Who Created This Monster
Woo -- Michelle Wolf ruffled a few feathers at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night.
It didn't matter that she made fun of Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, c'mon, that's what it's all about. Here's the reason journalists are complaining -- she nailed them right on the head:
The networks love Trump. When he's on you can't help watching, it's a trainwreck but you can't click the remote. He is everything that television loves, as intellectually vapid as any sitcom, as engaging as any TV personality.
Just to remind you, from March 2016, well before the election:
This is how he got elected in the first place. They gave him free advertising. SNL made him a host. Jimmy Fallon patted his hair. Every cable channel showed nothing but Trump for months leading up to the election. You could not find a channel that discussed the Democrats' policies or plans, all you saw was outrageous, uninformed, shooting-off-his-mouth clips of Trump, one after the other.
When the history of this era is told, it will be about the media.
It didn't matter that she made fun of Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, c'mon, that's what it's all about. Here's the reason journalists are complaining -- she nailed them right on the head:
You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you use to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn’t sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric. But he has helped you. He’s helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster and now you’re profiting off of him. And if you’re going to profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because he doesn’t have any.Donald Trump is a reality TV actor, a small-time New York mobster, competely undeserving of the Presidency of the United States of America. Everybody knows that -- it's the basis of his appeal. He is ridiculously unqualified. His mind is shallow, he has no values, he is a big fake but it doesn't matter because it's all only a television show. He's easy to understand, holds your attention as he jumps from one topic to another, he waves his arms a lot and makes lots of facial expressions. He is ultimate TV.
The networks love Trump. When he's on you can't help watching, it's a trainwreck but you can't click the remote. He is everything that television loves, as intellectually vapid as any sitcom, as engaging as any TV personality.
Just to remind you, from March 2016, well before the election:
This is how he got elected in the first place. They gave him free advertising. SNL made him a host. Jimmy Fallon patted his hair. Every cable channel showed nothing but Trump for months leading up to the election. You could not find a channel that discussed the Democrats' policies or plans, all you saw was outrageous, uninformed, shooting-off-his-mouth clips of Trump, one after the other.
When the history of this era is told, it will be about the media.
posted by JimK at 2:02 PM
233 Comments:
The oak sapling that French President Emmanuel Macron brought from a forest in France for him and US President Donald Trump to plant on the South Lawn of the White House has apparently disappeared.
The photos of the tree-planting sparked many memes on Tuesday.
But on Saturday, Reuters photographer Yuri Gripas captured photos that show the tree is no longer where Trump and Macron planted it:
"Just to remind you, from March 2016, well before the election:
This is how he got elected in the first place. They gave him free advertising.".
Not to mention how the media went on and on and on about the nothing burger of Hillary's emails loaded with innuendo about how this "raises questions" and so on. The media raised unwarranted suspicion and concern about Hillary's private email server (despite many people in the past doing the same) when there was nothing there whatsoever. Most media outlets have acknowledged that they made far too big a thing about Hillary's emails and they did the public a disservice by creating the false impression that it was something important.
Is the End of Trump's Presidency Near?
The scandals surrounding President Donald Trump are metastasizing rapidly, much more than anyone would have thought just a few months ago.
The investigation by Robert Mueller, now 11 months in duration, has been accumulating evidence of possible Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and the corruption surrounding many members of the Trump circle, including his own children and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
But then the Stormy Daniels scandal, and other related shameful episodes involving other women became part of the equation, and the business dealings of Donald Trump in New York State were added to the complicated situation. And now, the seizure of materials and records of Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen raises the ante on the troubles and turmoil surrounding Donald Trump. At the same time, Trump is without stable advice from his cabinet or others, due to the chaotic nature of a constantly changing set of advisers, and his tendency to “shoot from the hip” not only in tweets, but in constantly evolving views on domestic and foreign policy challenges.
With the midterm congressional elections now less than seven months away, and with the Republicans running scared about potential massive losses, and with more criticism emerging from not only respectable conservatives, but also from some of his own loyalists, Donald Trump’s time in the Presidency seems rapidly coming toward a sudden end.
While Republican members of Congress look unlikely to abandon him before the midterm elections, it could still happen if Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Jeff Sessions, and others, a constant threat. New indictments by Mueller, and the possibility of such action by the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman could be in the offing very soon. And if Trump family members were to be indicted, it could put Trump under such pressure that possible resignation, through some form of arranged “deal,” is not beyond imagination. If the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in November, impeachment action seems highly likely in 2019, although conviction in the US Senate would be nearly impossible.
However, there is a scheduled meeting of right-wing Evangelical leaders with President Trump on June 19, to consider strategy for the midterm elections, as this group is alarmed at the thought that the Trump scandals could cost them the advancement of their religious agenda. It could be, two months from now, that gloom and doom will set in, and cause these pastors and ministers and their allies to consider Trump’s resignation as preferable, as it would bring a “true believer,” Vice President Mike Pence, to the Presidency.
One would think behind the scenes that many congressional Republicans and conservatives would clearly prefer Pence, who is religiously devout, and does not have the drama and controversy that Donald Trump constantly presents. With Pence, the right-wing would not lose, but instead gain a great deal of comfort. This makes it conceivable that we’ll see a repeat of history. When Richard Nixon proved toxic in July 1974 a delegation of congressional Republicans marched to the White House to let him know his base of support on Capitol Hill had collapsed.
No matter what the future scenario, America is in a constitutional crisis of greater proportions than Watergate, and with the attendant danger of a Great Recession or a third World War, caused by a mentally unstable and highly stressed President. So while it now seems likely that Trump will outlast the 492 days of President Zachary Taylor, to be reached on May 27, 2018, once thought by this scholar to be the end point of the Trump Presidency, it seems evident that Trump will leave office before the 4th shortest Presidency, that of Warren G. Harding from 1921-1923, a total of 881 days. This would be Thursday, June 20, 2019.
So with 15 months down in the Trump Presidency, the chance of his leaving in the next 14 months at the most is on the horizon.
"Woo -- Michelle Wolf ruffled a few feathers at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night.
It didn't matter that she made fun of Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, c'mon, that's what it's all about."
problem is, neither of those two are big inflated egos that people like to laugh at
sure, liberals hate them because they hate Trump
but that's not funnny
it's sad
"Here's the reason journalists are complaining -- she nailed them right on the head:
You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you use to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him."
uh, he's the President
journalists are always obsessed with the President
makes sense, he has a lot of influence
"I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn’t sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric. But he has helped you. He’s helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster and now you’re profiting off of him. And if you’re going to profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because he doesn’t have any."
this applies to so many thing
why is it suddenly a problem?
oh, that's right
you hate Trump
kind of like Russian disinformation
the Russians have always done this
it's only a crisis now because Dems thought they could use it as an excuse for losing the election
"Donald Trump is a reality TV actor,"
not really
"a small-time New York mobster,"
not really
"competely undeserving of the Presidency of the United States of America."
if you meet the Constitutional requirements and you enough states to have a majority of the electoral college, you deserve to be President, by definition
"Everybody knows that"
yes, everybody on the West coast and East Coast north of McLean
"Just to remind you, from March 2016, well before the election:
This is how he got elected in the first place. They gave him free advertising. SNL made him a host. Jimmy Fallon patted his hair. Every cable channel showed nothing but Trump for months leading up to the election. You could not find a channel that discussed the Democrats' policies or plans, all you saw was outrageous, uninformed, shooting-off-his-mouth clips of Trump, one after the other."
just to remind you:
trump made himself available to press 24/7 and would field any question
it's called courage and confidence
hillary sharply limited access and tried to avoid situations that were unscripted
it's called fear and insecurity
she was guilty of some things and she wanted dodge questions
"When the history of this era is told, it will be about the media."
yes, this is the era when the media finally dropped the pretense and admitted they are partisan
they have so overdone the lies and exaggerations about Trump that have made him a sympathetic figure
who would have thought that possible?
President Trump held a rally in Michigan on Saturday night while the DC media establishment held their annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner. The latter is the event where every year some leftist host is chosen to spew what is always a joyous celebration for the leftist media at which those on the stage bash all things Republican, conservative and decent. Trump wisely chose not to attend last year and did not attend this year.
As everyone knows, the night is meaningless, an open-mic night for anti-Republican jokes that are really just insults. But the jokes have become cruder and ruder year after year. One thing about the left is certain, written in stone: they are vicious, malicious and filled with hatred for all things not radically leftist. This year was, as last year, a doubling down on the vulgar.
Who was this year's host, Michelle Wolf? A young alleged comedienne cast-off of the Daily Show that no one watches. Most people who may have tuned into the MSNBC coverage of the correspondents' dinner had never heard of her. Good call on their part; she has an x-rated mouth. She is humorless, classless, graceless and an embarrassment to her profession. She relished insulting people like the fabulous Sarah Sanders while Sarah is sitting in front of her. Who does this? Only heroes of the left. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer have been doing it for decades. John Tester did it this past week. He maligned a good man without a shred of evidence. Like the fabricated fake "dossier," Tester made it all up to sabotage a good man, Ronny Jackson, for political expediency. He will suffer the consequences.
The American people are not remotely as dumb as the DC establishment thinks they are; nor are they as crass. Most of them, millions of them, did not watch last night's televised abomination, and if they did, were horrified by the smutty tone of the evening. This is the left exposing itself as the lowlifes they are. The mystery is why were people like Hugh Hewitt in the audience? Why did he not get up and leave?
Ms. Wolf is attractive to look at but difficult to hear. Her voice is shrill and whiny. She sounds like a little girl spewing disgusting, scatological profanity. Her content is obscene. Is this what politics have come to? Apparently so. This event was broadcast on MSNBC, of course, the network that airs Joe and Mika, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow. NBC has no allegiance to the truth or any sense of decorum. The network is wholly dedicated to undermining the Constitution as written. Those powers that be there are Marxist ideologues, like Obama, and mean very seriously to destroy America as founded. Ms. Wolf went a long way toward further demeaning that network and our culture.
Nothing Michelle Wolf said last night can be quoted in any decent forum. She should not be quoted anywhere. Her verbal abuse of the President and the people in the room was nothing short of degenerate. The left has always been caustic when attacking conservatives, but with this event they crossed a line into gutter obscenity. Ms. Wolf is an embarrassment not only to the left but to all of America.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." (Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
Dickens pretty much summed up the political mess that is the American scene today. While Trump was raising the spirits of his supporters in Michigan, Michelle Wolf was hoping for a winter of despair and a season of darkness. Only when Americans are desolate, is the left happy and proud.
If you're not watching The Handmaid's Tale you're missing out. Its a frightening look at what could happen in the States if religious conservatives ever took full control of the government - Mike Pence's wet dream.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous would no doubt love it too as this is a vision of the States where same sex attracted people like them can imagine the theocratic state helping them repress their same sex desires by making gayness illegal and punishable by death.
Self-loathing gays and lesbians are so sad.
The Trump Justice Department just deleted language about press freedom and racial gerrymandering from its Internal Manual
Trump is taking every move that dictators like Turkey's Erdouan and Putin have done to consolidate power in themselves and their families.
But, hey, Michell Wolf saying professional liar Sarah Huckabee Sanders burns facts to create her smokey eyeliner is much worse.
If conservatives really thought Michelle Wolf insulted women and mocked their appearance, they would have elected her president.
Syracuse man charged with hate crime for beating up 76-year-old gay man
This sort of thing has increased since Orange Julius became president. But, hey, "the gays are doing just fine" according to Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous because to them no matter what happens to the gays, its "just fine".
"Nothing Michelle Wolf said last night can be quoted in any decent forum."
Oh, is that why tRump wasn't at the dinner, trying to keep the forum decent?
Decency vanished long ago with the tRump's Mexico insulting, Muslim hating, ally undercutting, media mocking, "shithole" labeling, flip-flopping, incestuous wanting, and pussy grabbing.
Apparently you thin skinned pussy grabbing put down artists can't take jokes.
"Nothing Michelle Wolf said last night can be quoted in any decent forum."
I quoted her on this forum. But of course to Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous a "decent" forum is one that only allows right wing propaganda.
At the White House Correspondents Dinner Michelle Wolf said "Flint still doesn't have clean water.".
Knowing religious conservative anti-environment Trump supporter Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous I can see why they think that couldn't be said in any "decent" forum.
Shame wyatt/Regina, shame.
The United States Destroys What Moral Authority It Has Left by Torturing "Detainees"
The nomination of Gina Haspel to be the next CIA director has been teetering on the edge since it was announced because the Republican margin is so slim in the Senate and at least John McCain and Rand Paul seem unlikely to vote for her. So she’s now taken to promising senators that if she gets confirmed, she won’t restart the rendition, secret prison and torture regime that she helped create and helped cover up. Torture is supposed to be illegal under American law.
An administration official confirmed that Haspel has been pledging in private interviews with senators that she will never allow the CIA to revive a detention and interrogation program.
She also is telling them that all U.S. government agencies involved in interrogations should observe the standards set in a U.S. Army field manual on interrogations, said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Really? And we’re supposed to believe that? What if Trump orders it? He practically fondles himself at the thought of torturing people. Over and over again during the campaign he spoke in the most lurid and horrible terms about wanting to restart not only waterboarding but much worse things than that, which he said he believed were effective in gaining intelligence. And Haspel herself has claimed torture works too. So could anyone really believe that she would refuse an order from the president to bring back torture — if it was ever really ended, about which I have serious doubts — as a means of interrogation? You’d have to be spectacularly naive to believe that.
Its little wonder the United States is despised around the world when its politicians constantly talk about American "exceptionalism" and then it engages in the most evil of actions under the cloak of darkness.
The Waffle House Shooter Was Homeschooled … and So Was the Austin Bomber, and That Bomb Maker in Wisconsin
This past weekend, 29-year-old Travis Reinking from Illinois shot and killed four people in a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee. While police are still trying to identify motive, it is possible that race played a role—the man was white while his victims were African American. But what hit me in reading the most recent coverage is that Reinking was homeschooled.
A Wisconsin man who accidentally blew himself up in his apartment last month — requiring authorities to later burn down the entire building — had a homemade bomb lab, explosive chemicals, guns and ammunition on hand, according to unsealed search warrants in the case. Benjamin D. Morrow, 28, also had white supremacist literature in his Beaver Dam apartment.
In a sad and absurd statment on the nature of religious indoctrination, Morrow’s online obituary described him as a devout Baptist who “accepted Jesus as his personal Saviour at the age of four-and-a-half.”. Obviously no child can make an informed decision to join a religion. Its unethical to try to convert any one to a religion before they're 18.
Here we have three white twenty-something men in three different states, all of whom killed black people or had white supremacist literature on in their homes, all of whom grew up in Christian homeschooling families, and all of whom carried out atrocities (or accidentally blew up apartment buildings) in the same two month span. It hits rather hard.
And then there are the moments of irony, like the Waffle House shooter’s mother’s claims that shootings in public schools occur because the Bible and prayer were removed from those institutions.
Homeschooling is a red flag in the upbringing of children. Not all homeschooled children are evil, but homeschooling is something done by many parents who have an unhealthy need to control their children and prevent them from developing minds of their own.
When you spend your entire childhood learning how the world outside your bubble is a frightening place full of decadence and evil, with every soul in it bound for hell, maybe it's not that much of a leap to want to burn that world down. Especially if you're being told that you are a soldier in a religious war against the world outside the bubble. Then add in the notion that civilization will collapse at any minute (which is a good thing because decadence and evil) and/or that you are religiously and racially right because you are God's People and not Those People.
Mix isolationism, feelings of righteousness, and severe othering, and you've made yourself the classic cocktail for stochastic terrorism. Its the same cocktail they feed to fundamentalist Muslims, only Jesus-flavoured instead of Allah-flavoured.
Conservative Christians, Their Morality and Their Ironic Intolerance
God is love.
Or something.
Turns out, very often, Christians don’t reflect this ideal. This is kind of understandable given the distinct lack of such an ideal in the Old Testament. But if we park that whole tranche of biblical history for the time being, let’s look a little at the tolerance of Christians.
What can we tell about the tolerance of Christians? Well, this will depend on what type of Christian we are talking about. A conservative Christian, if looking at moral psychology, will be defined by valuing the in-group, purity and tradition above all other moral evaluative components. Where liberals might be seen in terms of fairness and lack of pain, conservatives often see these as playing second fiddle to the other components. Thus, anyone not in the in-group is often seen as morally inferior (I am simplifying the work of people like Jonathan Haidt here).
If, as a conservative, you are a white, male heteronormative Christian, good luck to anyone outside of your in-group.
I see from regular commenters here of the religious persuasion, as well as from pastors and church spokespeople, a distinct intolerance for anyone who does not fit the mould of their in-group ideal. Homosexuals, trans people, atheists, non-Christians and so on are not shown the love that Jesus idealises in his Good Samaritan parable – the quintessential endorsement of out-group morality.
Many religious people claim that, hang on, Christians are far more charitable and thus morally good.
The devil is in the detail.
It turns out that whilst Christians appear to give more money in real terms to charities, it is worth looking in finer detail at the stats. It’s also worth noting that Christian churches are registered charities, and so the vast amounts donated to their own churches are counted as charity.
In simple terms, Christians and the highly religious are more likely to “give to their own” – show moral behaviour towards the in-group that the out-group. Whilst atheists or liberals might give less to charity in real terms, they are more universally moral. They are more like Jesus’ Good Samaritan. What’s worse, it’s not as if they fail to be prosocial and morally good to out-group members, but research shows they tend to be more morally aggressive.
Indeed, Saroglou sees “religion as a major contemporary cultural source of intergroup conflict around the world” in “Intergroup Conflict, Religious Fundamentalism, and Culture“.
For religious conservatives, in practice, love thy neighbor golden rule applies only to the religious in-group.
The point being that Christians often claim God is the source of objective morality and that God is love, but there is clearly a lack of clarity here. It doesn’t seem to matter what the grounding of morality actually is because Christians have wildly different approaches to morality and prosociality, though what can certainly be said is that when they get progressively more conservative and fundamental, they become less universally moral.
If you’re a conservative Christian like your fellow conservative Christian, you’ll be alright by them. If not, good luck.
Much more about this at the link.
wow!
Priya just can't stop displaying ignorance
it's almost like a mental illness
well, Trump had quite a day
the one thing that will make Priya's head explode, once and for all, came a little closer to reality today:
Kim Young Dumb is closing down his nuclear testing sites and letting the US in to watch the whole thing
and the President of South Korea credits Trump with making it happen
and says he should get the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
then, the mainstream press gave Trump a gift this weekend
oh, and his approval rating shot up 4 points on the Gallup tracking poll
America’s comfort level with the LGBTQ population is declining, according to GLADD, one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ organizations. GLAAD reports a drop of 3 to 4 percent drop in people’s reported “comfort levels” with several scenarios, such as learning a family member is gay. “This year, the acceptance pendulum abruptly stopped and swung in the opposite direction,” the report states. “More non-LGBTQ adults responded that they were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ uncomfortable around LGBTQ people in select scenarios.”
The decline is paired with a significant increase in LGBTQ people reporting discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity,” the report continues. “This change can be seen as a dangerous repercussion in the tenor of discourse and experience over the last year. 2017 brought heightened rhetoric toward marginalized communities to the forefront of American culture.”
The survey incorporated 2,100 respondents over the age of 18 and has been in place for several years. The survey asks for their comfort level with scenarios such as, “learning my doctor is LGBT” and “learning a family member is LGBT.” From 2014, in which comfort levels were the lowest, to 2016 where they were the highest, the change fluctuates under a 4 percent difference.
For example, in 2014, 31 percent felt uncomfortable with their doctor being LGBT. In 2015 and 2016, that was 28 percent, and in 2017, it hit 31 percent. “Learning my child has a lesson on LGBT history in school” represented the least comfort level in all four years, staying steady at 37 percent discomfort in 2014, 2015 and 2017 and only dropping to 34 percent in 2016.
If we put the shift in context, it appears the LGBT focus on transgender advocacy may have an impact on how average Americans view LGBT as a whole. Of U.S. Christians, for example, 63 percent believe sex is determined at birth rather than dissected between a changeable gender and ‘assigned’ sex. Of the same group, however, 54 percent believe homosexuality should be accepted. Roughly half of Americans believe sex is determined at birth at 54 percent, while 62 percent support same-sex marriage. It is clear that even in traditionally unfavorable populations, gay people are more easily accepted.
It is not difficult to understand why. Reasonably, before 2015, when transgender activists began demanding access to sex-segregated private spaces based solely on how they identify, transgender issues seemed largely resolved. Transgender reassignment surgeries were occurring in the mid to late 1950s, with Christine Jorgensen becoming a celebrity in the United States in 1959.
The first case that found post-operative transgender individuals could legally marry as the opposite gender was ruled in 1976. Most states have a process for recognizing a new legal gender and are willing to update the birth certificate. By the late 2000’s and into the second decade of the century, many major businesses were offering health insurance coverage of sex reassignment surgery.
But the media cycle began fixating on the idea of transgender bathroom access around 2015, and relentlessly pursued every conceivable social comfort and safety concern associated with access. From high school locker rooms to public restrooms and gym changing areas, America watched aggressive transgender activists impose new policies and regulations, and win lawsuits.
With fears of non-transgender predators taking advantage of the new policies, many states began implementing laws requiring a person to use the bathroom of their sex at birth. During that time as the rhetoric and demands rose, conversation among many on the right turned to concerns about women and children’s safety.
Shortly after, the news cycle moved on to children and gendered clothing, toys and costumes. Starting in 2015, Target led the way by announcing an end to gender-specific signage throughout the store. Disney stores followed announcing an end to “boys” and “girls” costume and toy labels. By 2017, we saw drag queens and other gender-nonconforming “educators” presenting gender identity classes to elementary school children.
January 2017 also saw the cover of National Geographic with a young boy dressed in pink with the title “Gender Revolution.” The series featured multiple 8-year-old boys and girls cross-dressing and identifying as the other gender. Jazz Jennings, a male child who became the star of a TLC program titled “I Am Jazz,” was followed through his transition, chemical puberty blockers, and social struggles.
We have witnessed an 8-year-old drag queen celebrated by LGBT media and culture and featured as the “covergirl” of an adult gay men’s erotic clothing shop. We have seen a sharp spike in child referrals in Europe for transgender treatment options. Parents are growing more aware that their ability to intervene in their child’s gender identity decisions made at school can lead to shaming and accusations of child abuse.
When a teenage boy who referred to himself as Leelah committed suicide at age 17 by running into traffic after his parents asked him to wait another year before beginning transition, LGBT advocates accused them of murdering their son. Writing for ThinkProgress, LGBT activist Zack Ford wrote, “I learned about Leelah’s death while traveling and expressed my grief on Twitter as such: ‘Rejecting the reality of LGBT identities is a form of genocide, an attempt to erase whole communities. Unfortunately, sometimes it works.’”
While many do not care if adults transition, the concern surrounding the consequences of transitioning children is growing. Very recently it was reported that Jazz Jennings is suffering from a profound consequence of hormone therapy. Jennings was placed on puberty blockers and now, as a 17-year-old, has prep-pubescent genitalia. As a result, Jennings is unable to go through “confirmation surgery” to form Jennings’ penis into a vagina. Jennings is likely to be infertile and unable to function as a sexual adult in the future. We have also watched as trans activists shame teenage and adult straight men for not wishing to date them or engage in sex with them.
Gay Americans have also contributed to many social concerns. Shortly after the Supreme Court decided that states could no longer limit marriage to one man and one woman, gay activists began demanding wedding cake bakers, caterers and photographers participate in their services. With highly publicized court cases in which small business owners found themselves losing everything they worked for with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, gay activists took on the role of bully rather than victim.
HIV activists too created uncertainty by demanding an end to HIV disclosure laws and limitations on blood donations. The LGBT media recently and widely celebrated a movie featuring a gay adult man sexually seducing a teenage boy titled, “Call Me by Your Name.” The movie is up for several Oscars in 2018.
Many people have watched the LGBT community and feel they are growing ever more hostile and bigoted towards them without just cause. In the survey itself it was reported that 55 percent of LGBT experienced discrimination as opposed to 44 percent a year before. A Center for American Progress report declared 1 in 4 LGBT Americans face discrimination. Most people don’t see examples of this in their daily lives, and yet average people are being increasingly accused of perpetrating oppression.
