Attempt Hostile Takeover of FreedomWorks" http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/dick-armey-freedomworks-hostile-takeover-memo

A former aide to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was convicted on Friday of stealing money from a fund for families of U.S. soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. A jury in Milwaukee County Circuit Court found Kevin Kavanaugh guilty of embezzling more than $42,000 from Operation Freedom, a military appreciation event held each year at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Kavanaugh, who worked for Walker when the first-term Republican governor served as Milwaukee County executive, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Sentencing is expected on Dec. 7. Kavanaugh, 62, was the treasurer of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, a charity involved in Operation Freedom, from 2006 to 2009. Walker appointed him to serve on the Milwaukee County Veteran Service Commission during Walker's term as Milwaukee County executive. Walker originally ran the Operation Freedom event through his county office. It was later turned over to the Purple Heart organization after Walker received legal advice the event should be handled by a charitable organization. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/13/kevin-kavanaugh-scott-walker-aide_n_1963072.html

I said something that to me seemed so obvious it didn't even occur to me anyone would object: that it was clearly Big Oil that wanted the pipeline revived, and that it was using the congressmen it funded heavily to make it happen. Beside me, I could feel Terry bristle. He quickly interjected, something to the effect of, are you saying that we're "bought off"? And I suddenly felt bad, as if I indeed had said something wrong. I stammered; I tried to say I didn't know anything about him in particular, that I was sure he'd eventually be part of the solution and so on. But the frost stayed in the air; he seemed genuinely hurt that anyone could think he had a conflict. Is it really possible that people in Washington don't understand what the rest of the country — left, right and center — believes about them: That they take campaign money from corporations in return for doing their bidding? I went home and looked up Terry in the database of the Dirty Energy Money Campaign, compiled by Oil Change International. Koch Industries had given him $15,500. Exxon Mobil had given him $25,500. The Petroleum Marketers Assn. had tossed in $12,500. ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP — all in all since 1999, he'd gotten $365,798 from the fossil fuel industry, and in the latest tally the site states he'd "sided with "dirty energy interests in 100% of selected votes." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mckibben-congress-20111214,0,3498758.story

Tony Kvaric. A good (old fashioned?) cyber-spat between San Diego County’s Republican and Democratic parties has broken out on — where else? — Twitter. On Wednesday, local Democratic Party Chairman Jess Durfee issued a press release about the social network suspending the accounts of the Republican Party of San Diego County (@SDRepublicans) and that of its chairman, Tony Krvaric (@TonyKrvaric). Twitter apparently yanked the accounts after county Democrats contacted the company to complain about four handles purporting to represent Democratic San Diego City Council candidates — @SherriLightner, @ToddPhilips, @MatKostrinsky, and @MartiEmerald — in addition to @sddemocrats and its chairman, @JessDurfee. “I applaud Twitter for acting quickly to shut the deceptive profiles down,” Durfee said on Wednesday. “Childish and unethical conduct online is nothing new, but I am disappointed to see that my Republican counterpart and his party may have been behind it. “The idea of Tony Krvaric posting as @JessDurfee is just creepy.” In an interview, Krvaric acknowledged that his favored Twitter handle had been suspended, but said he had yet to be informed about the reason. He also copped to creating the above-referenced phony accounts. Each was clearly marked that it was not the official account of the four council candidates, including two incumbents, he said. “I never tweeted as any of the council candidates,” Krvaric. “But we have a political campaign going on and they weren’t taken. If I register it; then they can’t register it. It’s a campaign. “For Marti Emerald to not register @MartiEmerald when she’s been on the council for how long? I just tried it one day and they were all available so I registered them. So What?" Krvaric said he didn’t think it was unethical to essentially act the part of the “Twitter squatter.” Twitter has a policy against username squatting, including “creating accounts for the purpose of preventing others from using those account names.” [Disclosure: I use the name @ccadelago, but have reserved the Twitter handles @cadelago and @chriscadelago.] There should be wiggle room, Krvaric said. For example, @SanDiegoGOP has been squatting on his turf for some time. Krvaric’s and the Republican Party’s accounts were not mentioned in the Democratic complaint, Durfee said. However, both were suspended Wednesday along with the phony accounts, indicating Twitter had flagged Krvaric as the culprit. The Democrats’ letter to Twitter cited a policy that defines impersonation as “pretending to be another person or entity in order to deceive.” The policy continues: “Impersonation is a violation of the Twitter Rules and may result in permanent account suspension.” “Basically, they are pissed off that they didn’t register them first,” Krvaric said. “For them not to register their own … It just shows how far behind they are … “There’s nothing illegal about it and I don’t think I did anything wrong. What sucks is I have to redo my whole account. All my followers and everything. In some way, although I want my full name back, I was following too many people so this will be like a cleansing." Krvaric said he did send a few tweets as Jess Durfee, who he said joined “after I mocked him forever.” “It wasn’t about him,” said Krvaric, now registered as @Krvaric. “It was really just goofing off." Durfee said he was not surprised to learn Krvaric was behind the stunt. "He doesn’t seem to spend his time doing the things that help build a party; rather he spends his time playing little games," Durfee said. "While they are doing all that crap, we’re out there registering voters. I guess I approach my position a little more seriously and am doing things that I should be doing." The legitimate Twitter handles for the Democrats are @Kostrinsky, @MartiEmeraldD7, @SanDiegoDems and @ChairJessDurfee. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/oct/12/twitter-accounts-county-gop-chairman-yanked/

Local Republicans caught starting fake Democrat Twitter accounts. SAN DIEGO -- Local Democrats and Republicans are bracing for a brutal 2012 campaign, and the first battleground may be online. San Diego Republican Party Chairman Tony Kvaric recently opened a series of Twitter accounts in the name of Democratic candidates for city council and the Democratic party. Democrats complained and got the accounts of Kvaric and the Republicans taken down. New ones were quickly started. "We set them up as parody accounts," Kvaric explained, "Parody accounts are a long time Twitter tradition. Obviously, the Democrats didn't like that." "I would say it's really childish," said San Diego Democrat Party chairman Jess Durfee, "I think what's frustrating is that the voter is out there saying, we hate politics because of this sort of thing." http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/kswb-local-republicans-caught-starting-fake-democrat-twitter-accounts-20111014,0,7691189.story

Darrell Issa, the entrepreneur, oversees the hub of a growing financial empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Darrell Issa’s businesses have prospered since he was elected in 2000. The properties his management company in California owns include a building housing a Hooters restaurant. Representative Darrell Issa, the powerful Republican congressman, runs the local district office where his constituents come for help. The proximity of the two offices reflects Mr. Issa’s dual careers, a meshing of public and private interests rarely seen in government. Even as he has built a reputation as a forceful Congressional advocate for business, Mr. Issa has bought up office buildings, split a holding company into separate multimillion-dollar businesses, started an insurance company, traded hundreds of millions of dollars in securities, invested in overseas funds, retained an interest in his auto-alarm company and built up a family foundation. As his private wealth and public power have grown, so too has the overlap between his private and business lives, with at least some of the congressman’s government actions helping to make a rich man even richer and raising the potential for conflicts. He has secured millions of dollars in Congressional earmarks for road work and public works projects that promise improved traffic and other benefits to the many commercial properties he owns here north of San Diego. In one case, more than $800,000 in earmarks he arranged will help widen a busy thoroughfare in front of a medical plaza he bought for $10.3 million. http://obrag.org/?p=43129

Republican Misery Index # of unfunded wars + # of attacks on Congress women + poverty + hunger

20 lies (and counting) told by Gov. Walker. http://filterednews.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/20-lies-and-counting-told-by-gov-walker/

Isn’t it cute that Republicans in Congress suddenly have this pang of responsibility towards our nation’s fiscal health? Doesn’t it sound great when they say that they’re the ones with all the answers? And the sound bites of Republican lawmakers blaming Barack Obama and his administration for the current budget deficit sure sound like good arguments. Until you actually do some digging and realize that they’re completely and totally full of it. The Republicans would have the nation believe that they’re the party of fiscal responsibility, and that the Democrats are the ones who are digging the hole even deeper. But where were the Republicans when the country went from a budget surplus to a budget deficit? And who was in charge back then? Oh yeah! I remember……….. Recall that in January 2001, George W. Bush was inaugurated and inherited an estimated $236.4 billion budget surplus. Dubya actually thought that was a bad thing, so he declared that American’s needed a refund! To make himself look like a hero, he cut taxes and immediately sent out refund checks. A pretty neat trick, and good politics, but not very good policy. It’s kind of like when Sarah Palin took all the credit when she handed out record checks through the Alaska Permanent Fund……payments to Alaska residents from the oil and gas companies who made record profits that year, thus resulting in record “dividend” checks to Alaska residents. But it was on Palin’s watch, so Palin gets all the credit, right? But I digress…….. Point is that Dubya’s two rounds of tax cuts were the largest contributor to the explosion in the national deficit and debt during his tenure. http://politicsoffootball.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/the-republicans%e2%80%99-faux-fiscal-concern/

Darrell Issa probes staff; spokesman Kurt Bardella at center of controversy. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50365.html

Secret campaign ad financing in offing as FEC is deadlocked. Independent political groups, especially those backing conservatives, say federal disclosure law doesn't apply to them. The FEC is at an impasse: Democrats want full disclosure of who's paying for political ads; Republicans say they favor a hands-off approach. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-election-commission-deadlock-20110228,0,2505157.story

An inspiring speech made by a member of the Wisconsin police union, explaining why they’ve chosen to resist the governor’s anti-union agenda. “Mr. Walker, if you’re listening: We know pretty well know who you work for. Now let me tell you who we work for,” he said, eliciting a round of cheers from the crowd. Wlaker works for Koch. It always creeps me out when Bhoner says "the people have spoken!" He dosen't speak for me! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVE_rLjxnfU http://www.youtube.com/user/ryanharveysongs

The Wisconsin Lie Exposed – Taxpayers Actually Contribute Nothing To Public Employee Pensions. http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/25/the-wisconsin-lie-exposed-taxpayers-actually-contribute-nothing-to-public-employee-pensions/

Infographic on the relationship between the Koch Bros and Scott Walker. http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/27/infographic-on-the-r.html

Top 10 Disastrous Policies From The Wisconsin GOP You Haven’t Heard About. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/25/10-gop-disaster/

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was confronted Tuesday night by a college student asking about his extramarital affair during the 1990s. "You adamantly oppose gay rights... but you've also been married three times and admitted to having an affair with your current wife while you were still married to your second," Isabel Friedman, president of the Penn Democrats, asked Gingrich after a speech at the University of Pennsylvania, according to Politico. "As a successful politician who's considering running for president, who would set the bar for moral conduct and be the voice of the American people, how do you reconcile this hypocritical interpretation of the religious values that you so vigorously defend?" Revelations of Gingrich's infidelity triggered intense scrutiny, especially considering his own role in the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, though some have suggested that the Speaker of the House and the President had then bonded over their indiscretions. Despite prior candor on the matter, however, Gingrich held his ground on Tuesday. "I'll bet almost everybody here can gather the thrust of your question," he said. "I appreciate the delicacy and generosity in the way it was framed.... I hope you feel better about yourself. Gingrich, who has been floated as a potential 2012 presidential candidate, then offered an explanation similar to the ones he's given before. "I've had a life which, on occasion, has had problems," Gingrich said. "I believe in a forgiving God, and the American people will have to decide whether that their primary concern. If the primary concern of the American people is my past, my candidacy would be irrelevant. If the primary concern of the American people is the future... that's a debate I'll be happy to have with your candidate or any other candidate if I decide to run." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/23/newt-gingrich-affair_n_826970.html

He joins a long list of politicians ruined by below-the-belt improprieties and extramarital flirtations. Last May, Rep. Mark Souder, an eight-term Republican from Indiana, resigned after having an affair with a female staffer. The congressman had been in office since 1994, when he campaigned on family values during the “Republican revolution”; he won his district’s primary just two weeks ago. Fox News reports that Souder’s conduct with the staffer, who worked in his district office, would have put him in the crosshairs of the House Ethics Committee. Spanky Panky http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-30/which-party-has-more-sex-scandals/

New York Republican Rep. Christopher Lee resigned Wednesday, only hours after Gawker published shirtless photos he had sent to a woman he met via Craigslist. In his resignation, Lee said he regrets the "harm" he inflicted on his family and constituents, and later refused to comment further, only telling Fox News “I have to work this out with my wife.” Earlier Wednesday, Gawker published not only the photo but also an account of a 34-year-old woman who said she was contacted by Lee about her personal ad on Craigslist. Lee allegedly sent her two pictures from a since-deactivated Gmail account—one normal picture and one “PG-13 muscle picture.” After the account went viral, a spokesman for Lee claimed the congressman had been the victim of hackers. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/09/rep-lee-declines-comment-report-claiming-sent-shirtless-photo-craigslist/

The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has raised her political profile in the last year through her outspoken conservative activism, is rebranding herself as a lobbyist and self-appointed “ambassador to the Tea Party movement.” Virginia Thomas, the justice’s wife, said on libertyinc.co, a Web site for her new political consulting business, that she saw herself as an advocate for “liberty-loving citizens” who favored limited government, free enterprise and other core conservative issues. She promised to use her “experience and connections” to help clients raise money and increase their political impact. Ms. Thomas’s effort to take a more operational role on conservative issues could intensify questions about her husband’s ability to remain independent on issues like campaign finance and health care, legal ethicists said. Justice Thomas “should not be sitting on a case or reviewing a statute that his wife has lobbied for,” said Monroe H. Freedman, a Hofstra Law School professor specializing in legal ethics. “If the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that creates a perception problem.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/us/politics/05thomas.html

Hunter used his congressional pull to honor Steve Hamann, El Cajon’s “Citizen of the Year” (and the moderator of Hunter’s only 2010 debate), and John Olsen, the 2010 president of the Santee Chamber of Commerce (the chamber’s executive director donated $250 to Hunter’s campaign in October). As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Hunter announced an alternative list of budget cuts to challenge defense secretary Robert Gates’ plan. Hunter’s office would not provide this list to CityBeat, except to say he’s all for protecting the “expeditionary fighting vehicle” program currently on the chopping block. According to OpenSecrets.org, Hunter has received $15,600 from the vehicle’s main contractor, General Dynamics, as well as another $12,500 from two other companies providing components, Honeywell and L-3 Communications. Last year, this kind of defense-industry advocacy earned Hunter a baton-twirling place on the “Pork Parade” by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Hunter now has his hand out for even more campaign money. According to documents obtained by Polit icalPartyTime.org, he held two $500-per-plate lunches in January and has two more scheduled in February. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8693-fresh-sesh.html

Dems

Honor Roll

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http://www.theonion.com/articles/shirtless-biden-washes-trans-am-in-white-house-dri,2718/

Patrick Fitzgerald http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-22/news/ct-biz-1022-patrick-fitzgerald--20121022_1_skadden-s-chicago-fitzgerald-law-firms

"And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women — except, of course, those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape kit ’n’ stuff. But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years — whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know what? Actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster." The full, unedited version of Fey’s acceptance speech can be viewed here. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/11/pbs-cuts-sarah-palin-jokes-from-tina-fey-special.html

We Can't Yield -- Not Now, Not Ever. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shirley-sherrod/we-cant-yield-not-now-not_b_685502.html

News

A federal fraud charge against a Burbank accountant who has served as treasurer on hundreds of political campaigns centers on her work for a California state Assembly member, authorities said Sunday. Kinde Durkee was arrested Friday afternoon at the office of her firm, Durkee & Associates in Burbank, and is charged with one count of mail fraud, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. The arrest was first reported by the Orange County Register. Durkee is scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The prosecution's complaint against her "focuses on transactions involving the account of a single member of the Assembly, but our investigation is continuing," said Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento. The complaint itself hasn't been released. Horwood declined to identify the Assembly member whose account was allegedly involved or the period of time during which the conduct allegedly took place. Durkee has served as campaign treasurer on hundreds of federal, state and local political campaigns, including those of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a number of California state legislators and Los Angeles City Council members. State Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) said the FBI notified him of the arrest Friday evening and told him his campaign fund might have been the victim of embezzlement of a “substantial amount” of funds, possibly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/campaign-treasurer-jailed-on-mail-fraud-charges.html

Protesters Interrupt Obama to Sing Support for Bradley Manning. Protesters supporting WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning managed to infiltrate a private fundraiser for President Barack Obama on Thursday morning in San Francisco, interrupting his remarks with a song. As Obama was speaking at the $5,000-a-plate breakfast fundraiser, California activist Naomi Pitcairn (above), sitting at one of the tables, began humming and singing a modified version of the song “Where’s Our Change?”, decrying Manning’s treatment in prison. Pitcairn removed her blazer and shirt to reveal a T-shirt with a picture of the young Army intelligence analyst who is suspected of leaking a massive cache of classified and sensitive documents to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks. As the rest of the group at Pitcairn’s table joined in with her song, they held up signs that read “Free Bradley Manning“. “Each of us brought you $5,000 — we’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true. Look at the Republicans, what else can we do,” the group sang. The protest was arranged by a new group calling itself the Fresh Juice Party. Dear Mr. President, we honor you today, sir. Each of us brought you $5,000. It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign. I paid my dues, where’s our change? We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true. Look at the Republicans — what else can we do? Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties In what you seem content to call a free society. Yes, it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy. But at another location in this country Alone in a 6 x 12 cell sits Bradley, 23 hours a day and night. The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right, We paid our dues, where’s our change? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/manning-protesters/

One congressional threat came from San Diego. The man, a proponent of the public option in health care, was upset with a “blue dog Democrat” http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/feb/11/one-congressional-threat-came-from-san-diego/

Gabrielle Giffords, motorcyclist. http://hellforleathermagazine.com/2011/01/gabrielle-giffords-motorcyclist/

DC rally shows support for struggling Democrats. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101002/D9IJQHU80.html

How Democrats, Republicans compare. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/12/INH31F68GB.DTL&type=politics

Senator Harry Reid’s latest sermon on race—“I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican"—has sparked within the GOP the predictable mix of outraged protests and guffaws. It is safe to say that the Nevada senator, fresh off of his tone-deaf praise of President Obama’s “non-Negro dialect,” is not in immediate danger of receiving an NAACP Image Award. But his clumsy outburst does provide another clue to the Democratic Party’s strategy for this fall’s congressional elections: to paint the surging GOP as a party of bigots and racists, inhospitable to Hispanic voters. Unfortunately for Republicans, the GOP leadership is playing its part perfectly—though not in the way one might expect. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-12/harry-reids-remark-about-hispanics-and-republicans-impact-on-gop

U.S. Democrats see good news in primary results. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1120505020100811

ACORN

In 2009, O’Keefe made national headlines when he and a female cohort posed as a pimp and prostitute and visited offices of the nonprofit group ACORN around the country. Using a hidden camera, they captured footage that made it seem like ACORN workers were collaborating in human trafficking. California Attorney General Jerry Brown granted O’Keefe immunity from the state’s privacy laws in exchange for the chance to review the footage. Brown’s investigation found that Juan Carlos Vera, a National City ACORN employee fired after the tapes aired, did nothing wrong and that the video had been edited to distort what happened. In July, Vera filed a $75,000 lawsuit against O’Keefe under the Invasion of Privacy Act, which requires all parties in a confidential conversation to consent to a recording. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8518-candid-camera.html

2012 Elections

News

The Story Behind the 47 Percent Video. It took months to get the scoop that rocked the 2012 election. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/story-behind-47-video?page=1

More than five weeks after election day, almost all the presidential votes have been counted. Here’s what the near-final tally reveals: The election really wasn’t close. On election night, President Obama’s victory margin seemed fairly narrow – just slightly more than 2 percentage points. White House aides anxiously waited to see if Obama would surpass the 2.46-percentage-point margin by which President George W. Bush defeated Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004. They needn’t have worried. In the weeks since the election, as states have completed their counts, Obama’s margin has grown steadily. From just over 2 percentage points, it now stands at nearly 4. Rather than worry about the Bush-Kerry precedent, White House aides now brag that Obama seems all but certain to achieve a mark hit by only five others in U.S. history – winning the presidency twice with 51% or more of the popular vote. As of Friday, Obama had 50.97% of the vote to Mitt Romney’s 47.3% with 47 states having certified their final count, according to the statistics compiled assiduously by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-three-lessons-from-the-nearfinal-popular-vote-20121214,0,3119021.story

Wealthy Presidential Campaign Donors Driving The Election. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/21/factbox-the-wealthy-behin_n_1995115.html

It looks like Ron Paul is running for president again—and libertarians everywhere have reason to cheer. After the big government conservatism of the George W. Bush era, their ideas seem finally ascendant—and now they have two standard-bearers competing for the Republican nomination in 2012. While the Paul family—recently dubbed "the libertarian Kennedys" by Politico—suck up the media oxygen, there is a comparatively little known but more electorally accomplished libertarian running for president—former two-term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-26/ron-paul-cant-win-2012-presidential-race-gary-johnson-can/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

Was Ronald Reagan a secret snitch? During the 1940s, he simply told the FBI what he told others publicly about communist influences in Hollywood. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-meroney-reagan-20101212,0,337005.story

Republicanism is a Mental Disease

The political media adopted the phrase “Mittness Protection Program” to refer to what? limiting media appearances. It’s awfully fun today to read a stupid, gloating quote like this one, from Romney aide Lenny Alcivar: “When this election is over, one of the lessons that will be learned by the mainstream media is that they no longer have a toe-hold on how Americans receive their news. Never before—in a way that has taken Democrats off stride—have we seen the confluence of an aggressive online community, led by Breitbart, and an aggressive campaign team not willing to cede an inch of ground to Democrats. This combination has created a new political reality. We no longer allow the mainstream media to define the political realities in America. The rise of Breitbart, Drudge and others, combined with an aggressive Romney campaign is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the conservative movement … The governor will no longer allow the mainstream media to dictate the terms of this debate. This is just the beginning … We are witnessing the rise of the center-right media.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/27/the-ultimate-2012-quiz.html

How many 14 tear olds did Romney help today? How many businesses did he bankrupt today? How many workers did he layoff today?

Who wouldn't help a 14 year old? The story behind Mitt Romney’s loss in the presidential campaign to President Obama. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2012/president/2012/12/23/the-story-behind-mitt-romney-loss-the-presidential-campaign-president-obama/2QWkUB9pJgVIi1mAcIhQjL/story.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1

Fiscal Cliff Fictions: Let’s All Agree to Pretend the GOP Isn’t Full of It http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/30/fiscal-cliff-fictions-lets-all-agree-to-pretend-the-gop-isnt-full-of-it/

Congratulations Mitt Romney, a Good Republican!

