Sunday, September 17, 2017

The Coiled Spring

Steve Bannon said something weird in that interview this week with Charlie Rose. He said, "The left, all they try to do is identity politics... The more you play identity politics and we focus on economic nationalism, we will win. We will roll you up... Identity politics is a loser."

Everybody has an "identity." You are who you are, and if you belong to a group that is perceived and used to interpret your behavior, you may "identify" with that group. That is fundamental human nature. In the jostling of political forces, some identities get a better deal than some others. Politicians tend to pass bills that they can relate to, that is, that are compatible with their identity -- they are not necessarily racists, they just see the world the way they see it. Identity becomes policy, and the result is inequality and unfairness. Trying to get a fair deal for the underdog is, I guess, "identity politics," to Breitbart readers.

A few decades ago white identity was transparent, it would just be referred to as "ordinary" or "normal," because white people ran everything and whiteness was assumed. "Our way of life" meant white people's way of life. The media were full of white people, state and federal officials were white. As various minorities grew in number they began demanding more of the privileges that white people had, and in the national dialogue white people had to justify why they deserved more than the others. Spoiler alert: there is no such justification.

A recent poll found that 39% of Americans agree that "White people are currently under attack in this country." If we assume that the 39% was all white people, and 62% of Americans are non-Hispanic whites, then nearly two-thirds of white Americans feel that way. It's probably a little lower than that, but it's a bunch.

Bannon's statement was clever and also duplicitous: Trump's campaign was nothing but identity politics. Of course Trump could not campaign with slogans about "white rights" or "white pride" without revealing the racism inherent in his viewpoint, and even out-in-the-open racists would be embarrassed to vote for him. But if Hillary would make statements favorable to minorities -- black people, LGBT, Muslims, Hispanics -- then, Bannon understood, this would trigger an identity reaction in the white population which would be enough to elect a candidate. When you have two-thirds of a group thinking they are under attack, then you have a huge amount of potential energy waiting to be released. You have a coiled spring under pressure, and the Trump campaign only had to release it.

Most white people in America's past were able to live comfortably ignorant of the problems that other groups were having, because it didn't affect them much. There was no conscious "white identity" you could put your finger on. If you grew up in a white neighborhood, went to school with white kids, worked with white people, you were only dimly aware that there was anything else. White people referred to themselves as "people," not "white people." Ordinary people, normal Americans. Other groups lived across town, they shined your shoes or cleaned your house, they knew their place, they played their parts like characters in a white people's cartoon, and there was no reason to give a thought to them as actual, real, live people. This is the origin of the slogan "Make America Great Again." Racism was easy in the good old days, you didn't even have to think about it.

But the numbers have shifted, and white people are having to give up some of their prestige. Most of us are okay with that, we realize that it's fair and actually those other groups have some pretty cool treats to bring to the party. But even though white Americans are still getting a larger piece of the pie than everybody else, it is slightly smaller than it used to be and some of them are feeling sorry for themselves. Nothing will create a sense of identity quite as efficiently as being under attack.

Bannon explained to Charlie Rose that the Trump campaign talked about economics while the Democrats brought up racial and ethnic topics (like, sure, he never said anything about Mexicans or Muslims or black people). Even today a lot of the commercial media analyze Trump's appeal in terms of economics, without evidence, because that is more comfortable for white journalists and their white readers, who do not like to have to talk about their own tacit prejudice. You can kill and imprison blacks, deport Hispanics, ban Muslims, but you can't send 'em all back where they came from, because there are just too many of them. You can't Make America White Again. You can't take your country back. You have to share it.

In the meantime, self-pitying white people have elected the most incompetent leadership ever, just to make a point. They wanted to end political correctness and piss off liberals and, well, I guess they did that. Now what? How long can they chant "lock her up" before even they realize how stupid that is? Now that they have won the election, they have to do the job. But Trump didn't run to do the job, he ran to make a statement about racial identity, and identity politics is not a job description. He is the least qualified person in the world to actually be President, and is doing a terrible job at it. But they got him into office, so that makes them the winner.

A couple of really good articles on this topic came out this last week. I definitely recommend reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' poetic unrolling of this theme, as well as Greg Sargent's thoughtful follow-on to it. These are "interesting times," as referred to in the Chinese curse, and it is important for us to figure out how we got into this situation, so we can figure out how to get out of it again.


204 Comments:

Anonymous Agreed said...

Not every Trump voter is a white supremacist. But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.

September 18, 2017 10:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

not really. he has a lot of personal flaws but he's not a white supremacist unless you change the definition to make it essentially a meaningless term.

which precisely defines the TTF M.O.

September 18, 2017 10:28 AM  
Anonymous Level Field said...

Interesting accusation on a post that does not call Trump a white supremacist, or his followers, in fact does not use the term or even hint at it.

September 18, 2017 10:32 AM  
Anonymous Agreed said...

"he has a lot of personal flaws but he's not a white supremacist"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

Observe Trump's habitual characteristics:

"...[Trump's] political career began in advocacy of birtherism, that modern recasting of the old American precept that black people are not fit to be citizens of the country they built. But long before birtherism, Trump had made his worldview clear. He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, according to the U.S. government; called for the death penalty for the eventually exonerated Central Park Five; and railed against “lazy” black employees. “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” Trump was once quoted as saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers.

It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true—his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power. Trump inaugurated his campaign by casting himself as the defender of white maidenhood against Mexican “rapists,” only to be later alleged by multiple accusers, and by his own proud words, to be a sexual violator himself. White supremacy has always had a perverse sexual tint. Trump’s rise was shepherded by Steve Bannon, a man who mocks his white male critics as “cucks.” The word, derived from cuckold, is specifically meant to debase by fear and fantasy—the target is so weak that he would submit to the humiliation of having his white wife lie with black men. That the slur cuck casts white men as victims aligns with the dicta of whiteness, which seek to alchemize one’s profligate sins into virtue. So it was with Virginia slaveholders claiming that Britain sought to make slaves of them. So it was with marauding Klansmen organized against alleged rapes and other outrages. So it was with a candidate who called for a foreign power to hack his opponent’s email and who now, as president, is claiming to be the victim of “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.”

In Trump, white supremacists see one of their own. Only grudgingly did Trump denounce the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, one of its former grand wizards—and after the clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, Duke in turn praised Trump’s contentious claim that “both sides” were responsible for the violence.

To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies. The repercussions are striking: Trump is the first president to have served in no public capacity before ascending to his perch. But more telling, Trump is also the first president to have publicly affirmed that his daughter is a “piece of ass.” The mind seizes trying to imagine a black man extolling the virtues of sexual assault on tape (“When you’re a star, they let you do it”), fending off multiple accusations of such assaults, immersed in multiple lawsuits for allegedly fraudulent business dealings, exhorting his followers to violence, and then strolling into the White House. But that is the point of white supremacy—to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification. Barack Obama delivered to black people the hoary message that if they work twice as hard as white people, anything is possible. But Trump’s counter is persuasive: Work half as hard as black people, and even more is possible..."

September 18, 2017 11:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the previous post would hold up as proof of irreversible brain damage in any court in the land

September 18, 2017 12:04 PM  
Anonymous hardy-har-har said...

that's right!


irreversible.....

September 18, 2017 12:05 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

Anon,

Over the past (nearly) 10 years, you've made it abundantly clear that you wouldn't know a fact if it jumped up, bopped you upside your head, tied you down, stapled your eyelids open and forced you to watch scientists in a lab measuring empirical data, and then a 20 hour Ken Burns documentary on the previous scientific discoveries that led the scientists to their current round of fact checking.

And as you have gotten (chronologically) older, your already tenuous grasp on reality has only slipped further away.

But don't fret.

Yet another Christian "Researcher" (David Meade) has assured us that the rapture is going to happen this Saturday (the 23rd).

I hope I have time to get more popcorn and a good seat. The sight of thousands of Christians ascending into heaven will be a sight to behold.

I'll save you a cold one.

Cynthia


September 18, 2017 12:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do internet searches for some those statements you seem to think are "proof of irreversible brain damage."

Statements like:

Trump fought to keep blacks out of his buildings

Trump calls for death penalty of Central Park Five (Bonus: even after DNA proves them innocent)

Trump demands Obama's birth certificate

Trump demands Obama's college transcripts

Trump slow to disavow KKK and white supremacists who protested in Charlottesville VA

Trump calls Mexicans rapists

Multiple women accuse Trump of sexual violations

Trump claims he is a victim of "the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history"

Trump elected without prior public service, political or military

Trump said his daughter, Ivanka, is a "piece of ass"

Trump said of pussy grabbing, “When you’re a star, they let you do it”

Trump immersed in multiple lawsuits for allegedly fraudulent business dealings

Trump encourages his followers to violence


And when you're finished be sure to report back here how many of those widely reported events are in some way proof of anyone's brain damage other than Trump's.

September 18, 2017 1:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.faithfullylgbt.com

WE ARE #FAITHFULLYLGBT
THESE ARE OUR STORIES.

#FaithfullyLGBT is a collection of stories from people
living at the intersection of faith, gender, and sexuality.

We are a platform lifting up these voices on those
on the margins, who have been silenced and ignored.

Our stories are complex,
but they are our stories,
and they matter.

And we believe by sharing these stories,
we will create real change in the world.

Founder / Eliel Cruz

September 18, 2017 3:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Over the past (nearly) 10 years, you've made it abundantly clear that you wouldn't know a fact if it jumped up, bopped you upside your head, tied you down, stapled your eyelids open and forced you to watch scientists in a lab measuring empirical data, and then a 20 hour Ken Burns documentary on the previous scientific discoveries that led the scientists to their current round of fact checking.

And as you have gotten (chronologically) older, your already tenuous grasp on reality has only slipped further away."

quite a run of blather without a verifiable fact in the bunch

just cinco being cinco

"Yet another Christian "Researcher" (David Meade) has assured us that the rapture is going to happen this Saturday (the 23rd)."

you seem to keep up with the nuts better than I

are you housed in the same institution?

"I hope I have time to get more popcorn and a good seat."

you might want to eat less and exercise more

"The sight of thousands of Christians ascending into heaven will be a sight to behold.

I'll save you a cold one.

Cinco"

name a more stupid post

I'll wait

"Do internet searches for some those statements you seem to think are "proof of irreversible brain damage.""

are you the person that thinks Statements like:

"Multiple women accuse Trump of sexual violations

Trump claims he is a victim of "the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history"

Trump elected without prior public service, political or military

Trump said his daughter, Ivanka, is a "piece of ass"

Trump said of pussy grabbing, “When you’re a star, they let you do it”

Trump immersed in multiple lawsuits for allegedly fraudulent business dealings

Trump encourages his followers to violence"

prove trump is a "white supremacist"?

or are you someone else with brain damage?

"And when you're finished be sure to report back here how many of those widely reported events are in some way proof of anyone's brain damage other than Trump's."

he's ridiculously wealthy and holds the highest office in the land

his brain seems to allow him to function fairly well

must be because he's a white supremacist, right?

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

"We are a platform lifting up these voices on those
on the margins, who have been silenced and ignored.

Our stories are complex,
but they are our stories,
and they matter.

And we believe by sharing these stories,
we will create real change in the world."

this is so sad...

clear proof of brain damage

September 18, 2017 8:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

cinco:

"Yet another Christian "Researcher" (David Meade) has assured us that the rapture is going to happen this Saturday (the 23rd)."

reality:

“Meade’s views are not endorsed by Roman Catholic, Protestant or eastern Orthodox branches of Christianity,” Fox News reported.

“Meade is a made-up leader in a made-up field, and should not be on the front page of anything.” Ed Stetzer of Christianity Today wrote.

September 18, 2017 10:25 PM  
Anonymous smackwater jack said...

The White House is holding a conference on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), with most of the action taking place on Monday. President Trump is also expected to sign a proclamation declaring this HBCU Week.

The president will "recognize the extraordinary contributions that HBCUs have made and continue to make to the general welfare and prosperity of our country," Omarosa Manigault Newman, communications director for the Office of Public Liaison, told reporters Friday.

The White House is also expected to announce a new executive director on HBCUs and to recognize outstanding students from various HBCUs as "All-Star Ambassadors," Newman said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said late last month that conference registration was at capacity. A senior administration official argued that the Initiative is a priority of the Trump administration and that "the work is critical, and timely, "

In February, Mr, Trump signed an executive order that established a White House initiative to promote excellence and innovation at these schools, which were founded at a time when predominantly white institutions of higher learning would not allow blacks to enroll.

The president's directive moved the Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the Education Department to the White House.

It directed the initiative to work with the private sector to strengthen the fiscal stability of HBCUs, make infrastructure improvements, provide job opportunities for students, collaborate with secondary schools to create a college pipeline and increase access and opportunity for federal grants and contracts.

Black college presidents are seeking billions in federal funding for infrastructure, college readiness, financial aid and other priorities. Under President Obama, historically black colleges and universities only received $4 billion over seven years.

September 18, 2017 10:58 PM  
Anonymous The omitted paragraphs and CBS source said...

Despite some calls for the White House to postpone a conference on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), the annual summit will proceed, with most of the action taking place on Monday. President Trump is also expected to sign a proclamation declaring this HBCU Week.

Some organizations had misgivings about the conference after Mr. Trump blamed "both sides" for violence between white supremacists and their opponents during clashes last month in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman was killed. But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said late last month that conference registration was at capacity and the White House had no intention of canceling.

Mr. Trump's comments on Charlottesville as well as some of his administration's proposed cuts to higher education programs that would affect HBCUs caused some organizations to call for the postponement of the summit. However, in reaction to these calls, a senior administration official argued that the Initiative is a priority of the Trump administration and that "the work is too critical, too timely, for us to postpone."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-to-host-hbcu-summit-monday/

September 19, 2017 7:06 AM  
Anonymous Outing more of the troll's fake news said...

The lying troll also changed some of the text such as:

Black college presidents are seeking billions in federal funding for infrastructure, college readiness, financial aid and other priorities. Under President Obama, historically black colleges and universities [the troll inserted the word ONLY here] received $4 billion over seven years.

September 19, 2017 7:23 AM  
Anonymous Actual news about Trump and HBCUs said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/03/16/white-house-courting-of-hbcus-ends-with-disappointing-budget/

http://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/2017/03/21/black-colleges-devastating-hit/99459404/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/trump-suggests-funds-for-black-colleges-are-unconstitutional.html

https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/education/black-college-leaders-say-trump-administration-hasnt-made-good-promises-hbcus

https://www.uncf.org/news/entry/trump-administrations-fy-2018-budget-misses-the-mark-for-hbcu-programs

September 19, 2017 7:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Despite some calls for the White House to postpone a conference on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), the annual summit will proceed, with most of the action taking place on Monday. President Trump is also expected to sign a proclamation declaring this HBCU Week.

Some organizations had misgivings about the conference after Mr. Trump blamed "both sides" for violence between white supremacists and their opponents during clashes last month in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman was killed. But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said late last month that conference registration was at capacity and the White House had no intention of canceling.

Mr. Trump's comments on Charlottesville as well as some of his administration's proposed cuts to higher education programs that would affect HBCUs caused some organizations to call for the postponement of the summit. However, in reaction to these calls, a senior administration official argued that the Initiative is a priority of the Trump administration and that "the work is too critical, too timely, for us to postpone.""

fyi, I left these paragraphs out because they are basically a mainstream media technique where they cite the opinions of only one side of a matter

while it's a fact that these objections were raised, citing them without presenting counter arguments is basically bias

I simply included unbiased facts and not reactions among the side that the media is sympathetic toward

for more, see Bernard Goldberg's brave book, "Bias"

it's more than a decade old now but still applies

"The lying troll also changed some of the text such as:

Black college presidents are seeking billions in federal funding for infrastructure, college readiness, financial aid and other priorities. Under President Obama, historically black colleges and universities [the troll inserted the word ONLY here] received $4 billion over seven years."

to say HBCU's only received 4 billion during Obama's time in office is not a lie, it's a fact

granted, it wasn't in the original text but I didn't make quote marks or cite a source so there's no deception involved

to say I lied is, well, a lie

here's my post again:

"Black college presidents are seeking billions in federal funding for infrastructure, college readiness, financial aid and other priorities. Under President Obama, historically black colleges and universities only received $4 billion over seven years."

show us all what is a lie here

September 19, 2017 10:56 AM  
Anonymous dem water torture said...

drip..drip..drip..drip..drip..drip..drip..drip.......

more on the Clinton crime syndicate emerges daily:

Something else happened the week of Hillary Clinton’s book launch: the release of more “lost” emails that further highlight her corrupt ways.

The watchdogs at Judicial Watch shared 1,600 fresh emails released thanks to their Freedom of Information lawsuits — missives that Clinton & Co. failed to turn over from her private servers, but which the feds recovered from other sources.

The emails contain new examples of the Clinton Foundation requesting and receiving State Department favors, plus more cases of classified information being sent through unsecure, non-state.gov accounts.

This latest dump shows foundation honcho Doug Band working with Clinton aide Huma Abedin to get favors for donors, from visas to Cuba to meetings in Singapore.

“It’s there in black and white. And I don’t understand why the Justice Department hasn’t gotten its act together and reinitiated an investigation as to what went on here. Because we all know Comey’s investigation was a sham. They need to restart it up.”

In her new book, Clinton pooh-poohs the furor over her emails as “an even dumber scandal.” But the pay-to-play sale of government favors is a big deal, as is the routine mishandling of classified info.

So, too, is Team Hillary’s failure to fork over hundreds of damning documents after it vacuumed the evidence from the server.

Something to ask Clinton about if you care to spring a few hundred bucks to actually talk to her on her book tour.

September 19, 2017 12:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"granted, it wasn't in the original text but I didn't make quote marks or cite a source so there's no deception involved"

You almost never cite a source and even your use of punctuation is extremely limited.

Take your justifications to your favorite right wing comment section and bask in the love you might get there.

Here you get nada.

Enjoy your dripless obsession with Hillary but you'd probably enjoy it more over at http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/ where other commenters may address and maybe even add to your conspiracy theories about her.

Meanwhile dripping about indictments from the DOJ continues:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/mueller-russia-investigation.html

http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/18/mo-mana-mo-problems-mueller-reportedly-plans-to-indict-manafort/

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/paul-manafort-government-wiretapped-fisa-russians/index.html

September 19, 2017 2:30 PM  
Anonymous all that's left is a right upper cut said...

I've discussed the evil TTF tendency to confuse and conflate speech with violence.

When this happens in a society, it's the beginning of totalitarianism.

Catherine Rampall today discusses a new study examining this danger to the freedom of Americans:

"Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants “safe spaces,” or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech.

Just ask college students. A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes “offensive and hurtful statements.”
That’s one finding from a disturbing new survey of students conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles professor.

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges."

"Many of Villasenor’s questions were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. Colleges, after all, pay a lot of lip service to “freedom of speech,” despite high-profile examples of civil-liberty-squelching on campus. The survey suggests that this might not be due to hypocrisy so much as a misunderstanding of what the First Amendment actually entails.

For example, when students were asked whether the First Amendment protects “hate speech,” 4 in 10 said no. This is, of course, incorrect. Speech promoting hatred — or at least, speech perceived as promoting hatred — may be abhorrent, but it is nonetheless constitutionally protected.

There were no statistically significant differences in response to this question based on political affiliation. But there were significant differences by gender: Women are more likely than men to believe hate speech is not constitutionally protected (49 percent vs. 38 percent, respectively).

Students were asked whether the First Amendment requires that an offensive speaker at a public university be matched with one with an opposing view. Here, 6 in 10 (mistakenly) said that, yes, the First Amendment requires balance.

The most chilling findings, however, involved how students think repugnant speech should be dealt with.

Villasenor offered a hypothetical that may sound familiar to those who recall recent fracases at California State University at Los Angeles, Middlebury College, Claremont McKenna College and other institutions:

Let’s say a public university hosts a “very controversial speaker,” one “known for making offensive and hurtful statements.” Would it be acceptable for a student group to disrupt the speech “by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker”?

Astonishingly, half said that snuffing out upsetting speech — rather than, presumably, rebutting or even ignoring it — would be appropriate. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to find this response acceptable (62 percent to 39 percent), and men were more likely than women (57 percent to 47 percent). Even so, sizable shares of all groups agreed.
It gets even worse.

Respondents were also asked if it would be acceptable for a student group to use violence to prevent that same controversial speaker from talking. Here, 19 percent said yes."

September 19, 2017 2:42 PM  
Anonymous all that's left is a right upper cut said...

"There were no statistically significant differences in response by political party affiliation. Men, however, were three times as likely as women to endorse using physical force to silence controversial views (30 percent of men vs. 10 percent of women).

None of this bodes well for the alt-right’s Berkeley Free Speech Week events next week.
Judging from the lineup — which includes professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich — the apparent goal of this event is not to help students face hard truths or grapple with thoughtful conservative viewpoints. It’s to say disgusting things in an attempt to provoke liberals into doing something stupid, surrendering any claim to the moral high ground. If that happens, President Trump’s “both sides” comments will ring a little truer, while liberals and colleges are further cemented as whataboutist bogeymen for the right.

In truth, lefties can do more to call out threats to civil liberties perpetrated by their ideological allies. And colleges can do more to promote freer debate. But many of Villasenor’s results — like those from other data sources — show that the right is also astonishingly open to shutting down speech.

What’s more, colleges alone are not to blame for these findings. Other data suggest that freshmen are arriving on campus with more intolerant attitudes toward free speech than their predecessors did, and that Americans of all ages have become strikingly hostile toward basic civil and political liberties.

Colleges provide a crucible for America’s increasingly strained attitudes toward free discourse. But they are just the canaries in the coal mine."

September 19, 2017 2:43 PM  
Anonymous word to the certifiably insane said...

"You almost never cite a source and even your use of punctuation is extremely limited."

it's not a college mid-term, it's a blog

"Take your justifications to your favorite right wing comment section and bask in the love you might get there.

Here you get nada."

oh, unlike TTFers, I'm not seeking to hear everyone tell me how right I am

no one has an obligation to make the left's propaganda case for them

I'll continue to pull facts from media sources without repeating their spin

it's called critical thinking

you should try it

ask your therapist for details

September 19, 2017 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

AP reports: Still no charity money from leftover Trump inaugural funds

September 19, 2017 2:56 PM  
Anonymous TTF wants to start up the Civil War again said...

Mostly lost in the general hysteria surrounding President Trump’s post-Charlottesville press conference a month ago was an excellent question he posed. Regarding the growing demand nationwide to tear down monuments to the Confederate States of America, he asked: “I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

His remarks were characterized by historians as “absurd” and “unacceptable” and “ignorant” and dismissed as a “red herring.” At The Daily Beast, John Avlon called Trump’s comparison “immoral” and “dangerous.” At Slate, Jamelle Bouie claimed Trump’s question was “dumb,” arguing that statues of Washington and Jefferson were safe because “the reason we memorialize them is not because of their slaveholding.”

Well. Earlier this week around 100 “students, faculty and community members” gathered at of the University of Virginia and “covered a statue of Thomas Jefferson in a black shroud…adorning it with signs that dubbed the former president a ‘racist’ and ‘rapist.’” The protesters derided the statue as “an emblem of white supremacy,” and demanded that it be “re-contextualized,” lambasting the people who “fetishize the legacy of Jefferson,” calling on the community to “recognize Jefferson as a rapist, racist, and slave owner.”

Where does it stop? It is perhaps asking a bit much of our progressive friends to reflect on their slapdash dismissal of President Trump’s reasonable question. It was a month ago, after all, and there have been plenty of fresh outrages to geek out over since then. Just the same: where does it stop? That is not an unfair question; in fact it is a presciently vital one.

Four weeks ago everyone knew that Trump’s simple and logical question was “dumb.” This week a bunch of protesters, among them faculty on the payroll of the institution they were tacitly vandalizing, wound a statue of Jefferson in a makeshift burial shroud and—what was the term again?—“memorialized him for his slaveholding.”

Where does it stop? Not here, obviously. The mob at UVA did not issue a demand to tear down the statues of Jefferson. But they surely will, probably sooner rather than later. And why shouldn’t they? It has worked in countless other cities and on numerous other campuses. Stockton University recently removed a bust of its namesake founder due to his slaveholding past, while earlier this year Pepperdine University tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus because the statue was, allegedly “a celebration of genocide and racial oppression.”

The University of Virginia tends to regard itself with a bit more esteem than your average public university, so it may hold out longer than other colleges. But for how long? UVA president Theresa Sullivan, for one, issued an almost too-tepid-to-be-true response to the vandalism, claiming she “strongly disagrees with the protestors’ decision to cover the Jefferson statue,” but conceding: “That there is…activism at UVA should not be a surprise to any of us.”

This is not the voice of a confident administrator, and if I were a betting man, I would place a small but not insubstantial amount of money on protestors getting the statue down at some point. When you start hanging signs on a monument that read “rapist” and “racist,” it’s only a matter of time before you start calling for the monument itself to go.

All of which is to say that Trump was right to ask his question, and his critics—histrionic, hysterical, unwilling to acknowledge just how unhinged activist progressivism has become in twenty-first-century America—were wrong. Of course they’re going to come for the other statues; that was a given. Whether they succeed in tearing them down depends on the resolve and the integrity of the people who are in charge of such decisions. “Where does it stop?” We’ll surely find out soon enough, one way or the other.

September 19, 2017 2:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hogan slams Senate GOP plan to replace Obamacare: ‘Not a solution that works for Maryland’

"Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday announced his opposition to Senate Republicans’ latest effort to undo the Affordable Care Act.

He said the legislation — being written by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and known as the Graham-Cassidy bill — would cost Maryland too much money and put residents’ health care at risk.

“Unfortunately, the Graham-Cassidy bill is not a solution that works for Maryland,” Hogan said in a statement. “It will cost our state over $2 billion annually while directly jeopardizing the health care of our citizens.”

Hogan’s rejection of the plan is in keeping with his previous opposition to this summer’s failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which passed the House but died in the Senate.

“We need common-sense, bipartisan solutions that will stabilize markets and actually expand affordable coverage,” the statement said. “It is time for Republicans and Democrats to come together, fix what is so clearly broken, and finally get something done for the American people.”

Hogan spoke out on the same day that 10 other governors from both parties, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) of Virginia, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) rejecting the plan GOP leaders have embraced.

“As I have said from the start, the Affordable Care Act needs to be fixed,” Hogan said. “I will support any solution — no matter which side of the aisle it comes from — that helps us reach this outcome.”

Hogan’s stance puts him in line with the majority of the Maryland congressional delegation who are Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D), who will participate Tuesday night in a forum to discuss Medicaid in Silver Spring.

September 19, 2017 4:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

President Trump delivered a speech to his alt-right, anti-globalist base from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. He offered a vision of America’s role in the world starkly different from any of his predecessors who stood in the same spot before the leaders of the world. In the end, Trump offered up remarks that were antithetical to the ideas and ideals that led the United States to play a central role in the U.N.’s founding in the wake of World War II.