The left has a strange sense of entitlement to not only acceptance from the larger society, but also a universal embrace of their ideology. It is not enough to hold legal and civil equality — society must celebrate them as well. As a result, their rhetoric and activism become ever more petty and vindictive and naturally, the majority they accuse becomes more resentful.
Although a movement of a few percentage points is not indicative of a wide-sweeping change in public opinion, the reaction to it demonstrates something important. The LGBT movement is deeply reliant on social acceptance and approval and wishes to micromanage how we perceive them. But their efforts to coerce, impose and enforce radical policy and ideas onto the culture appear to be resulting in the exact opposite of what they wish to achieve.
Americans grew to accept gay people and even gay marriage through friendships, normalcy and time. They never cared about the personal choices of transgender people. Most simply do not care what adults do in private. But the more the LGBT movement imposes their demands on the daily lives of average people with threats of losing their livelihood and reputation if offended, the less acceptance they are likely to find. This is especially true when their ideas directly threaten the safety of children or vulnerable populations.
No Guns Allowed at NRA Convention
But...but...the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, isn't it? The problem with all those school shootings was that no one else had a gun, right?
There are no words to express the magnitude of the hypocrisy of the NRA.
---------------------------------
Remember these?:
Spicer: Trump was 'joking' when he asked Russia to hack Clinton
Trump wonders if gun owners could stop Hillary (second amendment solutions if Hillary gets elected)
Trump was "joking" when he accused Democrats of treason, White House says.
See Michelle Wolf, this is how you tell a non-offensive joke that everyone likes.
The sad reality is that Trump's greatest defense against obstruction of justice charges is that he is an idiot who does not know any better. That's for real folks.
And now for some more hypocrisy: Pittsburgh police are claiming that they are being treated like criminals because the city is making them take drug tests. The cops are fighting it calling it an "illegal search and seizure" and a violation of the constitution. But of course drug testing people getting social assistance is okay because they're all criminals, right?
@realDonaldTrump:
"The White House is running very smoothly despite phony witch hunts etc. There is great Energy and unending Stamina, both necessary to get things done. We are accomplishing the unthinkable and setting positive records while doing so! Fake News is going "bonkers!"
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Talk about whistling past the graveyard!
Green Day fans are campaigning to get “American Idiot” to Number 1 in time for Donald Trump’s visit to the UK. The scheme was announced in January last year but has gained momentum after the President confirmed he was making a “working visit” to Britain on July 13.
A statement said: “We have a date, he’s coming Friday 13th July… so if we ALL buy enough downloads of Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ between Friday 6th-Thursday 12th it will time PERFECTLY to hit No.1 the very day he arrives on UK soil! Streaming counts too but less effective. Let’s do this!”
Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong hasn’t hidden his hatred of Trump and led chants against him at the American Music Awards last year.
The screaming carrot demon pathetically declared May 1st "Loyalty Day". Irony is defunct. A man who never works and who has loyalty to no one chose the International Workers' Day as the perfect date to proclaim loyalty to him. Idiot.
oh the irony..oh the hypocrisy
it appears that the foreign troll's head is about to explode in frustrating rage
the American wannabe gazes in to a land they will never cross into
pathetically harping on minor details
security measures at an NRA convention, the Pittsburgh police don't want to take drug tests
no detail too small for the increasingly desperate
what will the other trolls think about Priya's failed attempts?
Perhaps the greatest thing about one of our side’s many decisive victories last week – and there were a lot of victories – is that now liberals have to refer to Ric Grenell as “Ambassador.”
Or better yet, as “Your Excellency.”
But it isn’t just that America got one of its best diplomats – finally – on the job in Germany. It’s that in fighting his confirmation, the Democrats again highlighted their moronic intersectional hypocrisy to voters who may have forgotten what idiots they are.
"You know, respect for women and for people of different views and whatnot are essential for an ambassador, anywhere in the world," announced noted advocate for women Senator Robert Menendez, who allegedly focuses his advocacy on underage women in the Dominican Republic. And, of course, the silly likes of Chris Murphy – he’s the Connecticut Democrat senator who’s merely a clown, not one who is a pretend war hero – huffed n’ puffed about how Ric insulted women, in part because Ric was mean to Rachael Maddow. But everyone should be mean to Rachael Maddow. That’s a plus.
Anyway, Ric is gay, and this was all some sort of lapdog whistle to the Democrat base to let their latent homophobia run free with the notion that gay men are gay because they hate girls, or something. But libs can’t escape the truth: Donald Trump just appointed the highest ranking openly gay officer in the federal government – and he’s a conservative Republican.
And that’s just one win. There are so many. Even the losses, like the sad withdrawal of Admiral Ronny Jackson from his nomination to head the VA, have a silver lining. The people of Montana, who hate cowardly and craven mean girl antics, will no doubt punish that flat-topped Senate creep Jon Tester at election time for his scummy lies about an outstanding American warrior.
How about North Korea – no biggie, right CNN? Time for another couple hits with Stormy Daniels’s lawyer about how the wizened stripper is finally going take down Trump. Don’t look at the men behind the curtain making peace in Korea. Nothing to see. Gee, looks like Trump is making it rain, only with peace instead of singles.
The Democrat foreign policy cabal is coming unglued as Trump notches another triumph. I would sure hate to be Obama latte-fetcher Ben Rhodes right now, but then I can’t be him because I never worked in an administration that kissed the mullahs’ collective Khomeini and that was unable to get North Korea talking about denuclearization.
The Russia collusion thing is dying a slow, agonizing death, but not before the investigations reveal the stunning depth of corruption of Obama’s regime. It’s only a matter of time until Andy McCabe rolls. And please James Comey, you looming doofus, keep running your mouth.
There’s so much winning. Besides Ric, we got Mike Pompeo in as Secretary of State, and Mitch McConnell is confirming judge after non-pinko judge. Every Trump judge is one less black-robed activist who thinks that the Constitution makes it mandatory that you taxpayers chip in to kill babies but that it has nothing to say about your right to keep and bear arms.
Speaking of killing kids and the need for every free citizen to own multiple modern rifles and ammo and be proficient in their use, formerly Great Britain has provided several cautionary examples of what a world run by Democrats would look like. Someone called Count Dankula got convicted of a crime and fined for saying words the elite disliked. Another thoughtcrimminal got jailed for eight month – eight months of his life in prison – for flipping off a traffic camera, and then the Brit Stasi went on Twitter to brag about it and to threaten the sheep into submission. Worst of all, because his parents had a bad attitude about the UK’s single payer system deciding to kill their son, the Brit government decreed that the parents of Alfie Evans could not take him to Italy to try to save his life. The National Health Service finally got its wish and killed Alfie; that’s what the government can do when it rules subjects instead of serves an armed citizenry. Think about that the next time some liberal scoffs about “death panels” and your crazy ideas about not giving up your guns so you can resist tyranny.
If any good is to come out of this fascist atrocity, it will be to wake people the hell up to the future if the Democrats take power. And libs can’t let the truth get out. Did you notice that not-at-all-creepy gun-grabbing kid disappeared from your TV screens just about the same time that the NRA announced that American patriots had set donation records for giving to America’s foremost civil rights organization?
We’re winning so much they gotta spin our wins. The economy is running at 2.8% growth – not enough! Well, then just wait until next quarter. Tariffs? Our opponents are folding. Unemployment is in freefall, and people are dropping off of the food stamp program – this is a tragedy for liberals, because they feed on those who need handouts. Remember: Good news for Americans is bad news for Democrats.
We won the special election in Arizona, which the left spun as a loss because the victory there was not as victorious as Trump’s had been. But we all know that the Democrats were super-motivated this year to once and for all stop normal Americans from having any say in their own governance. Because liberals have stopped hiding what they really want to do, like disarm us and imprison us and kill us, Normals like us are starting to get motivated.
So is the fact that so many squishes are throwing in the towel. Trump is the cleanser. While in DC the Fredocons are panicking about a blue wave, out in America we’re not seeing it. With the generic ballot gap narrowing, pretty soon Paul Ryan is going to start regretting leaving Congress to spend more time with his high school-age kids.
Hi Ryan kids, I'm here to hang out with you.
Uh.
Do you kids like the Def Lepperd? It rocks.
Mom, make dad go back to Congress.
But perhaps the most culturally significant win involves Kanye West and someone called Chance the Rapper, who apparently needs to be distinguished from Chance the Poultry Inspector and Chance the Proctologist. Chance the Rapper morphed into Chance the Wuss when he kind-of sort-of backtracked about his thoughtcrime of saying “Black people don’t have to be democrats,” but whatever. This is still huge – major black celebrities are refusing to be told what they can and cannot think and are actively pushing back against the backlash. And there’s a ton of backlash – the Democrats cannot afford to lose their lock on the minority vote – but minorities are now openly asking the question that terrifies liberals: “What have you done for us lately besides run your Chardonnay-guzzling mouths?”
Don’t be down. Don’t be discouraged. We’re winning. And somewhere, in a dark room, Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit sits sucking down tumblers of Canadian Club and dreaming of the American Venezuela that might have been.
So smile, and try to endure all this winning.
almost forgot another big win
after two years of being boycotted by Trump, the annual White House Correspodents Dinner, where reporters all get together and act like they're Hollywood and mock conservatives (even when the President is a liberal), sounds like it will be cancelled
permanently
Rob Reiner Verified account
@robreiner
I attended the WHCD last night. Donald Trump has so poisoned the atmosphere by attacking the disabled, gold star parents, Muslims, Mexicans, Blacks, women, the press, the rule of law that a comedian who simply tells the truth is offensive? She’s joking. He’s not.
7:30 AM - Apr 29, 2018
"In fact, have you heard about the lawyer? For a year, a woman lawyer, she was like, 'Oh, I know nothing.' ... Now all of a sudden she supposedly is involved with government. You know why? If she did that, because Putin and the groups said, 'you know this Trump is killing us. Why don't you say that you're involved with government so that we could go and make their life in the United States even more chaotic.' Look at what's happened. Look at how these politicians have fallen for this junk. Russian collusion. Give me a break.""
tRump admitted that Putin directly interfered in our election, and that he was using the lawyer now to sew new discord in our system. Veselnitskaya's admission just sparked another blast of political controversy around tRump's empty head. And, if the Russian lawyer said it, oh, I don't know, that kind of tends to prove that she's working for Putin by tRump's own hypothesis. And his y-chromosome mutant son admits to having met with her in Trump Tower, looking for dirt on Hillary!
Clearly there was collusion.
Marco Rubio may have committed the ultimate heresy for a Republican: The senator from Florida admitted that recent corporate tax cuts are doing little to help American workers and that increased public spending might be in order.
In an interview with the Economist, Rubio said he doubts that the tax cuts or Trump’s “America first” protectionism will stop people from losing their jobs to automation.
“There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers,” he said. “In fact, they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”
But Rubio really risks alienating the GOP with some of the solutions he is proposing to help the country because they involve ― cue the horror movie screams ― public spending.
The senator suggests spending more tax dollars on programs focused on technological research and on education programs prioritizing vocational skills.
“Government has an essential role to play in buffering this transition,” he said. “If we basically say everyone is on their own and the market’s going to take care of it, we will rip the country apart, because millions of good, hardworking people lack the means to adapt.”
"Ms. Wolf is attractive to look at but difficult to hear. Her voice is shrill and whiny. She sounds like a little girl spewing disgusting, scatological profanity. Her content is obscene. Is this what politics have come to? Apparently so."
Yes. That is what it has come to. Where were you when the Access Hollywood came out?
Republicans have no problem whatsoever with scatological profanity, when it comes on a pee pee tape, or vaginal profanity when it comes out of the Giant Orange Scrotum of Doom's mouth, or propagated by his tiny little hands.
It's clear that it is not the profanity obscenity that bothers republicans. If it was, they had over a dozen slightly less deplorable candidates they could have put through the primaries to the White House. But they didn't. They specifically chose not to.
What really hurts them is the truth. Trump doesn't go to the WHCD because he's nothing more than a big bloated bully who LOVES to dish out the insults, but doesn't have a thick enough skin to sit there and take it like a man. And when you can't handle the truth, you start talking about shutting down the whole dinner... "permanently," and call it "another big win."
The republican party and the oft maligned "biased liberal media" put a Russian oligarch and hero of white supremacists into the White House. And now they are delighting in all their "wins."
While conservatives have been brow beating liberals for decades for their "socialist" policies, and imminent threat of a communist takeover, they paid absolutely no attention to the fascist threat growing within their own party.
Now they think Trump is going to win the Nobel peace prize for denuclearising the Korean peninsula. How quickly they forget that the Kim family has been playing the world for decades with their little game of "quitting" the nuclear program only to start it up again a few years later. There is no reason to believe a guy that has killed some of his own relatives is going to be any more of an honest broker than his father or grandfather.
If you do, you are living in a fantasy world.
The Republicans whining about Michelle Wolf have no right to complain, its Trump that brought down discourse to this level with "look at her face, who could vote for that?!" and "She had blood coming out of her, wherever", "she was bleeding badly from a face lift", and "she's too ugly to rape".
You reap what you sow Republicans.
"What really hurts them is the truth. Trump doesn't go to the WHCD because he's nothing more than a big bloated bully who LOVES to dish out the insults, but doesn't have a thick enough skin to sit there and take it like a man."
Trumplethinskin is too much of a coward to take the crap he deserves himself so he sends Huckabee Sanders to take it for him - pathetic!
EPA Grants Exemption to Former Trump Adviser and Billionaire
Trump’s EPA has granted an exemption from our environmental laws to an oil refinery owned by Carl Icahn, who was a “special regulatory adviser” at the White House for the first few months of his administration. He quit in August over conflicts of interest — you know, like this one.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has granted a financial hardship waiver to an oil refinery owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, exempting the Oklahoma facility from requirements under a federal biofuels law, according to two industry sources briefed on the matter.
The waiver enables Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc (CVI.N) to avoid tens of millions of dollars in costs related to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The regulation is meant to cut air pollution, reduce petroleum imports and support corn farmers by requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel each year.
So he was a “special regulatory adviser” who advised them to exempt one of his own companies from regulation. No, that’s not corrupt at all. Coincidentally, the DOJ has an investigation going into Icahn over exactly this kind of thing. The exemptions in question are designed for small, struggling companies facing financial hardship. Icahn is worth $18 billion. We should all be in such hardship. How’s that drainy swampy thing going, Trump?
Poll: Two-thirds say either Trump hasn't drained 'swamp' or he has made it worse. No president has delivered more of the opposite of what he's promised than Hair GropenFuhrer.
The mango mussolini isdisingenously wailing that the leak of questions the Mueller investigation wants to ask him is "disgraceful". The truth is the leak came from Trump himself. Hillariously Trump calls this "a phony made up crime" when no one has charged him with a crime - that's evidence of mens rea - a guilty mind.
They don't come any sleazier, dishonest, and shifty than Trump, with the possible exception of Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous whose motto is "there are many situations where its appropriate to lie" and "most people lie all the time".
We were told by Republicans that the tax cuts would be “rocket fuel” for the economy, that companies that benefited would start building new factories and hiring people to work in them, and raising the wages of workers by $4000 a year. None of that has happened. Corporate investments are pretty much the same as they were before the tax cuts were passed because the money went into buybacks instead. And the deficit has gone up by nearly a trillion dollars this year, which will continue over the next several years.
In short, every single thing the Republicans said would happen as a result of the tax cuts turned out to be wrong, and everything the critics of the tax cuts said would happen turned out to be true. Imagine that.
Debunking an Old Lie About the Founding Fathers
Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel is peddling another long-debunked lie about the founding fathers. During an episode of the Faith and Freedom radio show with Mat Staver, the dumbest lawyer in America not named Larry Klayman, Barber claimed that “many” of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the Constitution were pastors.
"And in fact, many of the founding fathers who signed our Declaration and were at the constitutional convention were pastors, and this misnomer, this made up, this phrase ‘separation of church and state’ that is found nowhere in the Constitution, it’s time to reunite church and state".
Many, you say? There were 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. How many were pastors? One. John Witherspoon. That was the only one, and he was also the president of Princeton University, which was his primary job. So where does this come from? From David Barton, of course, the man responsible for more lies about religion and the founding fathers than anyone else who has ever lived. Barton’s claim has long been that 55 of the 56 signers of the Declaration had “seminary” degrees.
Here’s what he leaves out, which changes the claim completely. They didn’t have seminary degrees, they had degrees from colleges like Harvard, Yale and Princeton, which were founded as seminaries and then became full universities, with the degrees earned by those men mostly in subjects like law. So Barton says they had degrees from a seminary, then others pick up on that and translate seminary degree into “pastor” and off they go, spewing utter nonsense that just conveniently happens to support their position.
And to add another level of irony to this, one of the amusing things is that those schools I mentioned, the ones those men went to, by the time of the Constitution, were widely criticized by the Christian right of that day as hotbeds of heathenism and atheism. Even the divinity schools at those colleges were viewed by the Matt Barbers of that day as little more than infidels who undermined Christian doctrine with unitarianism and universalism and other “heresies.”
And in this case, Barber tells you exactly what his position is: “It’s time to reunite church and state.” And Thomas Jefferson wept.
Here's an interesting bit on the nature of conservatives: Social Dominance Orientation
Executive Summary: They're not nice people and they really want to get the better of you.
The problem of socially desirable responding and communal narcissism
A well-known confounding factor in social psychological surveys is that of socially desirable responding. Participants alter their responses to surveys and questionnaires in order to appear better than they are. By “better”, however, it may be the case that they are referencing societal norms (Bou Malham & Saucier, 2016[3]) or the anticipated norms of the researcher (who is likely to be liberal – because researchers are 12:1, liberal:conservative; Duarte, et al., 2015[4]). Either way, the ‘Narrative Self’ may be adapting its story to fit the circumstance, and affecting the researcher’s ability to study the individual’s actual beliefs about their own nature, by being presented with the individual’s beliefs about normative values instead.
An example of systemic socially desirable responding is the finding that conservatives are happier than liberals, in both the US and Europe (van Hiel, et al., 2015[13]; Wojcik, et al., 2015[14]). This finding has been so robust and long-standing in the US that it has become known as ‘the happiness gap’ (Taylor, 2008[16]). However, a study looking at the Duchenne smiles of liberal and conservative politicians, and the use of positive emotional language in the LinkedIn posts of strongly liberal- and conservative-identifying individuals – two hard to fake measures of genuine happiness – indicate that this repeated finding may well show a preference for a self-enhancing self-report style (aka Socially desirable responding) among conservatives, rather than actual happiness (Wojcik, et al., 2015[15]).
Another explanation for this finding, or possibly an underpinning to it, is the idea of communal narcissism (Gebauer, Sedikides, Verplanken & Maio, 2012[5]). Classical (or agentic) narcissists feed their views of themselves with self-evaluations of agency, such as high intelligence, power, and entitlement; communal narcissists feed their views of themselves with self-evaluations of community, such as being agreeable and helpful. As with classical narcissists, this self-evaluation is not necessarily one shared by others (Barry, et al., 2017[2]). This model has the benefit of potentially explaining why American conservatism in particular is made up of the apparently opposing forces of libertarians and conservatives (see Meyer, 2016, Point 4[10]). It seems likely that the former have a tendency towards agentic narcissism, and the latter towards communal narcissism. Both, therefore, have the same internal need for grandiose self-justification, and both misrepresent how they feel, possibly due to the presence of a (probably) liberal social scientist.
It seems likely that agentic narcissists would be high in Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth & Malle, 1994[11]), and communal narcissists would be high in Right Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1981[1]), whereas liberals are usually relatively low in both (Kugler, Jost & Noorbaloochi, 2014[6]), and thus probably low in narcissism.
Conclusion
This seems to endorse Johno’s conclusion of an inherent hypocrisy in those that claim the most righteousness, the most pro-sociality, and the most happiness, i.e. those who are conservative and religious. They lie to themselves, and they lie to others about themselves (in other words ‘false virtue-signalling’). And we even have a causal mechanism – communal narcissism – the need to be seen to be the right kind of religious conservative, rather than as a human being with individual flaws.
Trump Tax Cuts - Best Case Scenario
The business cycle develops over a long arc, with federal policy set by the White House often a minor factor, at most. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy typically affects the economy more than any president’s actions. And policy actions that do matter often play out over years, with consequences that sometimes materialize after the president who put them into motion are gone from office [Afraid of the truth, Wyatt/Regina claims this consensus amongst economists is a lie].
The rate of growth in business investment actually slowed during the first quarter, when some economists thought it would surge on account of the tax cuts. “The slowdown in GDP growth … was something of a disappointment,” research firm Capital Economics explained to clients, “since the tax cuts should have provided an immediate boost.”
Consumer spending has weakened, too, with growth slowing from 4.4% in the fourth quarter to 1.1% in the latest quarter. Critics of the Trump tax cuts contend that they favor businesses and the wealthy too heavily, with little relief flowing to working- or middle-class families. We’re also in the midst of a surge in stock buybacks and dividend hikes, which return money to shareholders but don’t necessarily aid the real economy.
Moody’s Analytics forecasts GDP growth will hit 3% even in 2018, which would let Trump claim credit for reaching his target for a full calendar year, not just a 12-month, quarter-to-quarter period. But Moody’s and other forecasters say growth could fall back after that, as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and additional government debt, issued to finance the tax cuts, begins to crowd out private investment. A recession could even strike by 2020 or 2021. Trump should claim credit for good times while he can.
Note there were a number of years under Obama where GDP growth was 2.9%. Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous often claims the economy was a disaster under Obama and fantastic under Trump. The reality is that there is no signifcant difference between the economy under Obama versus under Trump.
Recessions have waylaid most U.S. presidents. But President Trump seems to think he’ll be an exception.
Every president since World War II has had to contend with a recession, except for two: Lyndon Johnson, who faced plenty of other problems, and Bill Clinton, who had the good fortune to preside during the birth of the Internet age. But President Trump sees no recession on the horizon, even though we’re now most likely in the late stages of an economic expansion that’s nearly 9 years old.
The Trump administration projects annual average GDP growth of 2.9% per year through 2027. That exuberant assumption underpins the Treasury Department’s recent claim that the tax cuts Congress is poised to pass soon will generate $408 billion in new economic revenue. In a theory that has never worked out, Treasury says, tax cuts will stimulate the economy, producing more hiring, bigger profits and a bigger tax haul from all of it.
Even the Treasury’s rosy outlook acknowledges that overall, the tax cuts would add somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. But it could be way worse than that if a recession arrives and the economy contracts. And historical evidence strongly suggests that’s likely to happen.
Since 1945 there have been 11 recessions, which means they occur every 7 years or so, on average. If we make it to 2027 without a recession, that will be a record 18-year economic expansion, nearly twice the length of the longest post-war boom so far, which ran from March 1991 through March 2001.
If there is a recession during the next decade, however, there’s essentially no chance growth will average 3%, or anywhere near it. That’s because downturns take a sharp bite out of average growth rates. From 1951 to 2014, for instance, GDP grew at an annual rate of just 2.1%, accounting for inflation. That includes several years when real GDP boomed, growing by more than 5% per year. But growth was negative during most recessions, bringing the average down sharply.
From 2000 to 2010, real GDP growth averaged 1.9%. But if you exclude three years with low or negative GDP growth caused by recessions – 2001, 2008 and 2009 – then growth averaged 2.8%. It’s so much better to leave the recessions out!
The GOP tax cuts have drawn sharp criticism from some economists who argue that cutting taxes—and federal revenue—now will simply require future tax hikes to recoup the lost revenue. “There is good reason to doubt that deficit-financed tax cuts will boost economic growth much, if at all,” William Gale of the Tax Policy Center wrote recently. “There have been huge changes in taxes throughout US history with virtually no observable shift in growth rates.”
If Trump turns out to be a one-term president, he may leave office before the next recession hits and be able to claim (accurately or not) that his tax cuts helped the economy. If Trump is a two-termer, it’s much more likely he’ll have to explain the budget hole typically comes with a recession, like most of his predecessors. And find a plug to fill that hole.
Trumps tax cuts will never, ever pay for themselves.
Just like the ones from Reagan didn't pay for themselves, and the ones from Bush II didn't pay for themselves, even when Obama, in a desperate attempt to stir up some bi-partisanship, made them permanent.