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, now the host of Family Talk, admitted on his radio program today that the National Day of Prayer Task Force, chaired by his wife Shirley Dobson, were praying for Obama to be defeated on Election Day. Religious Right activists have lambasted Obama with false smears that he had “cancelled” the National Day of Prayer and defended the event as “not politically inclined,” even though it regularly hosted anti-Obama speakers like David Jeremiah and Harry Jackson and both Dobsons are closely tied to the GOP. But during an interview with Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance, Dobson gave away the game and said that his wife and Task Force vice-chair John Bornschein put together an election season prayer effort that they hoped will defeat Obama. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/dobson-admits-national-day-prayed-obama-defeat

http://thecontributor.com/eat-your-spinach-or-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-vote-romney

A Romney Future https://www.youtube.com/embed/6TiXUF9xbTo

Obama for president. The nation has been well served by President Obama's steady leadership. And Mitt Romney has demonstrated clearly that he's the wrong choice. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-end-president-20121021,0,3229774.story

Ouch! "Salt Lake Tribune," Citing Romney's 47-Percent Rant, Endorses Obama. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/10/romney-salt-lake-tribune-endorsement-obama

Mitt Romney: The Great Deformer. Oct 15, 2012 Is Romney really a job creator? Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, takes a scalpel to the claims. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/14/david-stockman-mitt-romney-and-the-bain-drain.html

Romney bully Romney draft dodger Romney cultist Romney supernatural Romney bush Romney cheney Romney war Romney iraq Romney coal Romney liberal Romney flip flop Romney no character Romney meaningless Romney lacking Romney nothing Romney no values

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" meant to convince people that they do not need a savior. The Republican lawmaker made those comments during a speech Sept. 27 at a sportsman's banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell. Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats. "God's word is true," Broun said, according to a video posted on the church's website. "I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior." Broun also said that he believes the Earth is about 9,000 years old and that it was made in six days. Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible to be literally true. Broun spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti told the Athens Banner-Herald (http://bit.ly/Us4O0Z ) that Broun was recorded speaking off-the-record to a church group about his religious beliefs. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. It seems unlikely that Broun's remarks were supposed to be kept private. The banquet was advertised, Broun spoke before an audience and the video of his remarks was posted on the church's website. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/10/06/us/ap-us-congressman-creationism-.html?ref=news&_r=0

A Michigan pastor that appeared with Paul Ryan at a campaign event on Monday said earlier this year that Romney is not a Christian. The pastor who delivered a passionate invocation at Paul Ryan’s rally in Rochester, Michigan on Monday evening told CNN earlier this year that the man at the top of the Republican ticket, Mitt Romney, is not a Christian… Clark spoke to CNN about Romney’s Mormon faith after a February rally for Santorum in Lansing. Asked if he believes Romney is a Christian, Clark answered: “No.” http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/10/13/anti-romney-pastor-appears-with-ryan/

The fact that the numbers of Protestants and members of other religious affiliations are in decline in the U.S. should surprise no one. Since the early 1980s, religion in this country has been politicized as a wedge issue. The religious right wing of the GOP has used its political power to demonize those it disagrees with. Leaders such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Tony Perkins have made plenty of money while espousing beliefs with questionable biblical merits that are in sync with the GOP platform. As the article stated, young people today don't buy into the hate-filled rhetoric of these people, but are looking elsewhere for a message of tolerance, charity and love for their fellow person. The "religious leaders" just don't get it, and their dwindling supporters are proof. Mike Lockridge Mission Viejo http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-1012-friday-america-religion-20121012,0,6401677.story

Romney met Doherty at a Christmas party. During a radio show interview, Doherty’s friend recounted a different version of Romney’s meeting with Doherty. “He actually approached him, using this private gathering as basically a political venture to further his image. And Glen just believed it to be very insincere and stale,” said Elf Ellefsen, Doherty’s friend. "I don't trust Romney. He shouldn't make my son's death part of his political agenda. It's wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama,” said Barbara Doherty, Glen’s mother. Read more: http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/12008755850115/mother-of-navy-seal-killed-in-libya-speaks-out/#ixzz28xMOx4WI

Slain ex-US Navy Seal Glen Doherty's mother rebukes Romney. The mother of an American killed in last month's Libya consulate attack has said his death has been used by the Romney campaign for political purposes. The Republican presidential nominee has been citing his meeting some years ago with former US Navy Seal Glen Doherty. His campaign said the candidate would respect Barbara Doherty's wishes and stop mentioning her son. The attack on the consulate in Benghazi on 11 September has become a political issue ahead of the election. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19905786

But it’s worth pointing out another dynamic that’s been overlooked here: The escalating disaster that is Paul Ryan. At the time of his selection, a number of pundits argued Ryan’s strategic benefits, suggesting he would boost Romney by energizing conservatives, or by allowing Romney to run as the candidate of big ideas, or that he would at least be the party’s best defender of the Medicare plan Romney was going to have to defend whether he wanted to or not. This seemed like a stretch at the time—after all, Ryan’s Medicare plan proved to be a massive liability the one time voters weighed in on it. But who could say for sure? Well, fast forward a month-and-a-half and the numbers look pretty persuasive. This week the New York Times released a set of polls, conducted by Quinnipiac, assessing the state of the race in Ohio and Florida. The top-line numbers were jaw-dropping enough: Obama’s lead in Ohio grew from six to ten over the last month, and from three to nine in Florida. (It’s better to focus on the change here than the magnitude, which is highly sensitive to polling methodology.) But once you look at the internal numbers, they’re even less kind to Romney. More to the point, they suggest Ryan has done enormous damage to the ticket. http://www.tnr.com/blog/107829/47-was-bad-romney-ryan-has-been-deadly#

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the UN and vocal critic of the Obama administration, is often sought after by the media for his opinion on foreign policy issues, but his stake in the presidential election -- as a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney -- is rarely, if ever, disclosed by the outlets that publish him. In addition to editorials in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and appearances on Fox News that left Bolton's ties to Romney undisclosed, a Media Matters review found editorials in five additional publications written or co-written by Bolton that left out that key information. In total, Bolton wrote seven editorials that were critical of Obama's policies for The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Examiner, The Weekly Standard and the National Review after he became affiliated with the Romney campaign. None of those op-eds identified Bolton as a member of the Romney team. However, three of those outlets -- the Times, Monitor, and the Examiner -- have reported separately on Bolton's position in the campaign. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/21/john-bolton-the-medias-favorite-undisclosed-rom/190060

Romney says he would represent '100%' of 1% of Americans. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-latinos-20120919,0,3296495.story

Romney and the GOP still toe the Bush line. Republican leaders are sick and tired of Democrats blaming all the nation's problems on George W. Bush, and of being tarnished by the former president's legacy. From walrus-mustached former U.N Ambassador John Bolton, to Bush's brother Jeb, to Fox News host Sean Hannity (who seldom lets a guest criticize Bush without pointing out that President Obama has been running the country for years), to "tea party" activists who since the 2008 elections have been complaining that Bush's failures could be blamed on the fact that he was not sufficiently conservative, the GOP would seem to wish Bush's name could be erased from the history books. And that would be fine, if Republicans also repudiated Bush's policies. They haven't. Not only do Mitt Romney's ideas appear to gibe with Bush's on almost every particular, the Republican Party platform reads as if it could have been written by the Bush administration. The extraordinary mistakes made during Bush's eight-year presidency in the arenas of foreign policy, environmental protection and taxing and spending -- the ones that worsened relations between the U.S. and its allies and rivals around the world, caused the deficit to skyrocket and produced deadly environmental disasters -- almost certainly would be repeated by a Romney administration and/or a Republican Congress. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-bush-republicans-20120914,0,1593687.story

The DNC was packed full of the folks Republicans are trying to take their country back from: gay couples, inter-racial couples, non-Cuban Latinos, workers, non-billionaires, “sluts,” immigrants, African-Americans, liberals, civil servants, Reagan Democrats and women who aren't just a Republican's mom. Basically what America (love it or leave it) now looks like. The DNC looked like America in 2012. The RNC looked like America in 1912. http://thecontributor.com/editors-contribution/review-rnc-v-dnc

During the primary season, GOP candidates tried to outdo each other promising voters that they would slash and burn the federal government, even though Texas Gov. Rick Perry couldn't quite count to three. During his political career, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has called for the elimination of almost everything, including the FBI, and he has built a substantial following among GOP activists. His son Rand called for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act and was elected to the Senate in 2010. But DuRon's observation is revealing in a different way. Republicans since Ronald Reagan have generally been quite vague about which government agencies they propose to gut, knowing that to offer such specifics risks alienating voters who quite like those programs. Instead, they have promised tax cuts and more tax cuts. The goal here is to "starve the beast," a strategy pushed by Grover Norquist, another of those Republicans DuRon should take note of. By shrinking government revenue through tax cuts, the reasoning goes, federal programs will have to be eliminated. Norquist has persuaded many Republicans in Congress to sign his "no new tax" pledge, which allows politicians to promise lower taxes without having to specify what citizens will lose in return. Those of a certain age will remember the name David Stockman; he was Ronald Reagan's whiz-kid budget director charged with implementing the president's tax-cut, trickle-down policies designed to shrink the federal government. Those policies didn't work, and Stockman resigned in disgust in 1985. In a 2009 interview, Stockman told a reporter: "The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job in our democracy, which is to act as the guardian of fiscal discipline and responsibility. They're on an anti-tax jihad, one that benefits the prosperous classes." And while the prosperous classes benefit from it, the other inevitable result of that jihad is a gutted federal government for the rest of us. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0908-postscript-conn-big-government-20120908,0,6745305.story

GOP Grassroots Furious at Romney Over Akin, Abortion Rape Exception. Anti-abortion activists are incensed at the candidate’s claim that he wouldn’t ban abortion for victims of rape—and at his rejection of Todd Akin, who’s trying to capitalize on that anger with a fundraising push. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/23/gop-grassroots-furious-at-romney-over-akin-abortion-rape-exception.html

Romney's used Mormon Church to launder money. The newly released documents confirm that among these 21 funds, two set up a total of five so-called "blocker corporations" which allow U.S. non-profit entities to legally pretend to be foreign (i.e., Cayman) corporations in order to avoid the 35% "unrelated business income tax, which was created to prevent nonprofit groups from undertaking profit-making ventures that compete with taxpaying companies," http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/08/lid-blowing-off-romney-tax-secrecy.html#more

Romney: My Mormon tithing should be private. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57499296-503544/romney-my-mormon-tithing-should-be-private/

Sher Valenzuela, GOP's 'We Built It' Speaker, Received Millions In Government Loans. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/sher-valenzuela-we-built-it_n_1828847.html

Mitt Rmney was born in Mexico http://thecontributor.com/2012-election/romney-brags-no-one-has-ever-asked-see-my-birth-certificate

In a 2005 speech, Ryan cited Ayn Rand as a key reason he went into politics. He said that he had made "Atlas Shrugged" required reading for his staff, and that he still liked to check his "premises" against passages from the book to be sure "that what I'm believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism." Lately, because Rand didn't believe in God and because "Atlas Shrugged" celebrates an adulterous relationship between two of its main characters, Ryan has distanced himself from his former remarks, telling the National Review recently, "I reject her philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy." These days, he said in the interview, he favors Thomas Aquinas over Rand. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schneider-atlas-shrugged-reviews-20120826,0,4069894.story

Todd Akin and the Anti-Science House Science Committee. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/house-committee-science/

no body trusts romney

Jump on the Rand Wagon! How Ryan Resurrected Ayn. How everyone’s favorite spouse-swapping, godless pulp novelist and dorm-room doyenne became the Tea Party’s new mascot. http://observer.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-ayn-rand-atlas-shrugged/

romney Legitimate Rape ryan rapist priest Akin Legitimate Rape romney

romney lying sack of shit ryan deceitful romney liar ryan bigot

Norquist, the man famous for convincing a huge swath of congressional Republicans to pledge to not raise taxes, was responding to a jab from the former President Bush last month in an interview with PARADE magazine. “The rigidity of those pledges is something I don’t like,” Bush said in the interview. “The circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It’s – who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?” Norquist also responded to comments made by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush opposing the Norquist pledge, saying in June at a congressional hearing, “I don’t believe you outsource your principles and convictions to people.” “Something that both Jeb Bush should have been a little bit aware of, and his father, that commitment that most Republicans who run for office make is to the American people and to the people of their state,” Norquist said in response. “And Jeb Bush decided not to promise the people of Florida that he wouldn’t raise taxes, but he had a fairly good Republican legislature, so he never had a tax increase while he was governor.” Norquist made his comments during a special “This Week” panel, in partnership with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, on the question “Is the U.S. Headed Toward Bankruptcy?” http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/grover-norquist-george-h-w-bush-lied-to-the-american-people/

Republicanism is a Mental Disease archived August 2012

Rep. Todd Akin, the newly-christened GOP Senate nominee in Missouri, said in an interview airing Sunday that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. Explaining his no-exceptions policy on abortions, Akin was asked why he opposes abortion even when the pregnancy is the result of rape. “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in a clip posted to YouTube by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Akin added: “But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/08/19/todd-akin-gop-senate-candidate-legitimate-rape-rarely-causes-pregnancy/

Mr. Romney’s ‘garbage’ ORMER GOVERNOR Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee for president, promises to lower everyone’s income tax rate without reducing revenue. This sounds terrific. Why didn’t we think of it sooner? Mr. Romney says that he can achieve this seemingly magical result by “broadening the base” for income tax collection. This, too, sounds great. In principle, everyone favors “broadening the base,” also known as closing loopholes. But everyone favors closing someone else’s loopholes: those of oil companies, say, or of plutocrats who park their money in the Cayman Islands. Recently the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, showed that Mr. Romney’s plan would by necessity help the rich and hurt the middle class. In an interview with Fortune magazine last week, Mr. Romney took strong issue with this conclusion. “They made garbage assumptions and they reached a garbage conclusion,” he said. Contrary to the center’s assumption, he said, he would not take away middle-class tax breaks for “homeownership, charitable giving and health care.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-romneys-garbage/2012/08/18/d109ac74-e883-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_story.html

Asked by Hume when the Romney plan would balance the budget, Ryan said he didn't know because "we haven't run the numbers on that specific plan." http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/15/we-havent-run-the-numbers-a-startling-ryan-admi/189369

Scott Taylor Ben Smith Scooter Libby traitors phonies Chad Kolton, a former spokesman for the office of Director of National Intelligence during the George W. Bush administration who now represents OPSEC, also said the group's message is aimed to make Obama fail, the group only allows republicans as members. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/opsec-special-forces_n_1777538.html

"It's funny because Iowans and Wisconsinites, we like to be respectful of one another and be peaceful with one another and listen to each other," remarked Ryan. "These guys must not be from Iowa or Wisconsin." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504365_162-5222602-504365.html

gutter head romney rove cheney filth swift boat it's politics live with it

"They have tried to sell us this trickle-down fairy dust before, and guess what? It didn't work."

“Governor Romney is talking nonsense," Wyden said in an emailed statement Saturday night. "Bipartisanship requires that you not make up the facts. I did not ‘co-lead a piece of legislation.' I wrote a policy paper on options for Medicare." Wyden noted he had spoken and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget. "Governor Romney needs to learn you don't protect seniors by makings things up, and his comments sure won't help promote real bipartisanship,” he added. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/12/ron-wyden-paul-ryan_n_1770611.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

“Our rights come from nature and God, not from government. That's who we are,” he said. “That's how Christians built this country. That's who we are. That's what made us great. That's our founding. If you are not a Christian you have no rights.” http://www.advocate.com/politics/election/2012/08/11/ryan-rights-come-nature-and-god-not-government

Paul Ryan is the Kindest, Bravest, Warmest, Most Wonderful Congressman I've Ever Known. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/paul-ryan-kindest-bravest

On Saturday morning, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina blasted out an email responding to the Ryan VP pick. "This election is about values, and today Romney doubled down on his commitment to take our country back to the failed policies of the past," the statement read. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/rep-paul-ryan-mitt-romney-running-mate-vp

"The way to understand him is he is Dick Cheney, he is a guy who went to Washington as soon as he could, rooted himself in the establishment, got himself elected as soon as he could and became a major player," said John Nichols, an associate editor at the Capital Times in Madison. "He is Dick Cheney with very good hair." http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/12/what-wisconsin-journalists-want-you-to-know-abo/189288

ROMNEY-RYAN-BUSH-CHENEY-120812b-320.gif

Leave it to Willard Romney, international man of principle, to get himself bullied into being bold and independent. Make no mistake. In his decision to make Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin, his running mate, Romney finally surrendered the tattered remnants of his soul not only to the extreme base of his party, but also to extremist economic policies, and to an extremist view of the country he seeks to lead. This is unimaginable to those of us who lived here under Romney's barely perceptible stewardship of the Commonwealth (God save it!). If he'd even hinted that he agreed with a fraction of a smidgen of a portion of the policies on which Ryan has built his career, Romney would have been hanging from the Sacred Cod by the middle of 2005. And it's hard not to notice that the way the decision got leaked — in the dead of a Friday night, with the Olympics still going on, after two weeks in which Romney and his campaign had demonstrated all the political skills of a handball — fairly dripped with flopsweat. http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-romney-vp-pick-11562917#ixzz23LNaulrv

Ayn Rand was out of her Vulcan mind. This is a simple fact that can be verified by anyone with even minimal Google skills. She was the Albert Schweitzer of Selfishness and the Mother Theresa of Greed all rolled into one. This, naturally, makes her a hero to the Right and qualifies her for sainthood. Too bad she was an Atheist. Her philosophy, so she said, was one of pure reason, unstained by taudry emotion. But as sane people know, one of the quirks of being a human is serving the heart as well as the mind. Ayn Rand believed you should only serve yourself. In her world, everyone was free to agree with her version of individual freedom and all others were worthy of contempt and scorn. She considered altruism immoral and selfishness a virtue. Ayn Rand called her philosophy “Objectivism”. For the layman, “Objectivism” is Latin for “I don’t give a shit about anyone but myself.” It’s self-absorption with a bow on top. She makes the Kardashians look like Anna Karenina. “The best aspect of Christmas, is that Christmas has been commercialized.” – Ayn Rand Her most famous and last novel is “Atlas Shrugged”, a 1200 page Caligula of Capitalism set slightly in the future of America. In this tome, the heroes are all titans of industry and anyone else with less talent or less money is referred to as a “looter”. Aren’t these the same looters that made these titans wealthy? Thereupon is one of the biggest disconnects in the novel, that these wealthy supermen somehow attained their fortune in a vacuum. To show the world how unappreciated they are, and how the country couldn’t get along without them, the novel’s chief hero, John Galt, organizes a strike. (how Leftist of him!) Galt somehow manages to convince the rest of the country’s titans to follow suit , causing the collapse of the entire economy and untold suffering. And this, dear readers, is the HERO. Drive safely. http://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/08/i-me-mine-the-unholy-trinity-of-ayn-rand/

Paul Ryan announced as Romney's running mate. The conservative Club for Growth said the pick "sends the message that Gov. Romney is interested in bold reforms. Paul Ryan represents a bold return the The Bush era policies which produced record economic results in 2008. Paul Ryan is a Washington insider with a plan of courageous reforms to transfer wealth from the middle class to the wealthy where it will be best used." "A Romney-Ryan ticket is a weapon of mass destruction unapologetically pointed at our Social Security, our Medicare and our hopes for maintaining a modest, middle class lifestyle during our retirement years," said Eric Kingson, co-founder of the Social Security Coalition and Nancy Altman, co-director of the Social Security Works. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-reaction-to-paul-ryan-vp-choice-is-swift-polarizing-20120811,0,5743504.story

Ryan pick cements lack of military service in presidential race

Ryan won his seat in 1998, at the age of twenty-eight. Like many young conservatives, he is embarrassed by the Bush years. At the time, as a junior member with little clout, Ryan was a reliable Republican vote for policies that were key in causing enormous federal budget deficits: sweeping tax cuts, a costly prescription-drug entitlement for Medicare, two wars, the multibillion-dollar bank-bailout legislation known as TARP. In all, five trillion dollars was added to the national debt. In 2006 and 2008, many of Ryan’s older Republican colleagues were thrown out of office as a result of lobbying scandals and overspending. Ryan told me recently that, as a fiscal conservative, he was “miserable during the last majority” and is determined “to do everything I can to make sure I don’t feel that misery again.” Ryan is the problem not the solution. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/06/120806fa_fact_lizza#ixzz23FZ33U9i

Romney Met Thursday with Top Anti-Muslim Activist and Leading Backers of Bachmann Witch Hunt. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/romney-met-thursday-top-anti-muslim-activist-and-leading-backers-bachmann-witch-hunt

Military Veterans Blast Romney for Supporting Voter Suppression. http://soapblox.net/2012-election/military-veterans-blast-romney-supporting-voter-suppression

On a stage crowded with war heroes, Mitt Romney recently praised the sacrifice "of the great men and women of every generation who serve in our armed services." It is a sacrifice the Republican presidential candidate did not make. Though an early supporter of the Vietnam War, Romney avoided military service at the height of the fighting after high school by seeking and receiving four draft deferments, according to Selective Service records. They included college deferments and a 31-month stretch as a "minister of religion" in France, a classification for Mormon missionaries that the church at the time feared was being overused. The country was cutting troop levels by the time he became eligible for the draft, and his lottery number was not called. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/06/05/romneys_non_military_record_faces_new_scrutiny/

THINGS WRONG WITH HASSETT, HUBBARD, MANKIW, AND TAYLOR, "THE ROMNEY PROGRAM FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH, AND JOBS" HHMT: We are presently in the most anemic economic recovery in the memory of most Americans, with significant joblessness and long-term unemployment, as well as lost income and savings. WRONG: We are in the worst downturn, but we are not in the “most anemic” recovery--the recovery of 2001-2004 was more anemic. HHMT should know: three of them held high federal office in the George W. Bush administration that managed that recovery,and back then all four attempted (uncovincingly, IMHO) to rebut claims from people (like me) that the early 2000s recovery was anemic and that more stimulative policies were then needed. Why don’t HHMT make the true claim that we are in the worst downturn? Why do they make the wrong claim that we are in the most anemic recovery? Because they do not want to talk about how back when they were in office they played their role in failing to use their leverage to argue for more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to speed the then-recovery. Why weren’t HHMT arguing, back in 2001-4, either inside or outside the government, for more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to speed the then-recovery? I don’t know. Those of us who were so arguing would have found their help most welcome. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/things-wrong-with-hassett-hubbard-mankiw-and-taylor-the-romney-program-for-economic-recovery-growth-and-jobs.html

Conservatives tend more strongly towards authoritarianism, a personality type or disposition associated with an intolerance of ambiguity and seeing the world in sharply defined, black and white terms. Authoritarianism is not a "quality of reasoning" measure either, but this is a trait that has been associated with reasoning errors, such as committing the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), and also with more selective exposure to friendly sources of information. On a moral level, conservatives are more group oriented—more likely to affirm loyalty to the unit, the tribe, the team—and more respectful of authority. This is based on Jonathan Haidt’s work, but it also echoes the research on authoritarianism. http://soapblox.net/are-conservatives-inherently-more-biased-liberals-scientific-debate-rages

Meet Michele Bachmann’s Anti-Muslim Tutors. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/michele_bachmanns_frank_gaffney.php

Republicans profess an unmatched love of country, but what they have is an unmatched disdain for the people who inhabit it. http://obrag.org/?p=63425&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+obrag%2FIrDB+%28OB+Rag%29

For the period January 2003 – January 2007, the Romney record on state government job growth is compared against the national state employment aggregate. Likewise, private sector job growth in Massachusetts is compared against the national private sector aggregate, thus, benchmarking the Romney record against the national record. The comparisons make clear that state government employment increased 2.8% in Massachusetts, more than twice the national state government employment aggregate of 1.1%. Private sector employment over the same period in Massachusetts increased 1.4%, less than a quarter of the national aggregate of 5.9%. It should be noted that this comparative performance decrement mirrors economic growth in the state as annual real GDP grew 1.6% over Romney’s tenure, as opposed to an annual increase of 2.7% nationally. http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/07/guest-postthe-romney-job-record-in.html

Later in the interview, Malkin slammed President Obama’s supporters. “Romney types, of course, are the ones who sign the front of the paycheck, and the Obama types are the one who have spent their entire lives signing the back of them,” she said. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/malkin-slams-presidents-supporters-romney-supporters-sign-front-of-paychecks-obamas-sign-the-back/

Endorsed by Ronald Reagan upon its inception in 1986, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge — which Norquist says he came up with when he was 12-years-old — has been signed by over 1,100 state office holders as well as 238 current House members and 41 current Senators. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/norquist-tax-pledge-house/2012/06/22/id/443108

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Diagnosed as 'Waraholics' With the Democrats and the mainstream media enabling them, administration leaders are five years into a major war binge. They won't stop until they've hit bottom.

Mitt Romney is locked in a pitched fight over whether he left Bain Capital in 1999, when he took a job running the Olympics, or stayed involved in the firm over the next several years. The battle has swelled to a dizzying multi-front conflict encompassing both presidential campaigns, a horde of fact-checkers and reporters and Bain Capital itself. Why the war over a seemingly simple line on Romney’s resume? The answer is actually critical: A heap of attack ads are based on deals Bain made during that gray period, 1999-2002, when Romney was in Salt Lake City. Countless Obama campaign ads take Romney’s tenure at Bain — which Romney touts as one of his most valuable qualifications for office — and turn it on its head by accusing Romney of profiting off companies that outsourced, laid off workers, cut benefits or made Bain money as they went bankrupt. Media fact checkers have consistently slammed the ads, objecting to the fact that the Bain investments in question happened after 1999, when Romney says he left the company, thereby absolving him of blame. http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/why-the-timing-of-mitt-romneys-bain-exit-matters-a-guide.php

do you trust Mitt Romney? Did you trust Dick Cheney? George W Bush? Nixon? Limbaugh? Beck?