Trump spoke frequently about “sovereignty” in his remarks, so frequently that it might be argued that it was the central theme of his speech. “We do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation,” he said. National sovereignty, of course, has been perhaps the foundational tenet of international affairs for centuries. But Trump’s words were code. They spoke to the fears of the Breitbart crowd that U.S. collaboration with other nations in a global organization means giving up its sovereignty to foreigners.

Trump also lashed out at “global bureaucracies” and international trade accords. While he said that the U.N., after almost three-quarters of a century, showed some promise, he complained the United States was spending too much on it (“We pay far more than anybody realizes. The United States bears an unfair cost burden,” he said). This attack on the U.N. comes in conjunction with his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his goal of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, his threats to undo the U.S.-South Korea trade deal and the Iran nuclear deal, as well as his criticism of our NATO allies and alliances.

Overall, Trump’s speech to the United Nations reinforces his position as the most nationalist U.S. president of modern history.

Trump offered an ideology that he called “realistic” but at its heart was essentially selfish. All foreign policy is guided by national interests. That is as fundamental as the respect for sovereignty. But while Trump praised some U.N. programs, time and time again they seemed clearly grounded in a philosophy of “what’s in it for us” that seemed to set aside the values of community and common interests on which the U.N. was founded. This was perhaps best illustrated by the case he made against what he called “uncontrolled migration” and his arguments that the best place for refugees is, in his view, as far from the United States as possible.

Beyond pragmatism, the speech will likely be remembered as one in which the president of the United States sounded more like a mob boss than a statesman—think Robert DeNiro as Al Capone in “The Untouchables” minus the baseball bat. This was a tough guy flexing his muscles so that all in the audience could see how tough he was.

His harshest language was reserved for North Korea. Outlining the threat it poses, he then went on to say that if it did not “de-nuclearize,” “We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission.”

These are clearly words never, ever to be engraved in marble. The president of the United States chose, in a forum dedicated to diplomacy, to threaten to wipe another nation — a much smaller one — off the face of the earth in language that was not so much hard-line rhetoric as it was schoolboy bullying complete with childish name-calling...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/09/19/trumps-first-speech-to-the-united-nations-was-a-disastrous-nationalistic-flop/

September 19, 2017 4:42 PM  
Anonymous Trump's lawyer violated the Senate rule said...

Trump’s former lawyer to testify in public next month in Senate’s Russia probe

The Senate Intelligence Committee has invited Michael Cohen, a close associate of President Trump and former lawyer for his business, for a public hearing next month, after abruptly cancelling a Tuesday session with him behind closed doors.

A lawyer for Cohen said that he has agreed to appear at the Oct. 25 hearing, which is part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

The public hearing came together just hours after committee investigators dismissed Cohen from a private interview Tuesday morning. Cohen had arrived for the interview with his attorney, Steve Ryan, but left after about an hour, informing reporters waiting outside that committee staff had suddenly informed him they did not wish the interview to go forward...

...In a joint statement, committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and ranking Democrat Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.) said the session was canceled because Cohen made public statements before his interview.

“We were disappointed that Mr. Cohen decided to pre-empt today’s interview by releasing a public statement prior to his engagement with Committee staff, in spite of the Committee’s requests that he refrain from public comment,” they said.

“As a result, we declined to move forward with today’s interview and will reschedule Mr. Cohen’s appearance before the Committee in open session at a date in the near future. The Committee expects witnesses in this investigation to work in good faith with the Senate.”

Cohen is not the only witness to appear before the committee who publicly released a statement ahead of the meeting — Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner did the same before he huddled with committee investigators several weeks ago.

But Burr said the committee changed its policy after the Kushner meeting, re-working its agreements with other witnesses. Cohen’s experience, he said, should be a warning to those who might try to spin the public before they are done speaking with investigators.

“This is the model we’ll follow,” Burr said, speaking of the decision to postpone Cohen’s session and insist on a public hearing. “We don’t expect individuals who come behind closed doors to publicly go out and tell --”

“Their side of the story only,” Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said, finishing Burr’s sentence....

September 19, 2017 6:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kris Kobach Defends Using A Private Email For Government Business
The Kansas secretary of state and vice chair of Trump’s voter fraud commission said using his government account would be a “waste of state resources.”

September 19, 2017 6:27 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

"I've discussed the evil TTF tendency to confuse and conflate speech with violence.

When this happens in a society, it's the beginning of totalitarianism."

Everyone who has an opinion that isn't to the right of Barry Goldwater is "evil" and leading us down a path of inevitable communism, fascism, and /or totalitarianism.

We had eight years of Obama and that didn't even come close to happening.

Letting gays get married didn't lead to the collapse of marriage, or even the US.

Protecting trans people from getting fired for being trans in Montgomery County didn't lead to a rash of rapes in locker rooms and restrooms by men dressing up as women and pretending to be trans.

It's ashame there isn't some kind of pill you can take for delusional histrionics. I'd by stock in whatever company manufactured it while they made a furtune selling it to right-wing blowhards.

Civilizations aren't going to collapse because there are some left-leaning posters on the TTF blog.

And you're not saving the world from evil, dastardly liberals Don Quixote. You're just not that important or persuasive.

Get a grip.

Cynthia

September 19, 2017 10:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Everyone who has an opinion that isn't to the right of Barry Goldwater is "evil" and leading us down a path of inevitable communism, fascism, and /or totalitarianism."

actually, most had opinions that differed from Goldwater since the early sixties

only in the last ten years has totalitarianism risen

it started from the frustration of academia, whose ideas were increasingly becoming exposed as flawed

their response was to try and shut down any opposing thought, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

btw, Goldwater was a strong supporter of gay "rights"

surprised you don't appreciate that

"We had eight years of Obama and that didn't even come close to happening."

really?

you mean when the attorney general was considering prosecuting those who didn't agree with global warming theory, and laws that would require dismissing teachers who didn't support the gay agenda, and Obama wanting to prosecute anyone in the health industry who dissented from Obamacare, and jailing Dinesh D'souza for making a documentary about Obama's origins, or Dems wanting to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United, a case about a film critical of Hillary Clinton, or the Obama plan to forcibly integrate American neighborhoods, or Bernie supporters violently attacking Trump rallies, or states that close down businesses that won't participate in gay "marriages" or et al?

oh yeah, the Obama era might as well be called the golden age of free speech

"Letting gays get married didn't lead to the collapse of marriage, or even the US."

hasn't been that long, but most think the US is headed in the wrong direction

read the polls before you say stupid things

"Protecting trans people from getting fired for being trans in Montgomery County didn't lead to a rash of rapes in locker rooms and restrooms by men dressing up as women and pretending to be trans."

no one said it would

however, special rights for transgenders diminished the freedom of normal people

"It's ashame there isn't some kind of pill you can take for delusional histrionics. I'd by stock in whatever company manufactured it while they made a furtune selling it to right-wing blowhards."

please excuse the spelling, folks

some people just have challenges, you know, intellectually

it's a gay thing

"Civilizations aren't going to collapse because there are some left-leaning posters on the TTF blog."

TTF?

violence in response to disagreeable speech will lead to societal collapse

but TTF doesn't lead it

they just follow the pack, sniffing the ass of the lead dogs of liberalism

"And you're not saving the world from evil, dastardly liberals Don Quixote. You're just not that important or persuasive."

no, I never will

but I've named it and the evil here now has no excuse

"Get a grip."

keep your sick fantasies to yourself

"Cynthia"

fake news, cinco wrote this

September 19, 2017 11:48 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

"no one said it would"

And your memory must be failing too, "libertarain."

You know the BS you said before is still here in the archives, right?


"read the polls before you say stupid things"

If that had ever helped you, there is no evidence of it.


"but I've named it and the evil here now has no excuse"

No anon. The other people here aren't evil. I don't know if your parents brainwashed you with that kind of thinking, or if you came to it all by yourself.

But I'm going to give you a few free clues:

We are not living in the 17th century any more.

Vampires aren't real, and all the garlic is just going to give you bad breath.


Keep blowing everything WAY out of proportion. Some unstable right wing personalities have made some good money off of it. But I don't think you're creative or intelligent enough to actually turn your blog post bullying into a profitable venture.

Alex Jones sells his stuff to other low IQ right wingers with all that "sky is falling" BS day after day. You would think that after YEARS of the sky not actually falling, some of you right wingers would start to catch on, but that doesn't seem to happen.

Remember when Bush brought us to the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression? Hank Paulson then essentially took over the country's biggest banks and forced them to take over a bunch of bad banks and insurance businesses. Bush and Congress then went on to pay off the huge mistakes that rich people made gambling in reality derivatives with US taxpayer money.

Now THAT is SOCIALISM.

Cynthia



September 20, 2017 12:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

""Protecting trans people from getting fired for being trans in Montgomery County didn't lead to a rash of rapes in locker rooms and restrooms by men dressing up as women and pretending to be trans."

'no one said it would'

You know the BS you said before is still here in the archives, right?"


Yes it's all in the archives, even the time Theresa Rickman just happened to be at Rio Sport and Health Club in Gaithersburg when a fake trans woman showed up there trying to make the very point that men would be out in ladies rooms raping our womenfolk after "dressing up as women and pretending to be trans."

Read all about it here.

http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2008/01/activist-was-in-lobby-at-time.html

September 20, 2017 7:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

CRWhatever -- a leader in FAKE NEWS.

September 20, 2017 7:22 AM  
Anonymous Fake News brought to you by Republican Governors emulating Russian bots said...

Associated Press reports:

GOP governors launch ‘news’ site critics call propaganda

"ATLANTA (AP) — Republican governors are getting into the “news” business.

The Republican Governors Association has quietly launched an online publication that looks like a media outlet and is branded as such on social media. The Free Telegraph blares headlines about the virtues of GOP governors, while framing Democrats negatively. It asks readers to sign up for breaking news alerts. It launched in the summer bearing no acknowledgement that it was a product of an official party committee whose sole purpose is to get more Republicans elected.

Only after The Associated Press inquired about the site last week was a disclosure added to The Free Telegraph’s pages identifying the publication’s partisan source.

The governors association describes the website as routine political communication. Critics, including some Republicans, say it pushes the limits of honest campaign tactics in an era of increasingly partisan media and a proliferation of “fake news” sites, including those whose material became part of an apparent Russian propaganda effort during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“It’s propaganda for sure, even if they have objective standards and all the reporting is 100 percent accurate,” said Republican communications veteran Rick Tyler, whose resume includes Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The website was registered July 7 through Domains By Proxy, a company that allows the originators of a website to shield their identities. An AP search did not find any corporate, Federal Election Commission or IRS filings establishing The Free Telegraph as an independent entity.

As of early Monday afternoon, The Free Telegraph’s Twitter account and Facebook page still had no obvious identifiers tying the site to RGA. The site described itself on Twitter as “bringing you the political news that matters outside of Washington.” The Facebook account labeled The Free Telegraph a “Media/News Company.” That’s a contrast to the RGA’s Facebook page, which is clearly disclosed as belonging to a “Political Organization,” as is the account of its counterpart, the Democratic Governors Association.

RGA Chairman Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, deferred questions through a spokesman to the group’s national staff. At RGA, spokesman Jon Thompson said the site is “just another outlet to share those positive results” of the GOP’s 34 Republican governors.

It’s not unprecedented for politicians to try their hand at news distribution. President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, hosted “real news” video segments in the summer, posted to the president’s Facebook page. In one typical segment she told viewers she wanted to highlight “all the accomplishments the president had this week because there’s so much fake news out there.”

Vice President Mike Pence, when he was Indiana governor, pitched the idea of a news agency run by state government, but he ditched the idea in 2015 after criticism. In both cases, however, Lara Trump and Pence were not aiming to hide the source of the content..."

September 20, 2017 7:37 AM  
Anonymous Fake News brought to you by Republican Governors emulating Russian bots, continued said...

"...But the RGA site has Democrats, media analysts and even some Republicans crying foul.

Democrats say Republicans are laying the groundwork with headlines that will appear in future digital and television ads, while also providing individual voters with fodder to distribute across social media.

“They’re just seeding the ground,” said Angelo Carusone, who runs Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group. “They are repackaging their opposition research so it’s there as ‘news,’ and at any moment that publication could become the defining moment of the narrative” in some state’s campaign for governor.

Political communications expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied political advertising for four decades, said The Free Telegraph commits a form of “identity theft” by “appropriating the integrity of news” because “the form of news carries credibility” that blatantly partisan sites do not.

Jamieson was particularly critical of RGA’s initial failure to disclosure its involvement. “What we know about audiences is they factor in the source of information when judging that information,” she said. “If you are denying the reader, the listener or the viewer information you know the reader uses, the question is why do you feel the need to do this?”

A recent RGA fundraising email said the site was “fact-checking the liberal media” and is a counter to “decades of demonizing Republicans.” Playing off President Donald Trump’s dismissal of “fake news,” the email said media “can say whatever they like about us — whether it’s true or not.”

Some of The Free Telegraph’s content plays off of material from traditional media organizations and from right-leaning outlets such as The Daily Caller. RGA press releases are linked. Some headlines and photos are exact duplicates of RGA press releases.

In the days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and Louisiana, the site included headlines praising Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, for his response. There were no such headlines for Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat.

The content is far tamer than from some sites from that popped up during the 2016 presidential campaign to propagate sensational but baseless stories. But it does create a cache of headlines that could turn up in campaigns.

The first test is in this fall’s Virginia governor’s race pitting Democratic nominee Ralph Northam against Republican Ed Gillespie. Virginians already have seen another site, The Republican Standard, that is run by Virginia Republican operatives with ties to Gillespie, a former state and national party chairman, and to a firm that has been paid by the RGA. The Free Telegraph and its social media accounts frequently link The Republican Standard.

Northam campaign spokesman David Turner accused Gillespie and Republicans of “creating their own Pravda,” a nod to the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The Gillespie campaign declined comment, referring questions back to the RGA."

September 20, 2017 7:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is amazing: you mean when the attorney general was considering prosecuting those who didn't agree with global warming theory, and laws that would require dismissing teachers who didn't support the gay agenda, and Obama wanting to prosecute anyone in the health industry who dissented from Obamacare, and jailing Dinesh D'souza for making a documentary about Obama's origins, or Dems wanting to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United, a case about a film critical of Hillary Clinton, or the Obama plan to forcibly integrate American neighborhoods, or Bernie supporters violently attacking Trump rallies, or states that close down businesses that won't participate in gay "marriages" or et al?

September 20, 2017 7:51 AM  
Anonymous Think Progress said...

Last week, a couple right-leaning news publications published headlines suggesting that the Democratic Party wants to prosecute individual people who disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change.

This is not true, and the stories themselves don’t suggest it. But the headlines are conspicuously misleading. “Dem Party Platform Calls For Prosecuting Global Warming Skeptics,” screamed one headline from The Daily Caller. Townhall’s headline read nearly the same. The Washington Times went with “Democrats force Clinton’s hand on prosecution of climate skeptics.”

These stories are referring to the Democratic Party’s policy platform for 2016, a draft of which was released on Friday. The platform serves as the party’s guiding principles, laying out what modern Democrats should support, oppose, and wish to accomplish.

One of those principles in this year’s Democratic platform is support for Department of Justice investigations into public companies that have been accused of committing corporate fraud — specifically by lying to their shareholders about the state of climate science in order to turn a better profit.

This is the exact language in the platform:

"All corporations owe it to their shareholders to fully analyze and disclose the risks they face, including climate risk. Those who fail to do so should be held accountable. Democrats also respectfully request the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies accused of misleading shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change."


Clearly, this is much more nuanced than “prosecuting climate deniers.”


September 20, 2017 9:39 AM  
Anonymous Think Progress said...

To understand what the Democrats are asking for, one must understand where the idea originated. Last year, InsideClimate News published a series of investigations suggesting that the oil giant ExxonMobil lied to its investors and the public about what it knew about climate change, how much it was contributing to climate change, and how climate change might impact the future of its product.

InsideClimate’s investigation — named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service — found that Exxon conducted research as far back as 1977 affirming that climate change is caused by carbon emissions from fossil fuels. At the same time, InsideClimate found, Exxon made public statements downplaying the risk and reality of the phenomenon. Despite knowing that its product caused harmful climate change, the oil giant also gave millions of dollars to politicians and organizations that promote climate science denial, and spent millions more lobbying to prevent regulations to limit carbon emissions.

Exxon is a publicly traded corporation, and it is subject to securities, racketeering, and consumer protection laws, among other things. In a nutshell, a lot of those laws say public companies must be honest with their investors. If you own a dairy company, for example, it’s illegal for you to say you have 1,000 cows if you know you only have 500 cows. If you own a fossil fuel company, it’s illegal for you to say climate change isn’t happening and won’t impact your product if you know climate change is happening and it will impact your product.

Seventeen attorneys general are currently accusing ExxonMobil of just that. New York’s attorney general is also looking into the coal company Peabody Energy for similar reasons. And for what it’s worth, Exxon is pushing back — the company has launched counter-lawsuits against two attorneys general, accusing them of using the investigation for political purposes by “targeting the speech of political opponents.” Exxon claims the investigations violate their First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Either way, this is what Democrats are calling for in their platform: Department of Justice investigations into companies that have been accused of lying to their shareholders about climate change. Not prosecution of individual people for being wrong about science. This is not about what you, an individual, think about climate change. This is about public companies potentially engaging in cover-ups to lie to the people who give them money. Unless you’re in charge of a public company and you’ve been accused of lying to your investors about what you know about climate change in order to make money, you’re not going to get investigated — much less prosecuted — by the Department of Justice. You should be safe from the Democrats for now.

September 20, 2017 9:43 AM  
Anonymous Washington Post said...

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Dinesh D’Souza to five years of probation, including eight months in a community confinement center, ordering no jail time for the conservative author and pundit who pleaded guilty to using straw donors to make an illegal campaign contribution.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman handed down the sentence, which also includes a $30,000 fine. D'Souza must attend weekly therapeutic counseling sessions and perform community service, the judge said.

The sentence is more lenient than the prison time sought by prosecutors.

D’Souza pleaded guilty in May to violating campaign finance laws. Prosecutors said he had other individuals donate money to Republican Wendy Long, a Republican challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in 2012, under the agreement that he would reimburse them for the donations.

September 20, 2017 9:55 AM  
Anonymous Corporations aren't people said...

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AJR 22, as amended, Wieckowski. Campaign finance reform.
This measure would memorialize the Legislature's disagreement with
the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United
v. Federal Election Commission, and would call upon the United States
Congress to propose and send to the states for ratification a
constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission and to restore constitutional rights and fair
elections to the people.
Fiscal committee: no.


WHEREAS, The protections afforded by the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution to the people of our nation are
fundamental to our democracy; and
WHEREAS, The First Amendment to the United States Constitution was
designed to protect the free speech rights of people, not
corporations; and
WHEREAS, Corporations are not people but, instead, are entities
created by the laws of states and nations; and
WHEREAS, For the past three decades, a divided United States
Supreme Court has transformed the First Amendment into a powerful
tool for corporations seeking to evade and invalidate democratically
enacted reforms; and
WHEREAS, This corporate misuse of the First Amendment and the
United States Constitution reached an extreme conclusion in the
United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission (2010) 130 S.Ct. 876; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission overturned longstanding
precedent prohibiting corporations from spending their general
treasury funds in our elections; and
WHEREAS, The opinion of the four dissenting justices in Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission noted that corporations have
special advantages not enjoyed by natural persons, such as limited
liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the
accumulation and distribution of assets, that allow them to spend
prodigious sums on campaign messages that have little or no
correlation with the beliefs held by natural persons; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission will now unleash a torrent of
corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign
expenditure totals in United States history; and

September 20, 2017 10:13 AM  
Anonymous Corporations aren't people said...

WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission purports
to invalidate state laws and state constitutional provisions
separating corporate money from elections; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission represents a serious and direct
threat to our democracy; and
WHEREAS, The general public and political leaders in the United
States have recognized, since the founding of our country, that the
interests of corporations do not always correspond with the public
interest and that, and, therefore, the
political influence of corporations should be limited; and
WHEREAS, In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I hope we shall ...
crush in its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which
dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and
bid defiance to the laws of our country"; and
WHEREAS, Article V of the United States Constitution empowers and
obligates the people and states of the United States of America to
use the constitutional amendment process to correct those egregiously
wrong decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the
heart of our democracy and republican form of self-government; and
WHEREAS, Notwithstanding the decision in Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission, legislators have a duty to protect
democracy and guard against the potentially detrimental effects of
corporate spending in local, state, and federal elections; now,
therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature of the State of California
respectfully disagrees with the majority opinion and decision of the
United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of California calls
upon the United States Congress to propose and send to the states for
ratification a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United
v. Federal Election Commission and to restore constitutional rights
and fair elections to the people; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Minority
Leader of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the
United States Senate, the Minority Leader of the United States
Senate, and to each Senator and Representative from California in the
Congress of the United States.

September 20, 2017 10:15 AM  
Anonymous Another GOPer endorses violence said...

S.D. GOP whip loses job, speaking event over controversial meme

"...Lynne Hix-DiSanto
September 7 at 4:27 pm

I think this is a movement we can all support *alllivessplatter

The image she uploaded in a public Facebook post said, "All lives splatter. Nobody cares about your protests. Keep your ass out of the road."..."

September 20, 2017 11:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

who claims to be svelte sneered:

"Protecting trans people from getting fired for being trans in Montgomery County didn't lead to a rash of rapes in locker rooms and restrooms by men dressing up as women and pretending to be trans."

the most brilliant of anons sagely responded:

"no one said it would"

who claims to be svelte sneered again:

"And your memory must be failing too, "libertarain."

You know the BS you said before is still here in the archives, right?"

yes, claimant, and you will never find me claiming that protecting trans people from getting fired for being trans in Montgomery County would lead to a rash of rapes in locker rooms and restrooms

unfortunately, as reluctant as I am to do so, I must say that you are a liar

the most brilliant of anons sagely advised who claims to be svelte:

"read the polls before you say stupid things"

who claims to be svelte ungratefully sneered:

"If that had ever helped you, there is no evidence of it."

claimant, you said that our civilization didn't fall apart as predicted when gay "marriage" was declared a "right" by the SCOTUS

and yet that is what seems to be happening

polls shows only about 10% of Americans believe we are on the right track

the three largest vote-getters in our most recent elections were:

1. a crass and narcissistic reality TV star with no political experience

2. a enabling good wife of a sexual predator who had experience with several high offices as a result of her enabling and corruptly used them to become a millionaire, trading influence for donations to her Foundation

3. a elderly socialist with such close ties to the USSR that he honeymooned in Moscow during the height of the cold war

that, and more, would indicate that things aren't going that well since the nation embraced gay "marriage"

who claims to be svelte sneered:

"Keep blowing everything WAY out of proportion."

you mean like saying Trump is a Russian spy because his attorney general ran into the Russian ambassador at a cocktail party and saying he's a white supremacist because he doesn't favor blowing up Mt Rushmore?

"Remember when Bush brought us to the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression?"

no, I remember when Barney Frank took over a congressional committee and bullied banks into making bad loans loans to people who couldn't pay them back and then Dems undermining the confidence of the markets because the resulting crash happened a couple of weeks before the election

"Hank Paulson then essentially took over the country's biggest banks and forced them to take over a bunch of bad banks and insurance businesses. Bush and Congress then went on to pay off the huge mistakes that rich people made gambling in reality derivatives with US taxpayer money."

sounds a lot like what Obama did

"Now THAT is SOCIALISM."

name a more socialist President than Obama

I'll wait

September 20, 2017 1:52 PM  
Anonymous more on the dictator Obama's attempt to undermine democracy said...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign memoir rests on an astonishingly audacious lie: that the very FBI director who made her campaign possible by improperly sparing her from an indictment doomed it. A normal pol who had mishandled classified information as egregiously as Hillary would have felt eternal gratitude to Comey. Only an entitled ingrate like Hillary would have the gall to cast her savior as the chief thorn in her side.

Nor does Hillary acknowledge another in-kind contribution to her campaign from Comey: his willingness to serve as a cog in Obama’s campaign of political espionage against Trump. Obama’s team of Hillary partisans, which included among others John Brennan, Susan Rice, and Loretta Lynch, wanted Comey to snoop on Trumpworld and he duly did.

It was reported this week that the FBI had until as recently as earlier this year been intercepting the communications of Paul Manafort, one of Trump’s campaign chairmen. This means that Comey, contrary to his lawyerly denial of Trump’s wiretapping claim, had the means to eavesdrop on any communications between Manafort and Trump.

Even at this late date, quibbling partisans in the media say that is insufficient proof of Trump’s claim. But could anyone imagine the Maggie Habermans bothering with such pedantry if George Bush’s FBI director had been snooping on David Axelrod? The same generation of reporters who watched All the President’s Men breathlessly now shill for the propriety of political espionage. They rush to offer what they consider high-minded reasons for wiretaps of Trump campaign officials. But those reasons, at least as this point, amount to nothing more than the haziest gossip. One of the supposed reasons for the wiretaps, rich in irony given Hillary’s complaint that foreigners interfered in the election, is that an ex-Brit spy, probably on Comey’s payroll (the FBI still won’t address this matter) and certainly on the payroll of pro-Hillary partisans, told U.S. government officials that Manafort was colluding with the Russians.

Here Hillary benefited from the election-tipping of a foreigner, whose idiotic whisperings entertained by the FBI would turn up on the front pages of the New York Times at crucial moments in the campaign. This, by the way, throws light on another outrageously dishonest Hillary claim: that Comey never told anyone of his investigation into the Trump campaign. Of course, he did — through leaks. That was bad enough but Comey made the leaks worse by not telling reporters that the investigation into the Trump campaign excluded Trump as a target. Comey let reporters think that Trump was one. Again, no gratitude from Hillary.

September 20, 2017 2:08 PM  
Anonymous more on the dictator Obama's attempt to undermine democracy said...

Another recent revelation is that Susan Rice, one of Hillary’s most fervent supporters, spied on a post-election meeting between a prince from the United Arab Emirates and Trump aides. The media shrugged at the revelation, as if such snooping falls within the bounds of a blameless norm. An even slightly curious press, were it not in the tank for the Dems, would be agog at the news that one administration was spying on an incoming administration and demand an accounting of such an abuse of power. Had the George Bush administration, out of post-election spite, spied on pre-inauguration meetings between Obama’s people and officials from a Middle Eastern country, the press would still be talking about it as a historic abuse of power. But in Rice’s case, they hastily inform their audience that “such unmaskings are perfectly legal.”

The media’s customary double standard for Democrats, combined with its treatment of Trump as a singularly monstrous Republican candidate (and then incoming president), served as a safety net beneath such high-wire political espionage. Rice knew that even if she fell in her attempt to nail Trump the media would catch her.