Conservatives either don't care, or don't under stand 4th grade math. So let me lay it out for mathematically challenged.
Trump just dropped the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and somehow, the $1000 bonuses that a few people got at some companies, and the extra stock the fat cats are going to buy are going to buy are suddenly going to generate so much new business that it's going to cover the lost revenue.
No it's not. Not in this decade.
Time to find your favourite mathematically inclined fourth grader and ask him this question:
"What is 35 divided by 21?"
They will probably whip out their cell phone and tell you 1.66667.
But what does this mean?
If your company made $1 of profit before the tax cut, they paid $0.35 in taxes. AFTER the tax cut, they will have to make $1.67 in profit to pay the same $0.35 in taxes.
Almost NO company makes a 67% increase in profits from year to year, much less the entire American economy.
Martin Shkreli was able to achieve those kind of profit increases, but he had a patented product that only his company was allowed to produce, and of course, he was a total a$$h0l3. He is now a convicted felon, so businessmen may want to think twice about modelling their careers after him.
There is simply no way a 2.9%, 3%, 5%, or even 10% annual growth rate is going to cover a 67% drop in tax revenue any time soon.
Even if we had a constant 5% annual growth in our economy AND PROFITS, a bit of logarithm math will show you that it will take 10.4698 YEARS of 5% growth to put out the 67% more profit required to cover the revenue loss.
Republicans haven't figured this out since the 1980s, or they have, and they just don't give a damn about bankrupting the US economy. Either way, their stupidity is dangerous in the long run.
Way to go, Good Anonymous! ;)
Further to Good Anonymous's post:
Historically there is no correlation between the overall tax rate and economic performance. Some of the best economic performance has come during the highest tax rates and vice versa.
Republican tax policy is built upon a lie, and they know it. They have problem adding one to one and one half trillion dollars to the deficit every year as long as it benefits the very wealthy (which, no surprise, includes those Republicans).
But as Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous says, if Republicans pass tax laws that benefit them and the uber wealthy while screwing the poor and middle class, "good for them!".
Poor, poor Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous. They hitched their wagon to the most corrupt and moronic loser ever to be president, a man who has broken almost every promise he made in spectacular fashion and now they're left trying to defend the indefensible.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Prior to the election Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous expressed concern that the Republic wouldn't survive a Trump presidency but they voted for him anyway because they were so in need of having someone put into law their desire to feel superior to innocent LGBT people.
Imagine how low your self-esteem must be that the only way you can feel good about yourself is to have your society lie and tell you there is someone beneath you.
Tsk Tsk, shameful.
The house of cards of the Trump Resistance is collapsing with accelerating speed, as anything propelled by the force of gravity does. The “comedy” act at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday and the groans from the audience must have caused even some of the more militant Democrats to wonder what the whole White House press beat had become. It was a vicious, unfunny replication of the late-night television laughing hyenas, while the president whipped up his supporters at a large rally in Washington, Mich. (televised nationally). Nothing to do with the White House, and especially not the correspondents, amounts to anything without the president. This was always a good-natured back and forth between the president and the reporters who follow him every day and was a pleasant, if fairly predictable, Washington event, like Alfalfa and Gridiron. It is now just mudslinging in absentia, revealing the White House media as essentially the partisan pack of defamers and myth-makers that they have made of themselves, and that their employers have tolerated. The country doesn’t trust them and doesn’t much listen anymore. It is potentially dangerous when a free press had made itself so dispensable.
The evidence continues to accumulate that not just former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, but his boss James Comey, and the partisan intelligence directors James Clapper and John Brennan will all be facing perjury charges, and that those responsible for the phony surveillance warrant on Carter Page (including the former attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and her chief collaborators) and ultimately a considerable swath of the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration will all be responding to serious allegations. It is at that point that the Resistance will have to show whether it has any backbone, and not just an ability to orchestrate the bigotry of the media and the stunned, dethroned solidarity of the OBushinton joint-incumbency under which the political confidence of the country largely eroded. Like officers on a sinking vessel directing passengers toward an insufficient number of lifeboats, Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi are now urging Democrats to be more subtle and restrained in calling for the impeachment of the president. As some of the leaders of the Resistance are arraigned for serious misdeeds, the impeachment of a president whose only misdemeanors are in areas of style and etiquette (though those are sometimes jarring) will increasingly seem esoteric.
It is a reasonable inference, though not one that can be made with much confidence, that Rudolph W. Giuliani, former mayor and U.S. attorney of New York, has joined the president’s legal team to negotiate with Robert Mueller a series of written questions for the president to be answered in writing, and a conclusion, at least of the Russian aspect of this inquiry, which will then have to show cause why its mandate should be extended to other fields. Failing some such agreement, the president could well ask a Supreme Court review of the validity of Mueller’s proceedings, given that they were launched by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the instance of Comey’s leaked and partially classified documents (that were probably wrongly removed government property), because he wanted a special investigation into the Russian issue, despite the fact that Rosenstein had recommended the firing of Comey, who himself confirmed that Trump was not a target of the Russian investigation and had made no effort to interfere with the Russian investigation. There has never been any excuse for any of it, and it has accomplished nothing except to drag Trump’s accusers into a quagmire of their own making. At some point in James Comey’s tortuous book tour, as he twists and turns to square irreconcilably conflicting assertions and actions of his recent past, there will be a moment that will recall Joseph Welch’s counter-attack on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy: “Have you no decency, sir?”
As we wait hopefully for such a moment, I declare the opening front-runners for next year’s Pulitzer Prizes: Tucker Carlson, Mollie Hemingway, and Mark Penn. The first three have declared cogently and forcefully that Comey’s briefing of the president-elect on the Steele dossier was a “set-up,” so that Clapper, the director of the National Intelligence Agency, could leak it to CNN (his future employer), lie to Congress about it as he had about other things, and smear the incoming president with all the spurious defamations that Comey had himself told Trump were “salacious and unverifiable.” (It is puzzling how Comey could so complacently record his assurance to Trump that he, Comey, was honest, discreet, and made no “weasel moves,” even as he failed to add in his report to the president that the Clinton campaign had paid for this defamatory onslaught. Yet he asked and expected to retain his job.)
Alan Dershowitz also deserves much credit because, with the great weight of his legal eminence, he has joined Victor Davis Hanson and me in seeking an investigation of Mueller’s role in the horrible Deegan-Bulger scandal of the FBI in Boston in the Sixties to Eighties, when innocent men were knowingly prosecuted and condemned for murder, while the real killers were sheltered because of their assistance in attacking the Patriarca crime family in New England. Mueller’s performance in the Anthrax murder tragedy (where an apparently innocent man committed suicide), and in the Uranium One affair (and deputy director Rosenstein’s as well), would be worth a thorough look too.
Mueller has laid such an egg in this Keystone Kops Trumpophobic shambles of the Russia-collusion investigation that there is room for hope that his career will receive the examination it deserves. Comey conveniently tied a bow on his own misfeasances by condemning the pardon of former vice president Dick Cheney’s completely unoffending chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and by engaging as his counsel in the legal hellfire that is about to burst on him, the special prosecutor in that case, his fascistic doppelganger Patrick Fitzgerald, and his designated leaker, Daniel Richman. (I had the pleasure of encountering Fitzgerald’s prosecutorial derring-do in Chicago — he never allowed the truth to get in the way of his crusade to take down honorable and guiltless defendants in a corporate-governance show trial.)
There is now little to do but watch the collapse of the proud façade of the corrupt prosecutocracy that Mueller, Comey, and Fitzgerald personify, corroded and bloated by a 99 percent conviction rate, 97 percent without a trial, because of the hideous mutation of the plea-bargain system. They are all very self-righteous: “Great will be the fall of it.” The next installment of the inspector general’s report should send Comey for likely indictment as the last one did McCabe. The question then will be whether this hyper-combative president will temper justice with mercy and take the lead in deescalating this appalling state of conflict. In a civilized society, it is not necessary to kill your enemies to defeat them.
A year ago, the prospect of President Trump being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize would have sent his critics’ heads spinning. Now, if all goes well in U.S. negotiations with North Korea, Trump should be the odds-on favorite for an award he will have truly earned.
The stunning moves towards peace on the Korean Peninsula have generated the Nobel buzz. Resolving the almost seven-decade division — one of the last major vestiges of the Cold War — would be an epochal international event. South Korea's former president Kim Dae Jung was awarded the peace prize in 2000 for simply beginning the process of détente with North Korea.
Now, the historic summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un alone has the makings of a peace prize-worthy effort, because it effectively ended a war that had been frozen since the 1950s. But President Moon went out of his way to give credit to Trump for setting the stage for the meeting. "President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. All we need is to bring peace," Moon said, according to the Blue House, Seoul's equivalent of the White House.
Trump indeed deserves much of the credit for the breakthrough in relations. Trump was the first president to explicitly link U.S. trade policy with China to progress on the Korean Peninsula. Previous presidents had compartmentalized these issues, but Trump knows that the art of the deal is based on leverage. North Korea’s economy (such as it is) depends on China, and China’s well-being depends on trade with the United States. Beijing has much less interest in defending the right of its erratic Pyongyang ally to develop highly destabilizing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles than it does in maintaining its global markets. This reality was no doubt the framework for discussions in March between Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping, when Beijing told Pyongyang that the party was over.
Trump also made clear the potential consequences of not moving towards peace. Last year saw a series of threats and counter-threats as Kim took the measure of our new president, to see whether Trump was as tough as advertised. North Korea conducted several provocative nuclear and missile tests. Pyongyang threatened to launch missiles towards Hawaii or the U.S. mainland, and said it had the right to down American strategic bombers even outside North Korea’s airspace. In response, Trump said that any North Korean acts of war would “be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” Defense Secretary James Mattis laconically noted that if North Korea fired missiles towards the United States it would be “game on,” with all that implied.
Panicky pundits fretted about the possibility (if not certainty) of open war breaking out with North Korea. But as the Romans said, si vis pacem, para bellum — if you want peace, prepare for war. A peace through strength strategy only works when the adversary knows you mean business. And Trump had a “bigger button.”
The Nobel buzz also comes in the context of the award given to former president Barack Obama in his 2009 rookie year, with the hope he would make “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” But taking Obama’s foreign policy record as a whole, the Nobel committee made a down payment on a house that was never built. The reputation of the Peace Prize took a blow then, but it can be redeemed by recognizing the achievements of Obama’s successor.
Trump, leading from the front rather than from behind, is demonstrating that the United States can remain “the one indispensable nation in world affairs” only if it behaves like it.
There is much yet to be done, of course. The outcome of the upcoming Trump/Kim summit will determine whether this prospective peace is durable or a mirage. But if all goes well and peace is finally at hand, a Nobel Prize for Trump would be a proper and fitting tribute to his remarkable achievement.
Wyatt/Regina, somewhere there is a tree working really hard to produce oxygen so you can breathe. You really should go apologize to it.
Support for same-sex relationships is rising sharply among all major ethnic and racial groups and most religious groups, according to a major new survey.
The American Values Atlas, conducted by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute, comes as the Supreme Court is considering whether a Colorado baker may legally refuse to make a cake for a same-sex wedding on First Amendment grounds.
The survey found a dramatic increase in support for same-sex marriage across all racial and ethnic groups and almost all religious groups just since 2013. More than 6 in 10 — 61 percent — of Americans say same-sex couples should be able to marry legally, compared with 30 percent who are opposed. Five years ago, support was at a bare majority of 52 percent.
The survey — one of the most extensive of its kind, questioning more than 40,000 Americans in weekly installments for eight months last year — focused on issues of importance to the LGBTQ community, including same-sex marriage and protections against discrimination in housing, public accommodations and employment.
It reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points, with a 95 percent level of confidence.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/05/02/support-for-same-sex-marriage-grows-sharply-in-us-survey-finds/23425218/
The Public Religion Research Institute found that supporters of same-sex marriage now make up majorities among Democrats and Republicans; blacks, whites and Latinos; Catholics; and most white mainline Protestant denominations.
Notably, opinions among black Americans have shifted from opposition — 41 percent supported same-sex marraige in 2013 — to support, with 52 percent signaling approval, the survey reported. Opposition among black Protestants has shifted especially strongly, falling from 57 percent in 2013 to just 43 percent, it said.
"The country has reached a milestone moment in the debate over LGBT rights," said Dan Cox, the institute's research director. "At a time when Americans are more divided than ever, the sea change in support for LGBT rights that now crosses lines of race, ethnicity, religion and geography means that LGBT rights are becoming one of the few areas of public agreement."
The main holdouts remain conservative Republicans. While a majority of all Republicans now support same-sex marriage — 51 percent — only 36 percent of conservative Republicans agree, according to the survey.
Perhaps not surprisingly, only two groups significantly aligned with conservative Republicanism statistically — Mormons and white evangelicals — continue to support allowing merchants to refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex couples, both at 53 percent. Black Protestants, by contrast, oppose refusing such service by almost two-thirds, the institute reported.
Opposition to refusing services spans the country, with residents of only three states falling below a majority: North Dakota and South Dakota (both at 49 percent) and Utah (48 percent).
Comedian Michelle Wolf’s speech at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner has caused a commotion, with all sorts of pundit calling her jokes crass, unfunny and inappropriately harsh. What they’re less willing to acknowledge is the main reason they found the set so uncomfortable is that it was overwhelmingly honest.
It’s not surprising that Republicans are livid about a comedian (particularly when she’s a woman) using dirty words directed at the Trump administration. Never mind that conservatives regularly ignore Trump’s own bawdy talk, cruel jokes and unprofessional behavior – the hypocrisy is fully expected at this point, and of course the anti-PC/snowflake sect is deeply offended at jokes pointed their way.
However, seeing prominent journalists act just as appalled is disheartening. NBC White House reporter Kelly O’Donnell expressed that she prefers “jokes that singe but don’t burn” and thanked Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for attending. New York Times reporter Peter Baker mused that Wolf’s speech didn’t “advance the cause of journalism.”
Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC, amongst others, called out Wolf for attacking Sanders’s appearance, even though Wolf did no such thing (check the transcript) The punch line was about how much Sanders lies, and if Sanders can’t handle being called a liar to her face, maybe she shouldn’t lie so much. Speaking of fragility, it’s likely that what Brzezinski is really mad at is Wolf’s joke about Brzezinki’s recent engagement to her cohost being an example of “when a #MeToo works out.”
Even Margaret Talev, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association has condemned Wolf’s comedy. “Last night’s program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not divide people,” she said. “Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.”
Oh, please. For 35 years, the main attraction at the dinner has been a famous comedian roasting the White House. If the jokes seem a little crueler than usual, it’s because this particular administration is anything but usual.
Throughout her speech, Wolf took some jabs at cable news:
-“[CNN] guys love breaking news, and you did it, you broke it. The most useful information on CNN is when Anthony Bourdain tells me where to eat noodles.”
-“People want me to make fun of Sean Hannity tonight, but I cannot do that, this dinner’s for journalists.”
-“We have all these 24-hour news networks, and we could be covering everything. Instead we’re covering three topics.
Every hour is Trump, Russia, Hillary, and a panel full of people that remind you why you don’t go home for Thanksgiving.”...
...The part that really stung and left few journalists in the audience laughing was Wolf’s conclusion:
“You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn’t sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric, but he has helped you. He’s helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you’re profiting off of him.”
While I understand why journalists have trouble reconciling with this symbiotic relationship, that doesn’t make what Wolf said any less true. The proof of that is in how so many reporters are demanding decorum from a comedian while defending an administration that has demonstrated unprecedented disrespect for the press – even at an event supposedly celebrating the First Amendment.
Wolf’s comments are not nearly as inappropriate as the very concept of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner itself. This notion that politicians and journalists should be chummy with each other and sing each other’s praises is a slap in the face to objectivity. We need more reporters who are willing to call out Sanders’s lies, not jump in to defend their “friend” when she’s criticized.
The bottom line is that Wolf burned the media far more harshly than she did the Trump administration. The fact that the media’s first reaction is to burn Wolf back is a troubling clue that the corporate media isn’t looking to do a better job covering the White House anytime soon.
Good article, good anonymous.
The Last Saskatchewan Pirate
I used to be a farmer, and I made a living fine,
I had a little stretch of land along the CP line
But times were hard and though I tried, the money wasn't there
And the bankers came and took my land and told me "fair is fair"
I looked for every kind of job, the answer always no
"Hire you now?" they'd always laugh, "we just let twenty go!"
The government, the promised me a measly little sum
But I've got too much pride to end up just another bum.
Then I thought, who gives a damn if all the jobs are gone?
I'm gonna be a PIRATE on the river Saskatchewan!
And it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores
Well, you'd think the local farmers would know that I'm at large
But just the other day I found an unprotected barge
I snuck up right behind them and they were none the wiser,
I rammed their ship and sank it and I stole their fertilizer!
A bridge outside of Moose Jaw spans a mighty river
Farmers cross in so much fear their stomachs are a'quiver
Cause they know that Tractor Jack is hidin' in the bay
I'll jump the bridge and knock them cold and sail off with their hay!
And it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores
Well, Mountie Bob he chased me, he was always at my throat
He followed on the shoreline cause he didn't own a boat
But cutbacks were a'coming and the Mountie lost his job
So now he's sailing with us, and we call him Salty Bob!
A swingin' sword, a skull and bones and pleasant company
I never pay my income tax and screw the GST (SCREW IT!!)
Sailin down to Saskatoon, the terror of the seas
If you wanna reach the co-op, boy, you gotta get by me!
Cause it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores
(*spoken* Arrrr! Ya salty dog!)
(*spoken* Arrrr! Ya salty gopher!)
(*spoken* Arr. ya. salty bale of hay!)
Well, Pirate life's appealing but you just don't find it here,
I hear in North Alberta there's a band of buccaneers
They roam the Athabaska from Smith to Fort McKay
And you're gonna lose your Stetson if you have to pass their way!
Well, winter is a'comin' and a chill is in the breeze
My Pirate days are over once the river starts to freeze
I'll be back in springtime but now I have to go
I hear there's lots of plunderin' down in New Mexico!
Cause it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores... x2
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores... x2
White House lawyer Ty Cobb, who served as the administration’s point person in dealing with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, is stepping down and will be replaced by veteran white-collar defense attorney Emmet Flood, according to senior administration officials.
Flood, a partner at Williams & Connolly, was interviewed by President Trump in March. He served as special counsel in the George W. Bush administration and represented President Bill Clinton during House proceedings to impeach him.
How Children Are Indoctrinated into Religion
People always ask why there are not more women in the “atheist movement.” One of the main reasons is because more of them are sitting in the pews each Sunday morning. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that women are more likely than men to say religion is “very important” in their lives (60% vs. 47%). They are also more likely than men to say they pray every day (64% vs. 47%). When I grew up in a Lutheran church, the women also did most of the unpaid work—they cooked for potluck dinners, cleaned up the kitchen afterwards, folded the bulletins on Saturday morning with their children, taught Sunday School and directed the children’s choir. Whew!
But where women have the most impact is in bringing their children to church. My husband’s mother is a devout Catholic. Her husband never attended church. But she was faithful in bringing her children every week to Sunday school. (My husband usually slipped out the back door.) Because of this, indoctrination into religion comes at a very early age when children’s minds are the most malleable. Alexis Record, a frequent blogger and essayist in my new book Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith—and for Freedom, examines in detail one of the most severe indoctrination methods entitled Accelerated Christian Education. Unfortunately, she got to know the ins and outs of ACE directly as she received 12 years of “education” through this method. Needless to say, colleges didn’t consider it the equivalent of a high school diploma.
One of the ways in which this “education” is effective is the child is surrounded by people who reinforce everything that is taught. As Alexis explains, “The bubble I grew up within was tightly controlled, and most of the influences on my thinking were limited to those that reinforce the conservative Christian worldview.” When a child is young, they tend to believe what their parents tell them and don’t question them or the other adults in their lives. If your whole life is caught up in Sunday services, choir practice, Sunday school and then your entire education is more of the same, it is not surprising that this is your world view. While those raised outside of religion find this a bit hard to understand, Alexis explains it well.
I have often wondered how I could have ever truly embraced a faith that would make any sane person recoil. The answer lies in the fact that I wasn’t simply taught these lessons, I inherited them. They were my upbringing—repeated tirelessly by those who raised me. To reject them would have been to conjure the temerity to reject my family, my community and my own identity. That is a lot to ask of anyone, but grossly unfair to ask of a child. The well-known verse in Proverbs 22:6 is fairly perceptive of the process to follow. “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.”
Studies have shown the impact of religious activities on the brain. They actually make people feel more and, as Alexis explains, become “aware of themselves less.” The authors of one study—Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman, and Judith A. Hall—cite a significant negative association of intelligence and religiosity. Their definition of intelligence is as follows: “ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (p. 13). As is evident in Alexis’ description of ACE, the only important aspect is to believe and repeat what is said.
The ACE method also reinforces all of the misogynistic aspects of Christianity. A woman is expected to follow her father’s, then her husband’s wishes. She is to be subservient. Her job is to manage the household (wash dishes and iron!) while her husband is the wage earner in the family. It also teaches that the “wages of sin are death” invoking the punishment of hell as the result of falling off the true path. If a psychologist were to give an honest opinion on this teaching method, he or she could only conclude that it is child abuse.
When Alexis grew up, she was expected to train her children in the same way, thus the cycle repeats itself. When she was expecting her first child, the pastor told her he was excited that she would “raise him up in service of the Lord.” But Alexis came to doubt the precepts of the religion she was raised in and has become a pretty fervent atheist. She, as many others have done, also paid the price of leaving her church behind—they left her behind as well.
I was uninvited to holiday gatherings, was unfriended on social media, lost baby sitters, experienced strained interactions with once-close family members, and had to change my will since those who had previously been selected to inherit my children in the event of my death had disappeared entirely from our lives without a word.
Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith—and for Freedom contains thirteen essays that deal with the severe impact of religion on the lives of women including African-American, Hispanics, transgender, ex-Muslim, and ex-Jewish women, as well as others. It is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and will be available in bookstores in May.
God needs a 12 step program to obey his own commandments
Anti-gay pastor admits to raping girl
But he said he's sorry, so its all cool.
So Trump is on the Warpath again, lol.
Such a treat to watch his new spittle flecked tweets every day showing how terrified he is of the Russia investigation. Today he's screaming he will "have no choice" but to interfere with the Mueller investigation "at some point".
Hee Hee Hee!
I think Trump made a strategic error in not trying to get rid of Mueller back in January. I think his only hope of preventing significant evidence of his criminal actions from being discovered was to stop the probe back then.
Since then with the Cohen raid and Mueller having months more to dig up dirt on him, I think even if Trump were to end the Mueller probe tomorrow Mueller has more than enough evidence of wrongdoing to to come up with several articles of impeachment.
Its untested whether or not a sitting president can be indicted criminally. The legal experts who know Mueller best say he is likely of the mind that a sitting president can't be convicted of a crime so he'll stick with recommending impeachment for Trump's many crimes.
Its unlikely that the Senate would convict Trump and remove him from office but when all the dirt comes out it will likely mean the effective end of his presidency even if he technically remains president.
Now partisan hacks like Wyatt/Regina will scream "there's no evidence of collusion!" (in fact collusion has already been proven, it is just a matter of whether or not it is a criminal conspiracy). But no one other than Mueller and his people know what evidence has been uncovered as they are not telling anyone. The Mueller investigation employs people on two floors of a federal building, without a doubt they have far far more on Trump than anyone outside of the investigation knows.
Hee Hee Hee!
As a matter of policy the Department of Justice does not reveal information in an ongoing investigation. Republicans know this and so are repeatedly asking Acting Attorney General Rob Rosenstein for documents relationg to ongoing investigations. They've drafted "Articles of Impeachement" for Rosenstein that say he refused to provide documents in ongoing investigations to congress in the hope that Rosenstein will do the job he's supposed to do and refuse to provide them.
This will give Republicans an excuse to say Rosenstein is not cooperating and Trump should fire him. They're making a pretense to provide a political excuse for firing Rosenstein so they can appoint another person to shut down the Mueller investigation. Republican sleeze and dishonesty has no bounds.
Too bad for them, its already probably too late. Mueller likely has more than enough evidence of wrongdoing by Trump to make a case for impeachment of the mango Mussolini.