The president whose legacy is partly defined by three words -- "no new taxes" -- seems to care little about the ubiquitous pledge that touts the same phrase. In an interview with Parade magazine to be published Sunday, former President George H.W. Bush pans the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, the Grover Norquist-backed anti-tax oath that politicians sign to promise they will never vote for a tax increase. In the 112th Congress, 238 representatives and 41 senators -- all but three of them Republicans -- have taken the pledge. "The rigidity of those pledges is something I don’t like," Bush said. "The circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It’s -- who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?" His wife, former First Lady Barbara Bush, did not mince her words either when it came to the anti-tax crusader. "I think he ought to go back to Alaska," she said, referring to previous comments she made about Sarah Palin in a 2010 interview. "Don't quote me!" President Bush's remarks echo a similar sentiment shared by House Speaker John Boehner last year. The Ohio Republican told reporters that it is "not often I'm asked about some random person in America" when pressed whether Norquist was a positive or negative force for the House GOP conference. Norquist told "The Daily Show" in February that he came up with the idea for the pledge when he was 12 years old, about the same time that Bush served in the House of Representatives. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/grover-norquist-george-hw-bush_n_1671106.html

Cheney: Romney the 'only' choice for handling foreign policy crisis. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/13/cheney-romney-only-choice-for-handling-foreign-policy-crisis/

Cheney and Romney served together in the same Army Ranger Platoon in Viet Nam in 1968 and '69. Together they killed over 1,000 NVA and Viet Cong and both were awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. In 1969 they teamed with John McCain on a secret mission to Cambodia.

Meet the legions of wingnuts who think Andy Griffith was a communist and want him to burn in hell. http://boingboing.net/2012/07/05/meet-the-legions-of-wignuts-wh.html

"In their policy of ensuring that Obama is a 'one-term president,' Republicans have put partisan politics first and Americans (except for the top 1%) a distant second. Corporations have helped, refusing to open their purse of trillions in cash hoards for new hires, instead demanding more and more from their vastly shrunken workforces. Perhaps Obama could have been more forceful in some areas, but he faces a formidable wall of obstructionism, which should be considered in any appraisal or discussion of his performance." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0623-postscript-obama-republicans-20120623,0,2513099.story

Eighty one percent of Republicans, and 100 percent of Fox viewers overall, think that President Barack Obama is a Muslim

A Roman Catholic church official was convicted Friday of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy in a groundbreaking clergy-abuse trial, becoming the first U.S. church official convicted of a crime for how he handled abuse claims. Monsignor William Lynn helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priest was being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches, prosecutors said. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/22/12359748-roman-catholic-church-official-convicted-of-endangerment-in-priest-abuse-trial

Newt Gingrich's third wife , is a devout Catholic Gingrich and his third wife, Callista who Newt Gingrich and Monsignor William Lynn to restore faith in presidency with faith in God. http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=43957

Newt Gingrich Monsignor William Lynn Callista Gingrich Rick Santorum Monsignor William Lynn Karen Santorum Monsignor William Lynn rapist

At Rally, Catholic Bishop Warns Obama Is ‘Following A Similar Path’ To Hitler, Stalin http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2012/04/18/rally-catholic-bishop-warns-obama-following-similar-path-hitler-stalin

Priest Sex Abuse Trial Tough on Catholics http://www.victoriabrownworth.com/2012/06/06/priest-sex-abuse-trial-tough-on-catholics/

At Bain, Romney Invested in Companies That Shipped Off American Jobs. http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/22/at-bain-romney-invested-in-companies-that-shipped-off-american-jobs/

“Let’s get real here,” McCain told The Hill. “There was never any outreach from President Obama or anyone in his administration to me.” McCain disputes the notion that he has rejected entreaties to cooperate with the White House because he is bitter from his defeat four years ago. He said he expressed eagerness to work with the president on immigration reform and the line-item veto, but has been left out in the cold. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/232693-president-obama-snubbed-me-says-john-mccain

why should the President of the United States consult with a nut job?

Democrats have started coming out and saying publicly what many have been mumbling privately for years – Republicans are so intent on defeating President Obama for re-election that they are purposely sabotaging the country's economic recovery. These charges are now being levied by Democrats such as Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Obama's key political adviser, David Axelrod. For Democrats, perhaps the most obvious piece of evidence of GOP premeditated malice is the 2010 quote from Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Such words lead some to the conclusion that Republicans will do anything, including short-circuiting the economy, in order to hurt Obama politically. Considering that presidents – and rarely opposition parties – are held electorally responsible for economic calamity, it's not a bad political strategy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/09/did-republicans-deliberately-crash-us-economy

MITT ROMNEY 2012 SCOTT WALKER RECALL VICTORY MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Image:Rom2012.jpg

Mitt Romney today flew to an aircraft carrier off the coast of Milwaukee to declare mission accomplished in the war on Obama.

ROMNEY 2012 WALKER RECALL MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

DEFENSE SUPER PAC LAUNCHES IN SAN DIEGO. “The trillion dollars in national security cuts, if allowed to pass, will be the greatest tragedy of the Obama administration,” said board member and former Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, onetime chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/may/22/tp-defense-super-pac-launches-in-san-diego/?print&page=all

Group Declares War On Spain – Maybe – and Announces SuperPac and Bakesales http://obrag.org/?p=60899

Mitt Romney: Experimenting with hate crimes is “part of growing up, my friend.”

romney If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Today’s Republicans are different. They truly have put partisanship ahead of patriotism, as the political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann document in their book, Even Worse Than it Looks. “The GOP,” they write, “has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/13/paul-begala-dick-lugar-s-fate-shows-gop-puts-party-first.html

Kinsley: Overvaluing the free market. Being paid big bucks doesn't mean that you're worth it. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley-free-market-capitalism-20120508,0,4929945.story

Romney on bullying: "I thought they liked that."

Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away, and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the war during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign. Regarding the military draft, Romney had initially received a student deferment, then, like most Mormon missionaries, a ministerial deferment while in France, and then a student deferment. When those ran out, his high number in the December 1969 draft lottery (300) ensured he would not be selected.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled. A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors. The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be identified. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections. “It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.” “It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious.” “He was just easy pickin’s,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it. The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html?hpid=z2

Romney demands that Bin Laden be killed.

“This election is not going to be about who's cooler. The question is going to be, 'Who do you trust to run the economy?'” Peter Flaherty, senior Romney advisor, said during Saturday's Washington Post Live Newsmaker Forum. I wouldn't trust Romney to walk my dog. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-campaign-pledges-no-slow-jamming-the-news-20120429,0,3017523.story

Mitt shakes the Etch A Sketch.

Mitt W Bush George W Romney

N. Gregory Mankiw is a moral failure as well as a failed economist He ignored all of the prescient warnings we made about how accounting control fraud drove our crises and he continues to ignore those warnings and the reality of our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. He wants the U.S. to move even more rapidly downward in the “competition in regulatory laxity” that is driving those crises. http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/04/mankiws-ode-to-the-governmental-competition-that-made-romney-wealthy.html

Romney bush romney back to bush romney worship bush

Karl Rove vile evil out of touch anti-American

Romney dirty vile chicken-hawk

Newt Gingrich crack head

Mitt Romney vile evil American-hating sub human ted nugent

Mitt Romney is vile, evil and America-hating anti-American We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.

republicans are the worst nightmare for America.

Santorum is a rapist

Police on Friday announced the arrest of Michael Kobulnicky, spokesman for the San Diego Tea Party, on suspicion of kidnapping a woman and then sexually assaulting rape her on Fiesta Island last month. Kobulnicky, 50, was taken into custody about 3:45 p.m. Thursday as he was walking to his Lemon Grove home, said San Diego police Lt. Anastasia Smith. He was being held in the central jail without bail. republican rapists a public speaker espousing Christian values. rape http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/16/sex-assault-suspect-tea-party-leader/

GOP Plans to Sink the Economy. Every month brings improved job news—and bleaker prospects for the Republicans in November. Which is why they’re contemplating economic sabotage as their only hope. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/12/michael-tomasky-on-gop-plans-to-sink-the-economy.html

republicans are morally bankrupt. they are filled with and driven by hate and self loathing.

republicans are sick fucks. I'm on a tourist train, more than half the seats are empty, some woman badmouths me "he's taking four seats." they hear this crap from hate monger like Rush Limbaugh Andrew Breitbart Newt Gingrich reagan bush Mitt Romney Rick Santorum all of them. lady you spread hate you'll get hated. republicanism must be stamped out, smashed, destroyed.

Republicans: shit for brains

Romney washing brains for 45 years.

Dummkopf Romney Dummkopf

Republicanism is a Mental Disease, archive 02/24/2012

I Want a President Who Believes in the Constitution. I'm not looking for a president who plans to head this country using the Bible as his or her basis. Controversy has been raised over a recent statement from Republican candidate Rick Santorum regarding whether President Barack Obama has been following the Bible or "a different theology" during the presidency, as reported by Reuters. I am a Christian, but when it comes to politics and governing a nation, I want a president who will use the Constitution as their basis of beliefs. I don't want a president who will put aside the Constitution as the ultimate law of the land. In the same way, I don't want a president who will govern based upon the Koran, the Talmud, the Book of Mormon or any other religious text -- even the Bible. I would support a president who believes and follows their spiritual doctrines in their daily life, but when it comes to government, the Constitution should be the doctrine to follow. Santorum has been vocal about his spiritual beliefs and I have no issue with that, but I don't want to hear about his religious practices. I want to know about his political views and his proposals to fix our country. How does he plan to address the economy and the socio-political divisions within our country? For that matter, any candidate -- including President Obama -- who wants to become our next president should be explaining to me how they intend to make changes within our nation. I don't want a president who interprets the Constitution based on their understanding of the Bible or any other religious teachings. Yes, I am a Christian, but I am not Catholic. I am not Methodist or Lutheran or Presbyterian. I don't want a president who is so narrowly focused that only one denominational or religious interpretation of scripture is the law by which the country is led. As someone who was raised Baptist, the interpretation of scriptures in churches I have attended are slightly different from those of other denominations. No, I want a president who believes in the Constitution and holds the Constitution up as the law of the land. http://news.yahoo.com/want-president-believes-constitution-010300664.html

How Rick Santorum Ripped Off American Veterans. A controversial land deal by the presidential candidate robbed a vets' home of tens of millions of dollars. http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/how-rick-santorum-ripped-off-american-military-veterans

Bursting the GOP's housing bubble nonsense. http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2012/02/citigroup-mortgage-meltdown-quit-blaming-democrats.html

tidbits of wit, wisdom, and (mostly) weirdness from presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/daily-newt-gingrich-space-sex-dinosaurs

Speaking to a Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach for the Palm Beach County GOP, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla) fired off a humdinger of a line that within minutes drew recriminations from Democrats on Twitter. "We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, (audience boos) and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain't on the table," West said. "Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America." Following cheers, West added, "Yeah I said 'hell.'" Moments after the quote was mentioned on Twitter, former Reid spokesman Jim Manley responded via his own Twitter feed: "Me to allen west. You first asshole." And they say politics is getting more acrimonious. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/allen-west-liberals-get-out-florida-primary-2012_n_1239247.html

Gingrich was the prime enabler of Cunningham's corruption among many, many enablers. As a member of the team at Copley News Service that uncovered that corruption and as co-author of a book about Cunningham, I found Gingrich's role to be one of the fascinating footnotes of the Cunningham saga. It was Gingrich who championed the explosion of earmarks after Republicans gained control of the House in 1995. And it was Gingrich who rode roughshod over the objections of senior House Republicans and ordered him to get the plum committee assignments that allowed him to demand his bribes for defense and intelligence earmarks. http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/01/randy-duke-cunningham-was-alwa.php

The Gingrich Ethics Probe. The following are some of the key Post stories on the House ethics investigation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/leadership/ethics.htm

Who is Saul Alinsky? A Gingrich line explained. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/22/who-is-saul-alinsky-a-gingrich-line-explained/

House Speaker John Boehner is pathetic.

"People completely misunderstand what's going on. It's not that I'm a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people," Gingrich told supporters during his victory speech. Ethics don't matter. Gingrich has no experience running a business and no experience running a state. Gingrich was reprimanded by the House and ordered to pay a $300,000 penalty in 1997 for violating an ethics rule. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/01/22/Newt-I-represent-American-values/UPI-98451327222800/

Mit Romney Brain washed

real name? Midiot Romney; brain come pre-washed

Stumping in Iowa: Mitt Romney says he'd end Amtrak. Published: January 3, 2012. CLIVE, Iowa — Mitt Romney promised Iowa voters yesterday he’d cut all funds to Amtrak, a repeat of a promise he made in a policy statement on his website in November. Romney, who leads polls both in Iowa and nationally for the Republican nominating contest, has made the pledge before as part of his plan to balance the federal budget. “Those programs that don’t pass the following test, we get rid of,” Romney told the audience. “This is my test: Is this program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for?” The federally owned passenger railroad was one of three programs Romney singled out for elimination as part of his effort. “Amtrak ought to stand on its own two feet, or its own wheels, or whatever you’d say,” Romney said. Amtrak’s 2012 appropriation was $1.4 billion, or roughly .02 percent of the $6.2 trillion federal budget. The other two programs Romney promised to defund were:

Red Tape and Lack of Funds Mean Trouble for Charleston Port Expansion. Four ports along the East Coast should have 50-foot harbors by the time the canal opens – New York/New Jersey, Baltimore, Norfolk and Miami. The Port of Charleston is busier than Baltimore and Miami, yet it couldn’t get any money in President Obama’s 2012 budget to fund the years-long studies it will take to approve dredging. In a last-minute bit of finagling, Graham managed to find $4.2 million to keep the process going. “We’re a red state in South Carolina,” Graham says. “It's no accident that we weren’t in Obama’s budget. If I had voted for health care – Obamacare – I bet we would have gotten our port deepened – but I’d have been at the bottom of the harbor ... so ...” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/21/red-tape-and-lack-funds-mean-trouble-for-charleston-port-expansion/

What's so awful about the 1%? Occupy Wall Street has said it's the 99% of 'us' against the 1% of 'them.' But many of 'them' started out like 'us' and have brought us great innovations that we embrace. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schiller-who-is-the-one-percent-20111204,0,1375958.story

two men in suits are watching a protest march happening on the street below them from an office tower in downtown in Los Angeles. Asked if he's part of the 99 or the one, one of the men says, "I'm part of the one that's making it so that these people here can get something from the government." After proudly saying that he's part of the one percent, the suit goes on to say "Here's the other thing: now out of the 99 percent, have you ever heard of anybody great that's come out of the 99 percent?" http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/11/proud_one_perce.php

A closer look at Mitt Romney's job creation record. The Republican presidential contender says he learned about expanding employment after his time heading a private equity firm. But under his leadership, Bain Capital often maximized profits in part by firing workers. That was true in the case of GS Industries, the 10th-biggest Bain investment in the Romney years. Bain formed GSI in the early 1990s by spending $24 million to acquire and merge steel companies with plants in Missouri, South Carolina and other states. Company managers cut jobs and benefits almost immediately. Meanwhile, Bain and other investors received management fees from GSI and a $65-million dividend in the first years after the acquisition, according to interviews with company employees. In 1999, as economic challenges mounted, GSI sought a federal loan guarantee intended to help steel companies compete internationally. The loan deal was approved, but in 2001, before it could be used, the company went bankrupt, two years after Romney left Bain. More than 700 workers were fired, losing not only their jobs but health insurance, severance and a chunk of their pension benefits. GSI retirees also lost their health insurance and other benefits. Bain partners received about $50 million on their initial investment, a 100% gain. "It makes me sick," said Steve Morrow, a retired GSI steelworker, recalling what happened to his fellow workers after the Kansas City shutdown. Some top managers received bonuses from Bain, he said. "But the salaried and hourly people ended up with the shaft." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-bain-20111204,0,343872.story

Issa-backed carmaker closes without energy aid. Congressman sought consideration for Solyndra-like loan for Aptera. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/02/carmaker-closes-without-green-energy-aid/

Virginia activist Donna Holt is among those who believe that Agenda 21—unveiled during the UN's "Earth Summit" in 1992—is really a plot to curtail private property rights and deprive Americans of precious constitutional freedoms. In reality, the document will do nothing of the sort, but it has nevertheless been the target of conspiracy-minded UN haters for years. Holt and other tea partiers are taking their cues from people like Henry Lamb, a WorldNetDaily columnist and founder of Sovereignty International and Freedom21, groups designed to fight Agenda 21 and its ilk. He has been arguing for decades that the UN is secretly plotting to herd humans into crowded cities so that the rest of the world can be devoted to wildlife preservation. (Lamb declined to comment for this story because back Mother Jones once included him in a story called Wingnuts in Sheep's Clothing, and another article that described his role in Astroturf lobbying against the Kyoto treaty.) http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/11/newt-gingrich-name-drops-one-world-conspiracy-theory

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy. http://frankmillerink.com/2011/11/anarchy

As the economy worsens and Election Day approaches, a conservative campaign that blames the global financial crisis on a government push to make housing more affordable to lower-class Americans has taken off on talk radio and e-mail. Commentators say that's what triggered the stock market meltdown and the freeze on credit. They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems. Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis. Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html

Romney presents plan to steal $500 billion from the middle class. The Republican presidential candidate tells a gathering in Washington that he would trim Social Security, cap the cost of Medicaid and restructure Medicare. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-gop-20111105,0,2123697.story

FACT CHECK: GOP lawmakers spin funding tall tales. http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-gop-lawmakers-spin-funding-tall-tales-120816229.html

The next front in the abortion wars: Birth control Mississippi debates a "Personhood" initiative that could ban the pill -- but ultimately aims at Roe v. Wade. http://www.salon.com/2011/10/26/the_next_front_in_the_abortion_wars_birth_control/singleton/

The federal government spends about $40 billion a year on transportation projects. Of that, about $928 million has been devoted to what's known as a "transportation enhancement" program, which provides funding for projects—including rails-to-trails conversions, bike lanes, and bridges—that make cycling safer, and thus more viable as a commuting option. But as Congress gears up to reauthorize the massive transportation funding bill this year, Republicans are arguing that states shouldn't be forced to use scarce transportation funds to encourage bike commuting when bridges for cars are falling down. "We’re doing all these things that, if we had extra money, if we were running a surplus, sure, nobody would really be complaining about it," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told the Washington Post. But, Coburn added, "We can no longer have silly priorities get in the way of real needs." States spend only about 1 percent of all transportation funds on projects devoted to cycling or pedestrian improvements. Yet Republicans see this as an area ripe for cutting. Over the summer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) targeted DC's nascent Capitol Bikeshare program, which provides cheap rental bikes at subway stations and other strategic locations in the Washington Metro area (including northern Virginia) to encourage bike commuting. The program has been wildly successful and has inspired other cities to replicate it as a good way of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution (not to mention obesity). But Cantor sees only waste. As TBD reported in August, Cantor used the GOP's "YouCut" website to highlight Capitol Bikeshare as a foolish venture ripe for elimination. Cantor also complained that bike-sharing programs were one reason that federal transportation spending was vastly exceeding the revenues brought in by the gas tax. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/gop-hates-bikes

Governor Rick Perry kills innocent man. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/far-reaching-consequences-rick-perry-cameron-todd-willingham

Governor Rick Perry orders 1,600 homes burned. http://news.yahoo.com/politics-fighting-wildfires-did-rick-perrys-texas-enough-191900984.html

Tucson GOP to raffle gun -- 9 months after Giffords shooting. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/gabrielle-giffords-shooting-tucson-gop-glock-raffle.html

Millions of people are, for good reason, abandoning big-government blue states for low-tax red ones. Michael Medved on the demographic shift shaking up the electoral map. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/27/census-data-shows-people-are-moving-from-blue-to-red-states.html

Michael Medved is a nut. He gives that link which in no way backs up what he says about demographic shift. http://www.npr.org/2010/12/23/132234651/census-data-will-reshape-u-s-political-landscape

But the presidential candidate apparently has a very open mind toward therapies developed using adult stem cells, which can be collected from a patient's own body. So open, in fact, that on July 1 he apparently received experimental stem cell surgery on his own back. In the procedure, doctors removed some of Perry's fat cells, cultured them in a laboratory and then injected them back into his spine and bloodstream. The procedure seems to have been intended to build bone to fix a bad back. Some think stem cells isolated from fat could someday be used to generate soft tissue and bone and perhaps even help in the treatment of ailments such as heart disease. But today such treatments often have not been thoroughly vetted by researchers or approved by the FDA, and this week physicians expressed concern about Perry's operation. On Friday, an Associated Press report collected a few of their comments: Dr. George Muschler, an orthopedic surgeon at Cleveland Clinic, said that fat-derived stem cells were "'an unusual choice...quite controversial because there isn’t good evidence yet, at least in the medical literature, that fat cells work better or even work at all in repairing bones.'” Dr. Thomas Einhorn, orthopedics chairman at Boston University, said he was concerned that the procedure used to grow Perry's cells could lead to cancer cells, blood clots or infections. Dr. George Q. Daley, a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, worried that the governor might be setting the wrong example for ailing patients. “'As a highly influential person of power, Perry’s actions have the unfortunate potential to push desperate patients into the clinics of quacks,' who are selling unproven treatments 'for everything from Alzheimer’s to autism,'" he said. Worries about quackery are widespread among stem cell researchers. Speaking with the Los Angeles Times earlier this year, stem cell researcher Dr. Christine Mummery of the Leiden University Medical Center, in Leiden, Netherlands, said that she gets "desperate questions" from patients, some of whom consider spending tens of thousands of dollars for unproven therapies. http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-rick-perry-stem-cell-back-surgery-20110819,0,870129.story

Romney replied, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Give “The Stormin’ Mormon,” as Neil Cavuto approvingly called him on Fox News, credit: never has the traditional Republican doctrine been so succinctly explained. Of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation. We the corporation. Corporations who need corporations are the luckiest corporations in the world. Power to the corporation! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Dowd-power-to-the-corporation.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

"America is not broken," Perry exhorted, "The Republican Party is broken.”

'We cannot afford 4 more years of Republican Insanity' http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/rick-perry-jumps-into-the-republican-race-for-president.html

Conservative american Christians are on a holy crusade against Muslin Sharia Law. This campaign is now known as "Yeehawd"! http://www.gocomics.com/lacucaracha/2011/08/12

Bachmann trying to broaden her appeal from nut-jobs to birthers, crazies and psychopaths . With the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa drawing near, she attempts to transform herself from a niche candidate favored by a sliver of the GOP electorate into a plausible candidate for commitment to the insane asylum. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-adv-bachmann-20110730,0,3834515.story

Gingrich's campaign remains a skeleton operation. He has not moved to replace most of the consultants and staff members who left. His operations in early-voting states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina rely on volunteers rather than paid staff. "I don't view him as a serious candidate and frankly I don't know anyone who does view him as a serious candidate," said Tom Perdue, a Republican strategist from Gingrich's old home state of Georgia. "It's not uncommon for a candidate to become delusional and that's what I think you are seeing here." Gingrich argues that the kind of grass-roots, Internet-driven campaign he wants to run can function with a lean staff and that he doesn't need a stable of well-paid consultants to launch the attack ads of a more traditional effort. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/16/newt-gingrich-2012-campaign_n_900623.html

you should refuse to sign pledges. Sure, the first one seems harmless. Maybe it's a pledge not to raise taxes. No problem. Then the next one is a pledge to oppose gay marriage. OK, you can do that too, even if you'd rather not. But then the next one is something like this. http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/The-Family-Leader-Presidential-Pledge.pdf

House Speaker John Boehner on Friday sent an unequivocal message: "Number one, Obama must fail. If we have to destroy the US economy to make Obama fail then that is what we will do. Republicans will protect our base of Wall Street and corporate donors but the rest of America is on it's own. Obama must fail!" http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-weekly-address-20110709,0,6007565.story

White Supremacist Stampede. A startling number of white-power candidates are seeking public office. Eve Conant reports on their under-the-radar strategy and David Duke’s White House flirtation. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/04/white-supremacists-running-for-political-office-in-2012-in-growing-numbers.html

Michele Bachmann's Holy WarThe Tea Party contender may seem like a goofball, but be warned: Her presidential campaign is no laughing matter. don't look her in the eyes; don't let her smile at you. Michele Bachmann, when she turns her head toward the cameras and brandishes her pearls and her ageless, unblemished neckline and her perfect suburban orthodontics in an attempt to reassure the unbeliever of her non-threateningness, is one of the scariest sights in the entire American cultural tableau. She's trying to look like June Cleaver, but she actually looks like the T2 skeleton posing for a passport photo. You will want to laugh, but don't, because the secret of Bachmann's success is that every time you laugh at her, she gets stronger. In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622

Bob, who is 78, is this campaign’s leading Newtologist. His study of “Newtie,” as he calls him, began during the 16 full-combat years they spent together as GOP congressman. He holds something of a grudge. But his argument mirrors what—to judge by the polls—a lot of GOP primary voters feel every time Newt opens his mouth. Bob’s argument is that Newt is a pseudo-intellectual gasbag, a moral basket case, and a political performance artist whose campaign is less a bid for the White House than a marketing blitz to pump up “Gingrich Inc.” When I call him back, Bob says he wants to do the nation a service. “I want to get this man the hell out of America’s hair!” he roars. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/26/newt-gingrich-vs-bob-dornan.html

A few dozen people showed up at the town hall for the April 9 event, and Bachmann greeted them warmly. But when, during the question and answer session, the topic turned to same-sex marriage, Bachmann ended the meeting 20 minutes early and rushed to the bathroom. Hoping to speak to her, Arnold and another middle-aged woman, a former nun, followed her. As Bachmann washed her hands and Arnold looked on, the ex-nun tried to talk to her about theology. Suddenly, after less than a minute, Bachmann let out a shriek. "Help!" she screamed. "Help! I'm being held against my will!" Arnold, who is just over 5 feet tall, was stunned, and hurried to open the door. Bachmann bolted out and fled, crying, to an SUV outside. Then she called the police, saying, according to the police report, that she was "absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her." The Washington County attorney, however, declined to press charges, writing in a memo, "It seems clear from the statements given by both women that they simply wanted to discuss certain issues further with Ms. Bachmann." http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-06-14/michele-bachmanns-unrivaled-extremism-gay-rights-to-religion

New Vacation King Newt. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/newt-gingrich-aides-rick-tyler_n_874452.html

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suggested on Sunday morning that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin could defeat President Barack Obama should she run as the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. "Of course she can," said the Arizona senator of Palin's chances in the hypothetical match-up on "Fox News Sunday." He added, however, that he doesn't know whether his 2008 running mate will ultimately decide to make a run for the White House. The remarks from McCain come the same day that Palin is kicking off a bus tour of the eastern United States. The move, along with news of a documentary premiering next month on the rise of the big name Republican and her tenure as governor have stirred speculation that Palin could jump into the GOP primary race. In discussing a potential Palin 2012 campaign, McCain said, “I’ve never seen anyone as mercilessly and relentlessly attacked as I have seen Sarah Palin in the last couple of years.” According to The Hill, he added, “But she also inspires great passion, particularly among the Republican faithful." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/29/john-mccain-sarah-palin-c_n_868562.html

Cain mistakes Declaration of Independence language for Constitution. http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/may/25/herman-cain/cain-mistakes-declaration-independence-language-co/

The Government is not a business.