The scandal at the center of the 2016 election was not that Trump colluded with Russians to win but that the media and the Obama administration colluded with Hillary to defeat him. The loudest cries of “foreign influence over the election” came from Hillary partisans who sought it, whether it was John Brennan running off to England and Estonia to collect dirt on Trump from their spies or deep-state clowns at the FBI who wanted to turn Christopher Steele into an asset. The villain, in this sorry fable, turned out to be the victim.

September 20, 2017 2:08 PM  
Anonymous progress report said...

Eight months of President Trump is one-sixth of his term. By analogy, he is standing on the fourth tee of his first round. His score is one over, largely because of penalty strokes for the flubbed response to Charlottesville and some out-of-bounds tweets (offset in part by superb federal responses thus far to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma). What have he and his team accomplished? Any golfer knows it’s far too early to guess at the final score, but we can identify the actions and words that will define the first eight months and endure as notable.

The president has delivered three significant speeches: his “American carnage” inaugural address, his speech to the assembled leaders of Sunni countries wherein he demanded that they demand of their religious authorities the preaching of a message that the terrorists would find their souls eternally damned, and his “West is best” speech in Poland. All were significant for the bluntness of messages that resonated with large parts of America that believe the president said things that needed saying, and which President Barack Obama refused to say at all and President George W. Bush said only in diluted form.

He has appointed Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, thereby guaranteeing at least for a time the continuation and perhaps strengthening of “structural federalism,” the robust defense of the First Amendment, and a generally hands-off policy on election law and redistricting. The balance is delicate, and if Justice Anthony M. Kennedy retires next year and is replaced by another Gorsuch, it will likely be preserved for a decade or more. If more than one vacancy occurs and the president keeps to his word (and his record on judicial nominations — his appointments to the circuit courts have been slow in coming but steady in their originalism), Trump’s most enduring legacy will be his mark on the courts.

These nominations, by the way, are the real deal-breaker with conservatives, not the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Obamacare repeal or anything else. Many things are important to them, but the Constitution is No. 1 and national security No. 2. Breaking faith with the president’s GOP coalition partners on the courts would shatter conservative support for the Trump administration. There is no sign that the president does not grasp this fundamental truth. Media reports of poisonous relations between Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seem almost absurdly comic in their hyperbole, as do predictions of doom from the base because of a “deal” on DACA. The Trump-congressional GOP coalition government gets along well enough.

September 20, 2017 2:23 PM  
Anonymous progress report said...

On national security, Trump has assembled a team of exceptional competence, and the Trump coalition is happy with most of what that team has done, from the cruise missiles into Syria to the explicit embrace of Israel as one of our closest allies. That said, the budget increase for defense is good but not great, and Trump has failed to provide a plan to reach a 350-ship Navy, which could haunt him in 2020 if a Democrat flogs him for this failure.

Colorado appeals court judge Neil M. Gorsuch took his oaths to be the Supreme Court’s 113th justice April 10, first in a private ceremony at the court and later at a Rose Garden ceremony with President Trump.

His regulatory rollbacks are proceeding. He and the GOP-led Congress used the Congressional Review Act to rescind 14 Obama-era rules. Key figures including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and many others are pursuing ambitious and much-needed rollback agendas. The progress on regulatory reform here is huge and enduring, and the media doesn’t appreciate how much it is welcomed across the country.

Oh, and Congress provided the president with plenty of money for repairs of border barriers, more than enough for border-security enthusiasts. A deal on DACA that mandates the use of E-Verify and ends chain migration in favor of admission based on skills preferences will be another accomplishment, as will be any sort of tax cut to the corporate rate. Hand-wringing by hard-liners on immigration is just media-fueled amplification of the extreme edge of the GOP.

All in all, a pretty good eight months. Not perfect by any means, but a bag of big wins and mostly progress on many fronts. We await special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s conclusions, but as long as no indictments include the president or his family (and so far that looks to be the case), it will not trouble the president or his base. Keep the conservative judges coming, and the Trump coalition will hold. Get to 350 ships, and it will prosper.

September 20, 2017 2:23 PM  
Anonymous stiff competition said...

"btw, Goldwater was a strong supporter of gay "rights"

surprised you don't appreciate that"

it's funny

if Goldwater had defeated LBJ, he, not Trump, would be considered the most gay-friendly President, like, ever

September 20, 2017 2:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“This" is far from amazing, it's schlock.

"you mean when the attorney general was considering prosecuting those who didn't agree with global warming theory"

Name a single person who got prosecuted in the USA for not agreeing “with global warming theory," the law that was cited by the prosecution, and which US court conducted this prosecution.

"laws that would require dismissing teachers who didn't support the gay agenda"

Show us the text of such a law in any state in the USA.

"Obama wanting to prosecute anyone in the health industry who dissented from Obamacare”

Name any person Obama prosecuted for dissenting from Obamacare.

"jailing Dinesh D'souza for making a documentary about Obama's origins”

Show us which jail D'Souza served in and the judge's decision covering D’Souza’s video about Trump's birther BS when in fact D'Souza got no jail time but instead was given five years of probation for his campaign finance violation, to which D'Souza pled guilty.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/09/23/dinesh-dsouza-avoids-jail-time-get-five-years-of-probation-for-campaign-finance-violation/

"Dems wanting to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United"

Show us where the Framers wrote "corporation = citizen" in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights or any other Amendment to the Constitution you said Dems are "wanting to amend."

"the Obama plan to forcibly integrate American neighborhoods"

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2015/06/11/there-goes-the-neighborhood-right-wing-media-re/203976

"Bernie supporters violently attacking Trump rallies, or states that close down businesses that won't participate in gay "marriages" or et al”

Everybody knows it was Trump who offered to pay the legal expenses of his supporters who would violently attack protestors as his rallies, not Bernie.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3HUVIZQc-Q” >Donald Trump - 'Knock the Crap Out Of Them, I Will Pay For The Legal Fees’</a>

September 20, 2017 3:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the fact that the Obama-ites didn't get away with what they wanted to do is meaningless

Obama got away with things Nixon had to be pardoned for

why?

the media liked him

September 20, 2017 3:31 PM  
Anonymous progress report said...

President Trump’s approval ratings dipped to some historic lows over the summer, but, based on recent inquiries conducted by various opinion pollsters, his numbers show significant signs of improvement.

Results from the most recent Politico/Morning Consult survey put the president at 43 percent approval, up from the 39 percent he earned following his handling of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A Marist College poll last week has the president at 39 percent approval, compared to the 35 percent he previously earned.

Gallup’s weekly questionnaire returned similar results, with 38 percent responding favorably, resulting in a 3 percent increase since August.

“There has been some rallying behind President Trump for his handling of hurricanes Harvey and Irma,“ Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, noted.

All in a few weeks.

Extrapolate that!!

September 20, 2017 3:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/20/president-trump-sees-poll-improvement-after-summer-slumps/23216633/

"...The gains are, according to Politico, generally due to improved opinions among Republicans and Independents, as Democrats tended to express the same levels of approval they had in the past.

“There has been some rallying behind President Trump for his handling of hurricanes Harvey and Irma,“ Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, noted. "But, his improved standing is seen only among his core supporters. He is still unable to reach beyond his base.""
...in spite of the lovely ways the Trump-supporting-TTF-troll tries to sweet talk TTFers into joining that base.

You reap what you sow.

September 20, 2017 3:43 PM  
Anonymous Nontrumpeter said...

Wow, that is an incredible comeback! He is almost just about up near forty percent favorability. That is momentum, baby! Take that, libtards.

September 20, 2017 3:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I rest my case.

You are picking up NO support here, troll.

September 20, 2017 3:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" He is almost just about up near forty percent favorability. "

39.4% love him like you do per the RCP average.

Don't forget, the pussy grabber remains ABOVE OVER FIFTY PERCENT UNFAVORABILITY!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/trump_favorableunfavorable-5493.html

You must be so proud!

September 20, 2017 3:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Wow, that is an incredible comeback! He is almost just about up near forty percent favorability. That is momentum, baby! Take that, libtards."

comeback?

he holds the highest office in the land

further, the economy is rocking, government over-regulation is on the run, the Constitution is safe, and disaster relief agencies work

what do you think he needs to come back from?

I'm not a supporter of Trump but Dems are unacceptable, as most Americans outside of Takoma Park and Marin County agree

someday, the GOP will split so America can have two viable parties to hold a national election with

then, we'll remove Donald from power

until then, eat our dust, Dems!!

September 20, 2017 4:05 PM  
Anonymous Drip, drip, drip said...

"he holds the highest office in the land"

We'll see how long he can hold onto it.

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has asked the White House for documents about some of President Trump’s most scrutinized actions since taking office, including the firing of his national security adviser and F.B.I. director, according to White House officials.

Mr. Mueller is also interested in an Oval Office meeting Mr. Trump had with Russian officials in which he said the dismissal of the F.B.I. director had relieved “great pressure” on him.

The document requests provide the most details to date about the breadth of Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and show that several aspects of his inquiry are focused squarely on Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House.

In recent weeks, Mr. Mueller’s office sent a document to the White House that detailed 13 different areas that investigators want more information about. Since then, administration lawyers have been scouring White House emails and asking officials whether they have other documents or notes that may pertain to Mr. Mueller’s requests.

One of the requests is about a meeting Mr. Trump had in May with Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was fired. That day, Mr. Trump met with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, along with other Russian officials. The New York Times reported that in the meeting Mr. Trump had said that firing Mr. Comey relieved “great pressure” on him.

Mr. Mueller has also requested documents about the circumstances of the firing of Michael T. Flynn, who was Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. Additionally, the special counsel has asked for documents about how the White House responded to questions from The Times about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. That meeting was set up by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, to get derogatory information from Russians about Hillary Clinton.


September 20, 2017 4:30 PM  
Anonymous more on the dictator Obama's attempt to undermine democracy said...

Over the years, a curious habit has taken hold at the United Nations. A body designed to strengthen the best of humanity has too often become a font of doublespeak and appeasement that protects the worst of humanity.

That tragic comity was shattered when President Trump played the skunk at the garden party and dared to tell the truth. Many truths, in fact.

Among them, that Islamic terrorism is a scourge that must be stopped. That Iran is controlled by a “murderous regime” bent on getting nukes.

That North Korea’s “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission” and the United States “will have no choice but to totally destroy” that country if war begins. And that socialism and communism have failed everywhere, including Cuba and Venezuela.

The delegates and heads of state got The Full Trump, including what it means to put America First. It was the president’s finest, most complete expression of his worldview and, thankfully, contained no apologies for American power or history.

Yet even as Trump spoke, a threat to his presidency gained new steam. Reports that special counsel Robert Mueller had wiretapped former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort and plans to indict him sent Washington into a new tizzy of speculation.

According to CNN, which first carried the wiretapping report, Manafort was surveilled under a FISA warrant, meaning the FBI suspected he was operating as a foreign agent. The network said it is possible G-men listened to the president talking to Manafort because the wiretap continued into this year and Trump and Manafort often talked in 2017.

If so, that would mark an infamous history — an American president being overheard by secret agents of his own government.

It would also be additional support for Trump’s charge that former President Barack Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”

It was in March when Trump made that explosive claim, and the Democratic media rushed to denounce him even before Obama did. Subsequent denials from then-FBI boss James Comey and other Obama aides all were rock-solid in declaring that no such thing had happened. There was no wiggle room in their denials, some of which were made under oath before Congress.

But something certainly happened. And what if it was the worst imaginable something? What if the Republican candidate for president was put under surveillance by a Democratic administration that was trying to elect another Democrat?

There was reason to suspect that was true before the Manafort reports added fuel to the fire.

Recall that, starting last fall, continuing throughout the transition and into the early months of the administration, much of the media was obsessed with the narrative that “Russia hacked the election and Trump colluded.”

It was a feeding frenzy of reports naming various Trump associates who had any contacts with Russians. It was guilt by association, all based on leaks of classified secrets that originated either in law enforcement or intelligence agencies, or the Obama White House.

As I wrote back in April, at least six people from the campaign, including Trump himself, were identified in various reports as having been picked up in intercepted communications.

Always, the reports insisted that the Americans were not the targets of the surveillance, that they were “incidentally” picked up while talking to targets.

Those six included Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, then-Senator and now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner.

Another was Carter Page, briefly a Trump adviser, and Manafort.

But since then, media reports say that Page was, in fact, being surveilled under a FISA warrant. And now we learn that Manafort was, too.

So those initial reports about the Trumpsters being “incidentally” picked up were wrong. Fake news, you might say, because Manafort and Page were FBI targets whose communications were being intercepted — and the media’s sources had to have known that.

September 20, 2017 4:36 PM  
Anonymous more on the dictator Obama's attempt to undermine democracy said...

That the public has been lied to repeatedly is beyond doubt. Recall also that Susan Rice, Obama’s last national security adviser, initially claimed in interviews to know nothing about the “unmasking” of Americans whose names were picked up in intercepted calls.

But before Congress, she told a different tale — about needing to know who in Trump’s circle met with a visiting official from the United Arab Emirates, and so she “unmasked” their names.

Thus, skepticism is required over her insistence that she knows nothing about how those names were then leaked to the media, which could be a felony.

And we still don’t know why Samantha Power, Obama’s UN ambassador, frequently requested the names of Americans picked up in foreign surveillance. Such information would have no bearing on her job, yet her requests were said to be routinely granted.

Related current reasons to doubt our government’s honesty involve the Hillary Clinton email case. For example, the State Department refused to release ­emails to Judicial Watch showing how she arranged government favors for big donors to the Clinton Foundation until a court ordered it to last week.

And the FBI still refuses to allow two top aides to appear before Congress, even though the aides told a Justice Department investigator that Comey had written a draft letter exonerating Clinton months before he interviewed her or 15 other witnesses.

These and other incidents appear to be part of the effort to undermine Trump from within the government, and they give rise to a growing belief that America is infected with a “deep state,” a malevolent permanent bureaucracy that feels entitled to power and will stop at almost nothing to keep it.

I have been reluctant to reach that conclusion, believing that “deep state” is a more fitting concept for a Third World country that has corrupted institutions and no rule of law or history of individual freedom.

But I’m beginning to wonder. The more we learn about the last eight years and eight months, the more reason there is to believe that something is rotten in Washington.

I don’t just mean the ordinary corruption of the swamp variety. I mean something fundamental, something that suggests major elements in our government believe they, and not the people, are sovereign.

Which brings us back to the ultimate test: Did Obama or somebody working for him put Trump under surveillance during or after the election for the purpose of a political coup?

It’s a frightening question, all the more so because I suspect the answer will be yes — if we can ever get to the truth.

September 20, 2017 4:37 PM  
Anonymous to stupid said...

"That meeting was set up by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, to get derogatory information from Russians about Hillary Clinton."

it's amazing, really, that Dems would think this is some crime when Obama, acting on information from a foreign source, wiretapped Trump campaign officials

that they think they will get away with this hypocrisy is mind-boggling

meanwhile, Trump holds the White House, the GOP holds Congress, and originalists hold the Supreme Court

how do you imagine Trump could be removed from office?

the voters could do it in 2020 but they tend to vote for the economy,

stupid

September 20, 2017 4:43 PM  
Anonymous the Dems slip on a peel said...

yes, so a British citizen alleged that Trump had Russian ties

and Hillary and Obama were all over it, wiretapping Trump officials, starting an FBI investigation

DJT Jr gets a message from a Russian that Hillary has Russian ties

and their talking about it is a crime?

both campaigns receive offers to provide information about their opponent from foreign sources but the media spins the Dems as virtuous and the GOP as venal

truth is, the Obama action was the more troublesome

if we allow Presidents to investigate their political rivals, using the resources of the US government, we have become a banana republic

it's almost like Obama wasn't really born in America

September 20, 2017 5:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In one of the most important speeches of his presidency, President Donald Trump has outlined a new standard for American leadership on the world stage. This speech explains the strategy of a sovereignty based nationalism as a clear alternative to the globalist desire to submerge nations in international agreements and institutions.

In his first address to the United Nations on Tuesday, President Trump called for “a great reawakening of nations, for the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people, and their patriotism.” It was a strong, clear, decisive call for national identity as the first step to healthy and sustainable international cooperation, at a time that is critical to determining the future prosperity and safety of our world.

Now, more than ever, it is too dangerous for the United Nations to remain ineffective at keeping peace.

The United Nations’ sovereign members need to think critically about whether it is in the best interest of their citizens to allow terrorism and unstable rogue regimes, such as North Korea, Iran, and Syria to provoke chaos and death across the world.
Similar to his major foreign policy speeches in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last spring and Warsaw, Poland this past summer, Tuesday’s speech was both historic and potentially game-changing.

The president placed intellectual clarity and emphasis on his principle that the world will be made safer when America and its allies in the United Nations work together as sovereign nations to achieve peace and security in the world – a notion which echoes the founding doctrine in the Charter of the United Nations.

This is a significant step toward breaking the United Nations out of the inefficient, bureaucratic, global government model, which has rendered the body incapable of stopping rogue nations, terrorism, and other human rights abuses for decades.

During his remarks, President Trump asked member nations, “Are we still patriots? Do we love our nations enough to protect their sovereignty and to take ownership of their futures? Do we revere them enough to defend their interests, preserve their cultures, and ensure a peaceful world for their citizens?”

This question was an intellectual call to arms. The United Nations’ sovereign members need to think critically about whether it is in the best interest of their citizens to allow terrorism and unstable rogue regimes, such as North Korea, Iran, and Syria to provoke chaos and death across the world.

If United Nations member states allow the likes of Kim Jong Un, Hassan Rouhani, and Bashar al-Assad to continue to possess and develop weapons of mass destruction, torment their own people, and disregard international laws, major war will become unavoidable.

September 20, 2017 5:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In many ways, the president’s appeal was reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s warnings against European appeasement of Hitler in the years leading up to World War II.

No doubt, those on the left will condemn this speech, saying that the president’s policy of putting the interests of America and Americans before those of other nations is divergent, isolationist, and dangerous.

However, this view ignores history. Since its founding, every member of the United Nations has been expected to put the interests of its own citizens first.

When the United Nations was established in 1945 to replace the League of Nations, which had proved too ineffective to maintain peace and security in the years following World War I, there was no expectation that Great Britain would hold its own people second to the citizens of France. The leaders of China would not have been expected to put the interests of the Dutch before their own people. And Joseph Stalin knew that President Harry Truman would put America before the USSR. Any other notion would have been utterly preposterous.

My hope is that the member nations heed the president’s call, reawaken their sense of national sovereignty, and realize how critically important it is to defend their nations against a range of foreign dangers.

As President Trump said on Tuesday, “If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.”

September 20, 2017 5:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


"polls shows only about 10% of Americans believe we are on the right track"

And three pages of right wing propaganda later:

"All in all, a pretty good eight months. Not perfect by any means, but a bag of big wins and mostly progress on many fronts. "

Which one is it, bipolar one?

September 20, 2017 6:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"polls shows only about 10% of Americans believe we are on the right track"

Show us which "polls" show what you claim because RCP shows TEN polls regarding the "Direction of Country" with "Right Direction" numbers ranging from 26% -38%, nothing down in the 10% range.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html

On Monday, September 18, 2017 Rasmussen Reports: Right Direction or Wrong Track
31% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/top_stories/right_direction_wrong_track_sep18

September 20, 2017 7:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Winston Churchill, chomping on cigar: "Oy say, old chop, when you're a stah they let you grab they-uh pussies. It's jolly good."

September 20, 2017 7:14 PM  
Anonymous That's what you voted for, duh said...

if we allow Presidents to investigate their political rivals, using the resources of the US government, we have become a banana republic

“I will ask, to appoint a special prosecutor. We have to investigate Hillary Clinton, and we have to investigate the investigation.” 

 Sources: A campaign rally in Panama City, Fla.


https://www.c-span.org/video/?416754-1/donald-trump-campaigns-panama-city-florida&start=993

September 20, 2017 8:55 PM  
Anonymous jailhouse rock said...

news from the campaign family of the Clinton crime syndicate:

Former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner "deserves time in prison" — about two years — for sexual communications with a 15-year-old girl, prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday before his sentencing next week.

In a submission last week, defense lawyers argued that Weiner — husband of Huma Abedin, a Hillary Clinton aide — should be spared jail time because the teenager at the center of the case wanted to write a tell-all book and hoped to influence the presidential election.

But the U.S. Attorney's office urged the judge not to let the disgraced Democrat off the hook at his sentencing on Monday, citing a "dangerous level of denial and lack of self-control."

"Although the defendant’s self-destructive path from United States Congressman to felon is indisputably sad, his crime is serious and his demonstrated need for deterrence is real," prosecutors wrote.

"The noncustodial sentence that Weiner proposes is simply inadequate; his crime deserves time in prison," they added.

Weiner pleaded guilty in May to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor; sentencing guidelines call for 10 years in prison. Prosecutors recommended 21 to 27 months, a range that Weiner agreed under his plea deal not to appeal.

September 20, 2017 9:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lewandowski: Manafort should go to jail for the rest of his life if he colluded

"I think if anybody, and I've said this, if Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, or Rick Gates or Carter Page, or anybody else attempted to influence the outcome of the U.S. election through any means that's inappropriate – through collusion, coordination or cooperation – I hope they go to jail for the rest of their lives," Lewandowski said at George Washington University on Tuesday

September 20, 2017 10:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"inappropriate" and illegal are different things

and "inappropriate" is imprecise

the latest thing the media is hyping is that Manafort offered to give a Russian billionaire briefings on the election

so what?

information on the election is not classified and insider information leaks all the time

further, Manafort appears to be rogue

inappropriate and much closer to illegal is the Obama administration's activity to use the government's intelligence agencies to surveil Trump's campaign in 2016

this is after Obama got away with using the IRS to harass his political opponents in 2012, in actions that probably affected a very close election

Sam Ervin is rolling over in his grave

September 21, 2017 8:18 AM  
Anonymous Manafort was in the thick of things said...

"Manafort appears to be rogue"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort#Chairman_of_Donald_Trump.27s_2016_United_States_Presidential_campaign

"In March 2016, he joined the presidential campaign of Donald Trump to lead Trump's "delegate-corralling" efforts. In June 2016, Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and promoted Manafort to the position. Manafort gained control of the daily operations of the campaign as well as an expanded $20 million budget, hiring decisions, advertising, and media strategy.[20][21][22][23]

On June 9, 2016, Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner were participants in a meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and several others at Trump Tower. A British music agent, saying he was acting on behalf of Emin Agalarov and the Russian government, had told Trump Jr. that he could obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton if he met with a lawyer connected to the Kremlin.[24] At first Trump Jr. said the meeting had been about the Magnitsky Act; later he said the offer of information about Clinton had been a pretext to conceal Veselnitskaya's real agenda.[25]

In August 2016, Manafort's connections to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions drew national attention in the USA, where it was reported that Manafort may have illegally received $12.7 million in off-the-books funds from the Party of Regions.[26] On August 17, 2016, Donald Trump received his first security briefing.[27] Also, on August 17, 2016, the New York Times reported on an internal staff memorandum from Manafort stating that Manafort would "remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision".[28] However, two days later, Trump announced his acceptance of Manafort's resignation from the campaign after Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway took on senior leadership roles within that campaign.[29][30]"

September 21, 2017 9:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I think...if Paul Manafort, .... attempted to influence the outcome of the U.S. election through any means that's inappropriate – through collusion, coordination or cooperation – I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his life," Lewandowski said

In June 2016, Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and promoted Manafort to the position.

Draw your own conclusions and collusions.

After his masterful handling of the natural disasters in Texas and Florida and his historic speech at the UN, Trump rise in the polls continues unabated.

First three listed on RCP:

NBC News 43%, Economist 43%, Ramussen 43%

drip, drip, drip

on to victory in 2020

September 21, 2017 10:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Inappropriate was defined by Lewandowski as "attempt[s] to influence the outcome of the U.S. election...through collusion, coordination or cooperation" between members of Trump's campaign and Russians who wanted to keep Hillary from winning

Influencing the outcome of the U.S. election by colluding, coordinating or cooperating with foreigners is illegal.

September 21, 2017 10:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh yeah. 43% is a f**king landslide man!

Thanks for the great display of your pride in your pussy-grabber-in-chief.


September 21, 2017 10:05 AM  
Anonymous oh dear, now Hillary's upset said...

When Donald Trump ran for president, he criticized the interventionist policies of his Republican and Democratic predecessors, sparking fears that he would usher in a new era of American isolationism. But at the U.N. this week, Trump laid out a clear conservative vision for vigorous American global leadership based on the principle of state sovereignty.

Judging from their hysterical reaction, critics on the left now seem to fear he’s the second coming of George W. Bush. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called his address “bombastic.” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said it represented an “abdication of values.” And Hillary Clinton said it was “very dark” and “dangerous.” This is all the standard liberal critique of conservative internationalism. The left said much the same about President Ronald Reagan.

In New York, Trump called on responsible nation-states to join the United States in taking on what he called the “scourge” of “a small group of rogue regimes that . . . respect neither their own citizens nor the sovereign rights of their countries.” This mission can be accomplished, Trump said, only if we recognize that “the nation-state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition.”

He is right. Communism and fascism were not defeated by the United Nations, and global institutions did not fuel the dramatic expansion of human freedom and prosperity in the past quarter-century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. What has inspired and enabled the spread of peace, democracy and individual liberty was the principled projection of power by the world’s democratic countries, led by the United States.

This is what is needed today — and what Trump promised in his address. He recast his “America First” foreign policy as a call not for isolationism but for global leadership by responsible nation-states. He embraced the Marshall Plan — the massive U.S. effort to support Europe’s postwar recovery. And he declared that “if the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph” because “when decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.”

Trump then used this theme of sovereignty to challenge the United States’ two greatest geopolitical adversaries, China and Russia, insisting that “we must reject threats to sovereignty from the Ukraine to the South China Sea.”

September 21, 2017 10:10 AM  
Anonymous oh dear, now Hillary's upset said...

The president also had a blunt message for North Korea. He dismissed its leader, Kim Jong Un, as “Rocket Man” and said Kim “is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” He made clear that “the United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” This message rattled some, and that was its intent. During the Cold War, Soviet leaders truly believed that Reagan was preparing for war and might actually launch a first strike. This belief is one of the reasons that a cataclysmic war never took place.

If we hope to avoid war with North Korea today, the regime in Pyongyang must be made to believe and understand that Trump is in fact, as he said at the U.N., “ready, willing and able” to take military action. His tough rhetoric was aimed not just at Pyongyang but also at China and other states whose cooperation in squeezing the regime is necessary for a peaceful solution. Those words must be followed by concrete steps short of total destruction to make clear that he is indeed serious and that North Korea will not be permitted to threaten American cites with nuclear annihilation.

Trump also put himself squarely on the side of morality in foreign policy and explicitly stood with those seeking freedom around the world. He promised to support the “enduring dream of the Cuban people to live in freedom.” He declared that “oppressive regimes cannot endure forever” and upbraided the Iranian regime for masking “a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy” while promising to stand with “the good people of Iran [who] want change.” He took on Iran’s ally, “the criminal regime of Bashar al-Assad” in Syria, whose “use of chemical weapons against his own citizens, even innocent children, shock the conscience of every decent person.”