Rosenstein, to his credit, forcefully pushed back against the sleazy Republicans saying "The Justice Department will not be extorted", especially by a group of buffoons that couldn't wait to leak their own draft of articles of impeachment for Rosenstein that they were too ashamed of to sign their names to.
The collective yawn of the media to the revelation that Trump may have faked his medical records, especially after he made Hillary's health an issue is the latest reminder that he gets to play by different rules than any other politician.
The media held Hillary to an impossibly high standard and to Trump, none at all.
Michelle Wolf speaks the truth.
Sleezy Republicans put up a facade of doing oversight on the Justice Department by requesting information on the Mueller investigation but you know if they did get it they'd leak it within minutes to Trump.
Can you imagine any investigator willingly sharing information about an investigation with the person under investigation? This is exactly what Republicans are demanding the justice department do and they're going to use the justice Departments refusal as a political excuse to fire Rosenstein as a means to stop the Muelller Russia investigation.
So Rudy Giuliani is trying to get Mueller to agree to interview Trump for a maximum of 2 or 3 hours because he knows Trump can't stand up to more than that.
Sleazy Republicans interviewed Hillary for eleven hours and she wasn't afraid of it because she knew she did nothing wrong and of course despite those eleven hours of interviews they found nothing on her.
Republicans are basically stipulating that Trump is guilty of crimes and they're trying to make the Mueller investigation so narrow it can't see the evidence of those crimes.
This is all a show by Giulianni. He knows Trump can't even go 15 minutes without lying, let alone 2 hours. He knows Mueller is going to refuse to make the interview absurdly short and then Giuliani can say "See, we offered to interview and he's not reasonable so Trump isn't going to talk at all".
GOP Senate Candidate Photoshops Trump Out Of GOP Opponent’s Pic To Show Him Laughing With Hillary
A Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia is running an ad showing his primary opponent shaking hands with Hillary Clinton — something that never happened. The ad uses a manipulated version of a photograph that originally showed his rival shaking the hand of someone else: President Trump.
Lies and dishonesty - standard operating procedure for Republicans.
Republican vs Democratic Interns
One party says "All Lives Matter." The other party acts like it.
The questions that Special Counsel Robert Mueller reportedly wants to ask President Trump indicate that, after a year of his own investigation and two years of FBI investigation, the prosecutor lacks evidence of a crime. Yet he seeks to probe the chief executive’s motives and thought processes regarding exercises of presidential power that were lawful, regardless of one’s view of their wisdom.
If Bob Mueller wants that kind of control over the executive branch, he should run for president. Otherwise, he is an inferior executive official who has been given a limited license — ultimately, by the chief executive — to investigate crime. If he doesn’t have an obvious crime, he has no business inventing one, much less probing his superior’s judgment. He should stand down.
The questions, reported by the New York Times, underscore that the special counsel is a pernicious institution. Trump should decline the interview. More to the point, the Justice Department should not permit Mueller to seek to interrogate the president on so paltry and presumptuous a showing.
When should a president be subject to criminal investigation?
It is a bedrock principle that no one is above the law. The Framers made clear that this includes the president. But, like everything else, bedrock principles do not exist in a vacuum. They vie with other principles.
Two competing considerations are especially significant here. First, our law-enforcement system is based on prosecutorial discretion. Under this principle, the desirability of prosecuting even a palpable violation of law must be balanced against other societal needs and desires. We trust prosecutors to perform this cost-benefit analysis with modesty about their mission and sensitivity to the disruption their investigations cause.
Second, the president is the most essential official in the world’s most consequential government. That government’s effectiveness is necessarily compromised if the president is under the cloud of an investigation. Not only are the president’s personal credibility and capability diminished; such an investigation discourages talented people from serving in an administration, further undermining good governance. The country is inexorably harmed because a suspect administration’s capacity to execute the laws and pursue the interests of the United States is undermined. Naturally, this is of little moment to rabid partisans who opposed the president’s election and object to his policy preferences. By and large, however, Americans are not rabid partisans; they want the elected president to be able to govern, regardless of which party is in charge.
Still, the president cannot be above the law. Executive powers are too awesome to abide presidential immunity from the laws and the limits on those powers. So how do we police the president while minimizing the damage that an investigation of the president can do to the country? We acknowledge that we are willing to endure this damage, but only if there is strong evidence that the president is guilty of a serious crime or abuse of power.
A president should not be subjected to prosecutorial scrutiny over poor judgment, venality, bad taste, or policy disputes. Absent concrete evidence that the president has committed a serious crime, the checks on the president should be Congress and the ballot box — and the civil courts, to the extent that individuals are harmed by abusive executive action. Otherwise, a special-counsel investigation — especially one staffed by the president’s political opponents — is apt to become a thinly veiled political scheme, enabling the losers to relitigate the election and obstruct the president from pursuing the agenda on which he ran.
That is what we are now witnessing.
Pretextual appointment of the special counsel
Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel for two reasons: (1) ostensibly to take over a counterintelligence probe; (2) in reality, as a cave-in to (mostly) Democratic caviling over Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey — which was lawful but incompetently executed. Democrats contended that Comey’s dismissal, in conjunction with Comey’s leak of Trump’s alleged pressure to drop the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, warranted a criminal-obstruction probe. That is, the pretext of obstruction was added to “Russia-gate,” the already-existing pretext for carping about the purported need for a special counsel.
Neither of these reasons was a valid basis for a special-counsel investigation.
Russia’s effort plainly warranted a counterintelligence investigation. But reliance on that necessity as a rationale to appoint a special counsel was a subterfuge.
As has been repeatedly noted, a counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. To the extent it has a “subject,” it is a foreign power that threatens the United States, not an American believed to have violated the law. A counterintelligence investigation aims to gather information about America’s adversaries, not build a courtroom prosecution. For these (and other reasons), such investigations are classified and the Justice Department does not assign prosecutors to them, as it does to criminal cases. Counterintelligence is not lawyer work; it is the work of trained intelligence officers and analysts. It is not enough to say that Justice Department regulations do not authorize the appointment of a special counsel for a counterintelligence probe. The point is that counterintelligence is not prosecution and is therefore not a mission for a prosecutor.
Foreign efforts to meddle in our elections are nothing new, but they are not to be taken lightly. Russia’s effort plainly warranted a counterintelligence investigation. But reliance on that necessity as a rationale to appoint a special counsel — a lawyer independent of the executive branch, who uses the president’s executive power to investigate the president — was a subterfuge. (Because of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s passivity, Mueller is de facto independent, even though he is technically Rosenstein’s subordinate.)
Prior to Comey’s firing, Democrat demands for a “Russia-gate” special counsel were rebuffed because they were nakedly political. Even if one accepts the dubious premise that Trump materially benefited from Kremlin interference in the election, there was no known credible evidence that he or his campaign committed a crime in that connection. If there had been such evidence, no one would ever have mentioned a counterintelligence investigation; they would have said a special counsel was being appointed to investigate, say, a hacking conspiracy — an actual violation of federal criminal law.
The Democrats did not want a special counsel in order to investigate a crime; they wanted a special counsel (a) to promote a political narrative that Hillary Clinton lost because of something other than her lack of appeal and (b) to frustrate Trump’s ability to govern — to mollify their “Resist!” base, to stop Trump from implementing policies they oppose, and to enhance their electoral hopes in the 2018 and 2020 cycles.
As for the second purported basis for Mueller’s appointment, the crime of obstruction, it cannot be established by lawful exercises of executive prerogatives. A president, of course, may not subvert an investigation by unlawful actions — e.g., by conspiring to suborn perjury or bribe witnesses (cf. Clinton, Nixon). Illegal acts could amount to actionable obstruction. But the president’s dismissal of subordinate executive officials (such as the FBI director), and his exercise of prosecutorial discretion (by merely weighing in on whether a person — here, Flynn — deserves to be investigated), are constitutional acts that are not judicially reviewable. Executive prerogatives that are not subject to judicial review may not be subjected to judicial review by indirection, under the guise of a prosecution.
If Congress believes that Trump has committed impeachable offenses, it is free to open an impeachment inquiry. Mueller is not Congress.
This is not to say that lawful presidential actions are beyond reproach. Acts that do not transgress the criminal law may nevertheless be despicable. It is not a crime, for example, for a president to use the Oval Office for extramarital trysts with an intern, or to lie to the public about people being able to keep their health insurance. Nor am I contending that lawful presidential actions are unreviewable: The president can be impeached — just as the president has plenary power to fire an executive subordinate, Congress has plenary power to determine what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors. If Congress believes that the president’s lawful exercise of an executive prerogative was corruptly motivated, Congress may remove the president. If, for example, there was a concrete basis to suspect the president of a crime, and the president pardoned his accomplices in return for their silence, the pardons would stand but Congress could impeach the president for abusing his power to conceal his misconduct.
But impeachment is not prosecution. If Congress believes that Trump has committed impeachable offenses, it is free to open an impeachment inquiry. Mueller is not Congress. He does not report to Congress. He is a subordinate officer of the executive branch whose job is to investigate and (if merited) prosecute crimes specified by his Justice Department superiors. A special counsel is not supposed to be Congress’s lawyer for the purpose of investigating non-crimes that might nevertheless constitute impeachable abuses of power.
The corrupt-motive theory is legally and factually specious
The list of questions elucidates that Mueller is pursuing the legally suspect theory that legitimate exercises of presidential prerogatives can become prosecutable obstruction crimes if undertaken with an arguably corrupt motive. This theory is specious on at least two grounds.
First, it would empower a subordinate executive official (an unelected bureaucrat who serves at the president’s pleasure) to second-guess the chief executive’s every action and judgment — not just to investigate a patent, serious crime but to question what the president was thinking even when his actions were within his constitutional authority. The president is answerable to peer branches and to voters, but not down his chain of command. If an order is lawful, it is not the captain’s place to question the general’s motives.
Second, the corrupt-motive theory is factually meritless as applied to Trump. Whatever pressure Trump may have brought to bear regarding Flynn’s investigation, it had zero impact. Comey has testified that the FBI disregarded Trump’s comments. The Flynn investigation proceeded without a hitch, and Mueller ultimately charged and convicted him. Trump could have ordered the investigation to be shut down, but he let it continue.
A president should not be under investigation in the absence of an obvious crime serious enough to implicate impeachment. The stakes for the nation’s effective governance are too high.
As for the Russia investigation, it has proceeded apace. Comey’s firing had no effect on the FBI’s capacity to investigate. Moreover, the evidence is that Trump was not trying to impede the Russia investigation. To the contrary, the president simply wanted the FBI director to state publicly what he was assuring Trump privately: that Trump was not suspected of wrongdoing. This was hardly an unreasonable desire given that (a) in the Clinton-emails investigation, Comey took it upon himself to publicize the FBI’s determination that Hillary Clinton should not face prosecution, and (b) after repeatedly telling Trump he was not a suspect, Comey gratuitously created the public impression that Trump was a suspect by making an extraordinary announcement (in House testimony on March 20, 2017) that both revealed the existence of the Russia investigation and suggested Trump-campaign “coordination” in Russian espionage.
Not so fast, argue Trump’s antagonists: To be obstruction, an action need not succeed in corruptly influencing an investigation; it need only endeavor to do so.
This returns us to where we began: A president should not be under investigation in the absence of an obvious crime serious enough to implicate impeachment. The stakes for the nation’s effective governance are too high. Here, we do not have real obstruction. We have, at most, a politicized, hyper-technical claim of obstruction that rests on a suspect legal theory and a dearth of evidence that anyone was impeded in the slightest. Those are frivolous grounds for an investigation that compromises the president’s capacity to govern. The criminal law inquires into intent when actions patently violate criminal statutes; its purpose is not to manufacture crime by speculating about the intent behind apparently lawful actions.
Justice Department indifference
I am not a Trump fanboy. The administration’s conflicting explanations for Comey’s firing, which Mueller wants to inquire about, were an embarrassment — and the president’s badmouthing of the former director for the consumption of Kremlin emissaries was a disgrace. Trump’s Twitter tirades demanding investigations inject politics into law enforcement and undermine the administration of justice. His conception of the loyalty he is entitled to demand from law-enforcement officials is skewed — his citation of Eric Holder as a model attorney general (the only AG ever held in contempt of Congress) is repugnant. His orchestration of Donald Trump Jr.’s misleading statements to the Times (and thus to the public) regarding the Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-tied lawyer was unseemly.
None of this, however, is a basis for criminal prosecution. Being inconsolably upset about the outcome of the 2016 election does not entitle Democrats to an Oval Office minder with subpoena power. The actions and intentions Mueller seeks to probe are bases for political opposition to Trump, not prosecution. If you think his derelictions outweigh the positive policy outcomes of his presidency, then work to defeat him in the coming election cycles. But that is not prosecutor work.
Trump would be foolish to answer questions from Mueller, who has made a habit of turning witness interviews into false-statements prosecutions. More important, absent concrete evidence of his complicity in a serious crime, a president should not be put in the position of being pressured to answer a prosecutor’s questions. When Trump complains that the Obama Justice Department would never have permitted President Obama to be treated this way, he is right.
Put the president aside for a second. A Justice Department prosecutor would not be permitted to subpoena, say, a journalist or a lawyer, unless doing so was vital to the investigation of a serious crime — to the acquisition of critical information that was unavailable from any alternative source. The firewall that would prevent a heedless prosecutor from running roughshod over free-press principles or the attorney–client privilege is Justice Department leadership. It is astonishing that current Justice Department leadership apparently believes that the president of the United States, despite his responsibilities for our governance and security, is entitled to less deference.
Unless Mueller can demonstrate that a serious crime has been committed, that Trump was complicit in it, and that Trump is in possession of evidence that is essential to the prosecution, Rosenstein should bar him from seeking an interview, let alone issuing a subpoena demanding grand-jury testimony. This is not merely about protecting Trump; it is about protecting the office of the presidency.
Owsley, Kentucky:
99.22% White
95% Republican
96% use Food Stamps.
Republicans consistently vote agains their own interests, are they just stupid or do they hate liberals so much they'll shoot themselves in the foot to piss off liberals?
Ben Carson says that tripling rent on the poorest Americans will cause them to try harder and make better wages. Its like when you have cancer and your doctor says "Here's more cancer. Just fight harder, stupid."
The reason Bob Mueller is taking so long filing his Obstruction of Justice charges is because Trump won't stop obstructing long enough for him to complete it.
So much for the, "She bombed" assertion by Republicans. Michelle Wofe has become C-Span's most-watched correspondents' dinner MC ever.
So after Trump repeatedly denied knowing about Cohen making the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels his new lawyer giuliannia says Trump knew about it and repaid it. The clown car gets more and more hilarious as time goes on!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha!
Wyatt/Regina like watching the Handmaid's tale because its the only way the two of them can get aroused without going outside the bounds of their "marriage".
wow, Priya shows restraint by jamming it all into one post
I'm impressed
who says therapy can't produce good outcomes?
"Owsley, Kentucky:
99.22% White
95% Republican
96% use Food Stamps.
Republicans consistently vote agains their own interests, are they just stupid or do they hate liberals so much they'll shoot themselves in the foot to piss off liberals?"
so, in other words, people should vote without principles and only to enrich themselves
the sad socialist from Canada, so obsessed with America, and so clueless about it
with face pressed against the window of a place they will never step foot in, or understand
of course all Canadians are obsessed with the vibrant and superior land to the south
despite being one of the largest geographic areas in the world, most of the Canadian population is shoved up against the border with the US
but Hillary is now saying she lost because she's a capitalist and most Dems are socialists
so, it wasn't Comey and the Russians and the white women who were forced by their husbands to vote for Trump after all
it was those dang Dem socialists!
maybe she should move to Canada and go up against Baby Justin
"Ben Carson says that tripling rent on the poorest Americans will cause them to try harder and make better wages. Its like when you have cancer and your doctor says "Here's more cancer. Just fight harder, stupid.""
the government should be no one's landlord, except on a temporary basis
everyone will be better off if dependency is not perpetual
"The reason Bob Mueller is taking so long filing his Obstruction of Justice charges is because Trump won't stop obstructing long enough for him to complete it."
that, and the fact that he can't find any crime that he's investigating that anyone obstructed the investigation of
the Russia probe is investigating things that aren't crimes
and there is no evidence that any administration official has hindered that investigation anyway
at this point, I think most Americans would appreciate it someone were to actually obstruct Mueller
I think we've all had just about enough
"So much for the, "She bombed" assertion by Republicans. Michelle Wofe has become C-Span's most-watched correspondents' dinner MC ever."
obviously, the general public rarely paid any attention to this event
it's kind of like the presidential debates that set records when Trump was the center of attention
as Wolfe said, the media is obsessed with Trump because he brings good ratings
and believe me, the more people who watch that nasty routine, the better off Republicans are
"So after Trump repeatedly denied knowing about Cohen making the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels his new lawyer giuliannia says Trump knew about it and repaid it."
didn't we all know that already?
most Americans agree that this is something someone should lie about
and no one cares
except the noble and failing "Resistance"
hahahahahahahahahaha!!
"watching the Handmaid's tale"
most Americans aren't watching this because they are only willing to pay for so many streaming services
Disney recently bought Hulu so if they eventually combine with a new Disney streaming service maybe this show will get some attention
sounds like propaganda but that can be entertaining
similar to watching Priya flip around just like a fish thrown on a pier
Its fun watching in real time as yet another Republican president crashes and burns!
Hee Hee Hee!
Michael Avenatti Stunned By Rudy Interview: 'No Way, No How' Trump Finishes His Term
Michael Avenatti, attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, said Rudy Giuliani’s stunning Wednesday night interview on Fox News will doom the presidency of Donald Trump.
Giuliani told Sean Hannity that Trump repaid his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 sent to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement, something the president has previously denied. Daniels claims the agreement kept her from discussing her alleged affair with Trump.
In response, Avenatti told “CNN Tonight” that Trump could face “potential criminal liability” related to money laundering, campaign finance and fraud violations.
“I said it weeks ago, I’m going to say it again: Mr. Trump will not serve out his term,” Avenatti said. “No way. No how. He will be forced to ultimately resign. This is a bombshell.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Avenatti taped an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” where he implied there were more women with similar NDAs involving Trump. Avenatti also produced the receipt for Cohen’s payment to Daniels’ attorneys at the time:
The receipt showed involvement with a bank in California, which Avenatti said would be of interest to Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general.
“This document may, in fact, give him jurisdiction over certain criminal acts associated with this payment,” Avenatti said. “And, in fact, if the attorney general of the state of California were to bring charges, President Trump could not pardon Michael Cohen for those charges.”
He did not specify what the “certain criminal acts” could be.
Rudy Giuliani went on with Sean Hannity last night and gave a disastrous interview — from the perspective of Trump, of course. He blathered on and on and said all kinds of things he should not have said, strategically, including admitting that Trump paid Michael Cohen back the $130,000 he paid in hush money to Stormy Daniels.
“The president repaid it,’’ Giuliani told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.
Trump, Giuliani said, “didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this with my clients.”
There’s one big problem with that: It contradicts what Trump himself said about it just a few weeks ago on Air Force One when a reporter asked him, “Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?” His response: “No.” The reporter followed up by asking, “Then why did Michael Cohen make [the payment], if there was no truth to her allegations?” He replied, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael’s my attorney, and you’ll have to ask Michael.”
But here’s the key part. Another reporter then asked, “Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?” And Trump replied, “No. I don’t know.” Yes you did, because you paid him back. Which means you lied, and you lied about a specific thing under criminal investigation. Obstruction of justice? You betcha.
It also directly contradicts what Michael Cohen has said. He released a statement a few weeks ago that said, “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.” Oops.
Hahahahahahahahaahaha!
And the hits just keep on coming, lol!
Judge: Trump May Have Incited Violence at Campaign Rally
At a rally in Kentucky in 2016, three protesters were assaulted by Trump supporters, including notorious white supremacist Matthew Heimbach. They filed suit not only against those who assaulted them but also against Trump for inciting violence against them during the rally. A federal judge has now refused to dismiss that charge against Trump, saying that there is evidence to support that accusation...[more at the link]
This is only one of several lawsuits that involve such allegations. It’s a pretty close call, legally. But what is obvious is that Trump really does want anyone who protests against him to be beaten up. He sees that as being manly and not “weak.” And that fact alone is highly disturbing.
What Michelle Wolf Revealed About the Media and Conservatives
Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner continues to be a matter of national outrage for some, which I find both highly amusing and highly indicative of one of the central problems with the media. Not to mention — yet — what it reveals about thin-skinned and hypocritical conservatives.
Trump threw a little tantrum on Twitter and some of his aides walked out of the dinner with a horrible case of the vapors because Wolf told a few pointed jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway being liars. Margaret Talev, president of the White House Correspondents Association, quickly genuflected, bowing and scraping before Herr Trump and saying that point of the dinner was to give a “unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press” and that Wolf’s performance was “not in the spirit of that mission.”
So here’s problem #1: How do you send a “unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press” without targeting an administration that despises that idea to the core? How many times does Trump have to spout rhetoric or take actions that are manifestly opposed to the idea of a free press before that unifying message should really be aimed directly at him and his enablers? For crying out loud, his attorney general just removed concerns about a free press from the U.S. Attorneys Manual. Trump himself has called the media the “enemy of the American people,” rhetoric that draws directly from fascist ideology.
The job of a free press is to call the powerful to account. That is the sole reason it exists. But the WHCD has long been about schmoozing it up with the government, flattering them to ensure continued access to leaks (which the government will then rail against after doing the leaking). The Economist, which has long refused to send anyone to the dinner, nailed this one:
After the speech, Mr Trump’s people pressed their advantage. Mrs Schlapp told a reporter that “journalists should not be the ones to say that the president or his spokesman is lying.”
This raises an obvious question—if not journalists, then whom?—with an equally obvious answer: nobody. Mr Trump’s communication staff would prefer it if nobody pointed out when he and his media team lie.
Ms Talev invited Mrs Sanders to sit at the head table because she “thought it sent an important decision about…government and the press being able to work together.” But of course, that is precisely what should never happen, particularly with an administration as ambivalent about the First Amendment—among other norms and laws—as this one…
Calls for press-corps civility are in fact calls for servility, and should be received with contempt. Some might argue that insults do not deserve the same protection as investigative journalism, but that is a distinction without a difference. Anyone who wants to outlaw or apologise for the former will end up too timid to do the latter.
In open societies, self-censorship—in the name of civility, careerism or access preservation—is a much greater threat to the media than outright repression. The only person owed an apology here is Ms Wolf, for being scolded by the very people who invited her to speak, and who purport to defend a “vigorous and free press.”
We have a press that is far too docile, lap dogs rather than attack dogs. They have been rendered ineffective by their fear of conservative rhetoric about how biased they are. But despite a handful of really good reporters doing a terrific job, the primary bias of the press is toward maintaining their access. That’s how you keep your job, it’s how you get big stories leaked to you. That is undoubtedly why even Maggie Haberman, who has done such terrific reporting on the Trump administration, quickly leaped to the defense of Sanders and tsk tsk’d like a snooty schoolmarm.
And then we have the Trumpkins, who clutched their pearls so tightly that they probably crushed them. The feigned outrage poured down from the mountaintops like Noah’s flood, all of it hypocritical and disingenuous. Let me show you this:
That is a full two pages in the New York Times from October, 2016. It’s a list of all of the people, leaders and countries Trump had insulted during the campaign. If the list were updated now, it would take twice as much space. Trump fans were so eager to defend Sanders from another woman calling her a liar — which she is, of course — but not one of them raised a peep when Trump was calling women pigs, dogs and too ugly to rape. So really, you want to pretend to be a feminist defending women now? Seriously?
These are, of course, the same people who find no obscenity at all in watching refugees die, kids go hungry, families that are homeless, massive racial injustice and the killing of millions in war are suddenly going all verklempt over a comedian making mean jokes about people who lie for a living. Could any reasonable person possibly take their outrage seriously?
So here we have the media, so eager to maintain their access and suck up to a man who considers them the enemy of the people, and conservatives, absolutely desperate to paint themselves as perpetual victims of some mysterious “elite” that they are somehow not a part of despite controlling all three branches of government and most of American industry. It’s all so shameless and ridiculous that, frankly, it makes me ashamed to be part of a country that doesn’t see through it easily.