Cain clearly believes that his pro-business message is what GOP voters want to hear. So much so, in fact, that on Saturday he officially unveiled his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination. But scrubbed from Cain's official story is his long tenure as a director at a Midwest energy corporation named Aquila that, like the infamous Enron Corporation, recklessly dove into the wild west of energy trading and speculation—and ultimately screwed its employees out of tens of millions of dollars. According to five lawsuits filed in federal court in 2004, Aquila's board of directors—which Cain joined in 1992—allegedly steered employees into heavily investing their retirement savings in company stock. At the same time, the company shifted its business model from straightforward energy generation to risky energy trading, an unregulated market made infamous by now-defunct Enron. The suits, later folded into a single, massive class action (PDF), alleged that Cain and top company officials violated a 37-year-old federal law requiring that employers manage employees retirement programs responsibly. (Cain's presidential exploratory committee did not respond to a request for comment.) http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/herman-cain-aquila-lawsuit-2012

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told supporters early Sunday morning that he has decided not to run for president. In an email sent just after midnight Eastern time, Daniels said that "the interests and wishes" of his family led him to decide not to make the race. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-daniels-president-20110522,0,1072812.story

Herman Cain, a conservative radio host and former business executive, became the latest Republican to officially enter the 2012 presidential campaign on Saturday. Making a play for the "tea party" vote, Cain said at his Atlanta kick-off that America needs a new generation of "defending fathers" to protect the Constitution. "We can take this entitlement society to an empowerment society," he told the crowd at Centennial Olympic Park. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-herman-cain-announcement-20110521,0,2503151.story

Torpedoing a GOP favorite son's budget plan, racking up a $500,000 debt at Tiffany's, succumbing to a confetti shower—Newt Gingrich has self-immolated in record time. And he's taking his party with him. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-18/newt-gingrich-blows-up-his-presidential-campaign-gop-field-in-ruins/

GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney raised a cool $10.25 million in a single day in Las Vegas, blowing away his competition and proving again he knows how to make money. But can he translate that to winning in 2012? http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-17/mitt-romney-for-president-2012-will-his-10-million-fundraising-windfall-translate-to-a-win/full/full/

Tea brain Bachmann flubs Revolutionary War geography in NH. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110313/ap_on_re_us/us_bachmann_nh

Clarence Thomas' dangerous conceit. The Supreme Court justice argues that criticism of him is an attack on the court itself. But a single justice doesn't define the institution. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley-clarence-thomas-20110306,0,3221633.story

GOP Intellectual? http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-04/newt-gingrich-from-gop-intellectual-to-pandering-partisan/

On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society. “To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.” To most audiences, Mr. Gingrich does not talk directly about converting to Catholicism, but his faith has become an important part of his dialogue with conservative voters. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/politics/27newt-gingrich.html?_r=1

Callista Gingrich, wife of a certain presidential hopeful named Newt, is part of a very small coterie of women—mistresses who turned into the wives of powerful men. The list of political men who've had affairs is long, of course, as is the list of those who married their mistresses (or alleged mistresses) before they were well-known politicians. But very few politicians have committed the ballsy act of trading in their wives for their lovers once they were already in the public eye. Being a successful political wife is hard enough, but the mistress who becomes the wife in full view of voters will never be as good as the one she replaced, if only because popular culture tends to elevate wronged women to sainthood. Pundits and press accounts will inevitably deride the newest wife as a liability, reminding readers exactly how she got there ("adultery," notes a piece in today's Washington Post on Gingrich's announcement yesterday that he is considering a run; "an extramarital affair," explained Sunday's New York Times). But she still has to show up and clap and smile. It must be excruciating. Is it also a hopeless task? Not necessarily. Here, five tips for navigating the tricky path from political mistress to political wife. http://www.slate.com/id/2287191/

Newt Gingrich in Front of Stock Photos. http://newtinfrontofstockphotos.tumblr.com/page/3 http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/newt-gingrichs-awkward-prom-photo

2010 Elections

Palin Fails

Willow Palin Facebook Posts: Homophobic Slurs, Curse Words & More. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/willow-palin-facebook-posts_n_784585.html

Sharron Angle "Sometimes dictators have good ideas," Sarah Palin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/sharron-angle-dictators-ideas_n_785211.html

Lisa Murkowski Senate Race Victory Comes As Big Loss To Sarah Palin. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/lisa-murkowski-sarah-palin_n_785349.html

Palin backs looser Meg Whitman

Palin backs looser Carly Frionena

Joe Miller Asked To Concede To Lisa Murkowski By Alaska GOP. History, the GOP, the tea party, Sarah Palin and her own mouthful of a name worked against her. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski conquered them all Wednesday, becoming the first Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign. The victory is a remarkable comeback for Murkowski, who lost to political newcomer Joe Miller in the GOP primary, and a humbling moment for Palin, the former Alaska governor, 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate and Murkowski nemesis whose support was not enough to get Miller through an election in her own backyard. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/joe-miller-concede-alaska-gop_n_785202.html

Joe Miller: A Study In Overconfidence. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/joe-miller-a-study-in-ove_n_785067.html

Corporate Campaign Financing

Efforts to influence the political agenda -- with direct contributions to candidates and indirect spending on their behalf -- took on huge proportions this year, campaign finance reports released this week show. Read more: Big spenders rise up to infuse elections, influence politics. http://www.freep.com/article/20101204/NEWS15/12040414/Big-spenders-rise-up-to-infuse-elections-influence-politics

Crossroads GPS, an affiliate of the conservative, Karl Rove-connected American Crossroads group, is spending more than $2 million on the three ad campaigns: $500,000 in Pennsylvania, $1 million in California and $520,000 in Kentucky, according to the group. The ads began airing last week. Crossroads GPS is organized as a 501(c)(4) under the federal tax code and thus, unlike its parent group, isn’t required to disclose its donors — though it says on its website there are "no limits" to the amount of money it will accept from U.S. corporations (or unions, for that matter). Officially, the full name of the group is Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, and it says "our goal is to provide a clear road map for concerned Americans." But we find this GPS is giving bad directions. http://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/misdirection-from-crossroads-gps/

Tax-exempt groups could be abusing status, expert says. http://www.freep.com/article/20100822/NEWS15/8220455/Tax-exempt-groups-could-be-abusing-status-expert-says#ixzz0xM0CCgFU

Several groups whose funding isn't regulated by the state were involved in attacking or supporting candidates during the gubernatorial primary. The Michigan Campaign Finance Network tracked TV spending by seven groups. The Free Press used public records to find two other groups producing issue ads. Read more: Sorting out who produced campaign ads | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20100822/NEWS15/8220454/1322/Sorting-out-who-produced-campaign-ads#ixzz0xLzLBNZ5

The Supreme Court's decision this year in Citizens United, which lifted campaign spending restrictions for companies and interest groups, has indirectly thrust the Internal Revenue Service into the more prominent role of overseeing those expenditures. The ruling largely tied the hands of the Federal Election Commission to force companies or groups that are funding political or advocacy advertisements to disclose their donors. And although Democrats in Congress had pushed legislation that would have mandated more disclosure, the measure failed in the Senate this summer. Long-standing IRS regulations require some groups to reveal their donors, and that is why the agency suddenly finds itself with what some might see as a more crucial watchdog role, stepping in to monitor disclosure in the absence of the FEC. But the IRS rules also have long-standing loopholes and, with limited resources and enforcement tools, the nation's tax collector is not set up to be a campaign regulator. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/21/AR2010082102290.html

Target Political Giving 'A Debacle' Says Target Institutional Investor. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/20/target-political-giving-a_n_688808.html

Target feels backlash from shareholders. Institutions with stakes in the retail giant are demanding that the company revamp its donation process after a $150,000 contribution backed an anti-gay-rights candidate. Jennifer Hanson. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-target-shareholders-20100820,0,5211901.story

News

Do Only Conservative Victories Count? http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/do_only_conservative_victories_count_20101111/

Miller: Ballot fight unlikely if math doesn't work. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101114/ap_on_el_se/us_alaska_senate

McConnell doubled down on his promise to make Obama a one-term president. As he told the Heritage crowd in his prepared remarks, Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday's election. But we can't plan on it. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/11/mcconnell-obama-republican-repeal

Republicans could have captured the Senate were it not for Tea Party candidates in swing states. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-04/senate-races-did-tea-party-spoil-for-republicans/

What was Jon Stewart's rally in Washington all about? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11656214

But perhaps before we vote and throw out all those "tax and spend" liberals, we might want to look at some real facts. According to the government statistics, under Reagan/George H.W. Bush, the percentage of national debt to GDP was increased by 35.6 percent. Under the administration of Bill Clinton the ratio of national debt to GDP decreased by 9.7 percent. And under George W. Bush the ratio of national debt to GDP increased to 27.1 percent. Under George W. Bush the deficit rose by $4 trillion due to the tax cuts and two wars. Will fiscal sanity be restored if the GOP regains power? Not if you believe the statistics. Before people vote, I hope they consider: Do we really want to go back to the Bush years? http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=169&SourceCode=20101029tza

Veteran state Sen. Bill Raggio, one of Nevada's most influential Republicans over the last four decades, says he's reluctantly endorsing Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's re-election campaign. Raggio issued a statement Thursday sharply criticizing GOP candidate Sharron Angle, branding her as a "totally ineffective" four-term state lawmaker. Raggio also cited what he called Angle's inability and unwillingness to work with others even within her own party, and her extreme positions on Social Security and other issues. Raggio also criticized Angle for badmouthing GOP leaders in a recent secretly taped conversation. The Angle campaign did not immediately respond to Raggio's comments. Raggio defeated Angle two years ago in a bitter GOP primary. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/sns-ap-us-nevada-senate-reid-endorsement,0,1872342.story

I love my country, it's republicans like Dan Quayle that I fear. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/ben-quayle-calls-on-dad-d_n_692368.html

Tea Party

Tea Baggers

News

How We Killed the Tea Party. Greedy super PACs drained the movement with endless pleas for money to support “conservative” candidates—while instead using the money to enrich themselves. I should know. I worked for one of them. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/tea-party-pacs-ideas-death-214164

Please don't speak in my name. The Tea Party is not America. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-08/tea-party-backlash-against-gop-brewing-in-budget-battle/

To avoid complete philosophical incoherence in tea party libertarian orthodoxy, something has to give: either the reverence accorded individual freedom for American citizens or the freedom for corporations to insist upon employment rules designed solely to pad the bottom line of corporate balance sheets. On the one hand, the tea party position is that the Founding Fathers intended to establish a country where people are free to engage in any harmful, self-destructive behavior they damn well please. Such freedom is quintessentially libertarian: Jane Q. Citizen has her liberty and freedom from being told by the nanny state what to do, even if doing or not doing it makes one ill, disabled or likelier to die at an earlier age. Economic freedom to contract with any employer and the employer’s economic freedom to dictate the terms of the contract it is willing to enter into with the employee are bedrock principles endorsed by the libertarian-leaning tea party members. Their narrative is that big government has enacted too many laws and business regulations over the past 70 years that strangle free enterprise. Corporate innovation and small business competitiveness are stymied, they argue, by workplace regulations that mandate paying a minimum wage, prescribe the length of the workday and require safety regulations to prevent employee injuries. That kind of government intervention in the economy hurts the free market drive for profits that, they say, will improve the lives of consumers and workers alike. Then it must logically follow that libertarian/tea party members and their fellow travelers within the Republican Party should see nothing wrong with a corporation’s economic decision to not hire smokers, obese persons (as subjectively defined by the hiring employer) or applicants with “pre-existing” genetic proclivities (easily determined through medical history and DNA testing) that make them likely targets for cancers, diabetes or heart disease. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/who_is_your_nanny_20110219/

Who's Sending Dems Racist Death Threats? http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/whos-sending-dems-racist-death-threats

Two years ago, Tea Party Patriots got its start as a scrappy, ground-up conservative organization. Its rowdy activists demanded more transparency and less business-as-usual in the nation's capital, and they worked hard to elect candidates who they believed wouldn't succumb to the ways of Washington. But it didn't take long for the grassroots tea party organization to embrace the DC establishment—and some of its more questionable practices. Lately, Tea Party Patriots (TPP) has started to resemble the Beltway lobbying operations its members have denounced. The group's leaders have cozied up to political insiders implicated in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and have paid themselves significant salaries. TPP accepted the use of a private jet and a large donation of anonymous cash right before a key election, and its top officials have refused to discuss how the money was spent. And recently, the group has hired several big-time fundraising and public relations firms that work for the who's who of the Republican political class, including some of the GOP's most secretive campaign operations. As TPP's leaders entrench themselves in Washington, local activists the group represents have accused them of exploiting the grassroots for their own fame and fortune while failing to deliver any meaningful political results. "Tea Party Patriots? I can't attribute one victory to them at all," says Laura Boatright, a former TPP regional coordinator in Southern California who has become an outspoken critic. "Where's the success with what they've done with all this money? My view is that it's just a career plan" for its national leaders—namely Jenny Beth Martin, who in 2010 was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Mark Meckler, now a regular commentator on Fox News. (Meckler and Martin did not respond to a request to comment for this story.) http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/tea-party-patriots-investigated

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is apparently trying to burnish his credentials in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by encouraging states to default on their debts. Gingrich is the leading cheerleader for the idea of letting states declare bankruptcy to evade problems with unfunded public employee pensions and other benefits for future retirees. Those problems are real, but letting judges pick winners and losers among a state's creditors wouldn't solve them. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bankruptcy-20110125,0,5414335.story

Tea Party Group Blames 'Leftist' for Giffords Shooting. TPN founder Judson Phillips, in an article linked off the e-mail "The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and the left's attack on the Tea Party movement," described the shooter as "a leftist lunatic" and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik as a "leftist sheriff" who "was one of the first to start in on the liberal attack." Phillips urged tea party supporters to blame liberals for the attack on centrist Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was shot through the head and is now fighting for her life, as a means of defending the tea party movement's recent electoral gains. "The hard left is going to try and silence the Tea Party movement by blaming us for this," he wrote. Clinton used the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to "blame conservative talk radio, especially Rush Limbaugh" and "The tactic worked then, backing conservatives off and possibly helping to ensure a second Clinton term." "The left is coming and will hit us hard on this. We need to push back harder with the simple truth. The shooter was a liberal lunatic. Emphasis on both words," he wrote. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/tea-party-group-blames-leftist-for-giffords-shooting/69153/

Some believe the issue of whether groups supporting gay marriage should be represented at CPAC has been stoked by frequent, outraged stories on WorldNetDaily, a conservative website run by Joseph Farah that has been a prime force in the movement that claims President Obama was born abroad. Conservative Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, who has clashed with Farah over the "birther" movement, defended the inclusion of gay conservatives at CPAC. "The point is to welcome people into the 'big tent,' " Breitbart said Friday. Last week, Breitbart tweeted that he planned to throw a party for gay conservatives at CPAC. "I'm working on getting a venue," he said. "The first annual Roy Cohn CPAC Breitbart Homocon Welcoming 80's Extravaganza. I'm thinking of DJ-ing." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cpac-20110108,0,4410541.story

Prominent Republican Tea Party leader entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart

Right Wing Republican Sex Worker James O’Keefe http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8518-candid-camera.html

Newt Gingrich, who is currently mulling a presidential bid in 2012, said at a political event in South Carolina on Thursday that most of America's problems can be blamed on the "leftist news media," Hollywood, tenured academics, overpaid federal workers, and unemployed people. "I'm opposed to giving people money for doing nothing," he told the crowd of 250 cheering GOP activists in a state with a 10.6 percent unemployment rate. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/newt-gingrich-blames-nati_n_799391.html

As the debate over the health-care public option heated up, a Fox News executive told staffers to change the way they talked about it. Howard Kurtz on the memo that echoed a GOP talking point. As the health-care debate was heating up in the summer of 2009, Republican pollster Frank Luntz offered Sean Hannity some advice. Luntz, who counseled the GOP on how to sell the 1994 Contract With America, told the Fox News host to stop using President Obama’s preferred term for a key provision. "If you call it a public option, the American people are split,” he explained. “If you call it the government option, the public is overwhelmingly against it.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-09/how-fox-news-spun-the-health-care-debate/

Republicans have a near monopoly on complaints about government spending. Dozens of new Tea Party candidates were elected to Congress on a promise to clean house. But data going back two decades—to stick to Simpson's crude metaphor—show the milk is mostly coming from Democratic states, and the sucking is being done by Republican states. The "red" states up in arms about government spending receive the largest share of it. This is not a new finding, but research by economist Gary Richardson at the University of California-Irvine backs it up. Richardson provides insight into how the paradox came about and what it means for the future. It isn't surprising that the more Republican a state leans, the more likely it is to be furious about government spending. But what is surprising is that states with the highest anti-spending sentiment appear to be the largest beneficiaries of government spending. Not only do red states swallow the lion's share of government spending, but Richardson found a linear relationship between the extent of GOP support in a state—and, by implication, the fervor of its anti-government sentiment—and the amount of federal largesse the state receives. http://www.slate.com/id/2276583/

Choosing mediocrity is far from exceptional. Asia’s ingenuity will leave U.S. behind if we stay on current. In the recent election, the word took on a different meaning, an uglier version that does not — factually or figuratively — speak well of America. One of the basic tenets of the Tea Party movement, besides the desire of frustrated people for limited government, limited tax burdens and unlimited success in governance, was the almost religious adherence to the belief in American exceptionalism. That word, however, did not translate in the manner of Tocqueville. Instead it came across as the basis for a superiority complex we did not deserve and, certainly, no longer earned — if, indeed, we would ever want to earn such a complex. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/21/choosing-mediocrity-far-exceptional/

Tea party backers fashion themselves as "we the people," but polls show the Republican Party's most conservative and energized voters are hardly your average crowd. According to an Associated Press-GfK Poll this month, 84 percent who call themselves tea party supporters don't like how President Barack Obama is handling his job – a view shared by just 35 percent of all other adults. Tea partiers are about four times likelier than others to back repealing Obama's health care overhaul and twice as likely to favor renewing tax cuts for the highest-earning Americans. Exit polls of voters in this month's congressional elections reveal similar gulfs. Most tea party supporters – 86 percent – want less government intrusion on people and businesses, but only 35 percent of other voters said so. Tea party backers were about five times likelier to blame Obama for the country's economic ills, three times likelier to say Obama's policies will be harmful and twice as apt to see the country on the wrong track. These aren't subtle shadings between tea party backers and the majority of Americans, who don't support the movement; they're Grand Canyon-size chasms. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/tea-party-poll-elections-2012_n_787887.html

The Tea Partiers talked of changing the system, but when they got to the House Republican caucus last week, the revolution was over on day one. John Batchelor on a coup that's all talk. The Tea Party class of 2010 scurried into the House Republican caucus like rosy-cheeked kindergartners last week and demanded total attention and outsized authority from the Speaker-in-waiting of the House John Boehner and his leadership team. It is a measure of the worst that is yet to come that Boehner, who thinks of himself as Dean Martin, not only granted the Tea Party kids the run of the House but also lavished affection on this squeaking mob of 80-plus as if it was taking over the casino and changing the rules. "Boehner and his leadership team showed they are afraid of them," remarked a Republican observer. "Boehner knows there is no leadership to discipline them." http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-20/the-tea-partys-whiny-takeover/

Joe Miller's Employment Record: Lying, and then Lying about Lying. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/10/joe-miller-employment-record-alaska

In the wake of their big election "victory," the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) hastily organized an orientation session for newly elected members of Congress in DC. The national tea party umbrella group rented space at the swank Ronald Reagan building, arranged for more than 100 of its local coordinators to be flown in for the event, and even pulled Reagan-era attorney general Ed Meese out of the mothballs and signed him on as a keynote speaker. After shelling out more than $100,000, the group discovered that it wasn't the only one interested in getting to those newly elected freshmen. The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank, had also organized a similar event. Worse still, it was scheduled for the same day and time as the tea party orientation. The tea partiers responded by lobbying the newly elected lawmakers to come to their event instead of the one organized by the Claremont Institute. TPP sent out an indignant email blast suggesting that Claremont was simply hosting a GOP event in disguise, and that the competing "orientation" was an attempt by lobbyists to get first crack at the freshman class. "DC insiders, the RNC, and lobbyists are already trying to push the Tea Party aside and co-opt the incoming Congressmen," the group wrote. TPP even asked its members to call the soon-to-be members of Congress and lobby them personally to come to the tea party event. This turned out to be a pretty bad idea. The email TPP circulated contained the personal cell phone numbers of some of the freshmen, who for a 24-hour stretch, received non-stop calls from tea partiers. Those calls did not, of course, go over well with their intended targets. On Friday, TPP sent out another email to activists urging them to stop calling the freshman, writing: We listed the contact information we had for these freshmen and we now know that some of it was personal cell phone numbers or fax numbers. This list was the best information we had at the time. We also understand that sometimes members of Congress find it annoying to receive numerous calls from voters. But we encourage them to remember it is part of the job and they asked to be hired. This will not be the last time. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/11/tea-party-Congress-freshmen-calls

"We want President Obama to be a one-term president." They have a political and partisan agenda, which they've had from day one. http://thepage.time.com/2010/10/31/transcript-meet-the-press-october-31-2010/

Read more: http://thepage.time.com/2010/10/31/transcript-meet-the-press-october-31-2010/#ixzz14GxSe4T9

Tea Party not so mad. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2010/10/tea_party_not_so_mad.html

2010: The year of politicking insanely. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/14/AR2010101405235.html

BUSH: "My biggest regret is not stealing Social Security." http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-pelosi-social-security-20101023,0,3235554.story

Tea Baggers hate Puppies. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2010/10/barking-mad-over-puppy-mill-humane-measure-in-missouri.html

Tea Party coloring book. http://www.freep.com/article/20101003/BLOG24/101003001/Tea-Party-coloring-book

'Tea Party Coloring Book' is kiddie propaganda art. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/09/tea-party-coloring-book-is-kiddie-propaganda.html