And his best moment came when he turned to what he called the “socialist dictatorship” of Nicolás Maduro, declaring that “the problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.” Trump promised to help the Venezuelan people “regain their freedom, recover their country and restore their democracy.”

This is classic conservative internationalism: a vigorous defense of freedom, a bold challenge to dangerous dictators and a commitment to the principle of peace through strength. No wonder Trump’s critics on the left are so upset.

September 21, 2017 10:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Inappropriate was defined by Lewandowski as "attempt[s] to influence the outcome of the U.S. election...through collusion, coordination or cooperation" between members of Trump's campaign and Russians who wanted to keep Hillary from winning"

again, all three are imprecise and nebulous

regardless of what is meant, it is likely covered as free speech

"Influencing the outcome of the U.S. election by colluding, coordinating or cooperating with foreigners is illegal."

no, it isn't

every American citizen has a right to influence the outcome of of the US election

it's the definition of democracy

talking to foreigners is not illegal either


SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 10:02 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Oh yeah. 43% is a f**king landslide man!

Thanks for the great display of your pride in your pussy-grabber-in-chief.

September 21, 2017 10:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Exclusive: Russians Appear to Use Facebook to Push Trump Rallies in 17 U.S. Cities
‘Being Patriotic,’ a Facebook group uncovered by The Daily Beast, is the first evidence of suspected Russian provocateurs explicitly mobilizing Trump supporters in real life.

September 21, 2017 10:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Oh yeah. 43% is a f**king landslide man!"

up from 36% in less than a month?

shows tremendous improvement

leftist media often creates caricatures that affect conservative Presidents at the beginning of their terms

same thing happened to reagan

as their terms become real, the hype dissipates

"Thanks for the great display of your pride in your pussy-grabber-in-chief."

oh, I'm not a supporter of his

your comment displays a sexist bias

I'm sure the reaction would be much different if he said he grabs penises

he's straight

he made so private comment that women adore his celebrity

big deal

it was the only moment that hillary's campaign showed any life

September 21, 2017 10:43 AM  
Anonymous don't mess with texas said...

Jeff Mateer, President Donald Trump’s nominee for a federal judgeship in Texas, is receiving raves over his remarks about transgender people.

Mateer has publicly expressed beliefs that transgender children are part of "Satan’s plan," and that the right to marriage equality could lead to polygamy and beastiality.

According to CNN, Mateer spoke about a Colorado lawsuit filed by a transgender child’s parents in a 2015 speech called, “The Church and Homosexuality.” In the same speech, he called same-sex marriage "disgusting," and said "We're back to that time where debauchery rules."

Trump is nominating Jeff Mateer to serve on the U.S. District Court for Eastern District Texas. The nomination will be confirmed by the Senate.

September 21, 2017 12:32 PM  
Anonymous Obama was attempting to be dictator said...

Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had “tapped” “wires” in Trump Tower just before the election.

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials — or Trump himself — communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.

If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.

Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump “transition officials” were “incidentally” captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admitted “unmasking,” or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or “masked,” even inside the government, to protect their privacy.

In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates acknowledged they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama.

Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes. The prospect of our own NSA, CIA and FBI becoming politically weaponized has been shrouded by untruths, accusations and justifications.

You’ll recall DNI Clapper falsely assured Congress in 2013 that the NSA was not collecting “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Intel agencies secretly monitored conversations of members of Congress while the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.

In 2014, the CIA got caught spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, though CIA Director John Brennan had explicitly denied that.

There were also wiretaps on then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in 2011 under Obama. The same happened under President George W. Bush to former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

September 21, 2017 12:43 PM  
Anonymous Obama was attempting to be dictator said...

Journalists have been targeted, too. This internal email, exposed by WikiLeaks, should give everyone chills. It did me.

Dated Sept. 21, 2010, the “global intelligence” firm Stratfor wrote:

[John] Brennan [then an Obama Homeland Security adviser] is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.

Note -- There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode...

The government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, The Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly announced:

… correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by ‘an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,’ confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.

Then, as now, instead of getting the bigger story, some in the news media and quasi-news media published false and misleading narratives pushed by government interests. They implied the computer intrusions were the stuff of vivid imagination, conveniently dismissed forensic evidence from three independent examinations that they didn’t review. All seemed happy enough to let news of the government’s alleged unlawful behavior fade away, rather than get to the bottom of it.

I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer’s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.

September 21, 2017 12:45 PM  
Anonymous Obama was attempting to be dictator said...

We survived the government’s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There’s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice — like the Obama Department of Justice — is fighting me in court and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.

Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was “not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.”

It’s difficult not to see patterns in the government’s behavior, unless you’re wearing blinders.

The intelligence community secretly expanded its authority in 2011 so it can monitor innocent U.S. citizens like you and me for doing nothing more than mentioning a target’s name a single time.

In January 2016, a top secret inspector general report found the NSA violated the very laws designed to prevent abuse.

In 2016, Obama officials searched through intelligence on U.S. citizens a record 30,000 times, up from 9,500 in 2013.

Two weeks before the election, at a secret hearing before the FISA court overseeing government surveillance, NSA officials confessed they’d violated privacy safeguards “with much greater frequency” than they’d admitted. The judge accused them of “institutional lack of candor” and said, “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”

Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies — under multiple administrations — has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials.

Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren’t thinking.

Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program “Full Measure.”

September 21, 2017 12:46 PM  
Anonymous Obama was attempting to be dictator said...

Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was 'unmasking' at such a rapid pace in the final months of the Obama administration that she averaged more than one request for every working day in 2016 – and even sought information in the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, multiple sources close to the matter told Fox News.

Two sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said the requests to identify Americans whose names surfaced in foreign intelligence reporting, known as unmasking, exceeded 260 last year. One source indicated this occurred in the final days of the Obama White House.

The details emerged ahead of an expected appearance by Power next month on Capitol Hill. She is one of several Obama administration officials facing congressional scrutiny for their role in seeking the identities of Trump associates in intelligence reports – but the interest in her actions is particularly high.

September 21, 2017 12:48 PM  
Anonymous Noah said...

Anon, you have spilled such a flood of fake allegations on this thread that no rational person would try to refute them one by one. You seem to live in a bizarre alternate reality where Obama was ... trying to be a dictator? Well why didn't he then? What happened when he tried to take our guns? What happened with the invasion of Texas? Have the mind-controlling contrails stopped?

You obviously are motivated to wish to believe that he was trying to ruin your life, but mainly what he did was give a bunch of very articulate speeches and make sure sick people could get health care. The black guy is not president any more and you can catch your breath. This flood of bullshit is like the ranting of a psychotic, it is hallucinatory and bizarre.

And ... uh ... Sinclair ... you know what that is, right?

September 21, 2017 12:58 PM  
Anonymous there's a big ol' L on TTF's forehead said...

On her current book tour, Hillary Clinton is still blaming the Russians for her resounding defeat in last year's presidential election. She remains sold on a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump successfully colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to rig the election in Trump's favor.

But allegations that a president won an election due to foreign collusion have been lodged by losers of elections throughout history. Some of the charges may have had a kernel of truth, but it has never been proven that foreign tampering changed the outcome of an election.

In 2012, then-President Barack Obama inadvertently left his mic on during a meeting with outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Obama seemed to be reassuring the Russians that if they would just behave (i.e., give Obama "space") during his re-election campaign, Obama would have "more flexibility" on Russian demands for the U.S. to drop its plans for an Eastern European missile defense system.

Medvedev's successor, Vladimir Putin, did stay quiet for most of 2012. Obama did renege on earlier American promises of missile defense in Eastern Europe. And Obama did win re-election.

But that said, Obama probably would have defeated Mitt Romney anyway, even without this collusion with Russia.

In 2004, there were accusations that the George W. Bush administration had struck a deal with the Saudi Royal family whereby the Saudis would pump more oil, leading to lower U.S. gas prices. Bush supposedly wanted to take credit for helping American motorists and therefore enhance his re-election bid.

Whether the conspiracy theory was true or not, Bush beat lackluster Democratic nominee John Kerry for lots of reasons other than modest decreases in gasoline prices.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, supporters of incumbent President Jimmy Carter alleged that challenger Ronald Reagan had tried to disrupt negotiations for the release of the American hostages being held in Teheran. They claimed that Reagan's team had sent word to the Iranians that they should keep the hostages until after the election.

The Reagan team countercharged that Carter himself timed a hostage rescue effort near the election to salvage his failing re-election bid.

The truth was that by November, nothing Reagan or Carter did could change the fact that Carter was going to lose by a large margin.

September 21, 2017 1:01 PM  
Anonymous there's a big ol' L on TTF's forehead said...

Sometimes challengers have been accused of turning to foreigners for election help.

There were allegations that in 2008, Obama secretly lobbied Iraqi officials not to cut a deal with the outgoing Bush administration concerning U.S. peacekeepers in Iraq. Supposedly, Obama didn't want a stable Iraq, which might have helped Iraq War supporter and rival candidate John McCain, who had argued that after the surge, Iraq was largely under control.

Such allegations were mostly irrelevant, given that there were plenty of other reasons why McCain lost the election.

There were also allegations that in 1983, Sen. Ted Kennedy sent a letter to Russian leader Yuri Andropov, asking him not to overreact to President Ronald Reagan's hard-nosed anti-Soviet stance. This was supposedly an attempt to undercut Reagan before the 1984 election. Whether the rumor was true or not was immaterial: Reagan beat Democratic nominee Walter Mondale by a landslide.

Recently, another old charge of foreign collusion has been resurrected. Democrats allege that during the 1968 campaign, Republican nominee Richard Nixon opened a back channel to the South Vietnamese to convince them to stall peace talks to end the Vietnam War. Supposedly, Nixon was worried that President Lyndon Johnson might order a halt to bombing. Then, Johnson opportunistically would start peace talks in order to help his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, defeat Nixon in the election.

Regardless of these unproven charges and countercharges, Nixon's narrow victory in 1968 was a result instead of a law-and-order message, a new Southern strategy, the third-party candidacy of Democrat George Wallace, an unpopular incumbent Democratic president, an inept Humphrey campaign, and unhappiness with the ongoing quagmire in Vietnam.

What can we conclude about these multiple charges that foreigners polluted an American presidential election?

One, these charges have been habitual, and only leveled by the failed candidate, blaming a shadowy conspiracy rather than the loser's own poorly conducted campaign or lack of political support.

Two, even if some collusion charges had elements of truth, they did not affect the final outcome of an election. There were always other far more important and decisive issues that won or lost voters over months of campaigning.

Three, most presidents and their political challengers have in some way attempted to massage events to favor their candidacies -- synchronizing legislative agendas, peace initiatives, summits, national addresses or surprise disclosures of scandals to enhance their campaign messages.

Hillary Clinton lost the election for dozens of logical reasons. Foreign collusion was never one of them -- nor has it ever been a valid reason for a presidential candidate's defeat.

September 21, 2017 1:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Anon, you have spilled such a flood of fake allegations on this thread that no rational person would try to refute them one by one."

no, his use of intelligence agencies for political purposes is documented by multiple sources and being investigated by Congress

"You seem to live in a bizarre alternate reality where Obama was ... trying to be a dictator? Well why didn't he then?"

partly incompetence and partly the strength of our institutions in stopping his malicious intent

"What happened when he tried to take our guns?"

both Congress and the courts resisted his attempts to write legislation violating the 2nd amendment, which some TTFers don't believe is part of the Constitution

September 21, 2017 1:13 PM  
Anonymous Noah said...

It is unbelievable to have to argue with a citizen whose vote is equal to mine, who lives in a fucking dreamworld.

Obama did nothing toward "violating the 2nd amendment" and everyone in TTF is fully aware of what is in the Bill of Rights.

September 21, 2017 1:20 PM  
Anonymous go back to work on your ark said...

every time there was a shooting, Obama tried to get gun legislation passed

he just got laughed off, but he tried

a TTFer recently made the comment that the right to free speech is not really part of the Constitution but just an amendment added later

not TTFer had a problem with the statement

September 21, 2017 1:31 PM  
Anonymous Noah said...

More lies. Of course Obama grieved when innocent Americans were killed but he is the President, he does not introduce legislation. He said there should be some laws regulating firearms but he didn't propose any. Most normal people believe there should be laws regulating guns, and they also are not trying to become dictators.

There was a time when a Trump aide said that the statement on the Statue of Liberty was added later, prompting many liberals to joke that the Bill of Rights was also "added later." Nobody in TTF has any problem with the founding fathers guaranteeing rights for Americans.

Any further discussion of that topic requires you provide a ink.

September 21, 2017 1:43 PM  
Anonymous couch confessions said...

"Any further discussion of that topic requires you provide a ink."

look up a tatoo parlor

"many liberals joke that the Bill of Rights was "added later." Nobody in TTF has any problem with the founding fathers guaranteeing rights for Americans."

oh, OK

the TTFer was joking

we'll just call it a freudian slip

September 21, 2017 2:17 PM  
Anonymous Noah said...

We'll just call "a TTFer recently made the comment that the right to free speech is not really part of the Constitution" a lie.

September 21, 2017 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Slugger said...

"NBC News 43%, Economist 43%, Ramussen 43%

...Oh yeah. 43% is a f**king landslide man!"

up from 36% in less than a month?"


Well let's see what the troll has done this time.

Did NBC News poll go from 36% to 43% in less than a month?

NO!

NBC News poll had Trump's approval at 40% a month ago.

See for yourselves: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/HUB_NBCPolitics_Front/17363%20NBCWSJ%20September%20Poll%20(9-21-17%20Release).pdf

So in NBC News polling, Trump's approval went from 40% in August to 43% in September.

YUUUUUGE eh?

Did Economist poll go from 36% to 43% in less than a month?

NO!

Economist polling show's Trump's approval at 39%, with 19% strongly approve and 20% approve somewhat.

Why did RCP say 43% approved?

Did Sinclair buy RCP too?

See for yourselves:

Economist data Sept 2017:
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pg2ybma1jb/econTabReport.pdf

Economist in August 2017 also reported 39% approval for Trump, with 18% strongly approving and 21% somewhat approving

See for yourselves:

Economist data Aug 2017:
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8binb0p0ey/econTabReport.pdf

So Economist polling went from 39% Trump approval in August to 39% approval in September, no change at all.

Nada.

Did Rasmussen polling go from 36% to 43% in less than a month?

NO!

Rasmussen polling shows Trump's approval at 43% as of September 21, 2017 and back on August 21, 2017, showed it at 42% approval.

Check it out for yourselves:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history

So now troll, NO data supports your claim that Trump's approval had jumped from 36% to 43% in less than a month.

Three strikes....you're out!

September 21, 2017 3:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What does the White House do with internal research that doesn’t support their existing policies? Bury it, of course! President Donald Trump has spent a lot of time arguing against allowing refugees into the United States, so when a study came back showing that refugees have a positive economic impact on the country, it wasn’t released.

The New York Times received a report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) completed in July that has never seen the light of day. According to the data, refugees in America have generated more than $63 billion for the government in the past 10 years.

To be clear, that $63 billion is the money the government profits in refugee tax dollars, even after subtracting the public assistance dollars the government spent on relocating the refugees and getting them situated in American communities. Beyond this financial boon, refugees also help the economy by working low-skill service positions that are often otherwise hard to fill.

When asked about this research, John Graham, an assistant secretary at HHS, said, “We do not comment on allegedly leaked documents.”

Apparently, Raj Shah, a spokesperson for the White House was not on the same page. Shah did comment, saying, “This leak was delivered by someone with an ideological agenda, not someone looking at hard data.”

Weird – it actually seems that by not releasing the hard data on its own accord, the Trump administration was attempting to maintain its own ideology, facts be damned.

The brief, 3-page report that the HHS ultimately released with minimal help from these statistics chose to focus on one aspect: the amount of government services refugees take. The numbers show that refugees need more financial assistance than the average American citizen. Over 10 years, refugees took on average of $3,300 in benefits compared to $2,500 for the average U.S. citizen.

Well, duh! It is entirely expected that people fleeing for their lives and with no resources to their name will need some help getting restarted in their new homes. To look at only that aspect while ignoring the overall economic benefit that they offer the U.S. in the long-term is… what did Shah call it? Ah, an “ideological agenda.”

It’s not like the HHS’s numbers are an anomaly. This year, the National Bureau of Economic Research did a study of its own, finding that the average refugee who entered this country between 2010 and 2014 winds up paying $21,000 more in taxes than he or she received in assistance dollars.

Nevertheless, Trump continues to (erroneously) insist that helping refugees simply costs too much, as if these people are drains on the American taxpayer.

Let’s not forget that refugees are people in peril who could use some compassion. As global citizens, the United States has a moral obligation to help out refugees. For us to squabble over the financial impact when lives are at stake is embarrassing.

September 21, 2017 6:24 PM  
Anonymous thank Hill and Bill said...

"NO data supports your claim that Trump's approval had jumped from 36% to 43% in less than a month"

this kind of says it all for TTF

the number of lines this guy spent arguing over a couple of percentage points, so desperate is he to establish that the President approval rating hasn't improved in the least

it's just so pathetically sad...

the economy is booming; we have a President, after eight years of gridlock, who has demonstrated he can swing bipartisan deals; our nation's emergency response apparatus seems to work again; and even Russia and China are helping to pressure North Korea

TTFers are scared

here's more on how their troubles all go back to Hillary:

"I thought I would avoid having anything to say about Hillary Clinton’s latest book. I thought the book, “What Happened,” was meant to be some sort of cathartic Hillary Clinton 3.0 end of the story. I thought it would be accompanied by a graceful farewell tour. I forgot: The Clintons don’t do graceful, and they certainly don’t do farewells. Instead, Clinton is thrashing around in front of the faithful, having pity parties and making news that has caught the attention of Republicans everywhere.

Incredibly, Clinton herself declares that she is anything but done. She isn’t on a farewell tour or even saying that the election is over. The Post reports that at a recent Clinton book party/reading, she actually said to former staff and supporters that “none of us can afford to go quietly away. We need our voices, we need our energy. … We’re not going to go anywhere. We’re still fighting and still moving.” Presumably this was not accompanied by a laugh track.

She has rejected well-founded concerns about her blocking the rise of new voices within the Democratic Party and about not supporting a new generation of Democratic leadership. But in fact, in typical self-serving Clinton style, she is taunting the world with the idea that she might contest the 2016 election results. In an NPR interview this week (of course it was an NPR interview), Clinton said she would not rule out challenging the legitimacy of the 2016 election if “we learn that the Russian interference in the election is even deeper than we know now.” She knows it won’t happen, but she is still desperate for applause and willing to pretend that Donald Trump isn’t really our legitimate president. It’s all rather sad if you think about it."

September 21, 2017 10:12 PM  
Anonymous thank Hill and Bill said...

"The Trump campaign/Russian collusion myth is now part of the Hillarysphere belief system. It is becoming to Democrats what the “birther” movement was to Republicans. Some Republicans, including Trump, decided to peddle the notion that former president Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States rather than accept the truth that he was our legitimate president. They knew it got them airtime and applause with the predictable audiences, and it gave them a form of political street cred with people you’d rather not argue with anyway. Sometimes, on both sides of the aisle, it is easier just to pretend to be as certain as they are.

From “Bush lied, people died” to “he wasn’t even born here” to “hands up, don’t shoot” to today’s “Trump colluded and Russia stole the election,” we don’t need any more reminding that a lie can linger and serve as a safe place for those who can’t deal with reality. I always say, “In politics it is important to always start from an honest place.” Not only is Hillary Clinton not there; she is also actively and selfishly leading the Democrats down a delusional path that is stunting their growth.

Anyway, with the election loss, a current 30 percent favorability rating keeping her from being marketable to a broader audience, and former president Barack Obama now crowding her out of the high-dollar Wall Street speaking circuit, Clinton can’t stray too far from her most committed and most bitter supporters. These people are willing to pay a couple of thousand dollars to be in her presence, their safe space, to escape reality for a little while. The whole spectacle is contributing to the inability of Democrats to take advantage of Trump’s discord and the Republicans’ intermural gridlock. Clinton craves the attention and the money, and she has no interest in walking away from the game, especially while her supporters still seek her confirmation of the Trump resistance. I guess it’s working for everyone, including Republicans."

September 21, 2017 10:13 PM  
Anonymous future generations will say of us, that the 2016 election was their finest moment! said...

"Oh yeah. 43% is a f**king landslide man!"

you do realize, right, that Hillary's approval rating is 30%

IF THE ELECTION WAS HELD TODAY< TRUMP WOULD KICK HER ASS AGAIN!!!

September 21, 2017 10:17 PM  
Anonymous I got tinsel in my eyes said...

"the economy is booming; we have a President, after eight years of gridlock, who has demonstrated he can swing bipartisan deals; our nation's emergency response apparatus seems to work again; and even Russia and China are helping to pressure North Korea"

and don't forget how gay-friendly he is!

he's like Hollywood

September 21, 2017 10:23 PM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

the Democratic Party is history -- and they don't even know it...

Like virtually all Democrats, Tim Ryan is no fan of Donald Trump. But as he speeds through his northeastern Ohio district in a silver Chevy Suburban, the eight-term Congressman sounds almost as frustrated with his own party. Popping fistfuls of almonds in the backseat, Ryan gripes about its fixation on divisive issues and its "demonization" of business owners. Ryan, 44, was briefly considered for the role of Hillary Clinton's running mate last year. Now he sounds ready to brawl with his political kin. "We're going to have a fight," Ryan says. "There's no question about it."
That fight has already begun, though you'd be forgiven for missing it. On the surface, the Democratic Party has been united and energized by its shared disgust for Trump. But dig an inch deeper and it's clear that the party is divided, split on issues including free trade, health care, foreign affairs and Wall Street. They even disagree over the political wisdom of doing deals with Trump.

Every party cast out of power endures a period of soul-searching. But the Democrats' dilemma was unimaginable even a year ago, when Clinton seemed to be coasting toward the White House and demographic change fueled dreams of a permanent national majority. Now, eight months into the Trump presidency, the party looks to face its toughest odds since Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1984. The Democrats are in their deepest congressional rut since the class of 1946 was elected, and hold the fewest governors' mansions--15--since 1922. Of the 98 partisan legislatures in the U.S., Republicans control 67. During Barack Obama's presidency, Democrats lost 970 seats in state legislatures, leaving the party's bench almost bare. The median age of their congressional leadership is 67, and many of the obvious early presidential front runners will be in their 70s by the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, there's still no sign the Democrats have learned the lessons of the last one. "I've tried to learn from my own mistakes. There are plenty," Clinton writes in her campaign memoir What Happened. The book, released on Sept. 12, casts blame on Russia, and the FBI, but never quite finds a satisfying answer to the titular question. Even if it did, these days the party seems to prize ideological purity over Clintonian pragmatism. "There is no confusion about what we Democrats are against. The only disagreement," says strategist Neil Sroka, "is what we're for."

September 22, 2017 12:02 AM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

Picking up the 24 seats required to retake the House, and the three states needed for control of the Senate, will mean luring back blue collar workers in places like Ryan's Mahoning Valley district, where the steel plants are shells of their former selves, small businesses are boarded up and payday lenders seem to be on every corner. This used to be a Democratic stronghold, but Trump won three of the five counties in Ryan's district. If Democrats don't refine their pitch to alienated white voters, Trump could win re-election with ease. "The resistance can only be part of it," Ryan says. "We have to be on the offense too."
It's not clear who has the influence or inclination to spearhead that shift. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi are seasoned dealmakers who can raise Brink's trucks full of cash. Their Sept. 6 pact with Trump, which pushed back a pair of fiscal showdowns and delivered hurricane relief money to storm-stricken southeastern Texas, was hailed as a fleecing by the Democrats. After a dinner of Chinese food in the Blue Room of the White House a week later, the pair said they had reached a tentative agreement with Trump to sidestep the Justice Department's rollback of an Obama-era program that helped young immigrants who were in the country illegally. But among the grassroots, any agreement with the President is viewed as cause for suspicion. When Schumer dared to back a handful of Trump's Cabinet picks earlier this year, activists protested outside his Brooklyn apartment, hoisting signs with slogans like Grow a spine, Chuck. In her San Francisco district on Sept. 18, Pelosi was shouted down by activists who were angry that her proposed immigration deal with Trump did not cover more people.

The counterpoint to Ryan's call for moderation could be found onstage in August in a Hyatt ballroom in Atlanta. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate, had come to deliver a battle cry to 1,000 grassroots activists. "The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill," she said in not-at-all-veiled criticism of President Bill Clinton's mid-'90s strategy to peel off Republican votes. "We are not a wing of today's Democratic Party," Warren declared to her fellow liberals. "We are the heart and soul of today's Democratic Party."
Warren is clearly thinking of running for President in 2020. If she does, a crowd will be waiting to cheer her on: a year ago, under pressure from supporters of insurgent Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democrats adopted the most progressive platform in their history, which called for free college for families earning $125,000 or less and Medicare options for Americans as young as 55. This march to the left has become a sprint since Clinton's defeat.

September 22, 2017 12:09 AM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

Groups that support abortion rights have stopped offering polite silence to Democrats who disagree. Others are demanding jail time for bank executives. Small-dollar donors are goading progressive groups to advance liberal policies and challenge lawmakers who balk. A group of prominent liberal Democrats, including some 2020 hopefuls, are pushing a national single-payer health care plan--even though its strongest backers acknowledge that it has zero chance of becoming law in this Republican-controlled Congress. Representative Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois threatened on Sept. 8 that Democrats may shut down the government in December if Congress doesn't provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. "Running on progressive values," strategist Adam Green told a candidates' training session in Washington this summer, "is how Democrats will win."
History counters this, at least at the presidential level. The most progressive nominees in recent memory--Michael Dukakis in 1988, Walter Mondale in 1984 and George McGovern in 1972--all suffered landslide defeats.

Efforts to mend the rifts of the 2016 election have fallen flat. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) launched a national tour with Sanders and newly minted party chairman Tom Perez, who was elected in February. Things didn't go well. When Sanders thanked Perez at rallies, his so-called Bernie bros heckled the new chairman. The attempt at unity was a footnote within a month. "The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure," declared Sanders, who plans to seek a third term in the Senate next year as an independent.
Activists aligned with Sanders are working to mount primary challenges against centrist Democrats. Our Revolution, a group that rose from the ashes of Sanders' presidential campaign, led a protest in August outside the DNC, demanding a more liberal platform. Party staffers tried handing out snacks and bottles of water, but the hospitality did little to defuse the tension. "They tried to seduce us with doughnuts," said former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, a protest organizer.