Teacher Of The Year Wears Trans Equality And Rainbow Badges During Award Ceremony With Trump [and Trump is too stupid to realize he's being mocked, lol!]
A teacher who leads a classroom for teenage refugees staged a silent protest by wearing several overtly political badges while receiving an award from Donald Trump at the White House. Mandy Manning works at the Newcomer Center at Joel E Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington, which specialises in English language development for new refugees and immigrant students.
Trump presented her with the National Teacher of the Year award in the East Room and praised her “incredible devotion”. The US president said: “Teachers like Mandy play a vital role in the wellbeing of our children, the strength of our communities and the success of our nation.”
Manning wore six badges on her black dress. According to a pooled report, they included one with a poster for the Women’s March that followed Trump’s inauguration, one that said “Trans Equality Now” and one in the shape of an apple with a rainbow.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Legislature Adds Trans Protections To Civil Rights Law, GOP Gov. Chris Sununu To Sign Bill
In a legislative victory two years in the making, the New Hampshire Senate, by a bipartisan vote of 14-10, voted in favor of a bill, HB 1319, that adds transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination protections to the state’s existing civil rights law. The bill now heads to the desk of Republican Governor Chris Sununu, who confirmed almost immediately through a spokesperson to reporters that he will sign.
New Hampshire becomes the first state since 2016 with a proactive victory on LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections.
Given that many Republicans supporte this this is a stinging rebuke to the most anti-LGBT president ever!
When you've lost Fox "News"...
Ingraham On Giuliani’s Admission: That’s A Problem.
My popcorn is deeeelisch! Keep on "winning" dumbasses, lol!
Fox's Todd Starnes On Boy Scouts Name Change: They’ve Been Overrun By Sexual And Gender Revolutionaries!!!11!Eleventy!
LOL, nothing quite like watching conservatives lose their minds over the most trivial of things. Hee Hee Hee!
Former Prosecutor: Giuliani Committed Murder-Suicide
Former prosecutor Solomon Wisenberg compared former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s legal strategy to a murder-suicide on Thursday after Giuliani said in an interview that President Trump reimbursed his attorney, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 he paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
“I liken it to a murder-suicide,” Wisenberg told CNN’s Dana Bash. “He metaphorically murdered the president, and committed suicide with respect to his own reputation.”
"Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a f**king liar! ... But, if the press thinks being called a liar is a huge insult, maybe they should be mad at Sarah herself, since she calls them liars constantly. I’m not saying Sarah Sanders doesn’t deserve the protection of feminism. She does, though she's not a feminist, which you can tell from the way she throws other women to the wolves on her boss' behalf...
I salute you, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You’ve outlasted every man who’s had your job — and almost any other job in the Trump White House — to become one of the most powerful women in the nation. You are a hell of a role model for little girls everywhere, who are smart, and hardworking and completely evil."
Sanders is currently facing heat after Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and newest member of President Donald Trump's legal team, admitted to Fox News' Sean Hannity Wednesday night on live TV that the president knew about a $130,000 hush payment made by his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Giuliani said that Trump personally reimbursed Cohen for the "perfectly legal" payment, and his first TV appearance in his buzzed-about new role thus seemed to only cause more headaches for a faltering White House.
Prior to Wednesday, Trump and Sanders had both denied having any knowledge of the hush payment.
On March 7, the press secretary specifically denied that the president had any knowledge about the transaction. Sanders said, "I've had conversations with the president about this . .. There is no knowledge of any payments from the president and he's denied all of those allegations."
In the wake of Giuliani’s comments on Fox News, Sanders refused to answer questions Thursday morning about the false statements made to the media about the Daniels case.
"Michael Avenatti, attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, said Rudy Giuliani’s stunning Wednesday night interview on Fox News will doom the presidency of Donald Trump"
OK, so now the opinion of a porn star's lawyer is news
I know I'm worried
I mean, we have people who actually are experts on cable news 24/7 and they all disagree
but stop the presses: some guy who work for a porn movie star has said just what Canadian troll, Priya Lame, want to hear
he must be right!!
hahahahahahaha!!!
"Giuliani told Sean Hannity that Trump repaid his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 sent to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement, something the president has previously denied. Daniels claims the agreement kept her from discussing her alleged affair with Trump."
and...didn't we all know that?
"In response, Avenatti told “CNN Tonight” that Trump could face “potential criminal liability” related to money laundering, campaign finance and fraud violations."
more expurt opinions from lawyer to the porn world
better call saul!!
“I said it weeks ago, I’m going to say it again: Mr. Trump will not serve out his term,” Avenatti said. “No way. No how. He will be forced to ultimately resign. This is a bombshell.”
not really
but thanks for sharing, Mikey
"Earlier on Wednesday, Avenatti taped an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” where he implied there were more women with similar NDAs involving Trump."
so what?
it's called discretion and Trump paid well for it
sounds like Stormy should return her windfall
"Avenatti also produced the receipt for Cohen’s payment to Daniels’ attorneys at the time:
The receipt showed involvement with a bank in California, which Avenatti said would be of interest to Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general.
“This document may, in fact, give him jurisdiction over certain criminal acts associated with this payment,” Avenatti said. “And, in fact, if the attorney general of the state of California were to bring charges, President Trump could not pardon Michael Cohen for those charges.”"
one problem, Mikey
paying a porn star to keep quiet about an affair is not illegal
even if you happen to be running for President
however, if you agree to keep quiet in exchange for a chunk of change and break your promise, you are subject to civil liability
"He did not specify what the “certain criminal acts” could be."
there's a reason for that
there aren't any
"There’s one big problem with that: It contradicts what Trump himself said about it just a few weeks ago on Air Force One"
actually, that's no problem at all
it's not a crime to lie to reporters
and most Americans would prefer people keep their affairs to themselves
"But here’s the key part. Another reporter then asked, “Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?” And Trump replied, “No. I don’t know.”"
and what's so key about that?
he lied about it
he didn't owe reporters the truth
"Yes you did, because you paid him back. Which means you lied, and you lied about a specific thing under criminal investigation. Obstruction of justice? You betcha."
now we're really getting into lala land
lying to a reporter about something under criminal investigation is obstruction of justice?
even Mueller, the enemy of constitutional rights, wouldn't go there
but do share with us all your knowledge of cases where people have been prosecuted for obstruction for lying to a reporter
Trump’s ‘Faith-Based’ Initiative Sends Taxpayer Money To Churches
In a blatant violation of the first amendment's requirement that the government make no law regarding an establishment of religion the bankruptcy king has signed an executive order that the white house admits will ignore the separation of church and state.
Trump is bit by bit turning the U.S. into a theocracy to the delight of viciously anti-gay evangelicals who will increasingly abuse innocent LGBT people and make them second class citizens.
No president has been more damaging to LGBT people than the Orange sh*tgibbon.
As I glanced at the comments I saw a post with each sentence made into a paragraph. No need to read it, its obviously just more of this
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Remember...to zealots like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous, equality = oppression
Shocking:
A recent survey showed only 8% of American high school seniors could identify slavery as the central cause of the American civil war.
I knew American society lied to its children, but I never dreamed it was to this incredible degree!
Absolutely shameful!
"In a blatant violation of the first amendment's requirement that the government make no law regarding an establishment of religion the bankruptcy king has signed an executive order that the white house admits will ignore the separation of church and state."
look at that!
Priya has a long history of misquoting and taking out of context the Bible
now, Priya is doing the same to the Constitution
it's always special when the Priyas show everyone how stupid and ignorant they are
"Trump is bit by bit turning the U.S. into a theocracy"
oh yeah, expect more of that
"to the delight of viciously anti-gay evangelicals who will increasingly abuse innocent LGBT people and make them second class citizens."
thank gay activists and Hollywood and the media who have caused a backlash by badly overplaying their hand
gays are doing just fine but their excesses are now being resisted
get used to it
"MAY 03, 2018 8:36 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
As I glanced at the comments I saw a post with each sentence made into a paragraph. No need to read it,"
yeah, you probably shouldn't read it
in your mental state, you can't take it
"MAY 03, 2018 8:40 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
Remember...to zealots like anonymous, equality = oppression"
well, don't read anything from anonymous
you will just feel depressed
we know how afraid you are that anon will keep making you look stupid
"Shocking:
A recent survey showed only 8% of American high school seniors could identify slavery as the central cause of the American civil war.
I knew American society lied to its children, but I never dreamed it was to this incredible degree!
Absolutely shameful!"
Shocking!
Priya's ignorance just can't hide itself
Majority of US Muslims now support same-sex marriage
Once again, American Muslims are less bigoted than American evangelicals.
“Most religious groups in the U.S. now support same-sex marriage, including overwhelming majorities of Unitarians (97 percent), Buddhists (80 percent), the religiously unaffiliated (80 percent), Jewish Americans (77 percent), and Hindus (75 percent). Roughly two-thirds of white mainline Protestants (67 percent), white Catholics (66 percent), Orthodox Christians (66 percent), and Hispanic Catholics (65 percent) also favor same-sex marriage. Opposition to marriage equality among ethnic minority religious groups has also collapsed.
“A slim majority of Muslims (51 percent) favour same-sex marriage, but only 34 percent are opposed; 15 percent offer no opinion on this issue.”
Majority opposition is now confined to white evangelicals, 58 percent of whom oppose same-sex marriage, alongside 53 percent of Mormons and 63 percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Bigoted Americans are hopeful that the supreme court will re-introduce a ban on same sex marriage, but that seems increasingly unlikely despite the anti-gay president's appointing of unqualified extremist judges. Those in favour of a ban on same sex marriage will need to find someone with standing to challenge marriage equality which means they will need to find someone who can prove they've been harmed by consenting same sex adults to marrying - that is an extremely doubtful prospect.
The polling also makes clear that Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of non-discrimination laws that would protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing.
Seven in ten (70 percent) Americans favour such laws, and fewer than one-quarter (23 percent) of Americans oppose them – despite Republicans in Congress blocking progress on the issue for more than a decade.
Six in ten (60 percent) of Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to ‘freedom to discriminate’ laws to give small business owners the right to refuse service to gay and lesbian people.
The bigots are losing!
Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti just confirmed to Lawrence O'Donnell that he has documented evidence that the Stormy payment was intentionally and specifically timed (in Oct 2016) to prevent it from impacting the Trump campaign's 2016 election chances. The evidence is based upon communications between Cohen and Stormy's previous attorney.
That means it's a federal election campaign violation, and now Trump has admitted that he played an active role in that payment. Go Avenatti!!!
To reiterate, RudyG said that the Cohen payment to Stormy Daniels was reimbursed by Trump, through a bank, in installments. That is bank fraud. That is a felony. That is what put former Speaker Hastert in jail.
Last weekend Adam Bell, an 18-year-old from South Carolina, was named Prom King at his high school. For the dance, he wore a two-piece dress that had a white top from Victoria's Secret and green velvet skirt from House of CB. He looked great and had a blast. On Facebook, his school announced the win with a photo and in the caption they included that he earned 49% of the vote from his fellow students.
Despite the fact that this was a positive moment, some parents on the school's Facebook began posting negative comments aimed at Adam's choice of dress. "I saw the first comment while I was at an afterparty," Adam tells Teen Vogue. "My first thought was like, 'why is this happening?' I thought we were past this?" And while he feels confident in who he is, he notes that "the words they use when they don’t know me hurts." Currently, the post has been removed because of the back and forth from parents.
While this reaction is unfortunate because it detracts from Adam's memorable night with friends, for the newly crowned king, it's also indicative of a shift. "My mom was shocked to see parents acting like this," he tells us. "The parents are picking on a kid, and it's like a weird reversal. However, it's so nice to see that this generation that's coming up is accepting and changing things."
The feedback on social media also came as a surprise to Adam because he says, "to the people in my class, seeing me in a dress is no big deal. I wear a dress to school randomly if I feel like dressing up or am just in the mood for it." Fortunately, though, for every parent that decided to post a negative comment, there were five that were posting words of encouragement. "After a while when I saw the love, the hate didn’t bother me. My heart was just full of love."
Winning equality through positive correlations: Acceptance goes up as the number of old bigots increasingly bite it.
Planet destroyer crooked Scott Pruitt:
"After taking office last year, Pruitt drew up a list of at least a dozen countries he hoped to visit and urged aides to help him find official reasons to travel there" - Washington Post
Michael Cohen "I am the dumbest lawyer Trump has ever had."
Rudy Giulliani "Hold my beer."
Sarah Huckabee Sanders will lie about Giulliani's lies about Michael Cohen's lies about Trumps lies about Stormy Daniels but luckily the beltway media has the moral courage to call out any comedian who makes fun of her for for it.
Today Trump spoke in front of 200 "Faith Based" leaders. The fact that he did not burst into flames just proves there is no "god".
Lil' Jimmy "So why don't we seek peace, help the poor, heal the sick, and denounce greed just like Jesus said to do?"
Dad "Because we're Republicans Jimmy"
Fox News excoriates Trump (must-watch video)
Fox News’ Neil Cavuto just destroyed Donald Trump.
It was unbelievable television.
Cavuto, a reliably-conservative Fox host, went on for a good four-and-a-half minutes calling Trump (basically) a serial liar, and then accusing Trump of himself being “fake news” and “the swamp.”
Trump is going to explode when he sees this.
The video is below. But first, a few thoughts. I’m a bit blown away. This is unheard of from Fox, outside of occasional criticism from Shep Smith. But from Cavuto? This means that Fox-landia is worried, and that worry is now public, and trickling down to Fox’s viewership, via Fox itself. It’s one thing for the other networks to call Trump a liar and out of control, it’s another for it to come from Fox. A
And not only does this help spread the word that Trump is a mess, but it also makes it easier for other Republicans to speak up against Trump. If Fox News is doing it…
New Revelations Suggest a President Losing Control of His Narrative
As of last week, the American public had been told that President Trump’s doctor had certified he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected.” That the president was happy with his legal team and would not hire a new lawyer. That he did not know about the $130,000 payment to a former pornographic film actress who claimed to have had an affair with him.
As of this week, it turns out that the statement about his health was not actually from the doctor but had been dictated by Mr. Trump himself. That the president has split with the leaders of his legal team and hired the same new lawyer he had denied recruiting. And that Mr. Trump himself had financed the $130,000 payment intended to buy the silence of the actress known as Stormy Daniels.
And to be sure, not every misleading statement is equally meaningful. In March, The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump was in discussions to hire Emmet T. Flood, a veteran Washington lawyer.
Mr. Trump reacted angrily. “The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out,” he wrote on Twitter. “Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.” Mr. Dowd resigned 11 days later. Mr. Cobb announced his resignation this week. He will be replaced by Mr. Flood.
As a matter of politics, the latest contradictions may not matter much, at least not yet. The public to some extent has grown accustomed to the factual deviations or written them off as unimportant. Just this week, Mr. Trump surpassed 3,000 false or misleading claims since taking office, according to a running tally by The Washington Post — an average of 6.5 per day.
Even in the current political environment that some derisively call the post-truth world, the past few days have offered a head-spinning series of revelations that conflicted with the version of events Mr. Trump and his associates had previously provided. Whether called lies or misstatements, Mr. Trump’s history of falsehoods has been extensively documented, but the string of factual distortions that came to light this week could come back to haunt him.
The shifting statements also illustrated starkly why some of the president’s lawyers have urged him not to submit to an interview by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating whether Mr. Trump’s campaign cooperated with Russia during the 2016 presidential election and whether the president obstructed justice to thwart that investigation. Those lawyers have said Mr. Mueller is setting a perjury trap for Mr. Trump. What they do not say publicly is that they worry the president would be unable to avoid contradicting himself.
[more at the link]
Never trust a person who can clear their conscience of any immoral act by asking forgiveness from their imaginary friend.
always fun to watch Priya flipping and flopping like a fish thrown on a pier
spouting out anything to distract from the fact that the Russia hoax has become revealed as a conspiracy by Comey, Clapper, Brennan & Felonius Milhaus von Pantsuit and that Trump is succeeding with economic policy and has brought peace to Korea
it's not a good time to be a foreign troll
as for the obsession about Trump lying:
he's a real estate salesman from NY, they all lie about virtually everything, we knew that when we elected him President (he won across the country, a clear majority of states); everything he does is the biggest and best, every house is a fixer-upper
we knew what we were getting
on political type lies, he's no different from Obama the Worst and not quite as bad as his old golfing buddy, the long-suffering husband of Felonius Milhaus von Pantsuit, Bill Messing-up-the-blue-dress Clinton himself
Maryland’s seafood industry is in crisis: Nearly half of the Eastern Shore’s crab houses have no workers to pick the meat sold in restaurants and supermarkets.
They failed to get visas for their mostly Mexican workforce, including many women who have been coming north to Maryland for crab season for as long as two decades. The Trump administration for the first time awarded them this year in a lottery, instead of on a first-come, first-served basis.
“This is going to cause the price of crabmeat to go out of sight,” said Harry Phillips, owner of Russell Hall Seafood on Hooper’s Island. “There’s not going to be hardly any Maryland crabmeat. . . . It looks like it’s a matter of time before they’re going to shut all of us down.”...
...Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) requested that the federal government “take immediate action” to raise the visa cap in a recent letter to the secretaries of homeland security and labor.
“Many of these businesses operate in rural parts of our state and have relied on guest workers for decades,” he wrote. “They will be forced to shut their doors or start importing crab meat if this issue is not addressed immediately.”
The industry has been in a position of begging for mercy in the past, often to powerful former senator Barbara A. Mikulski. The senior Democrat intervened in the early 2000s when northern ski resorts and Florida landscapers were scooping up visas before Maryland crab houses had a chance to apply. She championed a change that divided the annual 66,000-visa allowance into two semiannual allotments.
Now, businesses are asking President Trump for help, in the hope that the guest worker program doesn’t get lost in the administration’s efforts to tighten immigration policies.
“This is not an immigration issue,” said Morgan Tolley, general manager of A.E. Phillips & Son on Hooper’s Island. “They come here, abide by rules, they pay their state and federal taxes, their social security taxes, and they send the majority of their money home to support their family. They are a very important part of our local economies.”
Tolley said he supports the president and trusts that he has businesses’ interests at heart, but Tolley is skeptical and disappointed with the administration’s changes to the visa program.
“I voted for Donald Trump, and I’d vote for President Trump again,” he said. “But I think in small rural towns in America, we’re getting the short end of the stick on labor.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crab-crisis-md-seafood-industry-loses-40-percent-of-workforce-in-visa-lottery/2018/05/03/bf397874-4ef0-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe_story.html
“Let me be clear, Mr. President,” Cavuto said. “How can you drain the swamp if you’re the one who keeps muddying the waters?
“You didn’t know about the $130,000 payment to a porn star, until you did,” he continued. “Said you knew nothing about how your former lawyer handled this, until you acknowledged today that you were the guy behind the retainer payment that took care of this. You insist that money from the campaign or campaign contributions played no role in this transaction. Of that you’re sure. The thing is, not even 24 hours ago, sir, you couldn’t recall any of this.”
Cavuto went on to tick off a list of various examples of statements Trump has made that were incorrect or appeared to conflict with earlier statements. There was “the time you said the Russians didn’t interfere in the 2016 election, until a lot of Republicans had to remind you they did,” Cavuto said. “Came back months later and you said, ‘Well I never said that Russia didn’t meddle in the election,’ when in fact you had — a lot.”
There was the time Trump claimed the tax reform bill “would cost you a fortune when it turns out it is going to help make you a bigger fortune,” Cavuto said. And the time “you said there was serious voter fraud in New Hampshire, and there wasn’t.” And the time Trump said “millions of illegals voted in the last election, but they didn’t.”
Cavuto said that none of this “makes you evil” or “makes what you say fake,” but does make “calling out the press for being so a bit of a stretch.”
“You are right to say some of them are out to get you. But oftentimes they’re using your own words to bat you,” Cavuto said. “You probably might not care. But you should. I guess you’ve been too busy draining the swamp to stop and smell the stink you’re creating. That’s your doing. That’s your stink. Mr. President, that’s your swamp.”
Cavuto said that none of this “makes you evil” or “makes what you say fake,”
Ummm, yes it does. Don't try to soft pedal it now Neil after you were just speaking truth to power.
Researchers Find Link Between Religious Fundamentalism and Falling for Fake News
A new working paper by researchers at Yale University finds that the kind of people more likely to believe stories that are literally “fake news” — who fall for the hoaxes, if you will — are those who believe in delusions (like telepathic communication), are dogmatic in their thinking, and are just flat-out religious fundamentalists.
It makes a lot of sense. After all, the paper notes, evidence “suggests that religious fundamentalists may engage in less analytic and actively open-minded thinking.” I believe that. They already believe in huge amount of nonsense in large part because they live in bubbles where those stories feel convincing despite not measuring up to reality. When pastors tell you those lies with conviction, and a sacred book reiterates the lies, and your parents teach you that doubting the lies could lead you down the path to eternal punishment, it makes a lot of sense that news articles that appear legitimate would just be taken as gospel.
Just look at Creationist Ken Ham. His organization literally believes the answers are in Genesis — that God created everything in six days, a few thousand years ago. All evidence must be shoved into that idea. And if it doesn’t, or can’t, the evidence is discarded, never the conclusion. Searching for alternative explanations or wrestling with the evidence are excellent habits for most people to build, but they’re also heresy for religious fundamentalists.
A lot of skeptics have said religious fundamentalism is a form of mental child abuse. That looks to be the case here. By teaching kids to accept fiction as fact because it’s promoted by their religion and authority figures in their lives, those kids will struggle down the road when it comes to figuring out what is and isn’t a lie.
No wonder Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous believe so much B.S.
Religious fundamentalists stand for nothing so they fall for everything.
But we’ve seen what happens when Trump and his Christian clique gets together. They discriminate against religious minorities. They use their connections to push legislation that has no secular purpose. They pretend to be victims just because (gasp) Christian business owners might have to sell the same product to a gay person as a straight one.
"Religious Liberty" is a euphemism for "special rights for white evangelicals".
Conservative christians pretend they're the victims if they are not allowed to discriminate against gays. They think its fair treatment to force gays to walk around the block or j-walk across a busy thoroughfare so christians don't have to share the sidewalk with them.
When conservative christians demand "religious freedom" what they are really demanding is to be treated as superior to everyone else. Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said it themselves "Heterosexuality is superior to gayness".
To the amusement of all, Priya continues to flop on the dock.
It's a bad time to be a foreign troll.
The state of the Russia probe is so dreadfully grim.
A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking “unfettered power” and are more interested in bringing down the president.
"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller’s team. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever."
Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted “scope memo,” a document outlining the scope of the special counsel’s Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought.
The hearing, where Manafort’s team fought to dismiss an 18-count indictment on tax and bank fraud-related charges, took a confrontational turn as it was revealed that at least some of the information in the investigation derived from an earlier Justice Department probe – in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia and was not uncovered incidentally by Mueller while investigating the Russia collusion hoax.
Manafort’s attorneys argue the special counsel does not have the power to indict him on the charges they have brought – found a sympathetic ear with Ellis.
The judge asked Mueller’s team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005.
The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2, 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not “arise” out of the special counsel probe – and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.
“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” he said.
Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo – and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.
Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.
He summed up the argument of the Special Counsel’s Office as, "We said this was what the investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying."
He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: "C'mon man!"
Trump himself drew attention to the judge’s comments later Friday afternoon, during an NRA convention in Texas.
“It’s a witch hunt,” he said. “I love fighting these battles.”
The judge gave the government two weeks to hand over the unredacted “scope memo” or he would dismiss the case.
To the amusement of all, Priya continues to flop on the dock.
It's a bad time to be a foreign troll.
If you hate America, it a horror to see how delightful the economy is with Trump in charge!
The Labor Department released its April hiring and unemployment report on Friday, providing the latest snapshot of the economy.
The unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, the lowest rate since the 20th century and a sign that the job market has become even more competitive. It had been 4.1 percent since October.
■ 164,000 jobs were added last month.
■ The Labor Department revised the job figures for March sharply upward. The result was a net increase of 30,000 jobs, compared with previous estimates.
■ Average earnings rose by 4 cents an hour last month and are up 2.6 percent over the past year.
American employers continue to find reasons to expand their payrolls. “We’ve continued to add jobs routinely every month ....and the unemployment rate we have reached is amazing,” said Catherine Barrera, chief economist of the online job site ZipRecruiter. “It’s very incredible.”