"The entirety of this Promise is laughable," Erickson wrote. "Why? It is an illusion that fixates on stuff the GOP already should be doing while not daring to touch on stuff that will have any meaningful long-term effects on the size and scope of the federal government." Another featured RedState blogger labeled it the "Pledge to Nowhere." http://www.thedailybeast.com/beltway-beast/pledge-to-america-sparks-tea-party-backlash/

But in becoming one of the movement’s most successful players by helping Tea Party favorites oust incumbents or trounce rivals in four states, Mr. Russo is also fast becoming among the most divisive. Unlike many of the newly energized outsiders who have embraced Tea Party ideals, Mr. Russo, 63, is a longtime Republican operative who got his start as an aide to Ronald Reagan and later raised money and managed media strategy for a string of other politicians, including former Gov. George E. Pataki of New York. His history and spending practices have prompted some former employees and other Tea Party activists to question whether he is committed to, or merely exploiting, their cause. Mr. Russo’s group, based in California, is now the single biggest independent supporter of Tea Party candidates, raising more than $5.2 million in donations since January 2009, according to federal records. But at least $3 million of that total has since been paid to Mr. Russo’s political consulting firm or to one controlled by his wife, according to federal records. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/us/politics/19russo.html?_r=1&hp

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin draw the faithful in Anchorage. On the Sept. 11 anniversary, the conservative duo urges followers to take the nation back from an over-reaching government. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-palin-beck-20100913,0,4515150.story

Sharron Angle: Fox News is part of my new $1 million fundraising "push" http://mediamatters.org/blog/201009100032

America's Idiots: http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2065/1/

Tea Party "Liberty XPO" Fail. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/09/tea-party-liberty-xpo-fail

What book would Jesus burn? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/this-is-how-the-media-wor_n_712229.html

David Koch is fuming about a New Yorker article accusing him of using his fortune to secretly fund an anti-Obama insurgency. In an exclusive interview, he tells Elaine Lafferty what they got wrong, why he's so misunderstood, and denies funding the Tea Party. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-10/billionaire-david-koch-fires-back-at-the-new-yorker/

Glenn Beck Destroying Honor 8/28

The we to which Glenn Beck belongs is the we that said no, the we that cried "socialism!" "communism!" "tyranny!" whenever black people and their allies cried, freedom. The fatuous and dishonorable attempt to posit conservatives as the prime engine of civil rights depends for success on the ignorance of the American people. Sadly, as anyone who has ever watched a Jay Walking segment on "The Tonight Show" can attest, the American people have ignorance in plenitude. This, then, is to serve notice as Beck and his tea party faithful gather in Lincoln's shadow to claim the mantle of King: Some of us are not ignorant. Some of us remember. Some of us know very well who "we" is. And, who "we" is not. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/27/99778/commentary-glenn-beck.html#ixzz0y2UfsfOG

The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

GOP splits with Tea Baggers. http://www.sandiego6.com/content/news/election/story/State-GOP-Declines-to-Support-Arizona-Immigration/w-fWT70QsUGMiDsFP_Zgvw.cspx?rss=800

California Republican Party: Deeply Divided on many issues: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/22/california-republican-party-united-we-stand/

The Birther Conspiracy Lives!!! http://politicsoffootball.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/images-from-the-doctors-tea-party/

The Republican Party’s candidate for governor of Colorado believes that bicycle paths are “part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.” The party’s Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security—and has called for the United States to withdraw from the U.N., though not because of the bicycle conspiracy. And the GOP’s Senate candidate in Connecticut once climbed into a professional wrestling ring and kicked a man in the crotch. I could go on, but you get the point. Democrats may be facing a tough fight this fall, but Republicans are giving them plenty of material to work with. The big political story of the year may turn out to be the consequences of the GOP’s foray into extremism and wackiness. It could be that the party acculturates its not-ready-for-prime-time candidates, harnesses the energy of the tea party movement, and sweeps to a grand old victory. There is also the distinct possibility that the acute philosophical split within the party—basically, a clash between bedrock conservatism and utter nonsense—will hand victories to Democrats that they didn’t anticipate and frankly might not deserve. Anyone who doubts this assessment should reflect on the fact that major figures in the Republican Party are wasting valuable time and energy debating whether the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868, should be repealed. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/you_cant_make_up_republican_candidates_like_these_20100812/

The Chamber of Commerce plans to spend at least $75 million on elections in 2010, but returns on its early investments this season have been disappointing. Jane Norton, who lost to a Tea Party backed candidate (Ken Buck) in Colorado Tuesday night, is just one in a string of Chamber-backed candidates to go down in defeat. The Chamber's biggest win of 2010 remains one of its only GOP success stories, when Scott Brown knocked off Martha Coakley to break the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority. Since then, however, Chamber candidates have lost in Maine, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Kentucky. The losing streak may say less about the Chamber's political acumen than it does about the anger voters have at corporate influence on the political process. A new poll funded by MoveOn.org and performed by SurveyUSA found that opposition to unchecked corporate involvement in the election process cuts across party lines. Seventy-six percent of Republicans in the survey said that it is very important (44%) or somewhat important (28%) for a candidate to commit to reducing the influence corporations have over elections and 64 percent said they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who backed a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that upended a century of campaign law to allow unlimited corporate involvement. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/tea-party-crushing-chambe_n_678895.html

Right Wing Dirty Tricks

"The Rand Paul Stomp," Thug Tim Profitt. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/rand-paul-stomper-not-guilty_n_785527.html

James O'Keefe: dude! yur a doofus!

A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show. James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show. http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/29/okeefe.cnn.prank/index.html?hpt=C2

Republican 'Pledge To America' Centers On Destroying Middle America, Tax cuts for the Wealthy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/republican-pledge-to-america-tax-spending-cuts_n_735876.html

Five days after a similar gathering of the Congressional Cigar Association, Bilbray introduced HR 5615. The bill was introduced to kill taxes on the sale of medical devices, part of the billions of dollars needed to fund President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The bill would replace the missing billions of dollars with leftover stimulus money.

With help from media partners the Watchdog Institute at San Diego State University and the San Diego U-T, the I-Team followed up on the Huffington Post story and learned lobbyist Jeff Choudhry was a part of the cigar meetings. According to research done by the Watchdog Institute, Choudhry worked for a company representing a large medical device manufacturer and was also a board member of the Cigar Association. Bilbray's proposed legislation would benefit many medical device manufacturers and their employees, including Choudhry's company's client. That meeting took place last June at the 101 Constitution Ave. address, the I-Team learned. Two other lobbyists in the Cigar Association work for pharmaceutical/health product companies, and the website OpenSecrets.org shows the Bilbray has received $47,300 from that industry, his fourth-largest contributor to his current re-election campaign. Bilbray would not comment, in part, because he was occupied with family issues, he said. However, sources close to Bilbray said he and his staff have done nothing wrong, saying there was no wheeling and dealing going on at the Congressional Cigar Association meetings. The sources also pointed out that lobbyists and congressional staffers "run into each other all over Washington" as a matter of course. As to the legislation Bilbray proposed, sources said the timing was coincidental and it takes months to craft legislation, not days. http://www.10news.com/news/24917404/detail.html

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats. Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates. “These are people who are not serious and who were recruited as part of a cynical manipulation of the process,” said Paul Eckstein, a lawyer representing the Democrats. “They don’t know Green from red.” But Steve May, the Republican operative who signed up some of the candidates along Mill Avenue, a bohemian commercial strip next to Arizona State University, insists that a real political movement has been stirred up that has nothing to do with subterfuge. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/us/politics/07candidates.html

Palin - Hate 2012

Links

Bushisms, which I collected for many years, often hinged on a single grammatical or factual error. Palinisms, by contrast, consist of a unitary stream of patriotic, populist blather. It's like Fox News without the punctuation. It is so devoid of content that it hardly deserves the adjective "truthy." Let's call it "roguey." Palinisms do not have to contain actual evidence of rogue thinking, though; they just have to capture the rogue spirit. It's "Yes, we can, in spite of Them." http://www.slate.com/id/2262822?wpisrc=obinsite

Sarah Palin is not the solution, Sarah Palin is the problem.

a bad role model

reprehensible

hows that bloody thing working for ya?

Palin perpetuating her own victimhood and alleged bloodthirstiness of her opponents.

Sarah Palin cry baby

phony

Sarah Palin bully

reprehensible

http://www.themudflats.net/

The Immoral Minority. Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey. http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/

http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/

http://palingates.blogspot.com/

Gabrielle Gifford Assassination

In our view, it seems more than reasonable to scrutinize Palin and others who talked in terms of armed insurrection during recent campaigns. Though, as a profile of the shooter emerged, it became much more likely that Loughner was responding to a disjointed conversation in his own head rather than the disjointed conversation on Fox News. Still, count us among those who believe it’s only a matter of time before violence-laden political blather claims lives. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8608-loughners-lessons.html

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week, "See you at Safeway!" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/jan-brewer-michael-bloomberg-gun-sting_n_818375.html

Sen. Leland Yee received some sort of death threat today - a faxed death threat, no less - after performance artist Rush Limbaugh's humor-free tirade about the Chinese language. "The threats to the San Francisco Democrat came more than a week after Yee asked Limbaugh for an apology for 'mocking the Chinese language' and the country’s president on his popular conservative talk radio program," reports The Examiner. The letter, presumably sent by a right-leaning zealot, can be viewed below. http://sfist.com/2011/01/26/leland_yee_gets_racist_death_threat.php

A man accused in the deadly Tucson shooting rampage that killed six people and wounded 13 others including Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords researched lethal injections, solitary confinement and political assassinations in the days before the attack, a newspaper reported Wednesday. A source close to the investigation into 22-year-old Jared Loughner told The Washington Post that a review of his computers turned up the Internet searches. Officials with the FBI and Justice Department contacted by The Associated Press declined to comment Wednesday on the Post's story or verify any part of it. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-congresswoman-shot-loughner,0,288912.story

an anonymous person posted a death threat targeting McLeod in the "Rants & Raves" section of the Anchorage Craigslist. The posting, which echoed an email sent to the Anchorage Daily News, read in full: I find it very offensive that Andre Mclead [sic] is asking the state for every e-mail written or received in ANY account maintained by Palin and her husband. Where does this bitch get off thinking the public should shell out for her revenge for the Palin family. I've heard enough from this, and I would like to use stronger words to express my feeling for Andre. Well…I think Andre has used up to [sic] much oxygen. So I have my scope cross hair on her head! She better watch out, the request may have been her last! I know you won't publish this. ADN relish in bashing the Palin's too! Let's clean up the political garbage. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/death-threat-palin-critic

Palin added, "I receive a lot of death threats. My children do." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/17/sarah-palin-crosshairs-us_n_810118.html

Wow! Sarah Palin is soooo smart. She's a religious scholar! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/17/AR2011011703262.html

"Guns don't kill people, words kill people." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/12/fioreshooting.DTL

Suspected Tucson shooter 'slowly spiraled into madness'. Interviews with friends, law enforcement reports and Jared Lee Loughner's own writings depict a troubled young man who seemed in need of mental health intervention. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jared-loughner-20110116,0,2115673.story

Remember that “Second Amendment remedies” were casually referenced by Sharron Angle against Harry Reid during the 2010 campaign in the neighboring state of Nevada. In Virginia, GOP state senate candidate Catherine Crabill said “We have the chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box.” An Idaho Republican gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammel joked with a town hall crowd about buying a hunting license to hunt the president, saying “The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.” And Democrats were not immune—ex-Rep. Paul Kanjorski said that Floridians should put Governor-elect Rick Scott “against the wall and shoot him." We have seen high-profile armed protests. In Arizona, a member of the “4409” group brought an AR-15 Rifle to protest outside an Obama rally days after hearing local Pastor Steven L. Anderson give a Sunday sermon titled ‘Why I Hate Barack Obama’. In New England, a man named William Kostric protested outside an Obama town hall armed with a 9mm pistol and holding a sign saying "It is time to water the tree of liberty" – a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote about “the blood of tyrants” which was emblazoned on Timothy McVeigh’s t-shirt the day he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Conservatives are rightly quick to invoke First and Second Amendment rights in defense, but ask yourself what their response would have been if there were armed left-wing protests outside speeches by President Bush. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-15/jared-loughner-and-the-rise-of-the-political-fright-wing/

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Palin's America

On Friday, just before the massacre at a meet-and-greet with constituents in Tucson, Ariz., Giffords had written to her friend, Kentucky Republican Trey Grayson, congratulating him on his new post and saying they should work together to narrow the nation’s deep, often vitriolic political divide. “After you get settled, I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation,” Giffords e-mailed Grayson, who was defeated by Rand Paul last year in Kentucky’s GOP Senate primary. “I am one of only 12 Dems left in a GOP district (the only woman) and think that we need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.” http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20110111rep_asked_harvard_chief_to_help_calm_fiery_politics_alleged_ariz_gunman_arraigned/

"As I look out the window, I see a very beautiful planet that seems very inviting and peaceful," said Cmdr Kelly. "Unfortunately, it is not. "These days, we are constantly reminded of the unspeakable acts of violence and damage we can inflict upon one another, not just with our actions but also with our irresponsible words." "We are better than this. We must do better," he said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12157346

In our work for peace, we have seen how each act of violence hurts not only the immediate victims, but tears at the fabric of entire communities. In the wake of such a senseless violation, everyone in Tucson will struggle to feel secure, to regain trust for each other, and to work together to move forward. Our hearts go out to all in Tucson today. Today’s strident political atmosphere escalates tension and helps to set the stage for incidents like this one. Our world is increasingly swept up in a tide of intolerance. We are all too accepting when political and spiritual leaders use rhetoric that demonizes those with different beliefs; when those who should call us to higher purpose, instead, contribute to an atmosphere that provokes the most vulnerable, disturbed among us to acts of vandalism, violence, and assassination. We all must take responsibility for correcting a political climate that has become so polarized and vitriolic. It is not an accident that this tragic shooting took place in Arizona, where punitive laws and anti-immigrant scapegoating have only resulted in misunderstanding and divisiveness in our borderlands. These laws have brought us no closer to creating humane, workable policies that respect the rights and needs of those living on either side of the border. This is one of many examples that show how our nation’s political conversation is counterproductive to developing solutions that address our society’s fundamental needs. What would help us move forward? The American Friends Service Committee urges our elected officials, spiritual leaders and community leaders to commit now to act with civility and common purpose to heal our society. Real healing goes beyond civil words and tamped-down rhetoric and looks to the root causes of violence in our society, the conditions of inequality and injustice. A political culture devoted to honestly and reasonably addressing those conditions would be a healthier one for all of us. We call on national, state, and local leaders to respond with compassion to the needs and aspirations of those who have been disenfranchised by the political system and excluded from the economic recovery. This is a time to fulfill the promise of “justice for all.” This is a time for leadership towards “a more perfect union.” http://support.afsc.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=11221.0&dlv_id=14081

James Fallows of The Atlantic discusses political speeches and how they can affect the mood of the American public. In the aftermath of the shootings in Tucson, he says President Obama used his speech to try to bring the nation together. Meanwhile, he says, Sarah Palin's "blood libel" talk may signal the beginning of the end of her political career. http://www.npr.org/2011/01/15/132964309/Week-In-News-Political-Rhetoric

Cenk Uygur http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVJdhXSxWQU

At Palingates, we always enjoy the free flow of opinions and thoughts. The number of comments during the last days here at Palingates, up to about 3000 per post or even more, shows that there is a great need for discussion. I get the feeling that more and more people realize that the USA is at crossroads. A noisy group of right-wingers still spew relentless hate, even after the sad events of the weekend, and it's worse: This group now seems to be more fired up and vocal than before. This is a group of people whose hate now seems to be "institutionalized." Sarah Palin's fans currently seem to be the "core" of this group. She became their symbol, and Palin's perpetual victimhood now appears to be their main unifying cause. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2011/01/usa-is-at-crossroads-how-can-divisions.html

Palin can be hateful and divisive without inspiring assassins -- pulling down her “Target List” off her website is an admission of just how vicious and vile her message is. http://zinasaunders.blogspot.com/2011/01/taking-aim-at-palins-target-list.html

Is Sarah Palin a Tea Terrorist? http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/01/sarah-palin-blood-libel-remarks-tucson-arizona-.html

Seventeen years ago, Carolyn McCarthy’s husband and son were victims of a senseless shooting spree. Now in her eighth term in Congress, she tells Eleanor Clift about taking on the NRA in the wake of Jared Loughner. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-13/carolyn-mccarthy-on-her-proposed-ban-of-ammunition-clips/

Conservatives Go Off On Michelle Obama For... Preaching Tolerance? http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101140057

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A spokesperson for Premier Networks, the company that syndicates Limbaugh's show, told Politico that the billboard was taken down on Monday, two days after the shooting.

The sole black Republican Party district chairman in Arizona resigned from his post in the wake of Saturday's shooting, citing threats from the Tea Party faction and concerns for his family's safety, The Arizona Republic first reported. Republican District 20 Chairman Anthony Miller was not the only party official to resign following the shooting that killed six and wounded 14 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and a federal judge. But Miller had been an especially dedicated campaigner for the GOP, and said he only stepped down in the face of "constant verbal attacks" and other forms of intimidation. "I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday," he said. "I love the Republican Party but I don't want to take a bullet for anyone." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/anthony-miller-resigns-giffords-threats_n_808116.html

“Unfortunately for Palin, Giffords herself was one of those who objected to the crosshairs map. ‘The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district,’ Giffords said last March. ‘When people do that, they've gotta realize there's consequences to that action.’ “In other words, Palin's phony framing of the issue—that by raising concerns about her word-choice and imagery, critics are trying to deprive Palin of her First Amendment freedoms, rather than simply asking her to be more mindful of the potential consequences of incendiary rhetoric—is one that Giffords herself rejects.” http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/sarah_palin_accuses_critics_of.html

Instead, Palin chose to throw kerosene on the embers of a smoldering national controversy. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding,” Palin said in a video on her Facebook page, “journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-12/sarah-palin-says-media-guilty-of-blood-libel-why-her-speech-was-wrong/

Sarah Palin released a web video today in which she reads a speech off a teleprompter about "freedom" and the recent mass shooting in Arizona. In this speech, she reads the phrase "Journalists and pundints [sic] should not manufacture a blood libel." ORLY? http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/12/sarah-palin-and-bloo.html

Sarah Palin's charge of 'blood libel' spurs outcry from Jewish leaders. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-pn-palin-blood-libel-jews20120113,0,6792766.story

Palin uses bizarre religious grammar to urge attacks on Jews.

"Conservatives encouraged Jared Loughner to pull the trigger," he said. "Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Fox News, all spurred the psychopath to kill the six people. The merchants of hate who are peddling this stuff should be accountable." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/bill-oreilly-new-york-times-msnbc-arizona-shooting_n_807233.html

"What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser." How does Limbaugh know this guy so well? It's like he's inside the guys head and knows his every thought. It's like he panned all this out ahead of time.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/rush-limbaugh-jared-loughner-full-support-democrat_n_807543.html

Like Gabrielle Giffords, Harry Mitchell and Ann Kirkpatrick were under siege during the health-care debate and appeared on Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" map. They tell Shushannah Walshe about death threats—and the need to cancel town-hall events. • Sarah Palin responded to critics today in an email to Glenn Beck, saying, “I hate violence. I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence." For Arizona Congressman Harry Mitchell, the threats were verbal, conveyed in messages left at his office. "I cannot tell you how much I wish a panty bomber would come in and just fucking blow your place up," one hissed. Another promised to "disembowel him with a rusty pitchfork." For his colleague in the Arizona delegation, Ann Kirkpatrick, besides emails calling her a "whore," the threats got physical: A sewer cap was thrown through her office window. "Everybody in the back of their minds, everybody feared this, everybody put this into their calculations," says Kirkpatrick's former chief of staff, Michael Frias, "but nobody thought it would happen." http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-10/after-garbrielle-giffords-palins-other-arizona-targets-speak/

Palin responsible for creating an atmosphere of violence.

This is frightening. It started with bricks, now they're cleaning their rifles, ready to reload. The sight of blood seems to excite Sarah Palin, be it the blood of wolves, bears, moose or caribou. She has moved to human targets... Sarah Palin needs to stop, sit down and shut up. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2011/01/sarah-palin-doesnt-believe-in.html

SarahPAC staffer Rebecca Mansour, who has been tweeting in defense of her boss since the tragedy took place, is stating that the crosshairs were never intended to be gun sights. "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," she said in an interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. "It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps." Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as "surveyor's symbols." Mansour added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" and called any attempts to politicize the Arizona tragedy "repulsive." The suggestion that the symbols were related to guns seemed to come, however, from Palin herself. On March 23, Palin tweeted to her supporters a note about the aforementioned Facebook message, writing, "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page." And as Politico's Jonathan Martin points out, in November Palin boasted about defeating 18 of the 20 members on her "bullseye" list. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/sarah-palin-rebecca-mansour-crosshairs-arizona_n_806375.html

In a typically heated congressional campaign in the recent, hyper-partisan midterm elections, Kelly blamed Giffords for supporting President Obama's healthcare overhaul and for her more liberal views on immigration reform, a sore subject in Arizona, a border state whose efforts to halt illegal immigration have drawn condemnation from liberals and the federal government. She was one of the lawmakers targeted for defeat by Sarah Palin, former GOP vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, who may be considering a presidential run in 2012. In a campaign posting on Palin's Facebook page, Giffords' district and 19 other were depicted within a gun sight's cross hairs. Palin has expressed her condolences about the shootings. "The phrase 'Don't retreat; reload,' putting cross hairs on congressional districts as targets. These sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said on CNN's "State of the Union." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0110-gabrielle-giffords-20110110,0,6628193.story

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who represents a district adjacent to Gabrielle Giffords's, said that Saturday's shooting is a consequence of the vitriolic rhetoric that has arisen over the past few years among extreme elements of the Tea Party. "The climate has gotten so toxic in our political discourse, setting up for this kind of reaction for too long. It's unfortunate to say that. I hate to say that," Grijalva said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "If you're an opponent, you're a deadly enemy," Grijalva said of the mindset among Arizona extremists. "Anybody who contributed to feeding this monster had better step back and realize they're threatening our form of government." Grijalva said that Tea Party leader Sarah Palin should reflect on the rhetoric that she has employed. "She -- as I mentioned, people contributing to this toxic climate -- Ms. Palin needs to look at her own behavior, and if she wants to help the public discourse, the best thing she could do is to keep quiet." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/grijalva-palin-needs-to-l_n_806283.html

Sarah Palin is targeting -- yes, with gun sights -- House Democrats facing tough reelection fights who voted for health care reform. Palin's Facebook page now carries a map featuring 20 gun sights, one for each of the Democrats targeted this year by her political action committee SarahPAC. Three of the gun sights, those where incumbent Democrats have already announced their retirement, are colored red. Likewise, Palin's rhetoric is decidedly militant. "We'll aim for these races and many others," she wrote on her Facebook page. "This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington. Please go to sarahpac.com and join me in the fight." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/sarah-palins-pac-puts-gun_n_511433.html

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News

Sarah Palin's Views on Abstinence Lead to Second Grandchild. http://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palins-views-abstinence-lead-second-grandchild-215900097.html

Sarah Palin’s political mystery tour. The bus tour is the first major test of what Palin’s organization can do on its own. For every other major public event since Palin resigned as Alaska governor, other people have done the details. Her paid speeches were handled by the people who hired her. The logistics and press for her two book tours were taken care of by her publisher. Her speech on the Mall at Glenn Beck’s rally last summer, the two fundraisers she did for the Republican National Committee, her appearances at events for tea party groups in Boston and Las Vegas — all of it was coordinated by the groups that brought her in. Palin rehired advance aides Doug McMarlin and Jason Recher to plan the tour. They’re now part of an increasingly small Palin circle, made even smaller since spokeswoman Rebecca Mansour was sidelined from talking to the press after tweets criticizing Palin’s daughter were posted by the Daily Caller last week. SarahPAC Treasurer Tim Crawford, a longtime Washington hand and campaign finance expert with deep ties to the Republican establishment, has been filling Mansour’s role on press. Palin also has a policy researcher, and former Bob Dole aide Michael Glasner is serving as her chief of staff. Along with her husband, Todd, and Palin herself, that’s the extent of the inner circle. And convinced she’s her own best spokesman and advocate, Palin calls all the shots directly. Imagining how this would translate into a presidential campaign, with four events a day in four different locations — on top of all the fundraising calls, media interviews and strategy sessions — might seem like a stretch. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55878.html