September 22, 2017 12:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Efforts to mend the rifts of the 2016 election have fallen flat. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) launched a national tour with Sanders and newly minted party chairman Tom Perez, who was elected in February. Things didn't go well. When Sanders thanked Perez at rallies, his so-called Bernie bros heckled the new chairman. The attempt at unity was a footnote within a month. "The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure," declared Sanders, who plans to seek a third term in the Senate next year as an independent.
Activists aligned with Sanders are working to mount primary challenges against centrist Democrats. Our Revolution, a group that rose from the ashes of Sanders' presidential campaign, led a protest in August outside the DNC, demanding a more liberal platform. Party staffers tried handing out snacks and bottles of water, but the hospitality did little to defuse the tension. "They tried to seduce us with doughnuts," said former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, a protest organizer.

September 22, 2017 12:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


"the number of lines this guy spent arguing over a couple of percentage points, so desperate is he to establish that the President approval rating hasn't improved in the least

it's just so pathetically sad..."

You must be feeling uncomfortable. You actually posted TWO lines malformed sentence. It's not nearly the number of lines from right wing opinion propaganda you had to post to make yourself feel better.

It must be so hard for you now that you can't blame EVERYTHING on Obama and Clinton - not that it's going to stop you from trying.

And what was that post saying about birthers? Was it actually admitting it was fake news used just to rile up the base?

September 22, 2017 8:25 AM  
Anonymous Obama hacked the election said...

"It must be so hard for you now that you can't blame EVERYTHING on Obama and Clinton - not that it's going to stop you from trying."

can't imagine what this loser is trying to say here

Obama and Clinton were a couple of incompetents who had contempt for the "deplorable" Americans who don't live on the coasts and cling to their "guns and Bibles"

they damaged our nation and they were finally stopped in November 2016

in 2012, Obama used the IRS to prevent his political opponents from forming organizations to oppose him and he was caught on tape colluding with the Russian President to back down until after the election when he would make unilateral concessions to them, which he did

in 2016, Vladimir Putin did not hack the election. Barack Obama did.

Donald Trump said earlier this year that the Obama Administration wiretapped his campaign.

“Like I’d want to hear more from that fool?” President Obama scoffed.

But CNN reported on Monday, “US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election…. The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.”

The network labeled their story an exclusive. But, in fact, Breitbart, radio host Mark Levin, the realDonaldTrump Twitter account, and numerous other sources reported the wiretapping more than six months ago.

In the wake of the belated bombshell, other voices at CNN hung on, precariously but unabashedly, to the dated narrative.

In a story updated subsequent to CNN confirming the Obama administration’s surveillance on Manafort and noting his residence in Trump Tower, CNN reporter Manu Raju continued to characterize the president’s accusation affirmed by his network as Trump’s “unsubstantiated claim that Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped during the election to spy on him.” In March, Raju’s reporting consistently cast doubt on the president’s wiretapping charge.

CNN editor at large Chris Cillizza wrote an article, appearing the day after his network conceded the truth of the wiretap charge, entitled: “Donald Trump still has no evidence that his wiretapping claim was right.” In March, Cillizza wrote a piece in the Washington Post on Trump’s wiretap claim under the headline: “Donald Trump was a conspiracy-theory candidate. Now he’s on the edge of being a conspiracy-theory president.”

The media went all-in this spring on the notion that the loose-tongued Trump once again spoke without reference to the facts. Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh labeled his charge “incendiary.” The Los Angeles Times called it “a phony conspiracy theory.” PolitiFact bluntly judged his accusation “false.”

Who will fact check the fact checkers?

September 22, 2017 8:49 AM  
Anonymous Obama hacked the election said...


Rather than correct the record, egged-face journalists embark upon a face-saving effort. But the media whitewash stands as neither the only nor the most relevant cover up.

The all-smoke-no-fire Russia investigation looks increasingly like a smoke screen aimed to put out a very different fire. Rather than an investigation into malfeasance by the Trump campaign, does the Robert Mueller inquiry serve as a clean-up operation to justify Obama administration malfeasance? The bugging of the opposition party’s presidential campaign, at least when done by Republicans, ranks not only as criminal but as the biggest political scandal in American history.

Richard Nixon’s henchmen wore surgical gloves to avoid leaving clues for law enforcement. Barack Obama’s henchmen were law enforcement. This makes Obama worse, not better, than Nixon. At least Nixon’s plumbers possessed the decency to leave their skullduggery to lock pickers and burglars. Obama used law enforcement for opposition research. In Banana Republics, the cops double as the criminals. The unprecedented use of the Justice Department to commit injustice marks a sad moment for the republic. It is Watergate on steroids.

Accusations that hit the mark, rather wild ones wide of the target, provoke fierce denunciations, outcry, and Joe Welch, have-you-no-sense-of-decency moralizing. The category-5 storm that engulfed the president after he tweeted about government surveillance on his campaign indicated that he uncovered an inconvenient truth, not that he told an ignoble lie. No one flips out when a critic makes a fool of himself with his own words. People do so when the words threaten to make a fool of them.

The Obama administration using the considerable powers of the federal government to spy on a hated critic’s campaign sets a dangerous precedent. It provides future administrations a means to infiltrate the innermost circle of the opposition party’s presidential campaign. This merely requires the pretext of wrongdoing to engage in wrongdoing.

It also confirms something some Republicans have long suspected: Barack Obama regards his fellow Americans as the enemy. A government conducts surveillance on foreign enemies. When one conducts surveillance on domestic critics, the government shows itself as unfit to govern.

September 22, 2017 8:49 AM  
Anonymous drip, drip, drip...Obama will be caught said...

Paul Manafort was under investigation for his Russian connections before he was hired by Trump. But the FBI didn't warn Trump about this. Why?

When a similar situation happened during the McCain campaign, the FBI warned McCain.

Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking the FBI if it warned Donald Trump that Paul Manafort, whom he brought in as campaign chairman in 2016, was being watched by the agency because of his dealings with pro-Kremlin figures.

And if there was no such FBI warning, Grassley says he wants to know why.

The chairman of the Senate judiciary committee made the request in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday.

The FBI declined to comment.

"I write to inquire about whether the FBI ever provided the Trump campaign with a defensive briefing or other warning regarding attempts to infiltrate the campaign by people connected with, or compromised by, Russian intelligence," Grassley wrote.

CNN reported this week that the FBI twice has obtained court permission, through so-called FISA warrants, to wiretap Manafort. One of those warrants was issued before Manafort joined the Trump campaign.

"This raises the question of whether the FBI ever alerted Mr. Trump to the FBI's counter-intelligence concerns regarding his campaign manager and others associated with the campaign -- so that he could take defensive action to prevent the campaign from being infiltrated," Grassley wrote.

"If the FBI did provide a defensive briefing or similar warning to the campaign, then that would raise important questions about how the Trump campaign responded," Grassley wrote. "On the other hand, if the FBI did not alert the campaign, then that would raise serious questions about what factors contributed to its decision and why it appears to have been handled differently in a very similar circumstance involving a previous campaign."

September 22, 2017 9:05 AM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

We’re eight months into the Trump presidency, and we can now draw one conclusion: The voices opposed to the president didn't learn anything from their experience in 2016.

The media will not slow down and make sure they get the story right as well as getting it first.

Does it feel as if the country’s largest news organizations attempted any serious self-reflection about how they covered the 2016 election? Are they attempting to be more fair-minded, more dedicated to accuracy, resisting groupthink and the temptation to become an echo chamber?

Hardly.

At Politico, journalism professor Mitchell Stevens boasts with pride, “Our most respected mainstream journalism organizations are beginning to recognize the failings of nonpartisanship.”

Yeah, that was the problem with 2016, journalists just weren’t clear enough about which candidate they wanted people to support.

Almost 63 million people heard the mainstream media’s encyclopedic criticism of Donald Trump in 2016 . . . and they voted for him anyway.

They either didn’t believe the criticism or didn’t find it sufficient when confronted with the alternative of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

One of the axioms of self-help is “if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.”

In the aftermath of the greatest upset in presidential election history, most of America’s media have decided to keep doing what they’re doing.

Are the issues debated in Washington any more serious and substantive, any less focused through the prism of personality and conflict and the shallow measurement of “optics”?
Before you answer, consider that the Washington Post wrote more than 900 words in the Style section about the “black snakeskin stiletto heels” that Melania Trump wore while walking from the White House to Marine One, beginning a day meeting hurricane victims. (She changed on the plane and emerged in Texas wearing sneakers.)

September 22, 2017 11:43 AM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

The Democratic party’s leaders haven’t changed their methods.

They denounced Trump and his “Deplorables” and the rest of the Republican party in the most furious terms in 2016, but that didn’t produce the results they wanted.

In 2017, Democrats decided to just keep on doing that, but with more profanity.

Representative Maxine Waters calls the president and his allies “scumbags,” while DNC chair Tom Perez declares, “Republicans don’t give a s*** about people.”

The outgoing California Democratic-party chairman leads a chant of “F*** Donald Trump!”

Little-known Democratic lawmakers create national headlines by calling Trump the p-word, “ “fascist, loofa-faced, s***-gibbon,” and wishing for his assassination.

Russ Feingold, who came within 4 percent of winning back his old Senate seat in 2016, declared, “Let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration, and the expulsion of immigrants.”

Enraged by the White House proposal to end DACA, Illinois Democratic representative Luis Gutierrez declared that White House chief of staff John Kelly is “a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear” who “should be drummed out of the White House along with the white supremacists.”

DNC vice chairman Keith Ellison recently compared the Dreamers, those who came to the United States illegally while children, to Jews in Nazi Germany — which make ICE comparable to the Gestapo.

It is as if Democrats concluded that the reason they lost in 2016 was that they just didn’t denounce Trump angrily enough.

September 22, 2017 11:49 AM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

After 2016, one might have expected Democrats to reconsider their full embrace of identity politics.

Instead they’ve doubled down.

Instead of examining why so many voters in so many states rejected their arguments and philosophies, many within the academy and universities greeted 2017 by insisting even more adamantly that freedom of speech is dangerous and that you should be threatened or violently assaulted if you express a view they disagree with.

Instead of giving the lecturing speeches at awards shows a break, Hollywood celebrities are becoming even more politically outspoken and strident, and even more openly contemptuous of roughly half their audience.

If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting; if you double down, you’ll get twice as much of what you’re getting.

The old methods may not have achieved the results they wanted, but those methods sure felt good.

And 2017 is becoming a illuminating lesson that many people in politics prioritize feeling good over achieving their goals.

September 22, 2017 11:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Everyone knows Kushner set out to collude with Russians at a meeting set up by Trump Jr. to get dirt from their government on Hillary.

Kushner even admitted as much, except of course, he didn't use the word collusion. He tried to minimize it by saying that nothing ever came out of that meeting, and he didn't even read the full email trail to try and brush off his complicity.

It's all reminiscent of Chris Hansen's "To Catch a Predator," except this wasn't actually a sting operation.

On Chris's show, cops pretend to be underage girls in computer chat rooms to lure pedophiles to their trap. When they get there, the are sometimes encouraged to do something even more revealing, like take off some clothes. Then Chris comes out and tells them they've been caught.

Perv guy then tries to claim he didn't know she was underage or that he was just there to be her friend, not actually do sexy things. Chris then shows him the chat log.

Pervy dude then gets handcuffed and goes to jail.

It doesn't matter that he didn't get any good sex from some underage girl, he goes to jail for just attempting to.

Kushner tried to collude with an antagonistic foreign power to swing the election.

How come he isn't in jail already, along with Trump JR.?

Did he really think there was some dirt or even fake news that the Republicans hadn't found since their full time anti-Clinton smear campaign started in the 90's?

September 22, 2017 12:04 PM  
Anonymous Not My President said...

You are not convincing a single person of anything with your disgusting right wing garbage.

The economy has been booming for years since Obama stopped the bleeding from the Bush Administration.

Trump has been UNable to work in a bipartisan way on important things like health care, taxes, immigration reform, etc.

The latest version of TrumpScare from the GOP only because they refuse to write this bill under REGULAR ORDER will coast 31 states federal health funds. Of the 16 states that will gain funds, 15 have GOP Governors.

There is nothing bipartisan about TrumpScare, unlike the many sessions of regular order when the ACA was written and passed into law.

Our nation's FEMA emergency teams work well after all the changes to them Obama made after Bush's disastrous Katrina response.

Russia and China are dream markets for Trump to build more of his towers, period.

In addition to your list of imagined successes:

Trump gave succor to neo-Nazis, boasted of groping women, attacked the integrity of the judicial system, boasted about his genital size on national television, attacked racial and religious minorities and labeled women all manner of vulgarities.

And then there's:

Firing James B. Comey in an effort to thwart the FBI’s Russia probe.

Dictating a misleading statement explaining his son’s campaign interaction with Russians.

Moving slowly to fire national security adviser Michael Flynn after being told by the Justice Department that Russia could potentially blackmail Flynn.

Inventing the false charge that he was wiretapped by his predecessor.

Shoving aside a European prime minister to make his way to the front of a photo.

Talking with the Japanese prime minister about how to respond to North Korea while dining alfresco among members of the public at Mar-a-Lago.

Mocking the abilities of U.S. intelligence agencies to an overseas audience.

Sharing sensitive Israeli intelligence with the Russians.

Initially failing to affirm NATO’s collective-security guarantee.

Gratuitously antagonizing European and Asian allies.

Raising the temperature in the North Korea nuclear standoff with a threat of “fire and fury.”

Encouraging a blockade of U.S. ally Qatar.

Issuing a ban on entry by members of certain Muslim countries that was struck down in court and had to be rewritten.


Attacking “so-called” federal judges and saying they should be blamed for terrorist attacks.

Launching a false social-media attack on the Muslim mayor of London.

Declaring the media “enemies of the American people.”

Disparaging MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinksi for supposedly “bleeding badly from a facelift.”

Claiming he lost the popular vote only because millions of people voted illegally and appointing an election fraud commission in an attempt to prove it.

Saying there were “fine people” marching among neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Moving to end protection from deportation for hundreds of thousands of immigrant “dreamers.”

And that list, of course, doesn’t include the many things Trump did before assuming office: the “Access Hollywood” video, the “birther” campaign, calling Mexican immigrants rapists, countenancing violence at his rallies and all the rest.

September 22, 2017 12:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren was forced to defend her wealth despite her frequent attacks on the rich after she was confronted by a Boston radio host earlier this week.

Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who frequently attacks big banks and Wall Street, ran into WRKO radio host Jeff Kuhner at the studio Monday and was asked how she can justify “railing” against a class of Americans to which she belongs.

“Question: You often say, and I agree with you, that the 99 percent are getting shafted by the one percent. You live in Cambridge, you’ve got a $2 million mansion,” Mr. Kuhner said as Ms. Warren nodded in agreement. “Plus you’re a multimillionaire yourself. How can you rail against the one percent, when in a sense, you are and live like the one percent?”

Ms. Warren launched into her biography about her modest childhood and not having enough money to apply to college, much less being able to afford to attend. She started to get visibly annoyed when Mr. Kuhner interjected, saying, “You made millions of dollars, right? And you live in a mansion in Cambridge.”

Mr. Kuhner continued. “you’re part of the one percent and you rail against the one percent. You don’t see the hypocrisy there?”

“It’s not hypocrisy!” the senator exclaimed.

According to a 2015 report by CNN, Ms. Warren is worth between $3.7 million and $10 million, not including her three-story home in Cambridge.

In a blog post Wednesday, Mr. Kuhner called Ms. Warren “a liar and a hypocrite” who was visibly embarrassed by his questions.

“Warren champions economic collectivism and state socialism. Her philosophy can be distilled to one seminal idea: Capitalism is evil,” he wrote. “She is a typical socialist. She preaches class hatred and the demonization of the rich, but lives — like the ruling Communists in Soviet Russia, Cuba or Venezuela — in opulent splendor. … She is a crony capitalist masquerading as a principled progressive.”

September 22, 2017 12:17 PM  
Anonymous this is sad said...

"Everyone knows Kushner set out to collude with Russians at a meeting set up by Trump Jr. to get dirt from their government on Hillary.

Kushner even admitted as much, except of course, he didn't use the word collusion. He tried to minimize it by saying that nothing ever came out of that meeting, and he didn't even read the full email trail to try and brush off his complicity."

there were several people at that meeting and yet you seem focused on Kushner

why?

the obvious explanation is that you are an anti-semite

nevertheless, the media has tried to hype this meeting with foreign agents as somehow evil because there were trying to find out "dirt" on Clinton, basically an echo chamber phrase used repeatedly by the media

the people who initiated the meeting said they had some information about Clinton and so the Trump campaign followed up

so "dirt" is just an anti-euphemism for due diligence to ascertain facts

there is just nothing legally or morally wrong here

indeed, when another foreign agent was making allegations against Trump that were similar to the allegations made against Clinton, the Obama administration used it as a pretext to wiretap Trump campaign officials

the hypocrisy is mind-boggling

"Kushner tried to collude with an antagonistic foreign power to swing the election."

that's an inaccurate characterization, in a number of ways, but even if it weren't, it's not illegal to collude with an antagonistic foreign power to swing the election

"How come he isn't in jail already, along with Trump JR.?"

because he didn't do anything illegal

Obama may have but I'm sure Trump will pardon him

we tend to give our past leaders a pass to avoid politicizing prosecution

at least, responsible parties do

"Did he really think there was some dirt or even fake news that the Republicans hadn't found since their full time anti-Clinton smear campaign started in the 90's?"

the activities of the Clinton crime syndicate are so far-reaching and complex that there are certainly many things not known

September 22, 2017 12:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"You are not convincing a single person of anything with your disgusting right wing garbage."

"dirt" on Hillary, "disgusting" "garbage"

you're not fooling with your attempts to subliminally propagandize

"The economy has been booming for years since Obama stopped the bleeding from the Bush Administration."

actually, no

it was the weakest recovery from a recession in the modern era and the labor participation rate plummeted, causing special suffering among women and minorities and the young

"Trump has been UNable to work in a bipartisan way on important things like health care, taxes, immigration reform, etc."

he just made an immigration deal with Dems and is working on taxes

"Our nation's FEMA emergency teams work well after all the changes to them Obama made after Bush's disastrous Katrina response."

oh, brother

Trump's response was so superior to the aloof Barry "Joe Cool" Obama that everyone has noticed

"Russia and China are dream markets for Trump to build more of his towers, period."

just yesterday, China agreed to freeze all bank transactions with North Korea

never would have happened under Obama

there is hope that this pressure will avoid a horrible war

"Trump gave succor to neo-Nazis,"

this is a trivial fringe group that Dems are desperately trying to raise the profile of

pathetic

"boasted of groping women,"

vulgar talk but that unusual in our culture

Americans decided to elect him anyway

"attacked the integrity of the judicial system,"

everyone who loses a case does that

you're probably too young to remember this but when TTF first started, there were constantly complaining about their opponents wasting the taxpayers money by suing the school board

"boasted about his genital size on national television,"

pretty tasteless but it was in response to someone saying otherwise

you have an attention disorder, don't you?

"attacked racial and religious minorities"

allegedly

"and labeled women all manner of vulgarities."

oh dear, people have said vulgar things about him as well

"Firing James B. Comey in an effort to thwart the FBI’s Russia probe."

well, someone trying to get Hillary elected should't have been FBI director anyway

September 22, 2017 1:18 PM  
Anonymous Nevertheless, she persisted said...

Senator Elizabeth Warren has the GOP lead dotard scared shitless about 2020.

September 22, 2017 1:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hard to see any indication of that

she's a dream candidate for the GOP

think McGovern in drag

You may have once had doubts that the American left has spent decades feeding a weed that would grow to strangle American liberty.

But those doubts have now been dispelled, haven’t they?

Because a new survey of American college students by the Brookings Institution offers perhaps the most depressing forecast of the future of liberty that we’ve seen.

It tells us that many of the most privileged people on the planet, American college students, are barbarously illiterate when it comes to understanding the freedoms given them by the Constitution.

A barbarously illiterate people can easily be turned into an angry horde. It is dangerous work, yes, but it can be done. They can be herded, cynically, with prompts to emotion and calls to anger for short-term political gain.

But having thrown away their understanding of their freedoms, such people cannot remain free for long.

According to the survey, when asked if the First Amendment protected so-called hate speech, 44 percent of college students said no.

And 16 percent said they didn’t know the answer.

More than half, 51 percent, said they think that “shouting so the audience can’t hear,” also known as the heckler’s veto, is an acceptable tactic for silencing a controversial speaker.

So just shout them down. Scream. Don’t engage, don’t ignore, and don’t bother to use reason and offer counter arguments to win the battle of ideas.

Instead, shout with venom. Shout with feeling. Shout with power and shout with anger so that those doing the herding can goad you into the chutes. And when many shout together, even to silence ugly viewpoints, here’s what happens:

Their faces become contorted, and spittle flies from the corners of their mouths. This is not what a free people in a republic looks like. This is what a mob looks like.

Perhaps most ominous of all, according to the survey, 19 percent of students believe that violence is an acceptable response to ideas they don’t like.

That is an astounding number, 1 in 5 college students is possessed of the belief that it is OK to club your opponents down.

I hope that number is wrong. I hope that once the survey by John Villasenor, of the University of California at Los Angeles, is offered up to peer review, something in the methodology will be found amiss. But I doubt it.

But we’ve all seen thuggery on college campuses in the news, and the silencing of dissent and the attention to safe spaces, so given all that, the survey results aren’t really that surprising.

September 22, 2017 1:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We’ve seen those professors, even liberal professors, psychically or physically intimidated, even injured, by the antifa thugs of the left.

And we’ve seen, with but a few exceptions, the relative silence from Democratic political leaders and liberal pundits, who may not embrace the violence, but embrace the use of raw emotions for political advantage and internet clicks.

What’s the matter guys? Crickets got your tongue?

To say that all this is chilling doesn’t quite do it justice. It is monstrous. And we can see that weed growing.

These college students aren’t the enemy. They are our sons and daughters, our nieces, nephews, friends, contemporaries.

But they are the future leaders of our nation, among them will come our politicians, judges, intelligence officers, prosecutors, administrators and information technology engineers overseeing how Americans receive their political news.

And sadly, it is clear that too many have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution, particularly of the First Amendment that protects all American liberty.

Some speech is called hateful because it is indeed hateful, and racist and bigoted. Who likes or appreciates bigoted speech? No civilized person appreciates it. We loathe it.

But it is still zealously protected by the Constitution. Why?

Because if even hateful speech isn’t protected, we allow our freedoms to be killed off.

It is far too easy to apply the “hate speech” tag to other kinds of speech, called hateful only because it is politically unfashionable. Some of it is subversive, threatening those in power, and those in power already let loose their dogs to bark and shame and shout the subversives down. That’s politics. What’s not acceptable is thinking that government has the right to shut speech down.

In a nation founded on liberty, it is understood that we can’t regulate political speech, even if it’s hateful, because having the government regulate speech would end all speech.

It would allow partisan politics to ooze in, like sepsis in a wound, and regulate out any ideas that the elites find threatening.

So we allow Black Lives Matter and other protesters to shout out their animus toward police, “Pigs in a blanket/Fry ’em like bacon,” and we allow Nazis and the KKK and those white boys with the tiki torches in Virginia to shout their alt-right hatred of minorities and others.

We protect their speech, hateful as it is, to protect our own.

That’s how we’ve kept ourselves free, by adhering to the First Amendment of America’s most sacred document, the Constitution.

How did so many college students not learn this before college? How did so many not learn this in their K-12 educations?

Such profound ignorance didn’t just spring fully formed from some political forehead. It has been reinforced. They’ve already been herded.

It has been taught to them by indifferent parents, by a corrosive entertainment/media culture, and perhaps most importantly by their high school teachers, who have groomed them for this.

We reap what we sow.

September 22, 2017 1:48 PM  
Anonymous collusion city, baby said...

"Senator Elizabeth Warren has the GOP lead dotard scared shitless about 2020."

when the radical fringe TTFer uses the same terms as the leader of North Korea, you have to wonder if they're colluding

September 22, 2017 1:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Everyone knows that if folks in the Clinton campaign did the exact same things Kushner and Trump JR. did trying to collude with the Russians and won the election, Congress would already be knee deep in impeachment hearings.

And if you'd ever bother to do some homework, you'd know that what we now call the anti-fa are just the same anti-globalist anarchists that have been around for years causing trouble. The are niether pro-left nor pro-right; they're pretty much anti any government. With Herr Trump in office now though, they can focus their energies into something more positive - trying to block white supremacists from dominating American politics.

Trump and Un are now trading school yard bully taunts just like you'd expect anyone whose emotional development stopped in the fourth grade to do. It is reminiscent of Bush and Saddam Hussein before Bush launched us into a decade and a half of pointless and expensive war.

Republicans think Trumpkin's rhetoric is a sign of "strength."

But if missiles strart flying, some people just might start rethinking their stand on "political correctness."

I'm not going to hold my breath through.


September 22, 2017 2:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If NK bombs the US, we will turn our anger toward Un and forget that Trump provoked him with unnecessary childish taunts. It will be just like when we turned on Saddam. If NK does not bomb us, we will be oh-so-grateful to Trump for his bravery in standing up to them. He has really figured out how to be the president of dumb people, this sort of thing works out for him no matter what.

September 22, 2017 3:21 PM  
Anonymous Look in the mirror said...

"nevertheless, the media has tried to hype this meeting with foreign agents as somehow evil because there were trying to find out "dirt" on Clinton, basically an echo chamber phrase used repeatedly by the media"

This echo chamber?

Washington Examiner

Donald Trump Jr. releases email saying 'I love it' after being offered Hillary Clinton dirt from Russia

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/donald-trump-jr-releases-email-saying-i-love-it-after-being-offered-hillary-clinton-dirt-from-russia/article/2628264

Breitbart

Donald Trump Jr. Releases ‘Russia Email’ Chain

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/11/donald-trump-jr-releases-russia-email-chain/

September 22, 2017 4:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At first glance, the latest push to repeal the Affordable Care Act is very confusing: Why are Republicans pushing a health-care bill the entire health-care industry hates? Politicians repealing a program or regulation in order to enrich industry is a common Washington tale, but that’s not what’s happening here: The health-insurance lobby hates the Graham-Cassidy bill and is trying to kill it, and so are hospitals, doctors, and pretty much the rest of the American health-care system.

This mystery is easily solved when you realize the Graham-Cassidy bill isn’t really about health care. It is not meant to help the health-insurance industry, and certainly not designed to help patients, who will lose access to affordable coverage, particularly if they have a preexisting condition. Rather, Graham-Cassidy is an ideological crusade to reshape the federal budget and change who really benefits from federal spending. The health-care cuts are mainly a means to finance future massive tax cuts, and the wealthy donors who will benefit are the real constituency for this legislation.

The bill is best understood as a way to solve a political problem that could ultimately prove fatal to the coming tax-cut push, which is going to begin as soon as the health-care debate concludes at the end of September. The GOP’s stated desire to reduce the country’s long-term debt has always been in conflict with its other major goal of slashing tax rates, particularly for corporations and the very wealthy. This contradiction is especially obvious this year, as Senate Republicans are embracing a $1.5 trillion, deficit-financed tax-cut package immediately after having spent eight years accusing Barack Obama of running up the national debt.