The jobless rate is reaching historically low levels. In the last 60 years, there has been only one sustained period where unemployment stayed below 4 percent: the late 1960s, when Nixon became President.
Economists expect that low unemployment will lead to increasingly big pay bumps for workers as employers fight over a dwindling number of candidates.
The report offered signs that the strong economy is coaxing some people back into the working world. A measure of unemployment that includes people who had given up looking for work hit 7.8 percent, a level not seen since 2001.
“We have realized that there were even more workers on the sidelines under Obama than we previously thought,” said Martha Gimbel, an economist at Indeed.com, a job-search site. Ms. Gimbel said that her site had seen an increase in people searching for things like “background check” and “full time,” which could indicate that the bustling job market has become irresistible for workers who might have been discouraged by a particularly bruising recession not long ago.
The job market has improved for black workers during Trump's presidency — they had a jobless rate of 6.6 percent in April, the lowest level on record! No wonder Kanye says we're making America great again!
And, in Maryland, the utility company, PEPCO announced they are reducing rates because of the reduction in corporate tax rates!
To the amusement of all, Priya continues to flop on the dock.
It's a bad time to be a foreign troll.
The global warming hoax is hitting a rough patch.
After a recent two-year cooling period, it appears that the Atlantic is much cooler than it has been for decades. This will affect weather throughout the world.
And it happened with the US out of the Paris accord!
Anti-LGBT Hate Group Whines They’re Banned From AmazonSmile Program As An Anti-LGBT Hate Group
Via press release from Alliance Defending "Freedom":
"Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve received many calls, emails, and Facebook messages with a major concern: Our Ministry Friends were no longer able to give to Alliance Defending "Freedom" (ADF) through the AmazonSmile program. In case you’re not familiar with it, AmazonSmile is a website that allows a customer to choose a nonprofit group to receive a percentage of any Amazon purchase."
Funny how the same people who think that they shouldn't have to sell cakes to same sex couples want to force a private business to give them money directly. Last I checked Amazon will still sell stuff to Alliance Defending "Freedom".
LOL at Fox calling Alliance Defending "Freedom" a "religious freedom group". Pretty sure it's spelled "christian supremacist group".
Getting punished for treating gays unfairly isn't persecution, treating gays unfairly is persecution.
The ADF is an organization dedicated to the mistreatment and dehumanization of people they hate (namely LGBT people). Their designation as a "hate group" by the SPLC is dead-on accurate.
ADF focuses most of it's resources to marginalizing gay people. She tries to make her case that this is a tug of war between the left and religious freedom proponents, never once revealing that religious freedom is the code word for discrimination against the LGBTQ.
ADF has pushed for and defended laws here AND abroad that call for LGBT people to be put in prison. Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous at December 11, 2013 2:10 PM praised India when it recriminalized gay sex. Can't get much more hateful then promoting the imprisonment of innocent minorities just to boost your own ego.
Anti-gay Bigot Franklen Graham: Trump’s Adultery Is “Nobody’s Business”
Trump admitted to sexually assaulting women and over 16 have acknowledged he did so to them.
When Obama was president Republicans like Graham were screaming he was unfit to be president because he wore a tan suit, put dijon mustard on his hamburger, and Michelle wore a dress showing her bare arms.
The scale of their hypocrisy can't be described with mere words.
Ben Carson shows the moral bankruptcy of the Trump administration by making the perverted assertion that by him tripling the rent On HUD Housing: “We Are Giving Poor People A Way Out Of Poverty".
Republicans are truly repulsive - doing everything they can to give more money to the wealthy they don't need and can't use while crushing the poor at every opportunity.
ha ha!
watch priya flop and flip on the deck
watch this:
a judge said that the Manfort indictments were motivated to impeach Trump by lies
sixteen months after the Trump inauguration, the minority unemployment rate is lower than ever
global temperatures are down and predicted to stay that way
Prison is the only form of public housing Republicans have truly invested in over the past five decades.
Scumbag Ben Carson who is attacking the poor benefited from affirmative action, welfare, and basically ever social program that Republicans want to cut. He made a success out of himself as a neurosurgeon because those programs gave him opportunities and acess, the same one he wants to cut. He wants to ruin the chances for others that are in exactly the same shoes he was. He's as bad as Kanye saying slavery was a choice. Shame...Shame.
If raising the rent on poor people "gives them a way out of poverty", then it necessarily follows that raising taxes on rich people gives them a way to make more money!
Raise taxes on the rich and that will make them earn even more money and they'll pay additional taxes on that! Both the wealthy and the goverment win when we raise taxes on the rich! Dr. Stabby is a genius!
Trump to his supporters: "I lie all the time about everything and spent a lifetime ripping off people just like you!"
Trump supporters "Love how that drives libruls crazy!"
The above is way more accurate than the vast majority of Trump supporters are willing to admit.
Scientists say that at the current rate plastics are being dumped into the oceans by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
The plastic is not evenly distributed but in some places the plastic debris massively out weighs everything else in the water, making an underwater forest of plastic waste.
A lot of sea life is already dying from ingesting plastic and its only going to get worse.
Conservatives want to ignore environmental disasters like this. The biomass of humans and their feed animals now exceeds all of the rest of the biomass on the planet combined. Overpopulation is destroying the planet and at some point it will cause a collapse of the human population as well. The world is terribly out of balance now due to the 7 billion humans on the planet and our unprecedented large scale conversion of nature into garbage.
The replacement birth rate for our population is around 2.1 children per heterosexual couple. Keep this in mind, it is really immoral to have more than two or three children.
There is not god that is going to save us from ourselves. Please don't spread the genocidal belief that there is.
So Trump and his people can't get their story straight over whether or not Trump knew about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Its just a confusing mess with Trump's present position on the payment unclear.
The failing New York Times reports that it has evidence that Trump knew of the payment to Stormy Daniels several months before he denied knowing about it a month ago on Air Force one.
Perhaps even amongst Trump's base they're going to get tired of his constantly changing lies. Let's hope.
If Sarah Sanders Just ‘Lies,’ Maybe Press Briefings Should Be Cancelled, Republican Strategist
President Donald Trump’s administration should possibly consider nixing press briefings altogether if Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or anyone who speaks before the White House press corps, is simply going to lie to the public, a Republican strategist suggested Friday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Sanders has faced enormous criticism for previously denying Trump had any knowledge of the $130,000 payment made by his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to an adult film actress who claims to have had a sexual relationship with the president. The denial proved false after the president’s new attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News on Wednesday that Trump had paid Cohen back and that the funds did not constitute a campaign finance violation.
Sanders was challenged during Thursday’s White House press briefing by reporters for her false denial, and she stated that the White House press office had not coordinated with Giuliani prior to his interview on Fox about actress Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels.
Sanders' remarks didn't go over well with critics.
“Let’s not forget she’s not just speaking on behalf of the president, she is speaking to the country from the White House,” Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who runs a strategic communications firm, told Morning Joe’s panel on Friday about Sanders. “She is telling the public lies when she goes out there. She’s not just lying to the press corps. We know Donald Trump has no problem telling lies to the press corps.”
She continued: “But she is lying to the American public and I think she needs to own that. Anyone. Whether it be her or anyone that goes out there. Because unfortunately whoever is going to be at the podium is going to be in the same exact position as Sarah Sanders. There’s no way to get beyond that.
“Why not not have the briefings? If you’re just going to lie, why bother?”
A teen spent 4 hours doing his makeup for his yearbook picture — and the end result is amazing
Nothing quite like a well made up young man with a beard and moustache.
Congratulations Keven, you are helping break down the stereotypes that encourage violence in intolerant people!
it's amusing that, with all the perverted practices advocated by TTFers, they feign some umbrage with the President and Stormy
maybe it's not perverted enough for them
the President had a agreed consensual relationship with an adult woman over a decade before he announced he was running for President
I think TTFers are appalled by how low on the sleazy scale that is, how routine
they prefer Presidents who sexually take advantage of entry-level female employees while in the Oval Office
that's more to the TTF taste
"Scientists say that at the current rate plastics are being dumped into the oceans by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish"
is that all scientists? or just the ones who said all the glaciers would be gone by now?
"The plastic is not evenly distributed but in some places the plastic debris massively out weighs everything else in the water, making an underwater forest of plastic waste."
I was going to say. I go to the ocean every year and always see a lot more fish than plastic.
"A lot of sea life is already dying from ingesting plastic and its only going to get worse."
That's kind of vague. Exactly how much sea life is dying from this?
"Conservatives want to ignore environmental disasters like this."
Not me. I want the US government to send ships out and skim up this plastic to dump in Canada. They have beaucoup empty space that is cold, rocky, and uninhabited. Most of the population snuggles up to the US border like a security blanket. We could dump all that plastic there are no harm, no foul.
Problem solved.
"The biomass of humans and their feed animals now exceeds all of the rest of the biomass on the planet combined."
That seems appropos.
"Overpopulation is destroying the planet and at some point it will cause a collapse of the human population as well. The world is terribly out of balance now due to the 7 billion humans on the planet and our unprecedented large scale conversion of nature into garbage."
This is what the villain in the new Avengers movie says. He wants to kill half of all life to save the other half. Are you endorsing that, TTF?
"The replacement birth rate for our population is around 2.1 children per heterosexual couple. Keep this in mind, it is really immoral to have more than two or three children."
Really? Under that logic, isn't it also immoral to let any fourth or fifth children live? Are you saying that Herod and the Pharaoh were actually being moral when they killed all those kids?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
the latest poll of LIKELY voters has trump's approval at 51%
the latest poll of REGISTERED voters has trump's approval at 49%
he's got the Big Mo!!
why?
Top Ten Reasons:
1. Mueller has so overplayed his hand that Americans are backlashing
2. Stormy Daniels showed that Trump's good at pickin' up chicks
3. Black unemployment is lower than it's ever been
4. Kim Young Fat blinked
5. the NRA is energized
6. Americans like how Trump is reshaping the courts
7. lowering the corporate tax rate to a reasonable level is paying dividends and the elimination of the estate tax means Americans can leave their hard-earned money to their kids
7. everyone likes the new Roseanne show
8. the Rust Belt appreciates slapping tariffs on the crooked Chinese
8. the individual mandate penalty on poor people is history
9. Kanye West, baby!
9. he's the most gay-friendly President ever
10. et al
Rod Rosenstein is doing a star turn as principled defender of the law, but he’s performed abysmally as deputy attorney general and President Trump would be fully justified in firing him.
The leaked questions special counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask Trump in a prospective deposition are, if accurate, a sign that Mueller has spun out of control on Rosenstein’s watch. The questions suggest a free-floating investigation of the president’s motives, undertaken by a subordinate of the president. This is unlike any special-counsel investigation we’ve ever seen and represents a significant distortion of our system.
Per the questions, Mueller wants to know how Trump reacted to news stories in The Washington Post. What he thought of FBI Director James Comey during the transition. What was the purpose of a statement he made to Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network. What he meant by various tweets about Comey. How he feels about his attorney general.
This is a sweeping and intrusive inquiry that isn’t just about official acts, but about the president’s state of mind. Mueller doesn’t just want to know what Trump did or what he said, but what were his thoughts in any given moment.
These queries grow out of an obstruction-of-justice probe centered, as far as we can tell, on Trump’s exercise of the legitimate powers of the presidency. Mueller is out to prove that Trump had ill intentions. But this is an inherently problematic inquiry that involves a subordinate second-guessing the president on highly political questions.
It’s doubtful a president can be guilty of obstruction of justice in exercising his official duties, precisely because passing judgment on the lawful acts of a president is not a matter for prosecutors or the courts, but for the political process. It’s another matter if a president has engaged in actual criminal conduct, like suborning perjury or bribing witnesses, but there’s no indication Mueller is investigating anything of that nature.
What makes Mueller different from previous special counsels is that his predecessors were investigating specific alleged crimes. As my National Review colleague Andrew McCarthy has repeatedly pointed out, Rod Rosenstein mentioned no crimes in his initial order to Mueller, a violation of the special-counsel regulations. He said only that Mueller should investigate collusion and anything related.
Now, judging by the leaked questions, obstruction is the lion’s share of Mueller’s work. Absent smoking guns that we aren’t aware of (always possible), this is bizarre and disproportionate.
We now have an extensive obstruction investigation carried out by investigators who, as a material matter, haven’t been obstructed. There’s been an intense focus, for instance, on Trump’s Oval Office discussion with then-FBI Director James Comey about going easy on Michael Flynn. But as Andy McCarthy also notes, no one went easy on Flynn, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
Regardless, Justice Department guidance says the president can’t be indicted. If Mueller takes heed of it, he’s limited to indicting underlings — often for lying to the FBI — and writing reports on his findings, with Congress the most important consumer.
This means Mueller is, in effect, the lead investigative counsel for a prospective House impeachment committee. It’s an important position, just not one that should be housed within the executive branch.
A Cleveland-based pastor who serves as an outside advisor to the White House has revealed President Trump wants to have multiple meetings about race issues with Colin Kaepernick, Kanye West and other athletes and musicians during an official summit at the White House.
Pastor Darrell Scott said that President Trump is “100 percent for” the summit and is “very enthusiastic” about the idea of inviting Kaepernick.
Details of the meetings will be ironed out next week, but Scott said they will be a “melting pot” and not just “a black-only event” or a partisan function.
“We don’t want to sanitize it,” Scott said. “I want people from the left to attend. I want it to get heated but I want it to be respectful. I want them to see and know the Donald Trump I know.”
The summit meetings would likely take place in mid-June after the NBA Finals have wrapped up but before NFL training camps start up in July.
Legal experts say the ever changing stories on whether Trump knew about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels or if Trump repaid Cohen are a sign of panic amongst Trump and his legal team - they're casting about trying to get the "correct" story to minimize their legal exposure in the case.
Hee Hee Hee!
Panicked Trump supporters amongst Republicans in Congress are working hard to give Trump an excuse to fire Rod Rosenstein in order to shut down the Mueller investigation. Their strategy is to continually demand information from Rosenstein about the Mueller investigation into Trump.
Justice Department policy is to never speak about an ongoing investigation or release information about it. The Republican Congress members know this so they hope Rosenstein will refuse to give them the information on the investigation and then they'll use that as an excuse to move to impeach Rosenstein and remove him from office and allow Trump to interfere in or end the Mueller investigation into himself. Republicans know they don't have any valid reasons to justify the firing of Rosenstein so they are manufacturing an excuse to give political cover to Trump to fire him.
If Rosenstein does cave and give the Congress details about the Mueller investigation the Republicans will immediately pass that information on to Trump's legal team and queer the investigation - the crooked Republican congressmen win either way.
In case there was any doubt in your mind, Congress has no right to share information about an ongoing investigation with the subjects and targets of that investigation. So by trying to extort Rosenstein into giving them information about the Mueller investigation and then leaking that information to Trump the Republican congressmen are breaking the law (not that they care about right and wrong and the law).
The actions of Trump and his supporters are obviously not those of people who believe Trump is innocent of all crimes.
Conservatives and Their Erroneous Concept of Morality
An original article by Priya lynn
Readers may recall during the 2016 election James Comey having a long press conference about the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server (something done by her Republican predecessors). Comey went on at length about how terrible and irresponsible this was but then said no rational prosecutor would charge Hillary for these actions and said the investigation was closed.
Then 10 days before the election Comey again held a press conference and said he was re-opening the investigation into Hillary's emails because thousands of them were found on Anthony Wiener's laptop. The press went crazy reporting this non-issue as a "bombshell" and Comey effectively handed the election to the popular vote losing pussy grabber. Comey broke bedrock Justice Department policy by talking about an ongoing investigation - that is sacrosanct and something one should never do. Comey handed the election to Trump based on his own unethical actions (something Republican Congress members are now pressuring Rod Rosenstein to do).
When Trump months after taking office fired Comey in an attempt to end the investigation into his campaign's collusion with Russia there was a lot of justified outrage. Simpleminded Republicans thought they had a "gotchya" moment with which to declare Democrats hypocrites based on opposing Comey's action on Hillary during the election and supporting Comey in his investigation into Trump. This of course is a childish lack of logic.
The conservative logic fail on this issue arrises from their valuing in-group loyalty above fairness while Liberals value fairness as our top priority (conservatives value fairness too, but that is secondary to loyalty to their tribe). So for Republicans, its a case of "either you're with Comey, or you're against him". To them if you opposed Comey during the election you are a hypocrite if you opposed Trump firing him to end the investigation into Trump and Russia. This is a logical fallacy.
As liberals value fairness as our first priority there is no inconsistency between opposing Comey's actions on Hillary's email investigation and opposing Trump firing Comey for investigating Trump and Russia. Comey's treatment of Hillary was wrong/unfair and liberals rightfully condemned him for it. Comey's investigation into Trump and Russia was right/fair and liberals rightfully condemned Trump for firning Comey for doing the right thing. For liberals, it is the action that determines whether a person is in the right or in the wrong. For conservatives it is whether the person is a member of their tribe that determines whether their actions are right or wrong.
For conservatives their morality is subjective (right and wrong determined by who's doing it). For liberals morality is objective (determined by the rightness or wrongness of the action, not who's doing it). So, conservatives are pathetically mistaken when they think the have a "gotchya" moment over Liberals and their treatment of Comey's actions.
You can see this subjective morality of conservatives in their religion too. They believe it is wrong for humans to kill innocents, but okay for their god to kill innocents in a global flood - right and wrong are subjective, determined by who is doing the action, not the action itself. They'll try to rationalize this by saying "God created people and its okay for him to destroy his own creation just as its okay for a person to destroy a painting they made but not okay for someone else to destroy that painting".
The problem with that is that we are talking about living things, not unfeeling objects. Its no more right for their god to kill innocent loving, feeling, thinking people than it is for a parent to say to their child "I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it" - few would assert that its okay for parents to kill their child because they created him or her. So the conservative excuse for their god is specious and their "morality" subjective.
Stormy Daniels Fights Bullying And Shades Trump With T-Shirt Line
Adult film star Stormy Daniels is promoting a line of t-shirts and other products mocking President Trump. The Stormy Store website, which describes Daniels as a “slayer of internet trolls,” says that part of the sales will go to supporting anti-bullying organizations.
“#TeamStormy doesn’t start fights, but we finish them,” the website reads. “Unwilling to be silenced or intimidated, Stormy has been standing up to bullies her entire life, and that continues today,” the website reads. “As she says, ‘Standing up to bullies is kind of my thing.’”
The site also sells #TeamStory t-shirts and wristbands, as well as a t-shirt featuring Forbes Magazine with the tagline, “Don’t Make Me Spank You.”
Go Stormy! Down with Bullies! (like Wyatt/Regina)
"Legal experts say the ever changing stories on whether Trump knew about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels or if Trump repaid Cohen are a sign of panic amongst Trump and his legal team - they're casting about trying to get the "correct" story to minimize their legal exposure in the case."
sounds like mighty high-faluttin' legol expurts!
Trump doesn't have any legal liability
in America, it isn't illegal to have an extramarital affair
and, if you do, it isn't illegal to pay the sexual partner to keep it quiet
it isn't illegal to have your lawyer handle the matter and make the payment
it isn't illegal to reimburse a lawyer you have on retainer for expenses
these things happen all the time and they don't become illegal just because you run against a liberal democrat for President
perhaps Mueller will make up a crime with some twisted interpretation of the law
maybe he could ask those mighty high-faluttin' legol expurts for some advice!
Pay attention nitwit. Nobody said those things were illegal. The question is whether Cheeto Benito used campaign money to keep her quiet. THAT would be illegal.
I presume using money he got from Russia would be illegal too, but I don't claim to be no fancy legal expert.
I'm feeling kind of star struck to be posting on the same blog as Regina Hardiman.
Regina I loved you as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale!
Conservative christians need the Bible to tell them that they are better than gays, liberals and anyone darker than a paper bag in order to justify their actions and more importantly their reactions. If they really cared they would be working on ending hunger and lifting up those who are less fortunate instead of beating people over the head with their beliefs.
Shorter anti-gay christian cake bakers : "Why won't gays be nice to me when I treat them with contempt?". Its not persecution when you're penalized for treating gays unfairly, its justice. If you don't want to be punished for being a bigoted hateful a-hole then stop being a bigoted hateful a-hole.
DALLAS: Restaurant Gets Death Threats After NRA Calls For Boycott Over Its Message On Customer Receipts
A popular Dallas restaurant received threats of shootings after the National Rifle Association tweeted for its supporters to “steer clear” of the eatery because it put a message advocating gun regulation on its receipts during an NRA convention.
“A portion of this week’s proceeds will be donated to organizations dedicated to implementing reasonable and effective gun regulations that protect citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights and also help reduce needless gun violence. Welcome to Dallas!” the message reads.
So, there you have it. The NRA violently opposes even reasonable gun regulations that protect citizens right to own a gun. Aren't they special?
And in a bit of hopeful news: CUBA: Constitutional Reform To Include Marriage Push
The Washington Post reports: Mariela Castro , a Cuban lawmaker and daughter of Communist Party chief Raul Castro, says she will push for gay marriage to be included in a constitutional reform process expected to begin in July. The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.
REPORT: Trump Aides Hired Private Israeli Agency For “Dirty Ops” Spy Campaign On Obama’s Iran Deal Team
The Guardian reports:
Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a “dirty ops” campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal
Jack Straw, who as foreign secretary was involved in earlier efforts to restrict Iranian weapons, said: “These are extraordinary and appalling allegations but which also illustrate a high level of desperation by Trump and [the Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, not so much to discredit the deal but to undermine those around it.”.
Ronald Klain "The sitting president, not a campaign, hired a firm to find dirt on the personal lives of former WH aides? I know people are cynical about Washington, but no, this is NOT how things work. This is Nixonian, pure Watergate stuff."
This highlights the dangerousness of Trump's animosity towards Barack Obama. The maniacle Trump is desparate to undo everything Obama has done. The Iran deal will stop Iran from even attempting to get a nuclear weapon for over ten years. If Trump undoes this Iran immediately starts producing a nuclear weapon. Iran won't agree to another deal if the U.S. won't adhere to its previous agreements. Same with North Korea. Trump is dangerously blinded by his need to thumb his nose at Obama. A petty child makes for a disasterous president.
"Nobody said those things were illegal. The question is whether Cheeto Benito used campaign money to keep her quiet. THAT would be illegal."
OK, can I call you Mr Imbecile?
TTF and its ilk says the were campaign contributions, by definition, because the payment helped his campaign
it's quite a twisted warping of the law, and they are wrong
Trump had a consensual affair and lied about it
it's not illegal
Remember when our government "TOOK AWAY OUR CARS" by requiring licensing, registration, and insurance?
Yeah, neither do I.
"Trump had a consensual affair and lied about it
it's not illegal"
No one said that was. What was illegal was for Cohen to spend $130,000 as a campaign donation to Trump when the max he could legally give is $3500.
Giuliani says it wasn't a campaign donation because cohen paid off Stormy to save Trump's marriage and his reputation, that Trump would have paid her off anyway even if there hadn't been an election.
That isn't believable because Trump never paid her off for years after it happened and then just before the election he paid her off - obviously an expenditure to influence the outcome of the election. Plus two minutes after Giulianni said Trump paid her off only to protect his personal reputation Giulianni said "Can you imagine if this story had come out on Oct 15 just before the debate with Hillary? Cohen did what he was supposed to do and took care of it".
Even if Trump paid Cohen back (his story keeps changing) it was still a loan from Cohen to Trump and still is a campaign contribution violation because it still counts as Cohen's contribution and greatly exceeds Cohen's $3500 limit.
So, it is illegal.
Plus even if Trump did pay Stormy and Cohen had no involvement its still a campaign finance violation because he didn't declare it as a campaign expense.
There's no way Cohen/Trump can spin this that it isn't a campaign finance violation. That's why all the constantly changing stories and going back to previous stories - they're casting about trying to find some sort of loophole where there's no campaign finance violation and they can't do it.
Its hilarious!
On the Stormy Daniels campaign donation Trump, Giulliani and Trump are like the three Stooges.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Franklin Graham: Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels is "Nobody's Business"
Franklin Graham Aug 27, 1996 : "Clinton's Sins aren't private"
Yep, yep, yep...
Breaking: In Virginia insurers are requestiong premium increases of up to 64% as a direct result of Republican sabotage.