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55878.html#ixzz1NmvpzYqQ

Bailey also helped smear a neighbor who complained about excessive tourist traffic around the governor’s mansion. After hearing of the gripe, Palin sent her daughter Piper out to sell lemonade and then derided her neighbor for protesting children at play. Soon, the neighbor was portrayed on conservative blogs as “sick,” “unhinged” and “drug-addicted.” “By the time we finished with our politics of destruction, he surely regretted ever mentioning the governor’s name,” Bailey writes. “He learned firsthand why so few people were willing to speak out against Sarah Palin.” http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/quotes-day-sarah-palin-edition

Emails released by court order from an Arizona college about Tucson shooting rampage suspect Jared Lee Loughner show campus police were so worried they asked federal authorities whether he had a gun. Scores of emails regarding the increasingly bizarre behavior of Loughner, accused of killing six people and wounding 13 others including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, have been released by Pima Community College, where he was a student. One showed campus police had contacted federal firearms officials to ask if Loughner owned a gun. Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives officials responded that they had no information about Loughner. In the months before the January 8 shooting spree, emails between the school and police indicate school officials had deep knowledge about his disturbing behavior before they finally expelled him in September 2010. The school alerted local police at least five times about Loughner's behavior last year, according to the emails released on Thursday, including one case in February 2010 where Loughner made comments in class that "were completely out of context, talking about abortion, wars, killing people, and 'strapping bombs to babies.'" http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110520/us_nm/us_arizona_shooting_loughner

Fox News still dominates the cable news ratings, but chairman Roger Ailes wants something more: to help elect the next president. That's the takeaway from Gabriel Sherman's New York magazine cover story hitting newsstands Monday. Sherman, who's currently writing a book on Fox News for Random House, looks at how Ailes -- who built up a stable of possible presidential contenders after the 2008 election, including Sarah Palin -- isn't so pleased with their chances at beating President Barack Obama in 2012. Ailes doesn't speak on the record in the article, but several Republicans close to the Fox News chief describe his concerns going into an election year. "He thinks things are going in a bad direction," another Republican close to Ailes told [Sherman]. "Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she's stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven't elevated the conservative movement." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/roger-ailes-palin-stupid-fox-news-new-york_n_865117.html

The Complete Palinisms. http://www.slate.com/id/2253337/

Sarah Palin's Greatest Accomplishment. Josh Green thinks it was the tax on oil companies she signed into law - the Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share (ACES): It's no exaggeration to say that ACES has made the state one of the fiscally strongest in the union. Flush with cash, Alaska produced large capital budgets that blunted the effects of the recession. Moody's just upped the state's bond rating to AAA for the first time. While other states reel under staggering deficits, budget cuts, and protests, Alaska has built up a $12 billion surplus, most of it attributable to Palin's tax. Galvin estimates that it has raised $8 billion more than Murkowski's tax would have. But given the corruption that plagued the PPT, a better benchmark might be the tax it supplanted--the one put on the books after the Exxon Valdez spill. By that measure, Palin's major achievement has probably meant the difference between a $12 billion surplus and a deficit. She should run on raising taxes in a socialist state. That should bring the Tea Party out in force. http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/sarah-palins-greatest-accomplishment.html

News archived May 10, 2011

The Trig Palin Flame War. After a liberal blogger mocked Sarah Palin’s “retarded” son, enraged supporters attacked, bullying advertisers with surprising success. Brian Ries talks to both sides of the public spat. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-22/trig-palin-wonkette-post-how-it-started-a-flame-war/

Sarah Palin trashes National Endowment for the Arts. Television commentator and half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin trashed the National Endowment for the Arts recently, describing the agency as "frivolous" in a Thursday interview on a Fox News talk show. "NPR, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, all those kind of frivolous things that government shouldn't be in the business of funding with tax dollars -- those should all be on the chopping block as we talk about the $14-trillion debt that we're going to hand to our kids and our grandkids," Palin told right-wing host Sean Hannity. "Yes, those are the type of things that for more than one reason need to be cut." Palin did not elaborate on what the other reasons might be for chopping the NEA budget. But the government of every major civilization in world history has also prominently funded the arts. The comment about the NEA came during a discussion of the ailing U.S. economy. Palin is certainly conversant with frivolous activity, but her grasp of the economy is weak. Debt reduction would barely be affected by penciling out the small federal arts agency, which currently operates on a $161-million annual budget. Palin's support of a federal subsidy for the notorious "bridge to nowhere" in her state became a campaign issue when she ran for vice president on the 2008 Republican ticket. That local project carried a price tag of $223 million. "Reality is we have 15 million Americans who are out of work," said Palin. Nationally, the nonprofit arts and culture industry supports 5.7 million jobs and generates $166.2 billion in annual economic activity, according to Americans for the Arts. The NEA is one linchpin in that sizable economy. In the interview Palin made no statement advocating similar budget cuts to her home state as she recommended for the NEA, which is also in the cross hairs of Washington's Republican leadership. Palin's Alaska gets $1.84 in federal spending for every dollar its citizens pay in federal taxes. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/03/palin-trashes-national-endowment-for-the-arts.html

Sarah Palin, perhaps the most closely watched of all potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, is viewed in an unfavorable light by 60 percent of those questioned in a new Bloomberg News poll. Palin's numbers suggest she would face a challenge in attracting voters beyond her conservative base if she decides to run for president next year. Bloomberg's survey of 1,001 adults was taken between March 4-7 by the Iowa firm, Selzer & Co. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Within the 60 percent who disapproved of Palin, 38 percent said they had "very unfavorable" feelings about her. She was viewed favorably by 28 percent, with only 4 percent not sure how they felt. A December Bloomberg poll had Palin's unfavorable rating at 57 percent. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/03/11/sarah-palins-favorability-rating-slips-in-new-poll/

Palin Reverses Support Of Breastfeeding After She Finds Out That A Democrat Also Supports It. Michelle Obama: Breastfeeding is one of the most effective preventive measures mothers can take to protect their children's and their own health. Breastfeeding helps reduce children's risk of acute and chronic diseases like ear infections, asthma, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, rare but serious diseases like childhood leukemia, and even sudden infant death syndrome, thanks to antibodies, cells, and immunologic components uniquely available in mothers' milk. Breastfeeding also protects nursing mothers against diseases like type 2 diabetes and breast and ovarian cancers. Governor Palin, circa 2007: WHEREAS, throughout their lives, breastfeeding can offer children protection against serious health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Breastfeeding also saves lives by reducing the incidence of life-threatening cancers in women and preventing premature death in infants. [...] WHEREAS, government and community organizations have a vested interest in protecting and promoting breastfeeding as a means of preventing infant malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/palin-reverses-support-of-breastfeeding_n_824841.html

Well, well, well, let's have a look at Sarah Palin's qualifications as administrator, business woman, team player and multi-tasking supermom. Let's have a good look at her work ethic. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2011/02/sarah-palins-qualifications-and-work.html

Some details on Sarah Palin's crazed attempt to register a trademark in her name; apart from making stupid errors in her application, there's the curious business that she considers "running for election" to be the same as using her name in commerce. Also, turns out Bristol Palin also wants a trademark on her name, for "motivational speaking services in the field of life choices." http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/06/sarah-palin-circle-r.html

Can Babygate bring Sarah Palin down? Considering that serious wrongdoings have been extensively reported and failed to touch her (yet), perhaps a "gate" denied so fiercely by her fans will do the trick. They refuse to discuss it and very infrequently offer some feeble excuses, just in case the story breaks in the national media. There have been recent rumours about it happening soon. The plot thickened a bit when Patrick's "Palin Deceives" account was reported to Flickr and inactivated a couple of days ago. I don't know what will happen to the Flickr account, but Patrick has every single photo saved to disk and may decide to publish them on another photo sharing site. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2011/02/is-babygate-politically-relevant.html

Palin received a roaring ovation, but Reagan's son told The Associated Press in an interview that he doesn't see anything in common between his dad and the former Alaska governor, who was invited to speak by the event's sponsor, the conservative Young America's Foundation. "Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She's doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news," Ron Reagan says. "She is not a serious candidate for president and never has been," said Reagan, a political independent whose politics lean left. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/05/palin-america-reagan_n_819073.html

Sarah Palin casts herself in Reagan mold, blasts Obama administration. At a Santa Barbara event celebrating the 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth, she calls for smaller government.Revisiting themes familiar from her 2008 campaign, she said the nation was being shackled by high debt due to wars and tax cuts and taxes on the ultra rich, dense government regulation on mortgages and financial markets and rising spending, often for programs that don't work. She said a rush toward green energy was overlooking the nation's oil and natural gas reserves, a choice that will cost jobs and drive up pump prices. She blamed Washington leaders – an apparent reference to the Obama administration – for doing "everything in their power to stymie responsible domestic drilling like the Deepwater Horizon." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-palin-reagan-20110205,0,5876331.story

"the purveyors of hatred and division" for "reckless speech," saying the nation's airwaves were too often used "to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable."

Not many Alaskans, Democrat or Republican, are fond of Sarah Palin, a recent Public Policy Polling survey finds. According to the poll, Palin has a dismal 33 percent favorability rating in her home state. That's a 12-point drop from last winter, a similar poll finds. The origins of her current ratings stretch beyond party lines, with the predictable chilliness of Democrats toward their former half-term governor matching the sentiments of both Republicans and Independents. While Palin has substantial Republican support beyond state lines, 30 percent of the Alaskans surveyed by PPP view the former vice presidential candidate unfavorably. Among Independents, 65 percent have an unfavorable opinion of her. Out of the ten states in which PPP has already conducted similar surveys on Palin's popularity, only the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts has exhibited a lower favorability rating of the "mama grizzly" (27 percent). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/28/sarah-palin-popularity-poll_n_801907.html

Sarah Palin's bizarre cheap shots at Michelle Obama. http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/12/sarah-palins-bizarre-cheap-shots-at-michelle-obama.html

"Sarah Palin's Alaska" didn't debut until Sunday night, but the former governor has been defending it for weeks. After Karl Rove wondered how a reality show fit "the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office,'" Fox News gave Palin a chance to respond. "You know, I agree with that," she said. "Those standards have to be high for someone who would ever want to run for president, like, um, wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtimes for Bonzo,' 'Bozo' or something?" The movie was "Bedtime for Bonzo," but no matter: What Palin should have mentioned was " General Electric Theater," the television show Reagan hosted and occasionally starred in from 1954 to 1962. It would have made Palin's point nicely. Instead, her comment hinted at a different one altogether: that Palin has an appallingly and disturbingly superficial knowledge of Reagan's career and principles. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fehrman-20101115,0,2819276.story

"Mr Attorney General, tear down this First Amendment!" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/sarah-palin-wikileaks_n_794115.html

"What a joke. I was a fan before the show. No one who is a true hunter lets others carry their rifle or can't load their own shells. Sarah, you are a phony in this area of your 'skills." Several others wondered why Palin, an experienced hunter, didn't bring her own rifle, pointing out that familiarity with one's weapon is a core principle of hunting. Another pointed out, regarding Palin's veteran hunter dad, "I was surprised to see him using the gun as a walking stick." Several hunter friends to whom I showed the video were less than impressed. All agreed that she did not look like she had handled a gun many times. One, who just posted his November kill on his Facebook profile, said "I would not hunt with her." http://www.theawl.com/2010/12/sarah-palin-the-tv-star-exposes-sarah-palin-the-fake-hunter

Glenn Beck believes in four insane things before breakfast. Missed in the brouhaha over Sarah Palin's verbal flub about our North Korean "allies," and much more telling: According to host Glenn Beck's own transcript, Beck's very next utterance was to proclaim that the "mystery" jet contrail recently seen in California (explained weeks ago (even by Fox News online) as almost certainly an optical illusion created by still air and a jet contrail from a known UPS delivery flight) was in fact a secret two-stage missile launch by the Chinese government to assert their power over America, "sending a signal that the world has changed." Beck then went on to state that the Chinese "control the world." Did Sarah Palin, would-be leader of the United States, disagree with any of this? Nope. Palin's verbatim response: "Well, that's right." http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/26/glenn-beck-believes.html

The website Conservatives4Palin (apparently named by Prince) offers a top ten list of reasons why Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. Here's all you need to know about that list: "Ten years volunteer work in the Parent-Teacher-Association" is second. Makes you wonder what #3 is, doesn't it? "Two years pro-life advocacy." But this is my favorite part. Number five on the list is "Two and a half years governing the largest state in America." Of course, it's the smallest state by population (or very close to it). Apparently, governing empty land is valuable experience. But this is the punchline: As her state's chief executive, Palin not only oversaw 15,000 state employees and a $12 billion budget, she was immersed in the threats facing our nation as her state is the first line of defense against rogue ballistic and nuclear weapons that might be fired from North Korea or the former Soviet Union. http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/11/palins_qualifications_for_pres.php#more

"But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." Palin said in her analysis. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/24/sarah-palin-north-korea_n_788107.html

If you think this is just a coincidence -- hey, great minds think alike! -- consider one other piece of information: In her acknowledgements section, Palin offers a "special thanks to the brilliant, independent self-starter who got her start in Alaska, Jessica Gavora. Thank you for your most important work on America by Heart." Gavora is the wife of Jonah Goldberg; Goldberg recently tweeted that his wife "worked with Sarah Palin on her new book." http://mediamatters.org/blog/201011230026

If logic applied to Palin’s career trajectory, this month might have been judged dreadful for her. In an otherwise great year for Republicans she endorsed a “Star Wars” bar gaggle of anomalous and wacky losers — the former witch, Christine O’Donnell; the raging nativist, Tom Tancredo; and at least two candidates who called for armed insurrection against the government, Sharron Angle and a would-be Texas congressman, Stephen Broden, who lost by over 50 percentage points. Last week voters in Palin’s home state humiliatingly “refudiated” her protégé, Joe Miller, overturning his victory in the G.O.P. Senate primary with a write-in campaign. But logic doesn’t apply to Palin. What might bring down other politicians only seems to make her stronger: the malapropisms and gaffes, the cut-and-run half-term governorship, family scandals, shameless lying and rapacious self-merchandising. In an angry time when America’s experts and elites all seem to have failed, her amateurism and liabilities are badges of honor. She has turned fallibility into a formula for success. Republican leaders who want to stop her, and they are legion, are utterly baffled about how to do so. Democrats, who gloat that she’s the Republicans’ problem, may be humoring themselves. When Palin told Barbara Walters last week that she believed she could beat Barack Obama in 2012, it wasn’t an idle boast. Should Michael Bloomberg decide to spend billions on a quixotic run as a third-party spoiler, all bets on Obama are off. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21rich.html

Perhaps the most defining feature of "America by Heart" is Palin's capacity to boil down complicated political battles into pure political simplicity. The Cold War, for example, was won because "the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union were real -- and consequential" and "one of those differences was a belief in God." Opposition to an Islamic Cultural Center in downtown Manhattan, meanwhile, was hardly an exercise in religious intolerance. "[I]t's what our Founders called 'a decent respect for the opinions of mankind' -- or in this case their fellow Americans." America's problems, in the end, are partially due to the fact that "we may be creating a generation of entitled little whiners." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/19/sarah-palin-book-america-by-heart_n_786290.html

Rosanne Cash, daughter of legendary country singer and songwriter Johnny Cash, tweeted her way into politics again Tuesday, sending out a dispatch batting former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for supposed hypocrisy in her criticism of President Obama as an unvetted, unprepared leader. The musician tweeted Tuesday: He was pres. of the Harvard law review, a constitutional scholar and a Senator. And you? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/rosanne-cash-sarah-palin_n_785037.html

Willow Palin, the 16-year-old daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, wrote multiple Facebook posts containing homophobic slurs such as "faggot" on Sunday night, according to TMZ. The web site reports that Palin's teenage daughter wrote the comments on Sunday night, when her mother's television show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" premiered on TLC. According to TMZ, a classmate of one of Palin's children published a Facebook update claiming that the show "is failing so hard right now." Willow Palin reportedly unloaded on the student, calling him "so gay" and "such a faggot." She later demanded that the student "quit talkin shit about my family." According to screenshots obtained by TMZ, the 16-year-old called another commenter on the Facebook thread a "low life loser" and lashed out at multiple others, writing, "Sorry that all you guys are jealous of my families success and you guys aren't goin to go anywhere with your lives." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/willow-palin-facebook-posts_n_784585.html

Sarah Palin accused of breaking countryside rules in TV nature show. The former Alaska governor was filmed fishing too close to protected bears, claims environmentalist. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/14/sarah-palin-bears-alaska-television

At 52%, Palin's Unfavorable Score Hits a New High. http://www.gallup.com/poll/144491/Palin-Unfavorable-Score-Hits-New-High.aspx

Even more unusual were the specifics of Palin's critique: As WSJ's Sudeep Reddy pointed out Monday, she doesn't get all of her facts right. In response to Palin's assertion that "everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so," Reddy wrote Monday that "Grocery prices haven't risen all that significantly, in fact." He notes that prices have actually increased only 0.6 percent over the past year. It's the lowest rate on record -- so low that it inspired a high-profile Twitter fight late last month. But Palin would have none of it. She wrote in her Facebook note, "That's odd, because just last Thursday, November 4, I read an article in Mr. Reddy's own Wall Street Journal titled 'Food Sellers Grit Teeth, Raise Prices: Packagers and Supermarkets Pressured to Pass Along Rising Costs, Even as Consumers Pinch Pennies.' She continued: Now I realize I'm just a former governor and current housewife from Alaska, but even humble folks like me can read the newspaper. I'm surprised a prestigious reporter for the Wall Street Journal doesn't. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/09/sarah-palin-federal-reserve_n_780833.html

Starting from the top, GOP critics of Palin reportedly include former president George W. Bush. “The 43rd President has told friends the ex-Alaska governor isn't qualified to be President and criticizes Arizona Sen. John McCain for putting Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket and handing her a national platform,” New York Daily New Washington bureau chief Thomas DeFrank reported Friday. "He thinks McCain ran a lousy campaign with an unqualified running mate and destroyed any chance of winning by picking Palin,” a Republican official “familiar with Bush’s thinking” told DeFrank. Karl Rove, Bush’s political mastermind, had already questioned whether Palin had the “gravitas” to be president – or even the fortitude to withstand the rigors of a long, bruising campaign. In recent days, two former Republican speechwriters have weighed in unfavorably on Palin as well. Michael Gerson, a top aide in the Bush White House, says that in some ways Palin has become “a threat to the Republican future.” Most recently, Gerson writes in his Washington Post column, that’s the result of her endorsement of Constitution Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo in Colorado. Tancredo, a former Republican congressman, is a divisive figure best known for his virulent, sometimes racist anti-immigrant pronouncements “Her endorsement raises the question of whether Palin has any standards for her support other than anti-government rhetoric,” Gerson writes. “Either as a power broker or a candidate in the 2012 election, Palin's increasingly erratic political judgment should raise Republican concerns.” http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/Vox-News/2010/1106/Republican-establishment-takes-on-Sarah-Palin

"The point is not 'He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,' though that is true," Noonan continues. "The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn't in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn't in search of fame; he'd already lived a life, he was already well known, he'd accomplished things in the world." Though Noonan's piece is not simply a jab at Palin, but rather a larger message about the real political significance of one's actions and accomplishments, as well as the necessity to "earn your way into politics," it's also worth noting that Noonan has never shied away from writing confrontational columns about the former Alaska Governor. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/06/peggy-noonan-sarah-palin_n_779624.html

27 wins to 15 losses. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/sarah-palin-endorsements_n_778556.html

Examples of Sarah Palin being such an "idol" for politically extreme or disturbed people are not very difficult to find. Unfortunately, these people don't just linger around at the Peezoo or other Palinbot websites, but also might have influential jobs - like Andrew Shirvell, the Assistant General Attorney of Michigan. He hit the news big time this week, especially after Anderson Cooper produced an outstanding report about him. Andrew Shirvell is obsessed with a guy called Chris Armstrong, who is the openly gay President of the Student Council of Michigan. Shirvell started a blog called "Chris Armstrong Watch" several months ago, which has now been made private after the report by Anderson Cooper. This blog by Andrew Shirvell is one of the worst examples of cyber-stalking, homophobia and obsession I have ever seen online. The pages of this now private blog have been saved, but I don't think that it's necessary to display them, as they heavily violate Chris Armstrong's right to privacy and are very offensive. In the CNN report by Anderson Cooper the case is explained in greater detail. Andrew Shirvell not only followed Chris Armstrong around for months and took pictures, but also copied for example facebook postings by him and his friends and put them online, together with long hate-filled rants about the "privileged pervert" Chris Armstrong, including for example displaying a picture of him with the "rainbow" flag and a swastika on it. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/10/palingates-monthly-message-bonus-andrew.html

Sarah Palin's comments Friday make a 2012 run a sure thing, says Mark McKinnon, who outlines the surprising ramifications for the GOP, Obama—and a possible third party candidacy. Sarah Palin is running for president. Book it. She cracked the door open in Iowa Friday night, and once that door is open, it doesn't shut. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-18/sarah-palins-2012-presidential-campaign-will-alienate-moderate-republicans/

Sarah Palin calls for religious intolerance.

Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury. Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor’s road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits—a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family—and the sadness she has left in her wake. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/10/sarah-palin-201010

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/04/why_palins_biggest_presidentia.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/the_case_for_why_sarah_palin_w.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/03/tea_party_convention_organizer.html

Vanity Fair's Sarah Palin Profiler: 'The Worst Stuff Isn't Even In There' "The worst stuff isn't even in there," Michael Joseph Gross said on "Morning Joe" Thursday. "I couldn't believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I'm a small-town person, I'm a Christian, I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them. And I think she got a bum ride, but everybody close to her tells the same story." In the profile, Gross paints Palin as an abusive, retaliatory figure with an extreme ability to lie. "This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about," he said. "She lies about everything." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/02/vanity-fairs-sarah-palin-_n_703412.html

McGinniss would not reveal what his book will say about the former governor. But he did get a taste of the support Palin has inspired. "It's just a peculiar thing, but she does, as I found out in May, she presses a button and what comes back is hate," he said. "The people who respond when she complains about something are just so filled with hate. I got some of the ugliest, most vile e-mails directed at me, my grandchildren, my children, my wife – just ugly, ugly stuff." As for his interviews, most people he approached in Palin's hometown were willing to speak, but he said there was what he calls an "undercurrent of fear." "People – I don't know if they're afraid of shadows or whether there's something real there – she's no longer in a position of governmental influence but there are people up there who are scared to death to talk because if Sarah ever found out they talked, oh, something terrible would happen to them," he said. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/04/joe-mcginniss-palin-neigh_n_705905.html

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would be "the last person" he'd vote for in a presidential election when speaking at a town hall meeting in his home state last week, the Tusla World reports. "[Gingrich] "is a super-smart man, but he doesn't know anything about commitment to marriage," explained the conservative Senator. "He's the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States. His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president." The criticism comes in the wake of reports that Gingrich is strongly considering making a bid for the White House in 2012. Earlier this month, ex-wife of the former Speaker, Marianne Gingrich, offered a rare glimpse into the personal life and relationship history of the possible presidential contender. In an Esquire profile she said of her one-time husband, now on his third marriage, "[He] believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected" and added, "If you believe that, then yeah, you can run for president. ... He always told me that he's always going to pull the rabbit out of the hat." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/tom-coburn-newt-gingrich-_n_699386.html

Sarah Palin's "Restoring Honor" Speech An Insult To Civil Rights Movement (Transcript) http://www.themidnightreview.com/2010/08/sarah-palins-restoring-honor-speech.html#more

McLeod: "Never has a governor lowered the bar as low as Palin has when she breached the public's trust over and over again. Her arrogance, sense of entitlement and recklessness while doing the people's business sets a very bad precedent. For her to be portrayed as a role model by the media is an absolute travesty. The more people find out about Palin...the more they learn that a 'servant's heart' does not beat within her." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/sarah-palins-latest-faceb_b_560001.html

According to Michael R. Leaveck, the real scandal, well hidden from public view is the fact that for example a donor like Gemperle Enterprises (Farms) was once a sponsor of CSU Stanislaus "Presidential Scholarships," a program that has been discontinued as of this year due to economic hard times. Instead, this year, Gemperle Farms is a $10,000 sponsor of the 50th Anniversary Black Tie Gala, featuring Sarah Palin! Therefore it's a fact that this Palin fundraiser is just a show and a scam - the Foundation would have most likely raised this money even without Sarah Palin. But Matt Swanson & Co. ensured that they would have a big political show as well - and Sarah Palin can now wrongly credit herself with having raised a large amount of money for the Foundation. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/06/sarah-palins-speech-tonight-at-csu.html

Honor restored: "I had sex with No. 2," Rozetta said. http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/18/news/top_stories/1_02_4910_17_07.txt

“Does anyone seriously believe that Dr. Laura Schlessinger is not a racist?” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-22/republicans-long-hot-racist-summer/

Once the service ended, Sarah and Todd pretty much stuck to themselves. I don't think they were being polite or restrained. No one sought them out. They were surrounded by people who revile them and it showed. http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/08/sarah-and-todd-palin-at-ted-stevens.html

Stupid white girl. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-20/sarah-palins-dr-laura-tweet-black-republicans-react/

Sarah Palin Endorses Sharron Angle In Nevada Race: 'She's NUTS!!!' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/sarah-palin-endorses-shar_n_685465.html

GOP strategist Ed Rollins says Michael Steele has "failed miserably" in his responsibilities as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Rollins took the shot at the Republican leader, who has been no stranger to controversy, on CBS' "Face the Nation" over the weekend. "Obviously he's been a disaster," explained Rollins to host Bob Schieffer. "Michael Steele has failed miserably in the things you're supposed to do -- raise money and basically go out and articulate the message." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/ed-rollins-gop-strategist_n_683102.html

A new nationwide survey of Republican voters finds that support for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to win the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination has fallen by one-third since March, sliding from 18 points to 12 points. Palin is now running in fourth place for the nomination behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/palin-sinking_n_684053.html

Racists, Bigots & Homophobes

GOP official apologizes for email picturing Obama as a chimpanzee but refuses to resign. An Orange County Republican Party official who sent an email that included President Obama's face superimposed on that of a chimpanzee with the words "Now you know why — No birth certificate!" issued an apology Wednesday but said she will not resign. At a news conference, Marilyn Davenport, an elected member of the party's central committee, said it was "unwise" to send the email and didn't realize how much it would offend people. When pressed by a reporter, she said the apology was to anyone who was offended as well as to President Obama himself. But she said she will not step down from her party position, as some officials have requested. She said she's heard from many Orange County Republicans to stay put. "Out of respect for my constituents, I will remain in office, to support racism and bigotry" she said at the news conference, which was broadcast live on KTLA News. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/gop-official-apologizes-to-obama-for-chimpanzee-email-but-refuses-to-resign.html

Alas, poor Aurick. Neo-Nazi who antagonized Rep. Bob Filner gets a visit from the cops. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8894-alas-poor-aurick.html

Indiana Official 'No Longer Employed' After Reportedly Urging Wisconsin Police To Shoot Protesters. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/23/indiana-official-shoot-protesters_n_827389.html

Tea Party Leader Plans to Infiltrate Union "Goons" http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/tea-party-leader-plan-infiltrate-wisconsin-seiu-wiunion

Racists Totally Freak Out Over Idris Elba Playing Norse God in 'Thor' Marvel is headed by radical left-wingers who insert their ideologies and agendas into their comic books and movies. In February 2010, the TEA Party movement was viciously attacked in an issue of Captain America. Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Qesada publicly defended the issue. Marvel creator and front man Stan "Lee" Lieber is a notorious left-winger and financier of left-wing political candidates. http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/12/16/racists-thor-idris-ebla-racism/

Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, one of the country's most prominent tea party organizations, really seems to despise the Methodist Church, or as he would call it, "the first Church of Karl Marx." In a recent blog post (subscription required) the founder of Tea Party Nation recounts his recent experience visiting the United Methodist Building in Washington D.C., where saw a promotional banner for the DREAM Act, a failed piece of legislation that would have provided a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children. Such a stance could only mean one thing, Phillips concluded. "The Methodist church is pro-illegal immigration," he said. "They have been in the bag for socialist health care, going as far as sending out emails to their membership 'debunking' the myths of Obamacare. Say, where are the liberal complaints on the separation of church and state?" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/judson-phillips-tea-party-methodist_n_799351.html

The Family Research Council is an influential Washington-based advocacy group with deep roots in the religious right. Its annual political forum, the Values Voter Summit, has become a nearly obligatory stop for ambitious Republican office-seekers hoping to win the support of so-called values voters. In recent years, the council has given an increasing share of its attention to opposing marriage equality and open military service by gays and lesbians. Now, the two groups are locked in a sharp confrontation that raises crucial questions about where the expression of religiously based views on social issues ends and hate speech begins. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten-gay-hate-20101201,0,6482418.column

What's with Glenn Beck's fascination with Nazis? Fox News' Glenn Beck says liberal philanthropist George Soros was complicit in "sending Jews to the death camps" – even though Soros escaped the Holocaust as a young Jewish teenager. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/Vox-News/2010/1113/What-s-with-Glenn-Beck-s-fascination-with-Nazis

Anti-Semitism, like all ideologies, tells a story about the world. It’s a story about almost occult Jewish power, about cabals that manipulate world events for their own gain. In classic anti-Semitic narratives, Jews control both the elites and the masses; they’re responsible for the communist revolution and the speculative excesses of capitalism. Their goal is to undermine society so that they can take over. Through the lens of anti-Semitism, social division, runaway inflation, and moral breakdown all make sense because they all have the same cause. Nazi propaganda called Jews drahtzieher—wire-pullers. They constitute a power above and beyond ordinary government authority. “There is a super-government which is allied to no government, which is free from them all, and yet which has its hand in them all,” Henry Ford wrote in The International Jew. If you know this history, you’ll understand why Glenn Beck’s two-part “exposé” on George Soros, whom Beck calls “The Puppet Master,” was so shocking, even by Beck’s degraded standards. The program, which aired Tuesday and Wednesday, was a symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles. Nothing like it has ever been on American television before. “There is a crisis collapsing our economy—George Soros,” Beck said on Tuesday’s show. “When the administration and progressives look for a savior to step in and save the day—George Soros… He’s pulled no punches about the end game. It’s one world government, the end of America's status as the prevailing world power—but why?” Because, Beck suggests, Soros wants to rule us all like a God: “Soros has admitted in the past he doesn't believe in God, but that's perhaps because he thinks he is.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-10/glenn-becks-anti-semitic-attack-on-george-soros

Bob Filner was terrrified of us we outnumbered his paid support staff. He ran like a coward through the hall last night and refused to talk with Popaditch. We cornered him up against a poll and shouted at him but I could get all of that on video but you’ll see we’re running and very excited at one point that was the best part to see Filner’s fear and even the cops were afraid of us! At several times there were minor fights between Nick’s supporters and the paid staff of Filner. One man said this is just the begining. Yes, I say its the begining of a rebellion! I make a comparative look at simmilar rebellions of the past. I ask you what is left to us when politics fails? http://lastblogonearth.com/2010/11/05/white-power-popaditch-supporter-brags-about-golden-hall-violence-calls-for-armed-revolution/

Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things. http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/

I stumbled across my evidence through an e-mail alert I received for tea party “meet-ups” near where I live. When I noticed a tea party meet-up in south Orange County [Calif.] being held at a church, I couldn’t resist taking a closer look. Five clicks later I was enthralled by a document that I found both horrifying and revealing. The document was titled “The Non-Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment” and written by A.H. Ellett, a retired Utah Supreme Court justice. Ironically, the tea party movement generally “supports with worshipful intensity the constitution of the United States,” according to historian Mark Lilla, but when its followers say “Constitution” they don’t mean the same U.S. Constitution that you and I mean. The recent issue for the tea party has been the repeal of the 14th Amendment. But repeal is just one small step compared to the giant leap that Justice Ellett makes in claiming that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments (the so-called Reconstruction Amendments) were never legally (i.e. constitutionally) ratified in the first place. When the tea party folk say that they want their country back, I’m starting to understand just how far back they want it—back before the Civil War! http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_tea_party_its_worse_than_you_think_20101007/#

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on the message in question on Tuesday evening: The comment was posted on Joe.My.God., a blog dedicated to gay and lesbian issues, shortly after a Democratic bid to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" faltered in the U.S. Senate. "All [gays] must die," wrote the commenter, identifying himself as "Jimmy." The blog's readers traced the Internet Protocol address to the suburban Atlanta complex where Chambliss has an office. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/saxby-chambliss-anti-gay-slur-my-office_n_735844.html

What happens when a new gay conservative group finds itself in a room full of conspiracy-spewing wingnuts? John Avlon witnesses a dangerous culture clash. Gay marriage is “a state sanction of sinful behavior” and homosexuality “a sinful and socially destructive lifestyle”—according to the author of the Tea Party Manifesto and founder of WorldNetDaily, Joe Farah. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-18/gay-conservatives-can-they-be-conservative/

Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they could work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene." Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo real estate developer popular with many tea party activists, isn't saying the state should jail poor people: The program would be voluntary. But the suggestion that poor families would be better off in remote institutions, rather than among friends and family in their own neighborhoods, struck some anti-poverty activists as insulting. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/22/carl-paladino-backs-welfa_n_690284.html

Yet today, I am afraid for my children. I am afraid that when they turn the TV on, or listen to the radio (which I now turn off when we are in the car), they will receive a very different message from the one my father shared with us. The message they hear today is of intolerance. Whether it be about an Islamic center in New York blocks from ground zero or a mosque in Temecula, their faith is being openly and viciously maligned, and they themselves are made to feel responsible for the attacks on 9/11. My children were born here, and they consider themselves as wholly American, but I fear that the current discourse about their faith and their houses of worship will have a devastating effect on them. My father knew something greater about America than what is spouted by Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and the host of professional bigots who have built a cottage industry out of Muslim-baiting. He knew that the power of America is in its acceptance and openness. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-tarin-mosque-20100818,0,57635.story

It's not clear exactly who Schlessinger claims took her free speech away, though she suggests special interest groups are silencing her by pressuring sponsors. Without the ability to earn a living, she said, "I don't have the right to say what I need to say. My first amendment rights have been usurped." Schlessinger's announcement -- and her invocation of a constitutional right to earn a living from her speech -- was made on Larry King Live. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/18/dr-laura-criticism-o.html#more

Birther Bagger Queen Orly Taitz Smacked Down By Supreme Court On 'Frivolous' Litigation Fine http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/birther-queen-orly-taitz_n_683188.html

Resent their portrayal in news stories. Liberal commentators including Eric Boehlert. of MediaMatters argue that some news organizations have overstated the clout of the Tea Party, but the activists USA TODAY interviewed call coverage in many newspapers and TV outlets unfairly negative. They bristle in particular at stories that portray them as racists. Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Emanuel. Cleaver, D-Mo., said they were subjected to racial epithets during a demonstration by Tea Party activists on Capitol Hill earlier this year. Last month, the NAACP asked Tea Party activists to disavow the racist rhetoric of some members of the movement. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews_spec/ynews_spec_pl3411

Limbaugh declares: "I'm a racist." http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2010/08/11#0035

Ignorance of the Constitution

The Founding Fathers Versus the Tea Party. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/24chernow.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" I've talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper." http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

It's not clear exactly who Schlessinger claims took her free speech away, though she suggests special interest groups are silencing her by pressuring sponsors. Without the ability to earn a living, she said, "I don't have the right to say what I need to say. My first amendment rights have been usurped." Schlessinger's announcement -- and her invocation of a constitutional right to earn a living from her speech -- was made on Larry King Live. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/18/dr-laura-criticism-o.html#more

Christian War on Islam

Pastor of church that burned Koran calls Afghan mob killings 'very tragic' After first promising to not burn the Koran, Florida Pastor Terry Jones sat as judge at a 'trial' for the holy book last month. The Koran was 'found guilty and a copy was burned,' a church press release said. That news apparently incited the attack on a U.N. compound. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-koran-pastor-20110402,0,4120847.story

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca shot back at a congressman who warned him during a congressional hearing Thursday that a Muslim group the sheriff supports is affiliated with terrorists and is "using" him. The reference to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose Southern California branch Baca has allied with, came during a controversial House hearing on the question of whether American Muslims are becoming radicalized. "You are aware" that CAIR is affiliated with Hamas, Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) said. "No I'm not aware," Baca interrupted. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/sheriff-baca-gop-congressman-clash-over-links-to-muslim-group.html

King’s anti-terror credentials are spotty. His anti-Muslim credentials, on the other hand, are excellent. The new Homeland Security chairman opens hearings on American Muslim terrorists this week. Peter Beinart on how the GOP’s shameful religious intolerance obscures the real homeland threat. Representative Peter King. King, a Long Island Republican, will hold hearings this week on terrorism by American Muslims. Think about that for a second. King isn’t holding hearings on domestic terrorism; he’s holding hearings on domestic terrorism by one religious group. Is most American terrorism Muslim terrorism? Actually, no. Over the last decade or so, there’s been at least as much domestic terrorism by folks like Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, Eric Rudolph (who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics), Bruce Edwards Ivins (the main suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks), and most recently, Jared Lee Loughner. But even if American Muslims are statistically more likely to commit terrorism than non-Muslims, it is still wrong to define the problem in religious terms. I’m pretty sure that in the 1950s, Jews—given their overrepresentation in the American Communist Party—were overrepresented as Soviet spies. Italians may have been overrepresented in organized crime. Yet for a member of Congress to define either Soviet subversion or organized crime as the province of a particular religious or ethnic group would still have been wrong. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-06/peter-kings-anti-muslim-bigotry-haunts-terrorism-hearings/

How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam. There aren’t nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of America’s police. So we got these guys instead. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2011/1103.stalcup-craze.html

Pamela Geller is pretty worked up about the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of her group, Stop Islamization of America, as a hate group. But not because she gives the designation any credence. On the contrary, Geller -- the blogger behind Atlas Shrugs and one of the most vociferous opponents to a planned Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York City -- says "a slam from the SPLC is a badge of honor." Stop Islamization of America was included as a hate group in the SPLC's Spring 2011 "Intelligence Report." The 9/11 Christian Center at Ground Zero group also made the list. The SPLC considers both groups "anti-Muslim." Geller told TPM in an email that Stop Islamization of America's parent group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, has decided to create a kind of counter to the SPLC's list: an annual list of groups that are "Threats to Freedom." "The SPLC and CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] will almost certainly make the initial listing, but not because they have demonized our human rights organization," Geller wrote. "This is by no means the first time that these organizations have set themselves up in opposition to individuals and groups like ours that are dedicated only to defending the freedom of speech and legal equality for all citizens. They need to be exposed, and we are going to expose them." http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/pam_geller_on_splc_hate_group_label_badge_of_honor.php

Video Captures Protesters, Politicians Berating Muslims at Yorba Linda Charity Function. http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/03/ed_royce_anti_muslim_rally.php http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201103040006

Several weeks ago, Reps. Ed Royce and Gary Miller, two southern California Republicans with sizable Muslim constituencies, took part in a protest in Yorba Linda, an affluent suburb in Orange County. The demonstration was originally intended to protest the appearance of two controversial speakers at a fundraiser for a women's shelter organized by the Islamic Circle of North America, a New York-based group. The OC Weekly's Matt Coker sums up what happened: Men, women and scared-looking children file into a North County community center as people with signs and megaphones shout disgusting remarks at them. A Villa Park city councilwoman says into a microphone that she knows some Marines who would love to send these Americans, whom she labels "terrorists," "to paradise." One U.S. congressman who represents some of those walking into the center says tolerance of them has "paralyzed America." Another tells the vicious protesters he is "proud" of them and what they are doing. http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201103030015

California man jailed in alleged attempt to blow up Dearborn mosque. Police: Suspect targeted large Arab-American, Muslim population. Roger Stockham, 63, was arraigned Wednesday on one count on a threat of terrorism or false report and one count of explosive-possession of bombs with unlawful intent for possession of Class C fireworks, Dearborn Police said. "He's very dangerous," Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad told the Free Press. "We took his threat to be very serious." Police didn't know whether Stockham had an attorney. A public records search did not turn up a listed number for Stockham, though Haddad said he lives in Imperial Beach, near San Diego. http://www.freep.com/article/20110130/NEWS02/110130013

Only hours after being sworn in, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley gave a speech that created controversy and sparked fears of preferential treatment by saying that people who had not accepted Jesus Christ were not his brothers and sisters. Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/briefs/articles/90031363?Alabama%20Governor%3A%20Non-Christians%20are%20not%20his%20%27brothers%20and%20sisters%27#ixzz1BY0cB8rc

Three Republican members of Congress from San Diego County have introduced a bill aimed at blocking the removal of the cross atop public land on Mt. Soledad in San Diego. The bill submitted by Reps. Duncan D. Hunter of Alpine, Darrell Issa of Vista and Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach comes in reaction to a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week that the 43-foot-tall cross violated the constitutional separation of church and state by seeming to endorse a particular religion. The bill would allow religious symbols that are part of military monuments. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/three-republicans-introduce-bill-in-congress-to-save-cross-atop-mount-soledad.html

The politics of mosques and Korans show America to be in the worst spasm of paranoia and bigotry since the Cold War. Peter Beinart on the political roots of the enemy within. With each new attack on a mosque, each new anti-Muslim slur by a prominent politician or pundit, each new poll showing that large swaths of Americans think President Obama is lying about his faith, it becomes clearer that we are in the midst of a national psychosis: the worst spasm of paranoia and bigotry of the post-Cold War age. The interesting question is: Why now? http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-12/new-mccarthyism-palin-gingrich-and-us-paranoid-politics/?cid=hp:mainpromo6

Mr. Siby’s cousin and roommate, a chef named Abdoul-Karim Traoré, died at Windows on the World on Sept. 11, as did at least one other Muslim staff member, a banquet server named Shabir Ahmed from Bangladesh. Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter, attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died. Far from being viewed as objectionable, the service was conducted with formal support from city, state and federal authorities, who arranged for buses to transport imams and mourners to Warren Street. There, within sight of the ruins, they chanted salat al-Ghaib, the funeral prayer when there is not an intact corpse. “It is a shame, shame, shame,” Mr. Mamdouh, 49, said of the Park51 dispute. “Sometimes I wake up and think, this is not what I came to America for. I came here to build this country together. People are using this issue for their own agenda. It’s designed to keep the hate going.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/nyregion/11religion.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me

General David Petraeus has condemned a Florida church's plans to burn Qurans this week, warning that the scene "could endanger troops" in Afghanistan. Petraeus told The Wall Street Journal Monday that Pastor Terry Jones' September 11 stunt could ignite violence from Taliban forces already versed in harnessing American headlines as propaganda: "It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/06/general-david-petraeus-co_n_706718.html

"Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between Communistic Atheism and Christianity." http://adultthought.ucsd.edu/Culture_War/The_American_Taliban.html

Professor Newt's Distorted History Lesson. http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2010/08/professor-newts-distorted-history.html

Ignoring recent anti-Muslim incidents, right-wing media dismiss nationwide trend of "Islamophobia" Jonah Goldberg: "There isn't an anti-Muslim climate." In an August 26 column, titled, "The Islamophobia myth," Jonah Goldberg addressed a recent attack on a Muslim cab driver in New York City and wrote: "It's unavoidable that many will cite this as proof of the national wave of 'Islamophobia,' touted by Time magazine and other media outlets. We'll have to wait for the facts, but even if the allegations prove true, one assault doesn't a national trend make." Goldberg further asserted, "There isn't an anti-Muslim climate." http://mediamatters.org/research/201008260020

Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/26gainesville.html

Limbaugh asked, "How can America be Islamophobic? We elected Obama, didn't we? If this is a nation that is Islamophobic, how do we elect a man whose name is 'Barack Hussein Obama'?" http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2010/08/25#0046

Ignorance is too generous an alibi for Gingrich and Palin. They have been candidates for the most powerful job in the world. It is foolish to dismiss them as fools. A mosque at ground zero will interfere with their politics, in which the Muslim must be etched as an irredeemable zealot with manic eyes and foaming mouth; the mosque must be distorted into a fountainhead of hatred, and every Muslim be blamed for the sins of the few bigots and terrorists who perpetrated 9/11. A range of political forces has a vested interest in the myth of the mad Muslim as the last evil standing between civilization and chaos. The irony is that Palin and Gingrich do not represent the idealism and philosophy of America, a nation that is liberal, open, democratic, and secular. Gingrich is a false American; Palin is a falsetto American. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-14/the-mosque-at-ground-zero-why-it-scares-the-right

Hatred of California and HSR; denial of global warming

'Job killers' that aren't The California Chamber of Commerce routinely denounces bills that protect workers, consumers and the environment as job killers. But when the bills become law, there's no economic catastrophe. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cohen-jobkillers-20110519,0,7296495.story

An effort by a handful of UC Berkeley scientists to reexamine temperature data underlying global warming research has landed in the center of a national political debate over government regulation. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study is led by physicist Richard Muller, a longtime critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, who plans to testify on the effort Thursday before the House Science Committee, in the latest of several congressional inquiries on climate science since the GOP majority was seated. The Berkeley project's biggest private backer, with $150,000, is the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch are the nation's most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on fossil-fuel burning, the biggest contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gases. Temperature data from tens of thousands of weather stations across the globe, many of which have incomplete records, are "very contentious," Muller said in an interview. "The skeptics are raising legitimate concerns." Leading climate scientists, however, say the three most in-depth temperature studies agree on the overall severity and pace of global warming. They worry that the Berkeley effort, and the hearing Thursday, will add to public confusion on a topic that is as politically polarized as it is scientifically complex. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-berkeley-climate-20110331,0,2472031.story

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.” A rain of boos showered Mr. Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party. “It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.” Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government authority into nearly every corner of the economy. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/us/politics/21climate.html?src=me&ref=us

Now we’re seeing some right-wingers ramp up their criticism of passenger rail, and of high speed rail in particular. In Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker has made opposition to HSR a centerpiece of his campaign. Walker put up a microsite attacking the project, NoTrain.com, with a misleading logo featuring a heavy Amtrak-style train and a video where Walker pledges to fight HSR, even returning federal stimulus money Wisconsin won. In Ohio, former Republican Congressman John Kasich is running for governor and criticizing high speed rail as well, in terms similar to those of Scott Walker. http://www.cahsrblog.com/2010/08/right-wing-candidates-attack-hsr/

In that vein, let's take a look at the Adam Smith Foundation.

The organization was established in 2007 by a group of conservative political activists, some of whom were associated with former Missouri Gov. Matthew Blunt (whose father is Roy Blunt, the former House Republican leader currently running for U.S. Senate).

Its guiding spirit is James Harris, a political consultant in the Missouri capital, who says he was driven to found the group by "a need to have right-of-center organizations to counter the aggressive policies of the left, radicals like George Soros, and their ideas that are truly in contradiction to free markets."