Republicans can use 10-year budget windows to get these cuts around congressional reconciliation rules (or 20-year or even 30-year windows, as some senators have proposed). In the public square, they can wave their hands about magical, trickle-down growth that will pay for these massive revenue reductions, despite every serious economic analysis that says otherwise. But in the end, for Republican leaders the deficit consequences of massive tax cuts are a serious political weapon for the opposition, and they create a stumbling block with the party’s own genuine fiscal hawks who do actually care about the country’s long-term debt. There are not nearly as many of these hawks as one might think, but perhaps enough to disrupt a tax-cut package that already can pass Congress only with super-thin margins.

One easy way around this problem would be to drastically cut government spending to help pay for the big revenue cuts. And this is exactly what Graham-Cassidy does. It changes how the federal government pays for Medicaid, switching from the existing state-federal partnership to a much less generous per-capita formula. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates this would reduce Medicaid spending by $175 billion over the next decade. From 2020 to 2036, this change would cut federal Medicaid spending by a whopping $1.1 trillion, according to the consulting firm Avalere.

Republicans are sneaking in this major attack on the safety net under the guise of repealing the dread Obamacare, but this is a straightforward Medicaid cut that has nothing to do with the ACA. Obamacare did expand eligibility for Medicaid, and Graham-Cassidy reduces that spending too, before eliminating it outright in 2027. Starting in 2020, it block-grants the ACA’s intended spending on Medicaid expansion and federal subsidies for people buying health insurance on the exchanges. The block grants are much lower than what would be spent under current law: Between 2020 and 2026, the federal government would provide $243 billion less than it otherwise would, according to the CBPP.

Graham-Cassidy enacts these massive spending cuts while still keeping a large portion of the ACA’s taxes and other revenue-raising measures in place...

September 22, 2017 5:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...Along with the deeper Medicaid cuts, this is a clear ploy to create much rosier debt projections that can then be used to justify massive tax cuts.

Conservative policy experts are happy to admit this (see http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/03/22/health-care-domino-why-trumps-tax-cuts-depend-on-obamacare-repeal.html) to friendly outlets, and there’s a big tell in the bill that the authors are really focused on the long-term debt projections: the total disappearance of the block grant beginning in 2027.

Cassidy has offered no good explanation for this. He claimed congressional budget rules mandate this sunset, but that’s not remotely true. Legislation passed under reconciliation rules can’t increase the deficit past 10 years, but Cassidy-Graham reduces the deficit. Either Cassidy is woefully ignorant, or he’s lying. Cassidy also said he assumes Congress will reauthorize the block grant, which is a dubious assertion, since Congress would have to treat any extension as brand-new spending. Senate and House pay-as-you-go rules would dictate offsetting spending cuts, which would either put pressure on other discretionary spending, or lead to an even less generous block grant, or both. It’s entirely possible Congress wouldn’t be able to renew the block grant at all.

Consequently, the 2027 fiscal cliff is a major political liability for the Graham-Cassidy bill. It terrifies governors and increases estimates of how many Americans will be uninsured as a result of the legislation. Insurance companies hate it because it could destroy the individual health-insurance market in 2027, and destabilize it well before that. So why on earth is it in the bill?

The only feasible explanation is that it improves long-term debt projections. Since the block grant would be treated as temporary spending, baseline budget projections would show much lower deficits starting in 2027. Maybe the spending would be replaced and maybe not—but that’s almost besides the point for Republicans. In the meantime, they can use those rosy projections to call for serious tax cuts.

Every Republican tax-cut plan this year has been heavily slanted to benefit the extremely wealthy; Paul Ryan’s “Better Deal” gave the top 1 percent of income earners an astonishing 99.6 percent share of the proposed tax cuts over the long term. This is going to be paid for by the cuts in Graham-Cassidy, even if Republicans want to pretend these are two unrelated bills. One big package that threw millions of people off their health insurance in order to finance tax cuts for billionaires would never fly with the public, so why does it matter if Republicans are splitting it into two back-to-back pieces of legislation?

September 22, 2017 5:22 PM  
Anonymous *That's* bipartisanship said...

Senator John McCain just announced he will not vote for the Graham-Cassidy repeal bill, directly citing the bipartisan progress that Patty and Senator Lamar Alexander have made so far in the Senate Health Committee.

September 22, 2017 5:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal. I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will effect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it. Without a full CBO score, which won’t be available by the end of the month, we won’t have reliable answers to any of those questions.

“I take no pleasure in announcing my opposition. Far from it. The bill’s authors are my dear friends, and I think the world of them. I know they are acting consistently with their beliefs and sense of what is best for the country. So am I.

“I hope that in the months ahead, we can join with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to arrive at a compromise solution that is acceptable to most of us, and serves the interests of Americans as best we can.”

McCain added that he’d consider a bill like Graham-Cassidy “were it the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment,” but that hasn’t happened.

September 22, 2017 5:27 PM  
Anonymous Odd and suspicious Friday night news dump said...

DHS: 21 states targeted by Russian hackers in 2016 election

Friday night, ten months later DHS tells us earlier this year that it had evidence of Russian activity in 21 states but they failed to inform individual states whether they were among those targeted...State election officials were finally contacted by the federal authorities on Friday, today.

One might deem this suspicious that the administration that benefited from Russia intervention in the election, that wasted no time deciding that they needed to launch a 50 state scheme to collect the private data of voters so that they could stop fictional voter fraud because they wanted to prove that somehow Donald Trump really did win the popular vote and there were millions of fraudulent voters. They wasted no time empaneling a commission led by the Vice President with no vote suppression experts, like Kris Kobach on it. That didn't take any time at all.

But DHS, which used to be headed by the now Chief of Staff General Kelly, they couldn't get around to letting these states know until this late in the game when there's another election coming up at which control of the House and Senate, meaning control of the committees that can issue subpoenas, that could pose a threat to this administration on the Russian investigation, it took them this long to get around to it so states could prepare. One might deem that odd and suspicious.

September 23, 2017 8:39 AM  
Anonymous No sightings reported yet said...

On Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017, a constellation — a sign prophesied in the Book of Revelation — would reveal itself in the skies over Jerusalem, signaling the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.

September 23, 2017 9:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Warriors on Twitter Saturday morning over reports that they were considering skipping their White House visit.

The NBA champion Warriors were reportedly planning to meet as a team and decide whether to go to the White House, per tradition, due to their dislike of Trump.

"Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team," Trump tweeted. "Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!"

Several Warriors players including Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry previously expressed misgivings about the visit.

Curry told reporters Friday that he does not want to go to the White House as a message to Trump.

"That we don’t stand for basically what our President has – the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said in the right times, that we won’t stand for it," Curry said. "And by acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country and what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye to. It’s not just the act of not going there."

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/23/trump-attacks-stephen-curry-disinvites-the-golden-state-warriors-from-the-white-house-in-early-morning-tweet/23220320/

LeBron James ✔
@KingJames

U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invites. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!

11:17AM - 23 Sep 2017

September 23, 2017 12:43 PM  
Anonymous Trump administration is making it even harder for folks to sign up for AFA said...

The Trump administration plans to shut down the federal health insurance exchange for 12 hours during all but one Sunday in the upcoming open enrollment season.

The shutdown will occur from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET on every Sunday except Dec. 10.

The Department of Health and Human Services will also shut down the federal exchange — healthcare.gov — overnight on the first day of open enrollment, Nov. 1. More than three dozen states use that exchange for their marketplaces.

HHS officials disclosed this information Friday during a webinar with community groups that help people enroll.

The Trump administration has come under attack from critics who say that it is intentionally undermining the Affordable Care Act, through regulatory actions. It shortened the enrollment period, withdrew money for advertising and cut the budget for navigator groups, which help people shop for plans.

And now HHS is closing the site for a substantial portion of each weekend — for maintenance, officials said. That is the same time that many working patients — the prime target group for ACA insurance — could be shopping for their insurance, critics noted.

“The Department of Health & Human Services is actively trying to prevent people from signing up for healthcare coverage,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) tweeted. “This is outrageous.”

“Argh” was the reaction of Shelli Quenga, program director at the Palmetto Project in South Carolina, a nonprofit group that received about $1 million to help with outreach and enrollment in the past 12 months. This month, HHS cut her budget in half for this year’s open enrollment.

Open enrollment season will run from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15, less than half the time people have had to sign up during the first four years of the exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act.

More than 12 million people enrolled on the state and federal marketplaces for 2017 coverage, including more than 9 million on the federal exchange. Some customers give up coverage over the course of the year.

Advocates were already nervous that fewer people would sign up during the shortened period this time around.

“I could see this really impacting the ability of people to complete an application sign-up in a single sitting, which is so important,” said Jason Stevenson, spokesman for the Utah Health Policy Project, an Obamacare navigator group. He noted that 10 p.m. Mountain Time is often a relatively popular time for people to enroll online.

“Health insurance is complicated, and in the past couple of years we had an administration that made it easier to sign up, but that has really changed in the past six months, with more hurdles not only for consumers but for those whose job it is to help them,” he said.

September 23, 2017 3:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


Kushner used private email to conduct White House busines

The senior adviser set up the account after the election. Other West Wing officials have also used private email accounts for official business.

Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business.

Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects, according to four people familiar with the correspondence. POLITICO has seen and verified about two dozen emails.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/24/jared-kushner-private-email-white-house-243071

September 25, 2017 7:07 AM  
Anonymous Attempted bribery said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/new-version-of-health-care-bill-will-help-alaska-and-maine--home-of-two-holdout-senators/2017/09/25/24697f62-a188-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html

September 25, 2017 7:53 AM  
Anonymous Obama hacked more of the election than Vlad said...

Jared didn't deal in classified information. He can use any email he wants.

We are in the beginning phase of Obamagate. This is our generation’s Watergate. Except far worse.

Here’s a refresher course for those too young to remember. Watergate was the biggest scandal in modern political history. Republican President Richard Nixon desperately wanted to know what Democrats were planning for their 1972 presidential campaign against him. He ordered a team of trusted aides to spy on them. They literally broke into the offices of the Democrat National Committee inside the Watergate Building. That was the beginning of the end for Nixon.

But today no one needs to physically break into an office to spy on a political rival. All you have to do is use the high-tech electronic power of government. A corrupt president can use the government to listen in on anyone, anytime.

The media and liberal critics went ballistic when Donald Trump tweeted in March that Barack Obama spied on him. CNN tweeted, “Trump’s baseless wiretap claim” and, “Trump just flat-out lied about wiretapping.” Well guess who was right? Trump — again.

According to multiple media reports out last week, officials in the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. They wiretapped Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort both before and after the election. It appears other top Trump aides were also wiretapped, as was Trump Tower.

The Obama administration was actually spying on the entire Trump campaign staff. Even if they were listening in on only Manafort, to whom do you think he was speaking? Trump and every high-ranking member of Trump’s campaign staff.

Which means while government agents were supposedly listening for “criminal activity,” they just happened to hear every plan of the Trump campaign … they just happened to know what would be in Trump’s speeches … they knew his line of attack versus Hillary … they knew his debate prep … they knew everything Trump was planning before he did it. That’s some valuable inside information.

Obama just happened to pick the perfect guy to spy on — if he wanted to fix the election for Hillary.

September 25, 2017 10:55 AM  
Anonymous Obama hacked more of the election than Vlad said...

It was the perfect crime — or so Obama thought. Because with all this inside information on the Trump campaign in the hands of Hillary and her campaign team, she couldn’t lose. And after her easy victory, Hillary would be in control of the Department of Justice. So who would ever investigate or prosecute?

Except Trump ruined everything by winning a “fixed” election against all odds. And now Trump controls the DOJ. Trump can investigate and prosecute. Obamagate is directly in Trump’s crosshairs.
Does this Obamagate gameplan sound familiar?
These are the same people who successfully “fixed” the primaries for Hillary. They cheated Bernie Sanders. They even gave CNN’s presidential debate questions to Hillary in advance. These are the same people who used the IRS to destroy Obama’s leading media critics and slow tea party fundraising and activism to a trickle during the 2012 Obama re-election run. Isn’t that an attempt to “fix” the election?

These are the same people caught spying on journalists of Fox News, The Associated Press and CBS’s Emmy Award-winning correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. These are the same people who unmasked Trump advisers and transition officials. Samantha Powers was unmasking names at a speed unheard of in political history.

This is Obamagate. It makes Watergate look like child’s play. The real question is:

What did Obama know and when did he know it?

September 25, 2017 10:56 AM  
Anonymous more on the Clinton crime family said...

part of the Clinton crime syndicate family is heading to prison:

Former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Monday for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl, a scandal that played a role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Weiner, 53, started to cry as soon as the sentence was announced by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty in May to transferring obscene messages to a minor, and agreed he would not appeal.

Weiner's lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to probation rather than prison, saying he acted out of the "depths of an uncontrolled sickness" and was now being treated. He's on the wrong track, baby, he was born that way.

The investigation into Weiner’s exchanges with a North Carolina high school student roiled the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign in its final days, when authorities found emails on Weiner’s laptop from his wife Huma Abedin, the top aide to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Weiner wore his wedding band at the sentencing.

The discovery of the emails prompted James Comey, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to announce in late October that the agency was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was U.S. secretary of state.

Clinton has said the announcement caused her devastating loss to Republican Donald Trump.

September 25, 2017 11:08 AM  
Anonymous Protesters are not terrorists said...

It takes a real loser to celebrate other losers' troubles.

Why I bet you hold as many offices as Hillary Clinton and Anthony Weiner combined these days, zero.

Trump's good for something at least, he's united the entire NFL and other athletes against him calling protestors SOBs.

The right to protest is a truly American ideal and Trump's attempts to silence and punish protesters, like Erdogan and his goons who Trump has praised, are about as UNAmerican as possible.

Voice Of America reports: Trump Praises Erdogan Despite Incidents of Violence Against Protesters

"U.S. President Donald Trump praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend who gets "high marks" for "running a very difficult part of the world."

Trump's effusive praise for the Turkish leader came on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday despite tensions between the two countries over the conduct of Turkish security officials toward American protesters.

Hours before Trump met Erdogan for talks, Erdogan supporters punched and kicked three protesters who interrupted his speech at a New York hotel.

Erdogan was addressing several hundred people at an event organized by a business group, the Turkish-American National Steering Committee, when one man stood and began shouting, "Terrorist! Terrorist!"

Voice of America TV footage shows audience members pummeling him as U.S. security officers tried to hustle him to safety. Soon after he was gone, a second man followed suit and also was repeatedly punched and hit over the head with Turkish flags as he was led outside by U.S. security.

Erdogan tried to calm the crowd, saying: "Let's not sacrifice the whole meeting for a couple of terrorists."

Then a third protester started heckling the president from a different part of the crowd. Although that incident occurred off-camera, a VOA reporter who was nearby said he, too, was beaten.

This was the second time this year that protesters in America have been assaulted by Erdogan supporters.

In past months, 21 people — many of whom were members of the Turkish ambassador's security detail — were indicted for allegedly attacking protesters outside the Turkish embassy in Washington in May. All were charged with conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison. Several face additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

The brawl erupted outside the residence of Turkey's ambassador to Washington shortly after Trump met with Erdogan at the White House. Video of the protest recorded by VOA's Turkish service, showing what appear to be security guards and some Erdogan supporters attacking a small group of demonstrators, went viral.

Erdogan said in a PBS interview that he was "very sorry" for the violence in May. Erdogan also claimed U.S. President Donald Trump called him a week ago about what happened in May to say he, too, was sorry, and that "he was going to follow up about this issue when [Erdogan and his people] come to the United States within the framework of an official visit."

The White House has since strongly denied Erdogan's account of the phone conversation with Trump.

On Thursday, during his appearance with Erdogan, Trump was asked about the conversation with the Turkish leader regarding the violence against peaceful protesters. Trump did not respond."

September 25, 2017 1:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It takes a real loser to celebrate other losers' troubles."

are you talking about TTFers that make a post every time Trump's approval rating drops a point?

I know you couldn't be talking about my post concerning Weiner

because he's not just a loser, as if he went over 21 in blackjack

he's an evil sexual predator, like Bill Clinton

and Hillary and his enabling wife are accomplices

"Why I bet you hold as many offices as Hillary Clinton and Anthony Weiner combined these days, zero."

Well, Hillary never accomplished anything other than marrying some hillbilly who worked his way up from corrupt Southern governor to corrupt President

"Trump's good for something at least, he's united the entire NFL and other athletes against him calling protestors SOBs.

The right to protest is a truly American ideal and Trump's attempts to silence and punish protesters, like Erdogan and his goons who Trump has praised, are about as UNAmerican as possible."

Trump's a moron but he has a right to his opinion and most Americans agree with him on this issue

personally, i don't worship idols made of cloth that flap in the wind and I couldn't care less what athletes do during the national anthem

that being said, the protests are just as moronic

there's no correlation between patriotism and any perceived racial or economic injustice in America

September 25, 2017 2:03 PM  
Anonymous Trolls for tyrannical Trump said...

Scalia spoke about the matter in a 2012 interview with CNN, saying that while he does not approve of flag burning, it is fundamentally protected by the Constitution and the Founding Fathers' efforts to create a government not ruled by tyranny.

"If I were king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged -- and it is addressed in particular to speech critical of the government," Scalia said. "That was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/flag-burning-constitutional-donald-trump/index.html

September 25, 2017 2:37 PM  
Anonymous TTF is so confused said...

"Scalia spoke about the matter in a 2012 interview with CNN, saying that while he does not approve of flag burning, it is fundamentally protected by the Constitution and the Founding Fathers' efforts to create a government not ruled by tyranny.

"If I were king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged -- and it is addressed in particular to speech critical of the government," Scalia said. "That was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.""

I don't know who you're arguing with. I agree with Scalia 100%.

But Trump has a right to an opinion, he's a citizen with free speech rights, as well. He hasn't suggested making anything illegal. He's just giving his advice to private business owners. Those owners are paying the salaries of the athletes and have a right to supervise their conduct while on-the-clock. Fans who don't like the way the athletes conduct themselves also have a right to not patronize the games.

September 25, 2017 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I don't know who you're arguing with."

Well good, since I didn't "argue" with anyone.

I quoted a fact about Trump's favorite Supreme Court Justice's opinion regarding the right of Americans to protest to compare it with your idiot's.

But you can pretend I was arguing with somebody if you prefer.

It appears you are arguing with yourself about whether you agree with Scalia or Trump regarding the American constitutional right to protest vs. tyranny.










September 25, 2017 3:50 PM  
Anonymous very mentally astute said...

"It appears you are arguing with yourself about whether you agree with Scalia or Trump regarding the American constitutional right to protest vs. tyranny."

it's well-known that things appear askew to the mentally challeneged

as I said, I agree with Scalia 100%

Trump didn't opine regarding the American constitutional right to protest vs. tyranny

in your mentally challenged state, you may assume that the constitution guarantees one employment regardless of their speech

this is untrue, rights in the Constitution restrain the government and liberate the citizens from governmental action

the NFL is not part of the government and is, thus, not restrained by the constitution

are you beginning to understand how mentally challenged you are?


September 25, 2017 4:43 PM  
Anonymous Zip it Trump said...

The President's freedom of speech is limited by the Constitution. He can't tell somebody to fire someone. Well, he can, and he did, but it is against the law.

September 25, 2017 5:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The President's freedom of speech is limited by the Constitution."

no, it isn't

"He can't tell somebody to fire someone."

of course, he can

it just that it doesn't have any force of law, it's just his opinion

no one was confused, thinking it was an executive order

it's not like when Dana Beyer, aide to a city councilman, when to a local grocery store and told people petitioning that were engaging in an illegal practice

that was despicable

Trump merely voiced his opinion on NFL owners should do

"Well, he can, and he did, but it is against the law."

no, it isn't

however, just so everyone can watch you squirm like a worm on a fish hook, do tell us what law the mentally challenged think Trump broke

we'll wait

September 25, 2017 10:01 PM  
Anonymous Zip it Trump said...

18 U.S. Code § 227 makes it a federal crime punishable by a fine or up to 15 years in prison or both, for a government employee to influence or threaten to influence a private company’s employment decisions.

September 25, 2017 10:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"the NFL is not part of the government and is, thus, not restrained by the constitution"

And how would football players fired for expressing themselves by protesting during the national anthem at NFL games seek redress for violation of their right to freedom of expression?

It would be via the courts and Scalia would be on the side of the protesters, not those who yell "You're fired" because they feel they have the right to shut down protests they disagree with.

All Americans have the same right to protest in public.

September 25, 2017 10:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"18 U.S. Code § 227 makes it a federal crime punishable by a fine or up to 15 years in prison or both, for a government employee to influence or threaten to influence a private company’s employment decisions"

you left something out, didn't you?

I'll give you a chance to confess before making you look stupid (or stupider!)

"And how would football players fired for expressing themselves by protesting during the national anthem at NFL games seek redress for violation of their right to freedom of expression?"

they don't have this right while employed

but if they think they should have that, they can ask customers not to patronize the business

the bill of rights only covers actions by the government to deny your freedom of speech not that of private businesses

if you're working for someone, they can regulate your speech as part of your employment

you're free to quit

ask your friends who aren't mentally challenged

if applicable, haha!!

"It would be via the courts and Scalia would be on the side of the protesters, not those who yell "You're fired" because they feel they have the right to shut down protests they disagree with."

no, anyone customer has a right to ask a business owner to fire an employee if they feel the employee engages in offensive speech

matter of fact, it happens all the time

"All Americans have the same right to protest in public."

they are free from government regulation of their speech, that's all

September 25, 2017 11:26 PM  
Anonymous CRWhater lost said...

"it's not like when Dana Beyer, aide to a city councilman, when to a local grocery store and told people petitioning that were engaging in an illegal practice

that was despicable"


Your side lost that battle too:

http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2011/03/dana-beyer-cleared-of-ethics-charges.html

The Montgomery County Ethics Commission found:

"The ethics law is not an unbounded general code of civil conduct for county employees. Rather, the ethics law is concerned with the way employees conduct County business; the law addresses employees’ private conduct only where the conduct intersects with their public employment. Accordingly, inherent in § 19A-14(e)’s proscription against a public employee’s intimidating, threatening, coercing or discriminating against any person for the purpose of interfering with that person’s freedom to engage in political activity is a nexus with County employment. In order for § 19A-14(e) to be violated, the employee’s conduct must be on the job, include self-identification as a public employee, or otherwise entail the prestige of office.

Assuming that Dr. Beyer did confront MCRG volunteers, Giant Food managers, and patrons, there is no credible evidence that she invoked her County position while doing so. The Commission found Mr. Schall’s testimony, as well as Verlon Mason’s audiotape and affidavit, unpersuasive. Mr. Mason’s use of the derogatory term “shim” when referring to Dr. Beyer, evidences a bias against transgendered individuals. Similarly, Mr. Schall displayed a palpable and unapologetic disdain for transgendered individuals which, in the Commission’s judgment, makes his testimony not credible.

On the other hand, the disinterested witnesses do not support the charge. Montgomery County Police Sergeant Douglas Cobb did not testify to any confrontation, let alone conduct that might violate § 19A-14(e). And while Giant manager Aaron Williams testified that there was a “confrontation,” “shouting,” and “loud talking back and forth,” he would not identify what, if any, role Dr. Beyer played in this confrontation.

It is apparent to the Commission that MCRG and Teach the Facts have very political agendas and this is reflected in their support or opposition to the Bill. There may, in fact, have been harsh words exchanged at the Arliss/Piney Branch on the day in question. But it was not proved that Dr.Beyer violated § 19A-14(e) by intimidating, threatening, coercing or discriminating against any person’s freedom to engage in political activity as a function of being on the job, self-identifying as a public employee, or entailing the prestige of office.

V. CONCLUSION
The complaint is dismissed."

September 26, 2017 6:46 AM  
Anonymous The NFL does not engage in locker room talk about pussy grabbing, Mr. President said...

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/25/poll-66-percent-see-trump-as-doing-more-to-divide-than-unite-america/23222467/

"As President Trump's approval ratings ebb and flow, a new ABC News poll reveals a majority of Americans view the commander in chief as more divisive than unifying.

According to the latest ABC News poll findings, 66 percent of Americans say Trump has done more to divide the country, while 28 percent say the president has done more to unify.

The poll findings come after Trump last Friday spoke out on NFL players protesting by taking a knee during the national anthem, saying he would "love" to see team owners say of protesting players, "Get that son of a b***h off the field."

His comments sparked a wave of backlash, including statements from league commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners alike. On Sunday, many NFL players -- and some full teams -- stayed in locker rooms, knelt, and stood in solidarity after Trump's comments.

Star New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady himself -- who had previously been seen with a "Make America Great Again" hat in his locker -- called the president's words "divisive."

This ABC News survey also comes on the heels of data showing bad news for the president's political party.

According to a new CNN poll, an anemic 29 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the Republican party. This is the lowest mark the GOP has received in this poll since CNN began asking the question in 1992.

From Congress to the Supreme Court to the executive office, conservative Republican values and agenda items currently have the upper hand in the U.S. Still, though, items that require Congressional action have stalled, potentially due to Trump's divisive language often showcased on Twitter seeping into his legislative maneuvering.

While the White House has shifted its messaging to an emphasis on tax reform, efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare press on for Republicans on Capitol Hill -- but opposites like Sens. Susan Collins and Rand Paul appear to have again found themselves at an impasse in taking up the latest Graham-Cassidy bill.

This late in the health care game, there is no "come to Trump" moment for GOP lawmakers looking for a mediator to guide the elephant process. Rather, Trump took to Twitter last week to blast Sen. Paul for his opposition to the health care bill, naming him as a "negative force" to his 39.2 million followers.

As Trump seemingly divides the nation on issues like proper responses to police brutality, Confederate monuments and what the national anthem stands for, NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart doubled down on Monday in emphasizing the league's differing views on the issue.

"Everyone should know, including the president, that this is what real locker room talk is," Lockhart said of the player protests. "If the president wants to engage in something that's productive, he has our number."

September 26, 2017 7:13 AM  
Anonymous dubya said...

"Your side lost that battle too:"

in what way?

Beyer did try to throw the weight of the office around and convince people that petition signing was illegal

as in many crimes, the perp is able to get away because there's not enough evidence

and, based on this ruling, trans can do whatever they want to people who don't support the gay agenda because their testimony will just be ignored

in any case, Trump did nothing like this, which would clearly have been a crime if the evidence existed from a gay supporter

in the People's Republic of Montgomery County, only the testimony of gay agendists is valid in court

nevertheless, anti-Beyer forces won

Beyer's councilman employer was defeated for re-election

every time Beyer personally ran for election, the voters hit the eject button

and Beyer has been, basically, shut up

check the "w" column

September 26, 2017 11:06 AM  
Anonymous Nevertheless she persists said...

"Beyer did try to throw the weight of the office around and convince people that petition signing was illegal"

Says who?