Remember when campaign Trump promised he'd replace Obamacare and "Everyone" would be covered? Since he got elected the number of people with insurance has dropped and the cost has risen - he's done the exact opposite of what he promised.
And if Trump did pay back Cohen in installments that may have been illegal as he avoided bank reporting and that is fraud. Same thing Dennis Hastert was convicted of.
Hosea 13:16
"The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they have rebelled against their god. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1K8s-tQGqY
"Remember when our government "TOOK AWAY OUR CARS" by requiring licensing, registration, and insurance?
Yeah, neither do I."
yes, you've hit it on the nail
the intent of the anti-gun lobby is to take away all guns
the dotard liberal old SC judge revealed this recently when he suggested repealing the second amendment
the anti-gun lobby fools no one
one second they are saying we just need to "tighten up gun regulations a bit"
the next second they are marching and chanting "Never again"
truth is, homicidal maniacs salivate when they go to a school and see a sign that says "gun-free zone"
they know they will face no resistance
we need to resist, not surrender
"What was illegal was for Cohen to spend $130,000 as a campaign donation to Trump when the max he could legally give is $3500."
he didn't do that
he expended some funds on behalf of his client that would be reimbursed
lawyers, accountants, and other professionals do that all the time and include it on their monthly bill
"Giuliani says it wasn't a campaign donation because cohen paid off Stormy to save Trump's marriage and his reputation, that Trump would have paid her off anyway even if there hadn't been an election."
besides which this is not under the definition of campaign finance expenditure in the law and there is no reasonable way to stretch it to encompass such a thing
"Even if Trump paid Cohen back (his story keeps changing) it was still a loan from Cohen to Trump and still is a campaign contribution violation because it still counts as Cohen's contribution and greatly exceeds Cohen's $3500 limit."
no, campaigns borrow money all the time
it's common practice and not illegal
"Plus even if Trump did pay Stormy and Cohen had no involvement its still a campaign finance violation because he didn't declare it as a campaign expense."
it was a personal expense to protect his reputation
"There's no way Cohen/Trump can spin this that it isn't a campaign finance violation."
they don't have to
it's obvious
"Franklin Graham: Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels is "Nobody's Business"
Franklin Graham Aug 27, 1996 : "Clinton's Sins aren't private"
Yep, yep, yep..."
the foreign misses the essential point
Trump had an affair ten years before he declared he was running for President
Clinton, while being paid by the taxpayers, took advantage of an entry-level subordinate, also being paid by taxpayers, while he was in the Oval Office, paid by taxpayers
see the difference?
Clinton committed an act discreditable to the Presidency and the nation while being trusted by Americans
"Breaking: In Virginia insurers are requestiong premium increases of up to 64% as a direct result of Republican sabotage."
unfortunately, Obamacare hasn't been repealed
only the individual mandate
which is not causing the increase
the increase is caused by the burdens of Obamacare in regulating what is covered under health plans
"Remember when campaign Trump promised he'd replace Obamacare and "Everyone" would be covered? Since he got elected the number of people with insurance has dropped and the cost has risen - he's done the exact opposite of what he promised."
Congress wouldn't repeal Obamacare so it continues to screw things up
"And if Trump did pay back Cohen in installments that may have been illegal as he avoided bank reporting and that is fraud. Same thing Dennis Hastert was convicted of."
doubtful, he probably pays hefty bills to his lawyer all the time and reports them
he probably did here too
"Hosea 13:16
"The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they have rebelled against their god. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.""
thanks for reminding us that God is sovereign and sin has consequences
"MAY 06, 2018 3:27 AM
Anonymous The Coming Storm said...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1K8s-tQGqY"
we all watched it
Stormy looked good but I doubt she helped her civil defamation case against Trump or her defense in the breach of contract suit Trump has filed against her
she took money from Trump to keep quiet and she didn't do that
she will have to pay that money back and also compensate Trump for any damage caused by her breach of contract
American contract law is not hard to understand
even a foreign troll could grasp it!
assuming they didn't have any bias
"OK, can I call you Mr Imbecile?"
Knock yourself out. You seem to have a penchant for making stuff up that is only tangentially related to reality.
"TTF and its ilk says the were campaign contributions, by definition, because the payment helped his campaign"
That is a simplistic and incorrect summary. Pay attention.
It looks like Priya just laid out a more plausible description of what happened than either Trump or Cohen.
"it's quite a twisted warping of the law, and they are wrong"
Pay attention to the details, and stop watching Fox news for a while. With enough luck, maybe some truth will start filtering in after a while. I know you're not gonna like this, but try watching the PBS News Hour for a bit. I know, I know, the liberal biased media blah, blah, blah. But at least it will give you some relevant facts you can lie about, and you won't have to just pull everything out of your uh, pocket.
"Trump had a consensual affair and lied about it
it's not illegal"
So did Bill Clinton. Did you have a point there, Sherlock?
Gotta like Rudy. He says the most pertinent stuff:
“Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?" Giuliani asked.
"Cohen made it go away," he added. "He did his job."
Anyone who has watched cop shows over the last 50 years knows that when cops start asking questions, and different people start telling different stories, or when someone CHANGES their story over the course of a few weeks, they know someone is LYING about it.
That's Cops 101.
Even the fat guys drinkin' beer in their wife-beater t-shirts know that.
When you lie to cops or the FBI, or a grand jury, they often consider that another crime. Go figure. Remember what Bill got pinged for?
If Trump and his team DIDN'T commit a crime with all of their bumbling around, it can only be ascribed to sheer dumb luck. Which just might be possible, because this administration has dug up Michelle's vegetable garden and put in a whole stable full of dumb asses.
"It looks like Priya just laid out a more plausible description of what happened than either Trump or Cohen."
nobody disputes what happened
Trump had an affair over ten years ago
through his lawyer, he paid the other party to keep it quiet
sensing an opportunity for fame, she broke the agreement
Priya wasn't bringing clarity to any facts, just misinterpreting to cause dissension
that's what foreign trolls do
"Pay attention to the details, and stop watching Fox news for a while."
I actually don't watch much at all but I read from various sources, more liberal stuff than conservative stuff
I also frequently listen to NPR and some other station that plays both music and commentary but leans socialist
"With enough luck, maybe some truth will start filtering in after a while. I know you're not gonna like this, but try watching the PBS News Hour for a bit. I know, I know, the liberal biased media blah, blah, blah. But at least it will give you some relevant facts you can lie about, and you won't have to just pull everything out of your uh, pocket."
gee, why don't you tell me which "fact" I missed?
"Anyone who has watched cop shows over the last 50 years knows that when cops start asking questions, and different people start telling different stories, or when someone CHANGES their story over the course of a few weeks, they know someone is LYING about it.
That's Cops 101."
except no is alleging anything criminal here
"When you lie to cops or the FBI, or a grand jury, they often consider that another crime. Go figure."
except it's not a crime to lie to reporters
did you pick that up from all those cops show you watch drinkin' beer in your wife-beater t-shirt"
The establishment seeks to overturn the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. But how can that happen? In the U.S., the chosen path to remove President Trump from office has become the Russia probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and its tabloid offshoot, the Stormy Daniels imbroglio.
The elitists in Washington (including – frighteningly – current and former leadership in our law enforcement and security bureaucracy) are monumentally aggrieved that the people had the temerity to elect a populist outsider to the White House. And they’re not prepared to wait for the 2020 election to try to replace populist Donald Trump.
That’s why the Mueller probe is a political counter-revolution.
Think back to the investigation’s origins. It was set up after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and told NBC’s Lester Holt that it was because of the “Russia thing.”
Yes – it was because of the “Russia thing;” not because there’s any basis to the “Russia thing” but precisely because there isn’t – and because Comey refused to say that.
Where did the “Russia thing” itself begin? The Hillary Clinton campaign.
The Clinton campaign paid for the dodgy dossier that tried to smear the Trump campaign for supposedly colluding with Russia to win the election. When that didn’t work – Clinton lost the election anyway – her supporters jumped on the “Russia thing” as the reason for her defeat.
You can imagine the supporters all saying: How could she possibly lose to him? There had to be foul play!
Because, of course, it couldn’t possibly be the case that Clinton lost the election on the merits – that working Americans were sick of the policy failures of the establishment and wanted a change from the disastrous elitism of the last few decades.
No – of course that couldn’t be true. It had to be the “Russia thing.” Anything else was too awful to contemplate.
And so in the days and weeks after the election – after the shell-shocked Democrats and their elitist allies in New York and Washington picked themselves off the floor – the drumbeat of the “Russia thing” got louder and louder.
The FBI investigation that was prompted by the Democrats’ dodgy dossier became public. The establishment, as intended, jumped on that too, embracing the belief that “the Russians did it!”
The “Russia thing” took over all political debate and became a huge distraction to the new Trump administration. The president wanted it to go away – hence the request to Comey to confirm publicly that President Trump wasn’t under investigation. And then when Comey wouldn’t do that he was fired. Which led to Mueller.
What’s the point of going over all this ancient history?
To remind ourselves that the origin of the “Russia thing” – at least the part that relates to President Trump - was 100 percent political.
And that’s how we need to see it today. The Mueller probe is political warfare through legal means – not surprising when you consider that the Democrats are the party of lawyers, funded by lawyers.
When James Comey, in an extraordinarily partisan remark even for him, said this week that he thought Hillary Clinton believed in the rule of law, what he really meant was that she – like him – believes in the rule of lawyers. Like them.
They don’t care how their political counter-revolution gets President Trump out – whether it’s proving the original, fabricated claim about collusion; or by some legal process misstep by the president and his team; or by something to do with Stormy Daniels. As long as it gets President Trump out of the Oval Office before 2020, it’s fine with the counter-revolutionaries.
But this all-out effort by the establishment to remove a president who was legitimately elected according to the Constitution is doing terrible damage to the United States. Not just because it’s such a massive distraction from the bold policymaking that’s needed to help address the very real problems in our economy, in our society – inadequate skills and family breakdown to name just two. But because it undermines democracy and the rule of law.
How do you think people will feel if they vote for an outsider – and the insiders just turn around and say: “Sorry, you got it wrong. You can’t do that.”
In a nutshell, that’s what the Mueller investigation is all about.
Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo, recounting his own (and his family’s) ordeal at Mueller’s hands this week, put it well when he said:
“I think they want to destroy the president, they want to destroy his family. They want to destroy his businesses. They want to destroy his friends so that no billionaire in let’s say 50 years wakes up and tells his wife, ‘You know this country is broken and only I can fix it.’ His wife will say, ‘Are you crazy? Did you see what happened to Trump and everybody around him?’ That’s what this is about.”
Caputo is absolutely right. And that’s why this political counter-revolution must be confronted and defeated – in the name of democracy and the rule of law.
the media shift from the Russian hoax to the Stormy story really seems to be helping Trump's ratings
keep it up, folks!
Washington, DC - The Reuters/Ipsos Core Political poll has a significant realignment this week across a number of metrics. Most pronounced is President Trump’s approval rating which currently sits at 48% with all Americans. His number with registered voters is essentially the same at 49%. Among likely voters, per Ramussen, his rating of approval is 52%! Corresponding with Trump’s stronger approval rating, evaluations of his job performance across the board are stronger this week from 57% approving of his handling of the economy . On the generic congressional ballot, our current poll shows a +4-point advantage for Democrats, the smallest lead we’ve seen in recent weeks.
Poor, poor liberal snowflakes. They're making America GRRRRRRRRRRRREAT again!!! They never wanted to do that! They’ve overplayed your hand, and they are losing — badly. It’s embarrassing. Could they really be this delusional and out of touch?
The more they talk about Stormy, the more they turn off Americans.
The good news keeps coming for Trump. The economy is booming. Not only should Trump win a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing South and North Korea together, he should be up for the Nobel prize for economics, too. Has any world leader in history earned both in the same year?
We found out on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate fell below 4 percent — the lowest since 2000.
ADP also reported that, in April, U.S. private companies added more than 200,000 jobs for the fifth month in a row. Demand for labor remains solid across every industry.
Obama bragged nonstop about quantity — never mentioning that his job growth consisted mostly of crappy, low-wage, part-time jobs that required food stamps to survive. Trump’s new jobs are great jobs. Manufacturing, mining and professional service jobs led the way in the April report. Over the past 12 months, manufacturing has added 245,000 high-wage jobs.
Incidentally, the black unemployment rate fell again — to the lowest in history. And the gap between white and black unemployment narrowed. It turns out Kanye West is a man of wisdom. Donald Trump is far better for the black community than Obama ever was.
The Democrats’ response? Bring up Stormy the porn star. It’s all liberals want to talk about. CNN and MSNBC have given Stormy wall-to-wall coverage for the past 60 days.
The result? Trump and the GOP are exploding in the polls. Blue wave in November? Not anymore. This obsession with Stormy is a disaster for Dems.
As of Friday, Trump was at a robust 51 percent approval at Rasmussen. That’s far above where Trump was on the day he was elected. It’s also far above Obama at the same point of his presidency.
Another poll shows Trump’s evangelical Christian support at the highest point in history. So much for “the Stormy effect.”
Still another poll shows black male support for Trump has doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent since West announced his support for Trump.
Still another poll shows Democrats have lost 9 points with millennials since the election. Millennials believe the GOP is better for the economy.
This is an electoral earthquake!!!!!!
A new Morning Consult poll shows Republicans winning everything in the U.S. Senate. A nine-seat sweep is within reach. Five incumbent Democrat senators are losing by 5 points or more. Four other incumbent Democrat senators are statistically tied. “The Stormy effect” is bringing down the entire Democratic Party.
And then there are CNN’s ratings. All that “Stormy,” and the network is dying. CNN’s highest-rated show came in a humiliating 24th for April. Its morning show is the lowest-rated show in all of cable news. Dead last.
Guy Cecil, the head of one of the most powerful liberal super PACs, said last week, “Democrats need to put a whole new set of issues in front of people. … I don’t think Stormy Daniels is going to produce one additional vote in almost any race that we run in 2018.”
So here’s my message to Democrats. Please, please keep talking about Stormy. Ignore jobs. Ignore the economy. Ignore the tragedy of Obamacare. Ignore illegal immigration. Make it all about Stormy, 24/7. I dare you. I double dare you
The New York Times has a really interesting article about about Russian billionaire oligarch Viktor Vekselberg being stopped and questioned by Mueller’s investigators when he landed at an American airport earlier this year. Vekselberg attended Trump’s inauguration.
This raises some obvious questions. Vekselberg is under sanctions by the United States, forbidden from doing business with any American companies. Why was someone under official government sanction, put in place by the former president, at Trump’s inauguration? We already know that Michael Flynn told Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak that if they’d not respond too harshly to the newly-announced sanctions, Trump would be able to get them lifted later. And sure enough, Putin quickly announced that they would not retaliate for those sanctions. That clearly suggests some level of collusion.
But there’s another important connection here. One of Vekselberg’s companies had a controlling interest in the Bank of Cyprus, a major front for money laundering for Russian oligarchs (there is no distinction between Russian billionaires and the Russian mafia; they are one and the same). And who was the vice-chair of the board of the Bank of Cyprus before joining the Trump administration? Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. That’s a curious fact, don’t you think?
Clearly Mueller is digging in to all of these connections. We don’t know what he’s found or what he will yet find, but the possibilities are explosive.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Russia hoax".
If it was a hoax Trump and congressional Republicans wouldn't be desperately trying to shut down the Mueller investigation, discredit all the witnesses, and panicking over it.
Instead Trump would be like Hillary, who knew the Benghazi hearings were a hoax, he'd happily be interviewed by the investigators for however long they wanted because he'd know there was nothing to be found, like Hillary did.
But instead he's doing everything he can to avoid being interviewed or to constrain the interview so he doesn't have to answer key questions.
These are not the actions of someone who thinks "this russure thing" is a hoax
Pat Robertson: I’m Being Dominated By Gays
Pat Robertson said on The 700 Club today that gays have taken over the media and universities, drowning out voices like his that oppose civil rights and basic decency.
“We have given the ground to a small minority,” he said. “You figure, lesbians, one percent of the population; gays, two percent of the population. That’s all. That’s statistically all. But they have dominated — dominated the media, they’ve dominated the cultural shift and they have infiltrated the major universities. It’s just unbelievable what’s being done. A tiny, tiny minority makes a huge difference. The majority — it’s time it wakes up.”
Yes, maybe one day, if those in the Christian majority get their act together, they’ll finally be able to make a serious run for public office. Or get their own TV networks. Or start their own universities.
It’s appalling, really, that LGBT people are allowed to exist in Robertson’s world. How dare they convince people they deserve equal rights?!
When Robertson talks about LGBT people “dominating” the cultural shift, he’s really referring to the fact that people no longer have an automatic revulsion to them. In his world, acting on one’s gayness is an unforgivable sin. Outside his bubble, though, more and more people don’t give a damn. Live and let live. Don’t worry what other people do in the privacy of their bedrooms.
The “small minority” that’s gaining ground are really the voices of kindness, tolerance, and inclusion. Christian bigotry isn’t as acceptable as it used to be.
Tens of People Show Up at Christian Group’s Anti-LGBTQ “Freedom March”
Today’s “Freedom March” in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Christian group “Voice of the Voiceless.” It was a rally dedicated to convincing LGBTQ people they can change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
So how did it go?
It looks like tens of people showed up.
One thing as you watch those videos: At least one of the speakers noted the higher rate of suicide for gay people and even higher rates for transgender people. That was intended to be motivation for this crowd to turn those people straight.
They never once acknowledged how one reason those suicide rates are so high is because of how LGBTQ people are treated by evangelical Christians.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any video with Luis Javier Ruiz, the Pulse survivor. He was apparently there, but it’s possible he didn’t speak. (Curiously, his public Facebook page no longer includes the post about how he’s not gay anymore.)
If you want to know why today’s rally was so problematic, listen to what Julie Rodgers has to say in today’s New York Times. She underwent “conversion therapy” — that’s the “we can turn you straight” procedure endorsed by the Christians at this rally — when she was in her 20s, and she knows firsthand the kind of damage it can do.
"I attended several of my gay friends’ weddings to people of the opposite sex, and I sat across from them years later when they grieved over the end of their marriage. They might have changed the way they identified, but they felt a longing for intimacy with someone of the same sex that simply could not be met by their spouses. Some white-knuckled their way through the rest of their lives in these "marriages" [Like Wyatt & Regina], often with secret hookups that left them deeply ashamed, sometimes suicidal. Others eventually ended their marriages, and they despaired over the pain they caused their spouses and children.
These stories never show up in the short videos on ex-gay ministries’ websites. Ex-gay organizations create emotional short films with earnest young people who talk about hope and redemption, and then they quietly remove the videos when these very same people come out years later with the truth about themselves that they tried to suppress. In fact, that’s what happened to me."
You won’t find much compassion in today’s crowd for people like Rodgers.
"Freedom" = I must be free to coerce others (like I used to).
"Voiceless" = I cannot force people to listen to my fringe opinions (any more).
These people promoting the false idea that one can change same sex attractions into opposite sex attractions come out to loudly speak and all they've accomplished is to show how few of them there are nowadays.
The "ex-gay" movement is dead. All the major "ex-gay" organization leaders have closed shop, acknowledged that no one has ever changed, and apologized for the harm they caused gays and lesbians.
Trump on the neo-nazis protesting the removement of confederate statues in Charlottseville - "...very fine people..."
Trump on the black football players protesting police shootings and abuse of innocent black people - "...sons of bitches...".
Yeah, he's a hard-core racist.
Giuliani returned to Fox News for 8 minutes. It was a disaster again.
"The facts I’m still learning... I’m not an expert on the facts yet."
Newly minted Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani went on Hannity last Wednesday and created major problems for his client. He returned to Fox News and on Thursday morning and made things even worse. On Friday, he was forced to issue a statement effectively recanting everything he said the previous two days. By Saturday night he was back on Fox News. Things did not get any better.
He admitted that he was returning to national TV even though he is still not fully versed with the facts of the Stormy Daniels case or any other of Trump’s legal issues. “The facts I’m still learning… I’ve been on the case two weeks… I’m not an expert on the facts yet. I’m getting there,” Giuliani said. It showed. In an interview that lasted less than 8 minutes, he made several significant errors.
Giuliani again addressed the Stormy Daniels case and the $130,000 hush money payment made by Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen to the adult film actress. If the money was intended to influence the campaign, it could violate federal law. But Giuliani told Pirro that the donation would be legal “even if it was a campaign donation.” According to Giuliani, it was legal as a campaign donation because “the president reimbursed it fully.”
This, however, is false. While candidates can donate unlimited money to their own campaigns, all campaign donations, and loans, must be reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The failure to report the donation is a violation of federal law. The Stormy Daniels payment has never been reported to the FEC by Trump. If it was a campaign expense Trump broke the law. [Given that Trump never paid off Stormy for years after the affair and only did in the midst of the election, the idea that it wasn't a campaign expense isn't believable]
At another point, Giuliani says the payment to Stormy Daniels was not a loan but an “expenditure,” which is the word the FEC uses to describe expenses related to a campaign.
It is also puzzling why Giuliani keeps bringing up the possibility that the donation was intended to influence the campaign. “Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton…Cohen made it go away. He did his job,” Giuliani said on Fox & Friends on Thursday morning.
Giuliani did not address the critical issue of what Trump knew when, nor was he asked about it.
"except it's not a crime to lie to reporters"
While technically true, you somehow managed to NOT advance your point. It probably has something to do with the implication that's it's perfectly fine for a president to lie to reporters - and implicitly, the American people. Maybe Trump should show us his birth certificate; or better yet, his tax returns. As a man who's VERY concerned with truthful documents at least, we should see if he isn't lying there.
"The establishment seeks to overturn the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. But how can that happen? In the U.S., the chosen path to remove President Trump from office has become the Russia probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and its tabloid offshoot, the Stormy Daniels imbroglio."
I'm sure you picked that up from all your daily dealings with "the establishment."
It never occurred to you that a lot of people might just be patiently waiting for Mueller to finish his investigation and lay out what all the facts are. The media sideshow is just the media doing what it does after every airplane disaster - go hunting for every scrap of info that might provide some tiny new bit of information, and then run it into the ground replaying it on a loop for four days.
Did you ever hear of "if it bleeds, it leads?" Yeah, that's how corporate media makes its money. It's a formula that works for them, even if it leads to disastrous election results for "the biased mainstream media." That's how our "free press" pays for its lunch in this capitalist country.
"The elitists in Washington (including – frighteningly – current and former leadership in our law enforcement and security bureaucracy) are monumentally aggrieved that the people had the temerity to elect a populist outsider to the White House. And they’re not prepared to wait for the 2020 election to try to replace populist Donald Trump."
Riiiiiigghhhtttt... Nobody at all cares one bit that a dude who went bankrupt so many times that American banks would no longer loan money to him, had to turn to RUSSIA to get more money, got elected to office at a time of unprecedented attempts by RUSSIAN propaganda operatives to interfere in the US election.
Yeah, that was TOTALLY coincidental... happens every day... nothing to see here... move along now. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
"That’s why the Mueller probe is a political counter-revolution."
Oh yeah, it's a TOTAL counter-revolution. FINALLY, I have an excuse to wear my new Che Guevara t-shirt - the one that is tastefully color-coordinated with my locally sourced, 100% organic, natural fiber pussy hat.
Mueller's 1 investigation has already found more criminals, plea deals, and shenanigans than 5 Congressional Benghazi committees and 8 Benghazi hearings. I'm guessing he's wasted a lot less of the tax payer's money doing that, too.
The full list of known indictments and plea deals in Mueller’s probe -- so far --
1) George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to the FBI.
2) Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to making false statements to the FBI.
3) Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, was indicted in October in Washington, DC on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, false statements, and failure to disclose foreign assets — all related to his work for Ukrainian politicians before he joined the Trump campaign. He’s pleaded not guilty on all counts. Then, in February, Mueller filed a new case against him in Virginia, with tax, financial, and bank fraud charges.
4) Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, was indicted on similar charges to Manafort. But he has now agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team, pleading guilty to just one false statements charge and one conspiracy charge.