I asked him why the foundation got involved in California. "When you look at — no offense — liberal politicians out there running California into the ground, often crazy radical ideas start in California and start moving," he said. (No offense, but the environmental program that Proposition 23 would overturn is a pet project of our Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.) "California has some pretty crazy lawmakers who want to attack families' and individuals' opportunities to provide for themselves, and these are disastrous ideas," Harris continued. "We want to make sure these types of ideas out West do not take hold." I'm not so convinced the foundation's interest is so principled. Until now, it confined itself to a couple of local issues in Missouri. It spent $4,000 last year to support a proposal to kill the state's nonpartisan judge-selection process in favor of one subject to more political wrangling, and $2,500 to defeat a 63-cent tax levy in a local school district. The year before that it raised $30,000, made a single $2,000 grant, and spent $22,500 on professional fees and payments to "independent contractors." The foundation's president, John Elliott, told me the Proposition 23 campaign is its first venture outside Missouri. He said the money for the donation came from "fewer than 10 individuals, not industry or corporations." He said the foundation's involvement in the California campaign was initiated by the donors, not the foundation's four-member board. Who in Missouri could have an interest in killing a California greenhouse gas program? Harris and Elliott both went out of their way, curiously, to mention the effect environmental regulations have on coal. "Anything to do with energy affects Missouri, No. 1 because we rely heavily on coal," Elliott said. Harris observed, "We in Missouri generate 80% of our electricity from coal." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20100813,0,1163344.column

The Administration is giving California $2.3 billion to help launch the construction of a highly ambitious rail line that will ultimately connect Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. As in Florida, this notion has been rattling around for a long time. In 1996 proponents estimated something similar would cost $18 billion. By 2000 the estimate was $25 billion, in 2004 $37 billion and today California officials say it will take $45 billion, a number no one takes seriously. In fact, independent experts believe the outlays will be more than $80 billion. Just making the connection between Anaheim and San Francisco will cost more than $40 billion. Moreover, La-La Land expects private investors to kick in $12 billion because so many people will want to ride the train that it will turn a handy profit. That's about as likely as Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) making honest money. The passenger estimates assume the line will attract more riders than the bullet trains in Japan, even though Japan's population density is about ten times that of the U.S. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-railroading-taxpayer.html

Hate Obama/Birthers

Victoria Jackson is a reliable source of unhinged claims about President Obama -- for example, she has claimed that Obama “bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ” and asserted that “Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!” But she really pegged the crazy meter with her July 15 WorldNetDaily column, headlined “The 3 scariest things about Obama”: 1. private army (like Hitler) 2. socialist (like Hitler) 3. media control (like Hitler) http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107150017

Gingrich lashes out at Obama for feeding hungry people. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/newt-gingrich/newt-gingrich-defends-calling-barack-obama-food-st/

Tattooed evangelist Bradlee Dean, delivering the opening prayer Friday at the Minnesota House of Representatives, said President Obama is not a Christian. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-20/bradlee-deans-obama-slur-on-minnesota-house-floor-sparks-uproar/

'Tea party' activists: Do they hate liberals more than they love liberty? A recent ‘tea party’ rally showed lots of anger toward President Obama, but little consistent support for liberty in America. http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0423/Tea-party-activists-Do-they-hate-liberals-more-than-they-love-liberty

The racist birther movement is also a fascist movement. http://obrag.org/?p=37084

Local Attorney Wants To Challenge Obama's Citizenship. Ramona Attorney Gary Kreep Wants To Inspect Original Birth Certificate. http://www.10news.com/news/27725906/detail.html

O.C. Republican Party leader slams colleague who sent Obama-chimpanzee email. Marilyn Davenport downplays the controversy over the email, which showed President Obama's face superimposed on an ape, and says she won't resign from the party's central committee. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-davenport-20110417,0,157428.story

Former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton bashes Obama on Libya. Calling the Obama administration's approach to the crisis in Libya 'pathetic,' Bolton casts the president as indecisive, inconsistent and uninterested in foreign policy. Bolton, speaking at the GOP convention in Sacramento, is himself weighing a presidential run in 2012. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-pn-bolton-convention-20110319,0,6261658.story

Broun's press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed that the question was indeed, who is going to shoot Obama? "Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on," she said. However, rather than confronting the questioner or condemning the question, Broun instead acknowledged "frustration" with Obama, according to the Banner-Herald. The paper reports that Broun responded to the stunning inquiry as follows: "The thing is, I know there's a lot of frustration with this president. We're going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we'll elect somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/25/paul-broun-town-hall-who-is-going-to-shoot-obama_n_828047.html

His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers, one of the fastest-growing "patriot" organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, both Georgia Republicans. There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey "unconstitutional" orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government. http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/oath-keepers

Jacob Volkmann, a fighter with Ultimate Fighting Championship, said in a Jan. 1 interview that he wanted to face off against the president because he disagreed with his health care policy. "Someone's got to knock some sense into that idiot," he said in the interview, which is available on YouTube. "I just don't like what Barack is doing....I know the health care situation is not good, but he's making it worse." http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/136901-mma-fighter-gets-visit-from-secret-service-after-calling-out-obama

"Literally if this question of the natural born citizenship, if this question does not get answered, then I am allowing a tyrannical dictator - the spirit of the anti-Christ, the new world order system that has their plans right this second to collapse the U.S. economy, and we know their plan, the new world order system's plan is to literally destroy humanity," she said. She said "God made sure" that such a message "got out to every single American leader and every leader [now] knows the truth. "He [Obama] has fought it not only for two years, not only has he fought it pre-election but historically all of his connections, every single connection [has been] blacked out." Her description of the day's events was permeated with explanations of her belief that the God of the Bible is being abandoned by America, especially under Obama's rule because of his leanings toward "one-world" endeavors, through the United Nations and other channels. "It's prophesied this new world order system will devastate America and the world, and Satan's plan is to take as many people to hell with him as he can," she said. http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/01/moron_of_the_day.php#more

Rush Limbaugh tried to rain on Barack Obama's Thanksgiving Day parade, lashing out against a proclamation issued by the president to honor the national holiday and the story behind it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/25/rush-limbaugh-obama-thanksgiving_n_788515.html

"We're talking about a major political party," he said, "possibly undermining the strength of the country — on purpose, in public, without apology or shame — for no other reason than to give themselves a campaign advantage in 2012." http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/liberal-noise-machine

Among the Kaufman clips ricocheting around the Internets is the above one of her remarks at a July 3 tea party rally in which she says (around the 6:00 mark): “I don’t care how this gets painted by the mainstream media, I don’t care if this shows up on YouTube, because I am convinced the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendment rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will.” http://www.postonpolitics.com/2010/11/uproar-death-threats-over-wests-new-staff-chief-and-her-ballots-vs-bullets-remark/

Rush responded, fluidly and without a gram of doubt. "Pay no attention to what Obama says. He means the opposite in most cases. What he says is irrelevant." So the guy to whom all Republicans must kowtow on pain of political death had just laid down a marker that everything Obama said was a lie. What if the White House had in those months in early 2009 put in the rhetorical forefront a story about Rush's tens of millions of listeners, and all politicians who refused to denounce Rush, were effectively saying anything the Chief Constitutional Officer of the United States said was a priori a diabolical lie? When one side breaks the social contract, and the other side makes a virtue of never calling them out on it, the liar always wins. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-06/obamas-tax-cut-how-rush-limbaugh-misled-the-country/

McConnell doubled down on his promise to make Obama a one-term president. As he told the Heritage crowd in his prepared remarks, Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday's election. But we can't plan on it. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/11/mcconnell-obama-republican-repeal

The GOP's Dismal New Pledge. We Hop Obama Fails! http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-23/pledge-for-america-launched-in-virginia/You%20Call%20This%20a%20Pledge

Someone needs to investigate further CA Gov candidate Jerry Brown, Senator Barbara Boxer, and President Obama's political/radical/fundraiser ties to ultra radical, rabidly anti-war, America-bashing commie leftwing nutjob Jodie Evans, founder of Code Pink. "Jodie Evans is a longtime political ally of Brown’s who worked for his various campaigns and elective offices from the 1970s to the 1990s, culminating when Jodie Evans managed Brown’s failed 1992 campaign for the Democrat’s presidential nomination." 'In the 2000s, Jodie Evans teamed with communist revolutionary Susan ‘Medea’ Benjamin in founding Code Pink, a group that supports Islamic terrorists and works with state sponsors of terrorism against the United States. Jodie Evans and Benjamin are also leading Democratic Party activists; Jodie Evans was also a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama. Jodie Evans also has donated thousands of dollars to the reelection campaign of her fellow California Democrat, Sen. Barbara Boxer.' http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/09/steve-lopez-hammering-meg-whitman-on-her-failure-to-vote-could-be-a-winner-for-jerry-brown.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef01348703c413970c#comment-6a00d8341c630a53ef01348703c413970c

More than a dozen tea party protesters gathered at the Embarcadero today and are calling for President Barack Obama to be removed from office. 08/28/2010. http://www.sandiego6.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=833037@xetv.web.entriq.net&navCatId=5&rss=800

Glenn Beck's Hypocritical Revival. • “We are a country that is headed toward socialism, totalitarianism, beyond your wildest imagination.” • “There is a coup going on. There is a stealing of America… done through the guise of an election.” • “The president is a Marxist... who is setting up a class system.” • “The government is a heroin pusher using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state." • “The health-care bill is reparations. It's the beginning of reparations." • And of course, speaking of President Obama, “I believe this guy is a racist” with “a deep-seated hatred of white people.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-29/glenn-beck-rally-reaction/?cid=hp:mainpromo1

Ted Nugent, who increasingly lives up to his nickname, "the Motor City Madman," just this past week epitomized the paranoid hate of the president that undergirds much of the protest's super-patriotism. In an interview with a Washington state radio station, Nugent denounced Obama's "Islamic, Muslim, Marxist, communist and socialist agenda." http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-27/glenn-beck-sarah-palin-rally-a-martin-luther-king-nightmare/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

Our local Repubnick, Darrel Issa – of North County (the 49th CD) – is in the news again, and he’s in the news again because he continues to play the role of the GOP’s attack dog on the Obama administration. Of all the problems facing this country, what do you think Issa is now charging the White House with? Issa, the ranking Republican on the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee – and former car alarm king, is charging Obama with being guilty of using propaganda with White House claims of saving jobs and creating new ones with stimulus monies. That’s it. Obama is therefore guilty because the claims cannot be proven, says Issa, and such propaganda is prohibited if taxpayer money is used. http://obrag.org/?p=23632

FACT: Another leadership FAILURE by the coward-liar-idiot-in-chief obozo PLUS, Our Military vs. His civilians in Afghanistan and of course BHO knows nothing?!? FACT: BHO will throw someone under the progressive Bus! AGAIN! OPINION: Go on the VIEW! LMAO. Google. FACT: Real Leadership and being able to have capable Leaders around you, not just anti-fact leftist Journolista "use Racist" progressive Ideologues, is something this community organizer Never learned. FACT: A majority of Americans believes Obama has neglected job creation and economic fears are weighing heavily on progressive Democrats ahead of Nov. 2 mid-term elections, a Reuters-Ipsos poll found. 67% of voters said Obama has not focused enough on creating jobs, with the economy seen as the country's main problem. FACT: The drop in Obama's weekly average was driven by particularly low ratings near the end of the week, with record-low three-day rolling averages of 42% for Aug. 12-14 and Aug. 13-15 polling. Prior to this weekend, Obama's three-day low had been 44%. Additionally, Obama's disapproval rating reached OVER 50% for the first time in the Aug. 13-15 average. Gallup. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/115283-anti-war-activists-claim-partial-success-for-iraq-combat-pullout

Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, a fastidious keeper of presidential statistics, has kept count. By his tally, Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week. By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there. And yes, Democrats let him have it, too, complaining that he was a chronic vacationer. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/21/AR2010082102399.html

Quayle raised more than $1.1 million, with many of the contributions coming from one-time colleagues and friends of his father. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contributed. In May, Bush and his wife Barbara raised money for Quayle at their home in Houston. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100813/ap_on_el_ho/us_quayle_s_quest

Is Dan Quayle's Son's "Obama" Rip Serious? http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/08/quayle-son-obama-worst-president-history-arizona

Violence

in Washington, D.C., another sort of commemoration was taking place at the foot of the Washington Monument. There, a couple of thousand right-wing gun-rights advocates gathered to hear from a roster of speakers, several of whom spewed pure venom, including Larry Pratt, president of Gun Owners of America, and Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga. From my original report on the gathering: Broun, a Republican, sees civil war looming on the horizon. "Fellow patriots, we have a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution, and they're right down the Mall, in the Congress of the United States -- and right down Independence Avenue in the White House that belongs to us," Broun told the crowd. "It's not about my ability to hunt, which I love to do. It's not about the ability for me to protect my family and property against criminals, which we have the right to do. But it's all about us protecting ourselves from a tyrannical government of the United States." Then there's Pratt: "I look around: it's so good to see all these terrorists out here," Pratt said. "Janet Napolitano, she figured, as governor of Arizona, that we didn't have a border problem, but she knows who the real enemy is. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And Bill Clinton's been runnin' cover for her, too. Watch out how you guys speak out there, you know, words can have consequences. Remember Oklahoma City? Yeah, I do. And I also remember the Waco barbecue that your attorney general gave us. Thanks a lot...We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a bunch of socialists." http://www.alternet.org/news/149460/how_the_right%27s_rhetoric_fueled_the_actions_of_arizona%27s_mass_murderer/?page=1

"I don't think we should rush to speculate," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "It's probably giving him too much credit to ascribe a coherent political philosophy to him. We just have to acknowledge that there are mentally unstable people in this country. Who knows what motivates them to do what they do? Then they commit terrible crimes like this." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0110-vitriol-20110110,0,7572248.story

Mike Vanderboegh, a former 1990s militia leader from Alabama, enouraged readers of his blog to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices during the debate over President Obama's health care bill last spring. One of the offices attacked was that of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot at a rally in a Tucson supermarket today. "In the days that followed [Vanderboegh's post], glass windows and doors were shattered at local Democratic Party offices and the district offices of House Democrats from Arizona to Kansas to New York. At least 10 Democratic lawmakers reported death threats, incidents of harassment or vandalism at their offices over the past week, and the FBI and Capitol Police are offering lawmakers increased protection. Local Democratic Party officials in New York have called for Vanderboegh's arrest, believing he is implicated in the vandalism in Rochester, but Vanderboegh said he has not yet been questioned by any law enforcement authorities. Vanderboegh was unapologetic in a 45-minute telephone interview with The Washington Post early Thursday. He said he believes throwing bricks through windows sends a warning to Democratic lawmakers that the health-care reform legislation they passed Sunday has caused so much unrest that it could result in a civil war. "The federal government should not have the ability to command us to buy something that it decides we should buy," Vanderboegh said. The government, he added, has "absolutely no idea the number of alienated who feel that their backs are to the wall are out here . . . who are not only willing to resist this law to the very end of their lives, but are armed and are capable of making such resistance possible and perhaps even initiating a civil war."... He said his call for people to throw bricks is "both good manners and it's also a moral duty to try to warn people." http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/giffordss-office-was-vandalized-followers-former-militia-leader

U.S. District Judge John Roll, one of those shot and killed in Tucson, had ruled in 2009 that a lawsuit by illegal immigrants against an Arizona rancher could go forward. Afterward, U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said that talk radio shows fanned the flames and prompted hundreds of calls to the judge, some of them threatening. "They said, 'We should kill him. He should be dead,'" Gonzales told the Arizona Republic. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-08/gabrielle-giffords-shooting-dont-blame-sarah-palin/

Palin's 'Vitriol' Cited As Possible Factor In Arizona Tragedy. http://www.npr.org/2011/01/09/132764367/congresswoman-shot-in-arizona

Giffords had been target of violent threats. Asked by the New York Post whether his daughter had any enemies, Giffords's father replied: "The whole tea party." http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110108/ts_yblog_thelookout/giffords-had-been-target-of-violent-threats

In keeping with the Tea Party’s modus operandi, which is to noisily rage against the perceived status quo, Popaditch’s people changed all that, injecting the environment with vitriol, profanity and menace. One large young man hollered, “Get out of here, you fucking faggots!” at Filner’s bunch. Others shouted, “Commies!” and “Pinkos!” Eventually, the Tea Partiers, led by Popaditch, chased Filner and his group out of the hall and into the lobby and backed Filner against a concrete pillar, their chanting growing louder and madder. “Don’t tread on me, Bob! Don’t tread on me!” one man yelled. Popaditch confronted Filner directly, irked about an attack ad that had aired late in the campaign. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8384-not-suitable-for-kids.html

Tea Party Thugs

This election season, a man was arrested for hitting a protester at a rally for Washington GOP Senate candidate Dino Rossi, a man stomped on the head of a woman at a campaign event for Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul, local police wrestled to the ground a Democratic man at an event for Rep. Eric Cantor (R), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) received suspicious powder to his office, biker supporters of Florida GOP congressional candidate Allen West harassed a Democratic tracker and Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller's private security force handcuffed and detained a reporter. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/28/rise-far-right-violence-elections_n_775326.html

A Tea Party supporter admitted to stepping on the head of a liberal protester—giving her a concussion—outside the Kentucky Senate debate last night. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-26/rand-paul-jack-conway-get-personal-at-kentucky-senate-debate/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

Activist stomped outside Rand Paul-Jack Conway debate; Paul supporter Tim Profitt apologizes. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/10/woman-stomped-outside-rand-pau.html

the most disturbing thing about Nick Popaditch, and most dangerous, is that he views the world and its politics through his military service. He seems to believe that military force is the answer to all of our problems throughout the world. He would like to see a tougher approach to Iran and North Korea—we need to rattle more sabers and talk tough. His message: “America will always be able to out tough you and out fight you!” Like dropping bombs is the answer for everything. As if that will make us more secure. http://obrag.org/?p=23300

Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran

"Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they're in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it. So if Israel is going to do anything against Bushehr it has to move in the next eight days." Nuke Nut John Dolton Bolton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/israel-has-eight-days-to-_n_684970.html

Worship of Wall Street

Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand Problem. http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/03/paul-ryans-ayn-rand-problem/

Happy days came back Friday to Spring Hill, Tenn., when General Motors announced it would rehire 483 laid-off workers to build four-cylinder engines. On hand to cheer the news: Three Republican lawmakers who opposed the bailout that saved GM. As part of its $50 billion bankruptcy arranged by the Obama administration, GM shuttered the Spring Hill plant's assembly line last year, shedding 2,000 jobs in the process, but kept building four-cylinder engines. The new plan calls for $483 million in spending to upgrade the engine line, pending a deal on state incentives. The irony of the Republican lawmakers' presence wasn't lost on the workers who attended the ceremony; they booed Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, and one UAW official made clear from the stage that the union still remembered which politicians had voted to rescue Wall Street but opposed an auto industry bailout. http://jalopnik.com/5641416/republicans-hail-jobs-from-gm-bailout-they-opposed

Of all the statewide candidates doing well this year, I consider Ohio's Rob Portman, the Republican leading in the open U.S. Senate race, one of the more surprising. While Dems make some efforts to tie various GOP candidates to Bush/Cheney, the task with Portman is altogether different. Portman didn't just occasionally vote for the Bush agenda in Congress, Portman's most recent experience in government was serving as Bush's budget director. When we consider an era in which the Republicans turned huge surpluses into massive deficits, Portman was at the center of the policymaking process. For that matter, he was Bush's trade rep, in a state where Bush's trade policies aren't exactly popular. "Rob Portman is the No. 1 George Bush look-alike in the country," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said this week. "I just can't believe the voters are going to choose the candidate who more than anybody else in the whole country represents what got us into this situation." I can believe it; polls show Portman ahead, despite his background of failure. But what I find the most interesting is Portman's response to the criticism. After a tour here of the Andersons Inc., a diversified grain, rail and retail company that is a mainstay in northwestern Ohio, Mr. Portman dismissed suggestions that his time in the Bush White House and his image as a trusted adviser to the former president would be a significant liability or that voters would even be concerned about the past. "What the people in this plant want to know is what you are going to do for me going forward," Mr. Portman said. "That is all they care about, and frankly that's what voters care about." "The world has moved on," he added. "Maybe the Democrats haven't." http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_08/025405.php

Newt Gingrich has proposed a far more promising, 12-point, alternative economic recovery plan that should receive more attention. Gingrich recognizes that America suffers from the second-highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, close to 40% counting federal and state levies. The E.U. has reduced their average corporate tax rate from 38% to 24%. Germany and Canada have reduced their corporate tax rate to 19%, with Canada's soon going to 15%. India and China have lower corporate tax rates as well. This leaves American companies at an enormous disadvantage. Gingrich's plan would lower the 35% federal corporate tax rate to the 12.5% rate adopted by Ireland 20 years ago, which raised that longtime poor country from the second-lowest per capita income in the E.U. to the second highest. The U.S. Treasury Department calculates that Ireland raises more corporate tax revenue as a percent of gross domestic product with this 12.5% rate than we do with our 35% federal rate. Gingrich's proposal would also reduce the 25% income tax rate paid by middle class families to 15%, which would create an effective 15% flat tax for 90% of Americans. He would abolish the capital gains tax, which involves double taxation of savings and investment, reduce spending to balance the budget, as he led Congress to do in the 1990s, and open production of more oil, natural gas, nuclear power and alternative energy sources, providing a reliable, low-cost energy supply to power the American economy. Gingrich's proposal is a prescription for another economic boom. http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/29/obama-gingrich-recession-opinions-contributors-stimulus.html

Nevertheless, with great fanfare the Administration announced last year that it would shovel out $8 billion to help fund several high-speed rail corridors around the country. While that's seemingly small change by today's government standards, transportation officials understand that these appropriations are but a down payment on massive amounts of money yet to come. Traditionally, once a pork barrel scheme is started, nothing in heaven or on Earth is likely to stop it. Like barnacles on a ship, too many vested interests will glom onto it and fight to protect it. Steve Forbes http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-railroading-taxpayer.html

Hatred of California

News flash: Madison, County, Ill. is no longer the nation's worst place for corporations to find themselves in court. California took top honors in the American Tort Reform's annual "Judicial Hellholes" list, an unashamedly pro-defendant look at the nation's judicial system. The Golden State won for the welcoming stance its courts take toward consumer class actions -- particularly against food companies -- and rampant lawsuits targeting small businesses over disability-access rules. A dozen or so law firms, many of them veterans of the tobacco litigation jackpot, have filed 75 class actions against food companies in California and similar cases are running almost one a week, ATRA reports. Many involve the same plaintiffs and take advantage of the state's stringent laws to target companies like Chobani and Trader Joe's with claims that they mislabeled products -- for example, using the term "evaporated cane juice" instead of "sugar." Critics may say, with justification, that ATRA is financed by businesses with a strong profit motive to cut down on such litigation. But these lawsuits aren't without cost: ATRA says California consumers paid at least part of the cost of $33.5 billion in settlements in 2013 alone. And, as I have reported elsewhere, studies cast strong doubt on the idea that consumers get anything of value out of class actions supposedly brought in their name. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/19/forbes-hypes-still-ridiculous-judicial-hellhole/197355

Corruption

Issa issues. Congressional bloodhound should get a whiff of himself. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-7885-issa-issues.html

libertarian

Laura Ingalls Wilder

‘Little House’ and the identity of the prairie struggle - https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.11/prairies-little-house-and-the-identity-of-the-prairie-struggle

How ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Built Modern Conservatism http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/little-house-on-the-prairie-conservatism-214237

Little Hater on the Prairie: Laura Ingalls Wilder's War on FDR. The popular author of "Little House on the Prairie" was also an avid opponent of FDR and the New Deal. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/27/little-hater-on-the-prairie-laura-ingalls-wilder-s-war-on-fdr.html

Farmer Boy

Here are some pages from the book "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder Author of the "Little House" Books.

There was a story on NPR Afghan Mission Has Two Goals: Security, Farming that made me think of these pages.

Rose Wilder Lane, Laura's daughter was an early libertarian.

The band came marching down the street, and they all ran along beside it. The flag was gloriously waving in front, then came the buglers blowing and the fifers tootling and the drummer rattling the drumsticks on the drum. Up the street and down the street went the band, with all the boys following it, and then it stopped in the Square by the brass cannons.

Hundreds of people were there, crowding to watch.

The cannons sat on their haunches, pointing their long barrels upward. the band kept on playing. Two men kept shouting, "Stand back! Stand back!" and other men were pouring black powder into the cannon's muzzles and pushing it down with wads of cloth on long rods.

The iron rods had two handles, and two men pushed and pulled on them, driving the black powder down the brass barrels. Then all the boys ran to pull grass and weed along the railroad tracks. They carried them by armfuls to the cannons, and the men crowded the weeds into the cannons' muzzles and drove them down with the long rods.

A bonfire was burning by the railroad tracks, and long iron rods were heating in it.

When all the weeds and grass had been packed tight against the powder in the cannons, a man took a little more powder in his hand and carefully filled the two little touchholes in the barrels. Now everyone was shouting:

"Stand back! Stand back!"

Mother took hold of Almanzo's arm and made him come away with her. He told her:

"Aw, Mother, they're only loaded with powder and weeds. I won't get hurt, Mother. I'll be careful, honest." But she made him come away from the cannons.

Two men took the long iron rods from the fire. Everyone was still, watching. Standing as far behind the cannons as they could, the two men stretched out the rods and touched their red hot tips to the touchholes. A little flame like a candle flame flickered up from the powder. The little flames stood there burning; nobody breathed. Then - BOOM!

The cannons leaped backward, the air was full of flying grass and weeds. Almanzo ran with all the other boys to feel the warm muzzles of the cannons. Everybody was exclaiming about what a loud noise they had made.

"That's the noise that made the Redcoats run!" Mr. Paddock said to Father.

"Maybe," Father said, tugging his beard. "But it was the muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was the axes and plows that made this country."

"That's so, come to think of it," Mr. Paddock said.

Independence Day was over. The cannons had been fired, and there was nothing more to do but hitch up the horses and drive home to do the chores. That night when they were going to the house with milk, Almanzo asked Father:

"Father, how was it axes and plows that made this country? Didn't we fight England for it?"

"We fought for Independence, son," Father said. "But all the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the mountains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America."

"How?" Almanzo asked.

"Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms.

"This country goes three thousand miles west, now. It goes 'way out beyond Kansas, and beyond the Great American Desert, over mountains bigger than these mountains, and down to the Pacific Ocean. It's the biggest country in the world, and it was the farmers who took all that country and made it America, son. Don't you ever forget that."

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