According to the Ethics Commission the only people who claimed anything remotely like that happened were two unreliable people, one who's "use of the derogatory term "shim" when referring to Dr. Beyer, evidences a bias against transgendered individuals," and the other who "displayed a palpable and unaplogetic disdain for transgendered individuals which, in the Commissions's judgment, makes his testimony not credible."

You sure do express your very own "unapologetic disdain" for trans folks.

Were you there?

I was and I also testified before the Ethics Commission to what I witnessed that day: Mr. Schall was acting like a bully.

Here's Jimk's post about it:

http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2008/02/hypothetical-pedophile-and-other.html

Is that who you are?

Are you Mr. Schall, in the gimmie cap with the cigarette butt in your mouth and your "palpable and unaplogetic disdain for transgendered individuals?"

"and Beyer has been, basically, shut up"

You don't get out of Mom's basement much, do you?

Dr. Beyer is far from shut up. She has her own column at Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/danamd-245

September 26, 2017 1:36 PM  
Anonymous Even controlling the White House, House of Representatives and the US Senate, the GOP continues to fail to repeal and replace the ACA said...

The GOP’s Latest Obamacare Repeal Bill Is Dead

Republicans decided not to vote on the measure because they didn’t have enough support to pass it.

September 26, 2017 3:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wha--? Wait a minute, I thought they passed it like forty or fifty times before Trump was in office. This shoulda been a rubber-stamp deal.

Unless the law was so embarrassingly bad that even the Republicans didn't actually want to pass it into law. Do ya think?

September 26, 2017 3:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The House has repealed the ACA many times before Trump was placed in the White House by Putin's pals, but the Senate hasn't.

This was the Senate trying to pass any repeal and replace under reconciliation with only 51 votes because after Sept. 30, the Senate will need 60 votes to pass it.

The House no doubt would have passed ANY repeal and replace ACA bill, but the Senate could not get it together.

And now GOPers are leaving insurers unsure they will provide the ACA's cost-sharing reduction payments for next year, without which premiums will climb much higher.

"...Wednesday is the deadline for insurers to sign contracts with the federal government so that they can sell health plans on the ACA marketplaces for 2018. Many companies are hiking these rates by double digits, but they have suggested they would curb such increases if they had assurances that the federal government would provide cost-sharing reduction payments for all of next year.

At the moment, the Trump administration is only covering cost-sharing payments on a month-to-month basis; a White House official confirmed Tuesday that it had made a payment for September. Asked what the president intended to continue making payments going forward, the aide said officials have not yet decided what to do..."


https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-gop-effort-to-unwind-the-affordable-care-act-faces-critical-test-tuesday/2017/09/26/097b2dc2-a25f-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html

September 26, 2017 3:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"This was the Senate trying to pass any repeal and replace under reconciliation with only 51 votes because after Sept. 30, the Senate will need 60 votes to pass it."

or start the process over again with a new bill, not that difficult

"And now GOPers are leaving insurers unsure they will provide the ACA's cost-sharing reduction payments for next year, without which premiums will climb much higher."

Obama gave Americans some fake news: that they can keep their doctors and that ACA would reduce the deficit

why should the taxpayer subsidize a program that was supposed to be reducing the deficit by now?

September 26, 2017 9:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"According to the Ethics Commission the only people who claimed anything remotely like that happened were two unreliable people, one who's "use of the derogatory term "shim" when referring to Dr. Beyer, evidences a bias against transgendered individuals," and the other who "displayed a palpable and unaplogetic disdain for transgendered individuals which, in the Commissions's judgment, makes his testimony not credible.""

well, if they are going to assume anyone who disagrees with the gay agenda is automatically excluded from testimony, obviously, the stacked deck

that the gay agenda has taken over the people's republic of Montgomery County is not news

"Dr. Beyer is far from shut up. She has her own column at Huffington Post."

I will go post arguments that will drive Dana off the HP

September 26, 2017 11:54 PM  
Anonymous why the NFL would rather not have Colin Kapernick around said...

The first poll of NFL fans following this weekend's moves by dozens of players to take a protest knee during the playing of the National Anthem finds that most want the pros to stand and they are also turning off the games as a result of politics.

The survey from Remington Research Group found that 64 percent want players to stand for the national anthem.

Of the 51 percent who have watched less football this season, 69 percent cite player protests as the reason.

And 60 percent believe that players should find another place to protest the flag, President Trump, race, and other issues.

"Americans are very clear on this issue: they do not support political protests during the national anthem," said Titus Bond, director of Remington Research Group. "On top of that, due to the protests, Americans are watching less football and that trend will continue as long as the protests do."

More voters agree with Trump's ‘You're Fired' statements than disagree.

82% want less politics during sporting events.

"Trump is playing the media for fools. The Acela Corridor crowd doesn't know a touchdown from a touchback and they think Trump's being dumb running down the NFL protests. The jokes on them. They only seem more and more out of touch by the day," said a GOP operative who steered the poll to Secrets.

"Voters are clear on one thing — they do not support protests during the national anthem and they believe there is a more appropriate place for players to protest, "

September 27, 2017 6:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/26/a-majority-of-adults-disagree-with-trump-on-firing-athletes-who-kneel-during-anthem-reutersipsos-poll/23223913/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A majority of Americans disagree with President Donald Trump's assertion that football players should be fired for kneeling during the national anthem, even though most say they would personally stand during the song, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday.

The Sept. 25-26 poll found that 57 percent of adults do not think the National Football League should fire players who kneel. This included 61 percent of NFL fans who watch at least a few games per season.

The results were split along party lines, however, as 82 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Republicans disagreed with the president's comments about firing football players.

For poll results, see: http://tmsnrt.rs/2y6pxBk.

Trump waded into the issue last week at a political rally when he bemoaned what he saw as a decline in the sport. Among other things, Trump criticized players who want to draw attention to what they believe is social and racial injustice by refusing to stand during the anthem.

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say 'get that son of a bitch off the field right now'," Trump said at the rally. "He's fired!"

Trump, who once owned a pro football team in a now-defunct rival league, added that the NFL is "ruining the game" with a fixation on player safety.

The president's comments sparked a swift and widespread rebuke from the NFL last weekend as many players, coaches and owners kneeled, locked arms or stayed off the field during pregame ceremonies.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll explored the complicated feelings that many Americans have about how to express their nationality.

Eighty-five percent of adults said, for example, that they almost always "stand in silence" when the national anthem is played at an event they are attending. Seventy-four percent said they almost always put their hand over their heart.

Yet, when it comes to professional athletes, there is less agreement about what is appropriate. While 58 percent of adults said that "professional athletes should be required to stand during the national anthem at sporting events," there is rising support for those athletes who do not.

In the latest poll, 40 percent of Americans said that they support the stance that some pro football players have made to not stand during the anthem. That is up from 28 percent who answered the same way in a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll last year.

In addition, 53 percent of Americans do not think it is appropriate for the president to comment on "how the NFL and its players conduct themselves during the national anthem."

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and a small number of other NFL players started kneeling during the national anthem last year to protest a series of high-profile police shootings that involved African-Americans.

The issue had largely faded at the start of the 2017 season, in part because Kaepernick was no longer playing for an NFL team. Trump's comments, which were made in front of a conservative-leaning crowd in Alabama, reinvigorated the debate and made pregame NFL ceremonies must-see TV.

September 27, 2017 7:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


“Real Sports” host Bryant Gumbel ended his Tuesday show with a powerful message that started with a message of thanks to President Donald Trump.

Gumbel said the president’s “racist, churlish and childish” comments attacking protesting NFL players “energized the social conscience of the modern American athlete.”

“Those of us who have long focused on the intersection on sports and society have often wondered what it would take for today’s athletes to forsake the path of least resistance and actually stand for something,” Gumbel said. “And now we know.”

Gumbel said athletes today have an especially important role to play ― to use their athletic platforms to challenge authority in the pursuit of justice.

Last weekend, Trump called NFL players kneeling during the national anthem “sons of bitches” who should be fired from the league. His comments, which he has continued to double down on, have been met with widespread criticism from players across multiple sports, team owners and fans alike.

“Apathy won’t cut it anymore,” Gumbel said.

View "Commentary: Trump's Comments Drive Athletes to Unify | Real Sports w/ Bryant Gumbel | HBO" here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=ichHYC2JSfo

September 27, 2017 7:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

""Dr. Beyer is far from shut up. She has her own column at Huffington Post."

I will go post arguments that will drive Dana off the HP"


All you need is a Facebook account:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/static/comment-policy

September 27, 2017 8:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Gumbel said the president’s “racist, churlish and childish” comments attacking protesting NFL players “energized the social conscience of the modern American athlete.”"

and how, exactly, were his remarks "racist", Bryant?

"“Those of us who have long focused on the intersection on sports and society have often wondered what it would take for today’s athletes to forsake the path of least resistance and actually stand for something,” Gumbel said. “And now we know.”

Gumbel said athletes today have an especially important role to play ― to use their athletic platforms to challenge authority in the pursuit of justice."

actually, no

Americans are sick of entertainments who believe their opinions on current issues are more important than anyone else's

seriously, we don't give special weight to the opinion about health care of a guy who tells dirty jokes on late night TV and who has a sleazy wife

we really don't care if Madonna offered BJs to anyone who would vote for Hillary

and we don't really care what a bunch of guys who play with balls for a living think about racism in the justice system

Bryant, you're just stupid and annoying


According to results from the first NBC News/GenForward Survey, just 43 percent of millennials have a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

Historically, the party of the president loses seats in midterm elections, and the Democrats have high hopes for 2018. But any significant gains will require that the party's core voting blocs are energized and mobilized to vote.

Millennials are a critical group for Democrats, but they don’t feel overwhelmingly positive about either party.

Nearly half (46 percent) of millennials said they don’t think the Democratic Party cares about them.

In other words, millennials aren’t fully convinced that either party best represents their interests.

Political uncertainty among millennials is also clear in terms of 2018 congressional election preference — only 37 percent said they plan to vote for the Democrat.

A sizable number of African-American (31 percent), Asian-American (30 percent), and Latino (37 percent) millennials said that the Democratic Party does not care about people like them. This is not an insignificant portion of any racial group, and it points to signs that the Democrats have not convinced millennials that the party best represents their interests.

55% of white millennials say that the Democratic Party does not care about people like them. White millennials also hold a more unfavorable view of the party (54 percent) than favorable (33 percent).

Similarly, neither party has convinced a majority of white millennials that their policies are sufficiently concerned with people like them — 60 percent of white millennials said the GOP doesn’t care about people like them, and 55 percent said the Democratic Party doesn’t care about people like them.

Overall, a third of millennials (33 percent) said that neither party cares about people like them — a significant portion of young adults when considering the growth of the millennial electorate.

Time for a new party to replace the Democratic Party.

September 27, 2017 10:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The players have said they are protesting the unjust treatment of blacks by law enforcement and cite the spate of police shootings that have come to light in recent years. Team owners and NFL officials will have to decide whether to continue indulging such behavior on company time, but the larger question is whether what is being protested has some basis in reality beyond anecdotes and viral videos on social media.

There is no national database of police shootings—some departments report more-detailed data than others—but the statistics that are available suggest that police today use deadly force significantly less often than in the past. In New York City, home to the nation’s largest police force, officer-involved shootings have fallen by more than 90% since the early 1970s, and national trends have been similarly dramatic.

A Justice Department report published in 2001 noted that between 1976 and 1998, the teen and adult population grew by 47 million people, and the number of police officers increased by more than 200,000, yet the number of people killed by police “did not generally rise” over this period. Moreover, a “growing percentage of felons killed by police are white, and a declining percentage are black.” A separate Justice study released in 2011 also reported a decline in killings by police, between 1980 and 2008. And according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate at which police kill blacks has fallen by 70% since the late 1960s.

An increase in press coverage of police shootings isn’t the same thing as an increase in police shootings.

September 27, 2017 10:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Americans are sick of entertainments [sic] who believe their opinions on current issues are more important than anyone else's"

That's why TV entertainer Orange Supremacist Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million votes.

Look who's cherry-picking again:

"According to results from the first NBC News/GenForward Survey, just 43 percent of millennials have a favorable view of the Democratic Party."

And according to results from the first NBC News/GenForward Survey, just 26% of millennials have a favorable view of the Republican Party.

Twenty-six percent is YUUUUUUUGE but 43% is YUUUUUUUGER!

Party Favorability Among Millennials

Democratic Party:

Favorable 43%
Unfavorable 42%
DK enough to say 15%

Republican Party:

Favorable 26%
Unfavorable 58%
DK enough to say 15%

"Party "Cares About People Like You" Among Millennials

Democratic Party:

Yes 53%
No 46%

Republican Party

Yes 30%
No 69%

Democratic Party "Cares About People Like You"

African American Millennials

Yes 69%
No 31%

Asian American Millennials

Yes 68%
No 30%

Latino Millennials

Yes 60%
No 37%

White Millennials

Yes 45%
No 55%

Party "Cafres About People Like You" Among White Millennials

Democratic Party

Yes 45%
No 55%

Republican Party

Yes 39%
No 60%

Read ALL about it here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-democrats-can-t-take-millennial-vote-granted-n804836

September 27, 2017 10:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Democrats flipped two more Republican-held state legislature seats on Tuesday with special election wins in New Hampshire and Florida.

The two races bring the total number of GOP seats won by the Democratic Party to eight this election cycle ― all of them in special races. The results suggest that the party is on track to make even more significant gains in statewide legislative races in Virginia and New Jersey this November.

New Hampshire House District Rockingham-4, Democrat Kari Lerner defeated Republican James Headd 51 to 48 percent.

Democrats also celebrated a win in Florida’s state Senate earlier in the evening.

Democrat Annette Taddeo defeated Republican Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz 51 to 47 percent in a race to represent Florida’s 40th state Senate district in Southwest Miami-Dade County. Christian “He-Man” Schlaerth, an independent, came in third place with 1.8 percent of the vote.

The seat opened up in April when state Sen. Frank Artiles (R) resigned following a drunken rant in which he used a racial slur to describe several black Senate colleagues.

September 27, 2017 1:28 PM  
Anonymous And then there were 21 in 2017 said...

http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/crime/2017/09/25/four-people-charged-relation-death-mutilation-texas-county-teen/701986001/

September 27, 2017 5:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://factba.se/topic/howard-stern-interviews

September 27, 2017 5:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

September 27, 2017 - Trump Is Not Fit To Be President, American Voters Say, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Voters Disapprove 2-1 Of His Handling Of Race Relations

President Donald Trump is not "fit to serve as president," American voters say 56 - 42 percent, and voters disapprove 57 - 36 percent of the job he is doing as president, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

There are deep party, gender and racial divisions on whether President Trump is fit to serve, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds:
Trump is not fit, Democrats say 94 - 5 percent and independent voters say 57 - 40 percent. Republicans say 84 - 14 percent that he is fit.
Men are divided 49 - 49 percent, as women say 63 - 35 percent he is not fit.
White voters are divided as 50 percent say he is fit and 48 percent say he is not fit. Trump is not fit, black voters say 94 - 4 percent and Hispanic voters say 60 - 40 percent.
American voters disapprove 62 - 32 percent of the way President Trump is handling race relations. Disapproval is 55 - 39 percent among white voters, 95 - 3 percent among black voters and 66 - 28 percent among Hispanic voters. President Trump is doing more to divide the country than to unite the country, American voters say 60 - 35 percent.

The anti-Twitter sentiment remains high as voters say 69 - 26 percent that Trump should stop tweeting. No party, gender, education, age or racial group wants to follow the Tweeter-in- Chief. Voters say 51 - 27 percent they are embarrassed to have Trump as president...

Read it ALL here

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2487

September 27, 2017 5:30 PM  
Anonymous more cherries on top the Obamagate cake said...

A government watchdog found that 78 political appointees of President Barack Obama managed to “burrow” into career government jobs over a six-year period.

A Government Accountability Office report obtained by The Washington Times Wednesday shows that many of Mr. Obama’s political appointees switched to career jobs without obtaining necessary approval from the Office of Personnel Management.

Congressional Republicans warned Mr. Obama last year against moving political appointees into career positions, and President Trump has stated frequently that he believes some employees in the federal workforce are Obama holdovers working against his agenda.

Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he requested the GAO report in part “to make sure executive branch employees knew they were being watched for improper burrowing.”
“Still, GAO determined that one out of every five attempts to move a political appointee into a career position was rejected as improper,” Mr. Thune said. “Watchdogs need to stay vigilant, and I intend to seek more information about the individuals who may have led improper hiring initiatives.”

September 27, 2017 5:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

More moonie rag trash.

You shouldn't have.

The fact is, Obama started clearing his people out early.

"Obama Freezes SES Hiring and Gives Appointees a Resignation Deadline

By Eric Katz November 21, 2016

The Obama administration has issued a freeze on hiring new top career officials through the remainder of his presidency, effective Dec. 7, saying the pause will better empower President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees to influence their agencies upon taking office.

The Office of Personnel Management will impose a governmentwide moratorium on Qualifications Review Board cases required to approve the appointments of individuals to SES positions. OPM said the freeze is “intended to preserve the prerogatives of an incoming agency head.”

The announcement follows President Obama's request that all non-termed political appointees send him their resignations by Dec. 7, the same day the moratorium will go into effect. Outgoing presidents traditionally request all appointees, who serve at the pleasure of the president, submit resignations effective immediately upon the new president’s swearing in to office. That step, as explained in the Partnership for Public Service’s Presidential Transition Guide, helps “to clear the decks for the new administration.”

OPM acting Director Beth Cobert said the resignations will “provide the maximum flexibility” for Trump to assemble his administration..."

Wiki reports:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_by_Donald_Trump#Pace_of_appointments_and_approvals

"Pace of appointments and approvals

While President Trump tweeted on February 7, 2017, dissatisfaction – "It is a disgrace my Cabinet is not yet in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country"—the assertion was ruled false by the BBC based on a detailed review of the last five administrations. The analysis found more room for a general complaint of slowness in Congressional action and that the administration "has by far the fewest confirmed cabinet selections at this point" but it also noted that, beyond the non-action on Judge Merrick Garland's 10-month nomination to the Supreme Court by Trump's predecessor, President Obama's "choice for Labor secretary, Thomas Perez, took 121 days to be confirmed. John Bryson, his commerce pick, waited 126 days. Attorney General Loretta Lynch holds the modern record, as 161 days passed before getting Senate approval."[227]

In an update on the March 2017 nomination of J. Christopher Giancarlo to the CFTC, the White House submitted his paperwork to the Senate committee in early May. "The paperwork is a prerequisite for the panel to advance the nomination with a hearing and an eventual committee vote, which now may not come until the summer or fall. The committee is said to be waiting for the administration to nominate individuals to fill two more vacancies at the commission before it holds the hearing, according to Senate aides and people familiar with the process," reported the Wall Street Journal.[184]

In July 2017 the New York Times assessed the pace and reported that Trump has announced 36 percent of "leadership positions below the secretary level" compared with 78 percent by Obama over the same period. Average approval time has been nine days slower for Trump appointees versus Obama's. Ten of 15 Cabinet agencies have no number two, several deputy secretaries were not nominated until after the Administration's 100-day mark and some have yet to be nominated.[228]"

September 27, 2017 9:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"More moonie rag trash."

again we see insulting characterizations as TTF's only technique to divert from its lack of substantive justification for its inane assertions

"The fact is, Obama started clearing his people out early."

an as proof of this, you offer that he froze appointments a month after the election and asked appointees to resign at that time

but the article stated that Obama's appointees had found ways to convert to career status long before this time and those that did weren't asked to resign

so, your comment is not appropos to be charitable, and misleading to be honest

September 28, 2017 7:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"again we see insulting characterizations as TTF's only technique to divert from its lack of substantive justification for its inane assertions "

Oh poor little Moonie Rag. I am so sowwy to have hurt your widdle feewings.

You just falsely accused Dr. Beyer of something she was cleared of by the Montgomery County Ethics Commission and then threatened to "go post arguments that will drive Dana off the HP."

You are often especially keen to insult Priya Lynn, Cynthia and other Vigilance commenters with your choice of words like:

"they just follow the pack, sniffing the ass of the lead dogs of liberalism,"

"some people just have challenges, you know, intellectually...it's a gay thing,"


Etc.

And you insult honest discussion by failing to identify your right wing sources, by cutting and pasting text willy nilly without having the decency to show evidence of it, and with eruptions of your very own "palpable and unapologetic disdain for transgendered individuals," LGBs and their supporters here at TTF.

As Priya Lynn has pointed out repeatedly and truthfully:

On "September 12, 2016 11:06 PM Wyatt/bad anonymous said "there are many situations where lying is appropriate".

In this thread at October 14, 2013 1:41 PM Wyatt/bad anonymous says when he cuts and pastes a news article "unless I attribute a post to someone else, I'll feel free to change the wording as I like" (true or not),"
.

All of these facts in this TTF commenter's judgment, make you not credible.

September 28, 2017 9:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh poor little poster on a lunatic fringe blog. I am so sowwy to have hurt your widdle feewings

all those people you cited have insulted me regularly

it seems to be the culture of conversation here

as for this:

"unless I attribute a post to someone else, I'll feel free to change the wording as I like"

the truth is, the media is biased

of course, you would prefer that I cut and paste the biased parts

I prefer to paste facts

example:

if a news clip says "the notoriously divisive Donald Trump announced a new immigration policy"

I will post "Donald Trump announced a new immigration policy"

and some inane TTFer will come along "this is what the High Times article actually said"

I have no obligation to echo radical bias

just the facts, ma'am


September 28, 2017 10:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You reap what you sow.

September 28, 2017 1:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

actually, it's TTFers that have sown, but I couldn't care less if you insult

my only point was that you had no argument concerning Obama's political appointees burrowing into the deep state so you simply insulted the source to divert from that

your world view is bankrupt and Obama has no defense for the damage he did this country

If you are upset about President Donald Trump's position on NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, take a deep breath and listen.

The President has again found a winning cultural issue with which to solidify his standing in Middle America.

Last September, Reuters conducted a survey in the wake of Colin Kaepernick's "taking a knee" for the national anthem and found that, although a majority said he had a constitutionally protected right to protest, 72% of Americans thought his display was "unpatriotic," and 61% disagreed with him doing it.

And that was a survey among all Americans. For President Trump, that survey last year may well have offered a clue. And the loud "boos" ringing in several NFL stadiums across the country this weekend lead me to believe it was one he read accurately -- that many actual football fans lean toward the President's feelings.

Another clue? Alejandro Villanueva's jersey just became the hottest buy in the NFL, outselling all others. Who is Villanueva? The only Pittsburgh Steeler this weekend to emerge from the locker room and stand for the national anthem.

Players have a right to protest -- clearly -- and most conservatives I know don't begrudge any American's right to express a view under the First Amendment.

Speech, truly, is free, and every American is welcome to speak his or her mind.
What we are not free from, however, is the consequences of our speech. I don't like people kneeling during the national anthem, but I respect their right to do it (even though it is likely to negatively impact the NFL, as it pits the league against many sports fans with opposing views).

A survey conducted this August by The Washington Post and UMASS Lowell found "the most common reason that fans reported for a decrease in interest in the NFL in recent years was not concussions or violence, but political issues. Of those who identified that reason, 17% pointed to protests during the national anthem by players such as Colin Kaepernick."

As columnist Larry Stone wrote in the Seattle Times, "the NFL has major issues that seem to be converging at once to form a cesspool of negativity."

September 28, 2017 2:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't like the idea of kneeling for political protest during the national anthem because it interrupts an important ritual that is uniquely American; we participate together in the anthem-- at NFL stadiums, at Little League baseball games, at high school graduations and at any number of civic gatherings, no matter our geography. That ritual reminds us that we are all, as Americans, in this together.

It's not surprising that a clear majority of Americans -- according to the Reuters polling -- have expressed a negative, visceral reaction to multimillionaire athletes disrespecting a patriotic national ritual in honor of the country that has given them the opportunity to make a living beyond the wildest dreams of 99.9% of the world's inhabitants.

President Trump gets this: he has a gut-level instinct for cultural issues that cause mass liberal freak-out when he brings them up. Many people in Middle America agree with him on this issue, and this liberal elite freak-out makes it an even more effective tactic.

Such overreactions play right into Trump's hands, further reinforcing to the Trump Tribe that they are right to be in full revolt against a nation whose culture dramatically lurched to the left during the Obama years. This is a key reason Democrats lost control of the politics of the Rust Belt in 2016.

The idea of respecting our national anthem, flag, and country's patriotic traditions is baked into Americans' civic education: they may believe people have a right to do otherwise, but they don't have to like it when they see it. Many Americans -- particularly those away from the media capitals of the east and west coasts -- are basically right where Trump is on this issue.

To be sure, race relations and tension between police and minority populations -- the issues that had Kaepernick and others taking a knee -- are among the most worrisome cultural problems we face in American society. They didn't begin on President Trump's watch; in fact, a CNN/ORC poll taken in the last months of Barack Obama's presidency showed that most Americans believed racial tensions had already worsened during his tenure.
It is up to all of us to work together to ease these tensions and reduce the fear and violence that exists in too many American cities.

I suspect these protests -- originally intended to draw attention to these problems -- have now taken on a life well beyond that intention and could potentially have the opposite effect originally intended by Kaepernick.

September 28, 2017 2:24 PM  
Anonymous Facedesk said...

"Obama's political appointees burrowing into the deep state" does not deserve refutation. I guarantee that a year ago you had never heard of, or used, the term "deep state." It is a propagandistic and biased term without objective meaning.

What does "deep state" mean? --It means long-term federal employees, who stay year after year to do the often frustrating work of running the government. They know the routines, the regs, they know what is expected of them and they get on the Metro every morning and go to the office to do it for you, the American citizen who benefits in so many ways from good government.

"Political appointees burrowing into the deep state" seems to mean finding a permanent job in the place where you previously had a temporary position, applying for it, and doing that job. Calling it "Burrowing into the deep state" is the raving of a paranoid. The Washington Times is a rightwing political outlet and is not credible; they print anythiing that supports their political agenda. So yes, attacking the source is actually reasonable here. They invented a scary phrase and then tossed it out where idiots like you would think they had a point.

September 28, 2017 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


"actually, it's TTFers that have sown, but I couldn't care less if you insult"

So you admit Dr. Beyer never said a single word to you, insult or otherwise.

So do tell what it was that made you feel the need to lie about Dr. Beyer, saying exactly the opposite of what the Montgomery County Ethics Commission found, and then to threaten to "drive Dana off the HP" clear as day above here on this comment section.

You're a nothing more than a right wing bully who feels empowered to bully minorities God creates while claiming to be a Christian.

""Burrowing into the deep state" is the raving of a paranoid."

Yes, a single paranoid person named Vladimir Putin.

Putin made sure Russian trolls posted trash on the internet like fake ads on FB that fooled 77,744 midwesterners into putting Trump in the White House.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-election-came-down-to-77744-votes-in-pennsylvania-wisconsin-and-michigan-updated/article/2005323

September 28, 2017 3:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's how Trump is messing up those supporters Putin won over for him regarding Taxes:

-Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the estate tax, which he has justified by claiming that it would help “millions of small businesses and the American farmer.” That’s a paean to his small-business and rural base. But as the Post fact-checking team points out, this is absurd: Because only the very top estates get targeted, a mere 80 such estates that would get hit by the tax in 2017 count as small businesses and farms. However, Trump’s family would benefit bigly, because his estimated net worth is in the billions. As Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center puts it, Trump might not personally gain from estate tax repeal, because “he’ll be dead. But his heirs will.”
-Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the alternative minimum tax. As Linda Qiu explains, this “largely impacts people making between $200,000 and $1 million. Without this tax, Mr. Trump would have paid $31 million less in taxes in 2005, according to his tax return that year, which was disclosed on the ‘Rachel Maddow Show’ in March.”
-The mere fact that Trump would benefit from his tax plan does not itself mean he is scamming his supporters. Rather, the key here is that Trump is lying to them about this point. Trump says this about his plan: “It’s not good for me, believe me.” But not only would he benefit, Trump also still won’t release his tax returns, which would actually allow us to evaluate how his plan would affect him and his family. Trump doesn’t want his voters (or any voters) to be able to do this. Trump is simply assuming that his voters will believe him (or he doesn’t care whether they do or not), even though he’s lying to them.
-Trump claims his tax plan will not benefit “the wealthy and well-connected” and will protect “low-income and middle-income households.” But a new analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities undercuts both claims. Trump’s plan would also lower the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 to 35 percent, lower the rate on “pass-through” businesses to 25 percent and cut the corporate rate from 35 to 20 percent. The CBPP analysis concludes that 50 percent of the net tax cuts in his plan’s framework would go to the top 1 percent of earners and that the impact on middle-class families would negligible at best. It’s possible that if the plan ends a bunch of deductions, top earners might not fare so well. But the CBPP analysis makes a key point: Trump’s plan is very specific about how it would benefit top earners and corporations and very vague and nonspecific about how it would help lower-income earners. Trump’s empty promise to his working- and middle-class supporters is being used to sell tax cuts that will likely shower large benefits on the wealthy — himself included.

September 28, 2017 4:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And here's how Trump is messing up those supporters Putin won over for him regarding Heath Insurance:

-Trump is sabotaging Obamacare in new ways that will likely hurt untold numbers of his voters. BuzzFeed reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is pulling out of events in states that are designed to encourage enrollment on the exchanges. This comes after HHS slashed its budget for advertising for open enrollment, and even as Trump continues to refuse to say whether “cost-sharing reductions” will continue, which is fomenting uncertainty that is helping spike premiums and destabilizing the marketplace. Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation tells me this could harm Trump voters in indeterminate numbers. “We know that many elements of the Trump constituency are low-income people who rely on the marketplace for insurance,” Levitt emailed.
-The Trump administration’s sabotage of the Affordable Care Act shows contempt for his supporters in another way. In its statement justifying the latest pullout from enrollment events, HHS did not even attempt to offer an actual policy rationale for the move — there is none — and instead lied robotically about how Obamacare “continues to collapse.” But the Trump administration’s actions are encouraging chaos in that direction. Trump supporters don’t want this, however. A recent Kaiser poll found that 51 percent of Trump supporters want the administration to do what it can to make the law work. But Team Trump is not just doing the opposite without any rationale for it, they are also actively misleading his supporters about their own actions by falsely blaming the chaos they cause on the law itself.

September 28, 2017 4:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/twitter-finds-hundreds-of-accounts-tied-to-russian-operatives/2017/09/28/6cf26f7e-a484-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html

September 28, 2017 4:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you do realize they now are finding that Russia is posting support for all sides

they have extensive posts with Black Lives Matter

September 28, 2017 4:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You do realize tax reform is all about the top 1% like the Trump klan.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/28/gary-cohn-cant-guarantee-trumps-tax-plan-will-lower-taxes-for-middle-class/23226502/

September 28, 2017 4:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

that's actually a lie

September 28, 2017 5:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The truth: The framework will not shift the tax burden from higher-income earners to lower brackets. And, by nearly doubling the standard deduction and enhancing the child tax credit, it significantly cuts taxes for low- to middle-income taxpayers, moving many families into an expanded zero percent bracket.

While the top individual tax rate will go down slightly, we will repeal numerous deductions that primarily benefit higher-income earners.

Long story short, the unified framework is a huge win for middle-class families and low-income taxpayers.

September 28, 2017 8:48 PM  
Anonymous Senior citizen said...

"by nearly doubling the standard deduction and enhancing the child tax credit, it significantly cuts taxes for low- to middle-income taxpayers, moving many families into an expanded zero percent bracket."

Which will be of little to no help for middle class seniors whose children are no longer deductions, especially if the GOP succeeds in passing Trumpcare, in which the GOP wanted to allow insurance companies to charge seniors up to five times as much as younger clients for their health insurance premiums.

Allowable deductions for charitable contributions middle class seniors can barely afford and for their mortgage interest on mortgages which are hopefully mostly paid off already, won't do typical middle class seniors much good.

What deductions could seniors lose under this tax plan?

Heath-care expenses, including those five times higher premiums seniors could have to pay
Real estate taxes
State and local taxes

What will rich folks like those in the Trump klan gain from this tax plan?

Well Rachel Maddow was sent Trump's 2005 tax forms and they showed the minimum alternative tax cost the billionaire chump change of $31 million that year. Trump's tax plan seeks to eliminate this tax on billionaires like the Trump klan.

See: https://news.vice.com/story/trump-tax-returns-maddow

And eliminating the alternative minimum tax is not the only proposed tax cut that will fare the Trump klan well while leaving middle class seniors paying more.

"For 2017, the Tax Policy Center estimated, based on past tax data and modeling, that 11,310 individuals will have estates big enough to file an estate tax return. "After allowing for deductions and credits, 5,460 estates will owe tax," the center concluded. "Over two-thirds of these taxable estates will come from the top 10 percent of income earners and close to one-fourth will come from the top 1 percent alone."

The top 10 percent of income earners would pay 88 percent of estate tax revenues, the center found, while the richest 0.1 percent could pay 27 percent.

How about small businesses and farms? The center projected that only about 80 small farms and closely held businesses would pay any estate tax in 2017. That would amount to about 1 percent of all payers of the estate tax that year. And the estate tax revenue from small businesses and farms, the center said, would amount to fifteen-hundredths of 1 percent of the total paid under the estate tax in 2017.

So, getting rid of the estate tax would hardly "protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer," as Trump put it.

Trump's claim doesn't hold up even if you account for small businesses and farms that would potentially benefit from elimination down the road. The number from the Tax Policy Center (80) only refers to the number of small businesses and farms that would have to pay the tax this year.

Multiplying the amount of small business and farm-based estate taxpayers who are living today by deaths over the next 70 years would still just result in 5,600 small businesses or farms potentially relieved of the tax — vastly smaller than Trump’s "millions.""

See: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/sep/28/donald-trump/donald-trumps-pants-fire-claim-about-estate-tax-sm/

Long story short, Trump lessens his own taxes way more than he lowers taxes for middle class seniors.

September 29, 2017 7:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Which will be of little to no help for middle class seniors"

"middle class seniors" are doing pretty well

depending on how you're defining "middle class", if they've paid their mortgage off, they may be helped by doubling their standard deduction and eliminating the alt min tax

not to mention, a simpler tax return to complete

"Allowable deductions for charitable contributions middle class seniors can barely afford"

barely afford? you must not be talking about middle class

this will help seniors who go to church

"What deductions could seniors lose under this tax plan?

Heath-care expenses, including those five times higher premiums seniors could have to pay"

few middle class seniors can take this now

"Well Rachel Maddow was sent Trump's 2005 tax forms and they showed the minimum alternative tax cost the billionaire chump change of $31 million that year. Trump's tax plan seeks to eliminate this tax on billionaires like the Trump klan."

you misspelled "clan"?

oh that's right, you're a piece of crap that is working with the Russian plan to stir up racial division in America by posting fake trollery on social media

the alt min needs to be eliminated, it was originally proposed to cover a small number of very wealthy and now encompass a huge swath of middle class citizens

btw, have you determined the effect on the Clinton crime syndicate or the Obama klan?

""For 2017, the Tax Policy Center estimated, based on past tax data and modeling, that 11,310 individuals will have estates big enough to file an estate tax return. "After allowing for deductions and credits, 5,460 estates will owe tax," the center concluded. "Over two-thirds of these taxable estates will come from the top 10 percent of income earners and close to one-fourth will come from the top 1 percent alone."

The top 10 percent of income earners would pay 88 percent of estate tax revenues, the center found, while the richest 0.1 percent could pay 27 percent."

few people agree with the ridiculous idea that you should spend your life working and then give the money you've already been taxed on to the government when you die

"How about small businesses and farms?"

there will also be a new lower tax bracket for small businesses

"Long story short, Trump lessens his own taxes way more than he lowers taxes for middle class seniors."

virtually any tax cut would have to

he pays millions more in taxes than they do and still will

we live in a country where about half the citizens pay no income tax at all and the very wealthy pay for most of our government and also fund most of the benevolent private charities that help so many

it's a land where everyone has opportunity and there are no significantly onerous or insurmountable hindrances to the pursuit of happiness

and, yet, certain elements, probably inspired by shadowy Russian attempts to divide our democracy, are constantly whining that everything is unfair

what a bunch of jackasses!

September 29, 2017 8:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"the alt min needs to be eliminated, it was originally proposed to cover a small number of very wealthy and now encompass a huge swath of middle class citizens"

that's true

many middle class citizens already have their state tax deductions eliminated by the lat min tax

""For 2017, the Tax Policy Center estimated, based on past tax data and modeling, that 11,310 individuals will have estates big enough to file an estate tax return. "After allowing for deductions and credits, 5,460 estates will owe tax,"

how is a tax that only applies to about five thousand people (out of a country of hundreds of millions} fair?

this is not the French revolution

September 29, 2017 8:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth.

"The best growth in recent memory came after President Bill Clinton raised taxes in the ’90s.

By Bruce Bartlett

Four decades ago, while working for Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), I had a hand in creating the Republican tax myth. Of course, it didn’t seem like a myth at that time — taxes were rising rapidly because of inflation and bracket creep, the top tax rate was 70 percent and the economy seemed trapped in stagflation with no way out. Tax cuts, at that time, were an appropriate remedy for the economy’s ills. By the time Ronald Reagan was president, Republican tax gospel went something like this:

The tax system has an enormously powerful effect on economic growth and employment.
High taxes and tax rates were largely responsible for stagflation in the 1970s.
Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, which was based a bill, co-sponsored by Kemp and Sen. William Roth (R-Del.), that I helped design, unleashed the American economy and led to an abundance of growth.
Based on this logic, tax cuts became the GOP’s go-to solution for nearly every economic problem. Extravagant claims are made for any proposed tax cut. Wednesday, President Trump argued that “our country and our economy cannot take off” without the kind of tax reform he proposes. Last week, Republican economist Arthur Laffer said, “If you cut that [corporate] tax rate to 15 percent, it will pay for itself many times over. … This will bring in probably $1.5 trillion net by itself.”

That’s wishful thinking. So is most Republican rhetoric around tax cutting. In reality, there’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth.

The Reagan tax cut did have a positive effect on the economy, but the prosperity of the ’80s is overrated in the Republican mind. In fact, aggregate real gross domestic product growth was higher in the ’70s — 37.2 percent vs. 35.9 percent.

Moreover, GOP tax mythology usually leaves out other factors that also contributed to growth in the 1980s: First was the sharp reduction in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. The fed funds rate fell by more than half, from about 19 percent in July 1981 to about 9 percent in November 1982. Second, Reagan’s defense buildup and highway construction programs greatly increased the federal government’s purchases of goods and services. This is textbook Keynesian economics.

Third, there was the simple bounce-back from the recession of 1981-82. Recoveries in the postwar era tended to be V-shaped — they were as sharp as the downturns they followed. The deeper the recession, the more robust the recovery.

Finally, I’m not sure how many Republicans even know anymore that Reagan raised taxes several times after 1981. His last budget showed that as of 1988, the aggregate, cumulative revenue loss from the 1981 tax cut was $264 billion and legislated tax increases brought about half of that back.

Today, Republicans extol the virtues of lowering marginal tax rates, citing as their model the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered the top individual income tax rate to just 28 percent from 50 percent, and the corporate tax rate to 34 percent from 46 percent. What follows, they say, would be an economic boon. Indeed, textbook tax theory says that lowering marginal tax rates while holding revenue constant unambiguously raises growth..."

September 29, 2017 9:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"...But there is no evidence showing a boost in growth from the 1986 act. The economy remained on the same track, with huge stock market crashes — 1987’s “Black Monday,” 1989’s Friday the 13th “mini-crash” and a recession beginning in 1990. Real wages fell.

Strenuous efforts by economists to find any growth effect from the 1986 act have failed to find much. The most thorough analysis, by economists Alan Auerbach and Joel Slemrod, found only a shifting of income due to tax reform, no growth effects: “The aggregate values of labor supply and saving apparently responded very little,” they concluded.

The flip-side of tax cut mythology is the notion that tax increases are an economic disaster — the reason, in theory, every Republican in Congress voted against the tax increase proposed by Bill Clinton in 1993. Yet the 1990s was the most prosperous decade in recent memory. At 37.3 percent, aggregate real GDP growth in the 1990s exceeded that in the 1980s.

Despite huge tax cuts almost annually during the George W. Bush administration that cost the Treasury trillions in revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office, growth collapsed in the first decade of the 2000s. Real GDP rose just 19.5 percent, well below its ’90s rate.

We saw another test of the Republican tax myth in 2013, after President Barack Obama allowed some of the Bush tax cuts to expire, raising the top income tax rate to its current 39.6 percent from 35 percent. The economy grew nicely afterward and the stock market has boomed — up around 10,000 points over the past five years.

Now, Republicans propose cutting the top individual rate to 35 percent, despite lacking evidence that this lower rate led to growth during the Bush years, and a drop in the corporate tax rate to just 20 percent from 35 percent. Unlike 1986, however, this $1.5 trillion cut over the next decade will only be paid for partially by closing tax loopholes.

Republicans’ various claims are irreconcilable. One is that the rich will not benefit even though it is practically impossible for them not to — those paying the most taxes already will necessarily benefit the most from a large tax cut. And there aren’t enough tax deductions, exclusions and credits benefiting the rich that could be abolished to offset a cut in the top rate.

Even if they had released a complete plan — not just the woefully incomplete nine-page outline released Wednesday — Republicans have failed to make a sound case that it’s time to cut taxes.Nor have they signaled that they’ll commit to a viable process. It’s worth remembering that the first version of the ’81 tax cut was introduced in 1977 and underwent thorough analysis by the CBO and other organizations, and was subject to comprehensive public hearings. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 grew out of a detailed Treasury study and took over two years to complete.

Rushing through a half-baked tax plan, in the same manner Republicans tried (and failed) to do with health-care reform, should be rejected out of hand. As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has repeatedly and correctly said, successful legislating requires a return to the “regular order.” That means a detailed proposal with proper revenue estimates and distribution tables from the Joint Committee on Taxation, hearings and analysis by the nation’s best tax experts, markups and amendments in the tax-writing committees, and an open process in the House of Representatives and Senate.

There are good arguments for a proper tax reform even if it won’t raise GDP growth. It may improve economic efficiency, administration and fairness. But getting from here to there requires heavy lifting that this Republican Congress has yet to demonstrate. If they again look for a quick, easy victory, they risk a replay of the Obamacare repeal fight that wasted so much time and yielded so little."

September 29, 2017 9:14 AM  
Anonymous You wanna talk about Russia? OK said...

President Donald Trump was conspicuously absent from the installation ceremony of his handpicked new FBI director Thursday because the bureau is involved in the special counsel investigation into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, a White House official said.

By avoiding the high-profile event for former Justice Department lawyer Christopher Wray — who assumed the director's post upon being sworn in on Aug. 2 — Trump broke an informal protocol, in which presidents have overseen the largely ceremonial occasion.

An FBI official confirmed that Trump was invited, and that other recent presidents have been invited to, and attended, similar events. A notable exception was George W. Bush, who didn’t attend a ceremony for his FBI chief, Robert Mueller III, in 2001 because there wasn’t one. It was canceled, the White House official said, because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which occurred a week after Mueller started.

White House officials were cognizant of the bad optics of having Trump preside over an event populated by the same law-enforcement agents and prosecutors who were investigating the president’s close associates, and likely Trump himself.

Making things even more potentially awkward was the fact that Trump also fired Wray’s immediate predecessor, James Comey, and then confided in two Russian diplomats that doing so took the pressure off him. That helped pave the way for Mueller, who was Comey’s predecessor as FBI director, to be appointed special counsel to head the Trump-Russia investigation.

For obvious reasons, no one attending was surprised that Comey and Mueller were not present, even though informal FBI protocol has been for former directors to attend.

Mueller, one of the longest-serving FBI directors, is now overseeing many tendrils of the expanding investigation with help from the Justice Department and FBI. One of them is focusing intensively on whether Trump’s firing of Comey last May was part of a pattern of obstruction of justice aimed at derailing the broader investigation...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/28/christopher-wray-fbi-director-installation-243265

At least they recognize the bad optics now, unlike when Trump "fired Wray’s immediate predecessor, James Comey, and then confided in two Russian diplomats that doing so took the pressure off him."

September 29, 2017 9:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The National Football League is feeling the impact of the "Trump Effect."

Ticket sales since he called on team owners to fire players who take a knee to protest the National Anthem have cratered.

The online ticket reseller TickPick said that sales have dropped 17.9 percent.

September 29, 2017 1:03 PM  
Anonymous Russia tried to help LGBT groups in 2016 said...

traditionally, Russian subversive efforts had tended to support the left to cause division in America

which makes their efforts to support Trump in 2016 a surprise

probably just because Hillary was such a nasty woman

but, the untold story is that they were encouraging other leftists

Russia used Facebook ads in 2016 to both encourage and inflame identity politics in America as part of its cyber-operation against the U.S., according to new reports.

New reporting indicates that Russia sought to promote the identity-focused politics that currently dominates America’s political Left.

Russian accounts targeted Baltimore and Ferguson — both hubs of racial activism — with pro-Black Lives Matter messaging, CNN reported this week. The Washington Post reported that the Russian ads promoted other “African American rights groups” in addition to Black Lives Matter.

Then, on Thursday night, CNN reported that popular black activist accounts operating on Facebook and Twitter under the name “Blacktivist” were linked to the Russian government. Blacktivist accounts frequently stoked racial outrage about police shootings and mass incarceration of black men.

Blacktivist’s Facebook account had 360,000 likes — more than the official Black Lives Matter account.

Russian operations similarly targeted American Muslims with anti-American messages, The Daily Beast reported.

The Russian-funded accounts impersonated Muslim groups to promote anti-American conspiracy theories — such as that Osama Bin Laden was a “CIA agent” — while praising former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi for not having a “Rothschild-owned central bank” — a reference to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos said in a statement earlier this month that Facebook’s investigation into Russian efforts “found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 — associated with roughly 3,000 ads — that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies.”

The “vast majority” of the 3,000 Russian ads “didn’t specifically reference the U.S. presidential election, voting or a particular candidate,” Stamos said.

He added that “the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.”



September 29, 2017 1:25 PM  
Anonymous TTF is leftist said...

I know of no white person alive today in the United States who has ever legally owned a black slave, or any slave for that matter. Almost 700,000 mostly white men died 160 years ago to end slavery. Jim Crow ended generations ago. Yet black America, for the most part, is still locked in inner-city gang violence and economic hardship. Why?

Is it because America is racist? Is it because of some overhanging white supremacy? Is it because of the Illuminati?

No, unfortunately, it is because of black culture and the adoption of Democratic Party government dependency.

We have just had eight years of the first black president. Black athletes, and entertainers, routinely earn multi-million dollar incomes. I can easily name several black billionaires without even trying too hard. A large percentage of black America is very successful. But, it is not enough. Too many black youth are being left behind.

And it is no one but black America’s fault.

No one can solve this problem but black America. No one can throw enough money at it. We’ve tried that. Black America needs to look in the mirror and stop blaming others, especially white people.

I am obviously white and conservative, and I served in the military, which, during my time, was as color blind as you could be. I can also honestly say I don’t give a damn what color your skin is, neither do any of my friends. I do care about your actions.

Blacks are around 15 percent of the population. Depending on what study you look at, they commit around 40 percent to 50 percent of violent crime in America. Of course, there is going to be a problem with police. And, of course, there are some bad policemen. However, those bad apples do not kill black people statistically anymore than they kill white people. Even Harvard said that recently. If you were a cop, and you had to work in a neighborhood infested with crime and murder, wouldn’t you act differently than in a neighborhood where there was little crime? The most effective thing black America could do to improve its relationship with police is to significantly reduce violent crime where they live. Yes, that means change the culture of where you live and your community.

Blacks have nothing but opportunity in America. Try finding the same opportunity anywhere else in the world. If you are born in America you’ve won life’s economic lottery. Take advantage of it.

The problem is this generation has been taught an agenda of cultural Marxism by our education system. They’ve been taught to be a victim, and it’s still going on. All you have to do is watch the young black, female student at Yale screaming at the college president to understand that. Blacks in America don’t even know how good they got it.

Don’t kneel when my anthem is played. Too many people died for that flag. You are free to protest but not then. I am free to not watch, or pay to watch you play if you do that. The NFL should make it a rule that you stand for the national anthem. There is no free speech to disobey a private employer on private property. This would solve the problem immediately.

The NFL has deeply offended most of America. They will pay an economic and reputational price, as they should.

We have a real cultural problem in this country, the result of the Leftist multicultural agenda. Multi-ethnicity is perfect and should be encouraged. Having more than one American culture is destroying the country. But then again, that is what the Left wants.

September 29, 2017 1:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The NFL has deeply offended most of America."

Bullshit.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/29/poll-majority-disapproves-president-trump-response-nfl-protests/23226157/

September 29, 2017 2:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

disapproving of Trump and approving of the NFL are not the same

are you stupid?

September 29, 2017 2:12 PM  
Anonymous from stupid's link said...

Thirty-six percent think it is appropriate for players to kneel.

September 29, 2017 2:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your personal attacks mean nothing to me.

BREAKING NEWS:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/29/gop-tax-plan-would-provide-major-gains-for-richest-1-percent-and-uneven-benefits-for-the-middle-class-report-says/

September 29, 2017 2:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Your personal attacks mean nothing to me."

that's why I didn't hesitate to make them

you have no personal-ity, so I knew you wouldn't mind

I just wanted to give voice to what everyone else was thinking

"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/29/gop-tax-plan-would-provide-major-gains-for-richest-1-percent-and-uneven-benefits-for-the-middle-class-report-says/"

the tax plan really has little effect on individuals other than addressing the injustice of death tax and alt min tax

other than that, the big deal is to reduce our corporate tax rate, which is the highest in the world, discouraging corporations from HQing here

lowering that rate will mean growth

a lot of it

are you stupid?

September 29, 2017 2:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your comments prove you are a bully.

The stupid ones are the ones who keep passing tax cuts and expecting growth because they refuse to admit to the facts.

Bruce Barlett pointed out pertinent facts you've apparently forgotten already:

"...President Trump argued that “our country and our economy cannot take off” without the kind of tax reform he proposes. Last week, Republican economist Arthur Laffer said, “If you cut that [corporate] tax rate to 15 percent, it will pay for itself many times over. … This will bring in probably $1.5 trillion net by itself.”

That’s wishful thinking. So is most Republican rhetoric around tax cutting. In reality, there’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth...

...Today, Republicans extol the virtues of lowering marginal tax rates, citing as their model the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered the top individual income tax rate to just 28 percent from 50 percent, and the corporate tax rate to 34 percent from 46 percent. What follows, they say, would be an economic boon. Indeed, textbook tax theory says that lowering marginal tax rates while holding revenue constant unambiguously raises growth.

But there is no evidence showing a boost in growth from the 1986 act. The economy remained on the same track, with huge stock market crashes — 1987’s “Black Monday,” 1989’s Friday the 13th “mini-crash” and a recession beginning in 1990. Real wages fell.

The flip-side of tax cut mythology is the notion that tax increases are an economic disaster — the reason, in theory, every Republican in Congress voted against the tax increase proposed by Bill Clinton in 1993. Yet the 1990s was the most prosperous decade in recent memory. At 37.3 percent, aggregate real GDP growth in the 1990s exceeded that in the 1980s.

Despite huge tax cuts almost annually during the George W. Bush administration that cost the Treasury trillions in revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office, growth collapsed in the first decade of the 2000s. Real GDP rose just 19.5 percent, well below its ’90s rate.

We saw another test of the Republican tax myth in 2013, after President Barack Obama allowed some of the Bush tax cuts to expire, raising the top income tax rate to its current 39.6 percent from 35 percent. The economy grew nicely afterward and the stock market has boomed — up around 10,000 points over the past five years."

September 29, 2017 2:53 PM  
Anonymous Deplorable! said...


Tom Price Resigns As Health And Human Services Secretary

He cost taxpayers over $1 million by using private planes for official travel.

September 29, 2017 5:16 PM  
Anonymous Reality said...

THE NEW REALITY OF OLD AGE IN AMERICA
“I’m going to work until I die,” says one 74-year-old in a generation finding it too costly to retire.


"RRichard Dever had swabbed the campground shower stalls and emptied 20 garbage cans, and now he climbed slowly onto a John Deere mower to cut a couple acres of grass.

“I’m going to work until I die, if I can, because I need the money,” said Dever, 74, who drove 1,400 miles to this Maine campground from his home in Indiana to take a temporary job that pays $10 an hour.

Dever shifted gently in the tractor seat, a rubber cushion carefully positioned to ease the bursitis in his hip — a snapshot of the new reality of old age in America.

People are living longer, more expensive lives, often without much of a safety net. As a result, record numbers of Americans older than 65 are working — now nearly 1 in 5. That proportion has risen steadily over the past decade, and at a far faster rate than any other age group. Today, 9 million senior citizens work, compared with 4 million in 2000.

While some work by choice rather than need, millions of others are entering their golden years with alarmingly fragile finances. Fundamental changes in the U.S. retirement system have shifted responsibility for saving from the employer to the worker, exacerbating the nation’s rich-poor divide. Two recent recessions devastated personal savings. And at a time when 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every day, Social Security benefits have lost about a third of their purchasing power since 2000.

Polls show that most older people are more worried about running out of money than dying.

“There is no part of the country where the majority of middle-class older workers have adequate retirement savings to maintain their standard of living in their retirement,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist who specializes in retirement security. “People are coming into retirement with a lot more anxiety and a lot less buying power.”..."

September 30, 2017 8:14 AM  
Anonymous Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria for President!! said...

Meet the Air Force general who delivered a powerful speech against racism

September 30, 2017 8:16 AM  

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