5-20) 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies were indicted on conspiracy charges, with some also being accused of identity theft. The charges related to a Russian propaganda effort designed to interfere with the 2016 campaign. The companies involved are the Internet Research Agency, often described as a “Russian troll farm,” and two other companies that helped finance it. The Russian nationals indicted include 12 of the agency’s employees and its alleged financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
21) Richard Pinedo: This California man pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge in connection with the Russian indictments, and has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
22) Alex van der Zwaan: This London lawyer pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates and another unnamed person based in Ukraine.
"The New York Times has a really interesting article about about Russian billionaire oligarch Viktor Vekselberg being stopped and questioned by Mueller...
Clearly Mueller is digging in to all of these connections. We don’t know what he’s found or what he will yet find, but the possibilities are explosive."
suuure...it's the "smoking gun of the day"
time for Mueller to wrap up and let Congress know what he found out, which we all know is no thing
"If it was a hoax Trump and congressional Republicans wouldn't be desperately trying to shut down the Mueller investigation, discredit all the witnesses, and panicking over it."
if you really believe that, you're a much greater moron than I ever imagined
"Instead Trump would be like Hillary, who knew the Benghazi hearings were a hoax, he'd happily be interviewed by the investigators for however long they wanted because he'd know there was nothing to be found, like Hillary did."
no one accused Hillary of a crime in connection with benghazi
she was incompetent and derelict in her duties
she lied about the incident and caused riots throughout the Muslim world where many died
but, then, derelict is practically her middle name
"But instead he's doing everything he can to avoid being interviewed or to constrain the interview so he doesn't have to answer key questions."
we've now seen the questions
Mueller is clearly hoping to find some fault in Trump's thinking that can be twisted into a crime
clearly, no evidence exists, or Mueller wouldn't have to do that
"While technically true, you somehow managed to NOT advance your point"
it's true in every sense, technical and otherwise
my point is nothing about the Stormy story involves a crime
"It probably has something to do with the implication that's it's perfectly fine for a president to lie to reporters - and implicitly, the American people."
reporters may tell themselves that but the American people have no feeling they are entitled to a detailed description of the President't sex life
they are fine being lied to about it
they would actually be fine with those kind of lies
"Maybe Trump should show us his birth certificate; or better yet, his tax returns."
his birth certificate is public record, under the law
tax returns are confidential, under the law
"Riiiiiigghhhtttt... Nobody at all cares one bit that a dude who went bankrupt so many times that American banks would no longer loan money to him, had to turn to RUSSIA to get more money, got elected to office at a time of unprecedented attempts by RUSSIAN propaganda operatives to interfere in the US election."
well, they might care if any of that were true
it's not
"Mueller's 1 investigation has already found more criminals, plea deals, and shenanigans
The full list of known indictments and plea deals in Mueller’s probe -- so far --"
the Americans were indicted for minor offenses that ordinarily wouldn't be prosecuted except as a way to pressure them into revealing information about the Trump campaign
a judge noted that this week in an appeal from the Manafort case
the indictments against foreigners who will never see an American courtroom, are mostly for bogus crimes, like "conspiracy against America"
Mueller is trying to destroy lives as a strategy for blackmailing certain individuals
when this is over, Mueller's activities need to be investigated by Congress
reforms will be needed to protect the civil rights of Americans
Mueller has destroyed enough innocent lives
George Washington - "I cannot tell a lie"
Trump - "I cannot tell the truth"
Trump supporters - "I cannot tell the difference"
“It’s an absolute, unmitigated disaster for Rudy Giuliani and the president. It’s a train wreck. I can’t believe that actually just happened. I mean what we witnessed by Rudy Giuliani may be one of the worst T.V. appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times. I mean this guy’s all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward.
“I think it is obvious to the American people that this is a cover-up, that they are making it up as they go along. They don’t know what to say because they have lost track of the truth.” – Michael Avenatti, speaking on ABC This Week this morning immediately after Giuliani.
It delights me that the Mueller investigation is the first thing Trump thinks of when he wakes up, the last thing he thinks about before going to sleep, and what haunts him throughout his entire day.
Trump keeps trying to take credit for the Obama economy. Too bad for him when you look at the unemployment graph its obvious Trump is just riding the trend Obama started. Poor, poor pathetic Trump, desperately wanting to look better than Obama but clearly just riding Obama's coat tails. Hee Hee Hee!
Thanks Obama!
North Korea: Don’t Credit Trump With Our Peace Talks, He Is “Deliberately Provoking” Us During The Process
NBC News reports:
With just weeks to go before President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called “misleading” claims that Trump’s policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.
The North’s official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a “dangerous attempt” to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kim’s summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
“The U.S. is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation,” the spokesman was quoted as saying.
Trump likes to point to the praise he's gotten from the South Korean President but Moon is playing Trump just like all the other world leaders have - praise Trump and tell him how great his and he'll bend to your will. Any progress in North Korea is due to the two Korean leaders. If there is a denuclearization it will be Kim Jong Un who deserves the nobel peace prize as he will have clearly done virtually everything that has brought peace about.
Trump’s CIA Director Pick Sought To Withdraw Over Questions About Her Role In Torturing Suspects
The CIA broke the law under Bush and tortured suspects and detainees. Trump's CIA Director Pick was the head of the torture program under Bush. The biggest failing of Obama is that he didn't bring these Republican war criminals to justice and instead looked the other way. No wonder the reputation of the United States has plumeted since Bush started the neverending "war on terror".
Gina Haspel was afraid of trying to explain her role in torture war crimes and tried to withdraw. Despicable Trump and his people are trying to convince her to take the job as she is exactly their type of person.
I do not like your lying ways
I do not like your hate for gays
I do not like your grabbing rump
I do not like you Mr. Trump
Paul Krugman - "Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican party. We've gone beyond bad economic doctine. We've even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we're talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable". Boy, does that ever sum up Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous!
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous:
Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. Its not pie.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said they believe gays should have to live in the shadows
Benghazi - 4 years ZERO indictments.
Clinton emails - 2 years, ZERO indictments.
Mueller investigation - 14 months, 23 indictments, 5 guilty pleas.
"George Washington - "I cannot tell a lie"
Trump - "I cannot tell the truth"
Trump supporters - "I cannot tell the difference""
Obama the Worst - "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"
“It’s an absolute, unmitigated disaster for Rudy Giuliani and the president. It’s a train wreck. I can’t believe that actually just happened. I mean what we witnessed by Rudy Giuliani may be one of the worst T.V. appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times. I mean this guy’s all over the map over the last 72 hours on some very simple facts that should be very straightforward.
“I think it is obvious to the American people that this is a cover-up, that they are making it up as they go along. They don’t know what to say because they have lost track of the truth.” – Michael Avenatti, speaking on ABC This Week this morning immediately after Giuliani.
It doesn't matter, Michael. The facts are plain. Your client took money under a legal contractual agreement. She breached the contract and owes the money back plus for any loss due to her breach. You think because the other party is the President, that you can blackmail him but he's called your bluff. Hardly sounds like a train wreck for anyone but you, Stormy, and the Dems whose chance of taking back Congress diminishes every day the media focuses on an affair the President had a decade ago while the economy booms under Trump.
"It delights me that the Mueller investigation is the first thing Trump thinks of when he wakes up, the last thing he thinks about before going to sleep, and what haunts him throughout his entire day."
Here, Priya admits how evil they are. And what the goal is. Their is no grievance that anyone seeks to remedy. As the judge said well last week, no one cares about any crimes, the whole goal of the "investigation" is to harass and hinder the policies the American people voted to implement.
But, more to the point, Priya, someone who can't even make up their own mind, has no idea what Trump is thinking.
"Trump keeps trying to take credit for the Obama economy. Too bad for him when you look at the unemployment graph its obvious Trump is just riding the trend Obama started. Poor, poor pathetic Trump, desperately wanting to look better than Obama but clearly just riding Obama's coat tails. Hee Hee Hee!"
18 months after Trump's election, 15 months after his inauguration, America is booming and unemployment is at it's lowest since the last millenium. Minority unemployment is at its lowest rate ever. During Obama's administration, the Fed had to keep interest rates at near zero for eight years to keep the economy from collapsing. This hurt retirees who couldn't enough on CDs to sustain themselves. Obama also doubled the national debt, averaging trillion dollar deficits and borrowing more than all other Presidents in history COMBINED. This stimulus should have made the economy soar. Instead, Obama's over-regulation, mismanagement, and lack of faith in America's future led to a tepid crappy economy producing only menial jobs that paid so little that food stamps and unemployment checks were soaring. Unemployment fell because labor participation dropped, which Obama apologists and foreign trolls said was because of the retirement of baby boomers. Funny how that's now reversed itself.
The midterm election narrative was set last week. While reporters and Hollywood and liberals gathered to mock the women in Trump's administration and cackle on about Stormy, Trump went to Michigan to talk about jobs. Trump's polls are rising, the generic Dem polls are falling. If the election were held today, the GOP would pick up nine seats in the Senate. And the Big Mo is going there way so it's likely to get worse for Dems!
It delights me that Trump's successes are the first thing Priya thinks of when waking up, the last thing Priya thinks about before going to sleep, and what haunts Priya throughout the entire day.
It's a bad time to be a foreign troll.
"Thanks Obama!"
Hee Hee Hee!
"With just weeks to go before President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called “misleading” claims that Trump’s policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table."
Kim Young Fat has a good point. Everyone knows he just is going to denuclearize out of the goodness of his heart and concern for others. Excessive benevolence is what his family is known for!!
"The North’s official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a “dangerous attempt” to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kim’s summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
“The U.S. is deliberately provoking the DPRK at the time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is moving toward peace and reconciliation,” the spokesman was quoted as saying."
this statement is such a gift to Trump, I wonder if he'll send Kim Young Fat flowers
"Trump likes to point to the praise he's gotten from the South Korean President but Moon is playing Trump just like all the other world leaders have - praise Trump and tell him how great his and he'll bend to your will. Any progress in North Korea is due to the two Korean leaders. If there is a denuclearization it will be Kim Jong Un who deserves the nobel peace prize as he will have clearly done virtually everything that has brought peace about."
oh yeah, shooting missiles at your neighbors and then stopping will get you the Nobel every time
maybe we should encourage all leaders to do that
tell Baby Justin
he can just shoot a couple of missiles at Russia, kill his uncle and brother, and then stop and it's time to go to Scandanavia and pick up his prize!!
"Trump’s CIA Director Pick Sought To Withdraw Over Questions About Her Role In Torturing Suspects"
and she didn't
score team Trump
"Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you"
when the government is forcing people to associate with each other instead of choosing their own associations, there's nothing equal about that
it preferences those who act in such a way that no one wants to associate with them
"Benghazi - 4 years ZERO indictments."
this was not a criminal investigation, it was an investigation about dereliction
the american people pronounced the sentence when they rejected Hillary at the polls
"Clinton emails - 2 years, ZERO indictments."
we have since learned much about how the Obama DOJ and FBI fixed this case
more IG reports are on the way
"Mueller investigation - 14 months, 23 indictments, 5 guilty pleas."
Mueller has a technique for harassing the innocent
the government has paid millions in damages because his past adventures in unconstitutional prosecutorial misconduct
his day of reckoning is coming
Union members have traditionally stumped hard for Democratic candidates, but Donald Trump managed to mix that up in the 2016 presidential election. While the unions themselves backed Hillary Clinton, a surprising number of union members cast their ballots for Trump based on his firm stance on trade, pledges to help the working man and general “outsider” appeal.
As a result, Trump got more votes from union households than any Republican in recent time, losing the union vote by just 8 percent. That popularity hasn’t held, however. Whereas Trump had 62 percent approval from union members in March of 2017, a year later he has dropped 15 points to just 47 percent.
This large decline in support is mainly due to Trump failing to live up to his words. For all of his talk about looking out for the average worker, his political actions have more so focused on padding the pockets of the rich. He’s also needlessly set the groundwork for trade wars. Union members have paid attention to these factors.
Speaking to Reuters, Ken Jones, a Teamster in Oklahoma, said, “Now I see [Trump’s] not going to do anything. The working man don’t get nothing out of it. I never voted Republican until Trump, and it was the worst mistake I ever made.”
It’s a mistake that many of them won’t be making again. Looking ahead to the November midterms, 47 percent of union members plan to back Democratic candidates compared to 34 percent for Republicans. In the past year, union members have increased the margin of preference for Democrats on issues like the economy, jobs, taxes and health care.
Don’t put the blame all on Trump – Republicans in Congress have done enough on their own to lose union support. The main and really only legislative accomplishment of the GOP in the past year despite having control of all three branches of government is tax reform. Alas, union members especially have been savvy to the fact that the beneficiaries of the tax cuts are the rich, not working class people, no matter how Republican leadership has tried to misrepresent it to the public.
Democrats have been criticized for taking the union vote for granted at points in the past, but Republicans certainly deserve even more condemnation. After finally convincing plenty of union members to switch up their allegiances, they’ve done nothing to maintain the confidence of union workers in the ensuing year.
Although fewer Americans belong to a union than they did a few decades ago, having union support still matters. That’s partially true because union money is contributed to campaigns, and also true because union members turn out to vote. During the last midterm election, 52 percent of union workers went to the polls, as opposed to just 39 percent of non-union members.
Fundamentalist Christian Intolerance
Across America, right-wing politicians pass “religious freedom” laws that have a single purpose: to let narrow-minded believers discriminate against gays — an intolerance that is illegal for other people under human rights laws.
In other words, only born-again Christians are allowed to express prejudice and hostility, while other Americans live by kinder standards.
Actually, around the world, there’s a clear pattern: Strong religion produces judgmental, bigoted attitudes. Fundamentalists are unforgiving, less accepting of outcasts. Puritans are quick to condemn.
In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump exuded racism and ethnic intolerance. He implied that America’s first black president was born in Kenya. He demanded a wall to keep out Hispanics. He tried to block Muslims from entering the United States. Trump also degraded women and boasted of grabbing their genitals. His slogan of “Make America great again” was perceived as “Make America white again.”
Surprisingly, Trump’s most ardent supporters were white evangelicals, who backed him by an astounding 81 percent at the polls. It seemed as if those fundamentalists eagerly embraced bigotry.
In the 1970s, tax-exemption was stripped from segregated religious schools – which impelled white evangelicals to become a belligerent political force, the “Christian right” attached to the Republican Party. Today, that segment is a strong bastion of intolerance.
Christianity Today, the foremost evangelical magazine, recently lamented that too many white evangelicals “show little mercy for those who are not white Americans.”
College professor David Myers, who grew up in born-again churches, wrote:
“Despite my roots in evangelical Christianity, I no longer claim that identity. I don’t want to be associated with the prejudice and intolerance that the word ‘evangelical’ now, alas, so often connotes.”
A gathering of fundamentalists drafted a “Nashville Statement” declaring war on “homosexual immorality or transgenderism.” (Some social media comments branded it “un-American toilet paper written by hypocrites.”)
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson wrote that, by embracing Trump, born-again believers are “associating evangelicalism with bigotry, selfishness and deception. They are playing a grubby political game for the highest of stakes: the reputation of their faith.”
However, I think the reputation of their faith has been rather obvious for a long time.
Mental Health Expert Talks Man Off Ledge; Praying Woman Gets Credit in the Press
I was watching a TV show the other day about the hijackers that crashed a passenger jet into the Pentagon. One person was interviewed who had been booked on that flight but change his ticket at the last moment. He said something to the effect of "God saved me".
I'm always struck by the profound arrogance of people who say such things after a tragedy where many people are killed. You think god saved you? You think out of the hundreds of people that died god just thought you were so special and liked you so much he saved you and not any of the people who died? You think out of hundreds of people taken at random god liked you better and saved you and not them? How profoundly arrogant and disgusting of you to make such a claim.
Christians like that make me sick.
Yet Again: Religious Myth Leads to Murder
A Sioux Falls mother murdered her husband and 7-year-old son, then turned the gun on herself.
Although the event was horrific and sad in every respect, of particular relevance to this blog is why Stephanie Hoover, 35, the mother of three other pre-teens, including a 1-year-old, decided Zachary, among all her children, must be the one to die.
Zachary, a “beautiful soul,” as his mother described him in a suicide note, was “a struggle to deal with” because of difficult behavioral issues, according to a May 6 report in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper.
“[Zachary’s] better off with his momma in heaven where I can take care of him and be at peace,” Stephanie wrote in the note.
There were also extenuating material circumstances that led this troubled woman to make such a homicidal decision in the first place. The most unnerving one apparently was panic that her embezzlement of tens of thousands of dollars would be discovered by her employer, Southridge Healthcare, where she worked as an accounts receivable specialist.
She also claimed in her note, vigorously disputed by her husband Rob’s father, that Rob didn’t make enough money in his job as a group-home manager to support his surviving children and would also be unable to care for them properly in her absence.
Heaven: a religious myth
Though irrational in their extreme resolution and, in any event, tragically wrongheaded, Stephanie’s concerns could certainly be termed “real-world.” But her magical thoughts related to Zachary involved a nonexistent realm that is unfortunately almost always considered real in our majority-Christian culture. In truth, our eclectic visions of “heaven” are as diverse and populous as people on the planet, and each is completely trapped within an individual minds, forever safe from material scrutiny.
The bottom line is that as far as we can substantiate in reality, heaven simply doesn’t exist (as I’ve written about before), yet literally billions of human beings — including self-deluded Stephanie Hoover — fervently believe it does, far too often with tragic consequences. Zachary’s murder by his own mother sharply underlines this.
To argue that Mrs. Hoover was simply struggling with emotional or mental issues is a cop-out, however true that may be. The ever-present American narrative of divine redemption is the deeper motivator and, more importantly, perceived justifier. Indeed, how can choosing the godly path ever be misguided?
Every time a legal, constitutionally authorized abortion doctor is murdered by Christian pro-life zealots, that is people following the ostensibly godly path.
Every time Christian Identity white supremacists motivated by fears of supposedly imminent (but never occurring) Armageddon kill people while fighting the anti-Christ (government), they are following the same path.
Whenever devout Pakistani Muslim domestic terrorists kill outspoken religious skeptics, they are following the exact same godly path as murderous Christians.
Which is never to tar all the faithful with the same brush. The vast majority of human beings, enthralled with gods or not, are good, decent, kindly folk.
The point is that believing in things that cannot be substantiated can lead directly to tragedy. It’s irresponsible, sometimes even criminal, not to think through our intuitive beliefs rationally before acting.
you can tell Priya now knows how wrong the Russia hoax has been all along
whenever Priya goes into full troll mode and starts making unprovoked attacks on religious belief, you know something embarrassing is going on with the gay agenda
The good news keeps coming for Trump. The economy is booming. Not only should Trump win a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing South and North Korea together, he should be up for the Nobel prize for economics, too. Has any world leader in history earned both in the same year?
We found out on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate fell below 4 percent — the lowest since 2000.
ADP also reported that, in April, U.S. private companies added more than 200,000 jobs for the fifth month in a row. Demand for labor remains solid across every industry.
Obama bragged nonstop about quantity — never mentioning that his job growth consisted mostly of crappy, low-wage, part-time jobs that required food stamps to survive. Trump’s new jobs are great jobs. Manufacturing, mining and professional service jobs led the way in the April report. Over the past 12 months, manufacturing has added 245,000 high-wage jobs.
Incidentally, the black unemployment rate fell again — to the lowest in history. And the gap between white and black unemployment narrowed. It turns out Kanye West is a man of wisdom. Donald Trump is far better for the black community than Obama ever was.
The Democrats’ response? Bring up Stormy the porn star. It’s all liberals want to talk about. CNN and MSNBC have given Stormy wall-to-wall coverage for the past 60 days.
18 months after Trump's election, 15 months after his inauguration, America is booming and unemployment is at it's lowest since the last millenium. Minority unemployment is at its lowest rate ever. During Obama's administration, the Fed had to keep interest rates at near zero for eight years to keep the economy from collapsing. This hurt retirees who couldn't enough on CDs to sustain themselves. Obama also doubled the national debt, averaging trillion dollar deficits and borrowing more than all other Presidents in history COMBINED. This stimulus should have made the economy soar. Instead, Obama's over-regulation, mismanagement, and lack of faith in America's future led to a tepid crappy economy producing only menial jobs that paid so little that food stamps and unemployment checks were soaring. Unemployment fell because labor participation dropped, which Obama apologists and foreign trolls said was because of the retirement of baby boomers. Funny how that's now reversed itself.
As of Friday, Trump was at a robust 51 percent approval at Rasmussen. That’s far above where Trump was on the day he was elected. It’s also far above Obama at the same point of his presidency.
Another poll shows Trump’s evangelical Christian support at the highest point in history. So much for “the Stormy effect.”
Still another poll shows black male support for Trump has doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent since West announced his support for Trump.
Still another poll shows Democrats have lost 9 points with millennials since the election. Millennials believe the GOP is better for the economy.
This is an electoral earthquake!!!!!!
A new Morning Consult poll shows Republicans winning everything in the U.S. Senate. A nine-seat sweep is within reach. Five incumbent Democrat senators are losing by 5 points or more. Four other incumbent Democrat senators are statistically tied. “The Stormy effect” is bringing down the entire Democratic Party.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous just stop before you hurt yourself, you're obviously not cut out for thinking.
Republican John McCain requested that President Obama deliver the eulogy at his funeral ceremongy. The two fought a very powerful campaign against each other in which they emeraged as friends. McCain also said that he doesn't want Trump to attend his funeral ceremony. Not hardly obvious which person is a decent man and which isn't, eh? LOL!
Melania Trump’s Anti-Bullying Campaign Was Plagiarized Almost Word-For-Word From 2014 Obama Program
Two years ago, Melania Trump copied several lines in her Republican National Convention speech from an address Michelle Obama delivered in 2008. On Monday, Melania Trump formally announced the launch of an anti-cyberbullying initiative. Now she's yet again claiming someone else's work is hers.
Melania may be just as dumb and dishonest as Trump.
Update: Now that Melania has been caught plagerizing again she's changed the text on "her" anti-bullying campaign to say "this is being promoted by Melania". Too late Melania, you're scum just like the popular vote losing pussy grabber.
Trump has called on congress to cut back $15 billion in spending including on a children's health insurance program - he really is a heartless self-centred a-hole (just like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous). Remember when Trump said he'd come up with health care and "everyone will be covered"? No president has done the exact opposite of what he promised to the degree that Trump has.
Welcome to the United States, where the people claiming minorities shouldn't have special rights are defending the Electoral College getting to pick the president. As Trump said in 2012 "The Electoral College is a disaster for democracy!"
Meet Oliver North, the NRA's new president. During the Reagan administration North bought weapons from middle east terrorists to arm Cental American death squds who waged war against a democratically elected government. His actions contributed to the deaths of more than 30,000 innocent people, mostly unarmed farmers. North lied to Congress, destroyed documents and obstructed their investigation (in other words, a pretty typical Republican administration). Many Republicans consider North a hero for his criminal activities, because, you know, conservative tribal loyalty before fairness.
So, yeah, North as NRA president - fitting.
Who spends $400 million in cash to buy struggling golf courses? Trump and money launderers.
Who buys a home for $41 million, then paints it and sells it a couple of years later for $95 million to Russian Oligarchs? Trump and money launderers.
Who runs unprofitable casinos? Trump and money launderers.
See the pattern?
Dear Republicans,
Remember how you are always talking about the complete nightmare California is under Democrat Jerry Brown? After Republican Arnold left with record deficits, Jerry implemented those horrible taxes when they were just the 8th largest economy in the world? Remember how quiet you where when those liberal policies made them the 7th largest worlds's economy? Well, now CA is the 5th largest economy in the world with a 6 billion surplus while every single state run by Republicans are welfare queens getting tax money from California.
Here are a few of the ACTUAL records Trump set for his first year in office:
1) Most days vacationing.
2) Most games of golf played.
3) Least amount of bills signed.
4) Lowest approval rating.
5) Most provable lies told.
6) Most cabinet firings/resignations.
7) Most criminal indictments.
Smaller government is the facist dog whistle for: More Corporate Control
This Person Just Received Ontario's First Non-Binary Birth Certificate
With Ontario's current options for birth certificates—male, female, non-binary, as well as the option of displaying no sex identification—the province became the first jurisdiction in the world to implement such policy. Canada, of course! :)
Good News, Church: You’re Dying
Church,
I have some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is—you’re slowly dying.
Your buildings are clearing, your pews are emptying, your congregations are aging away.
There are many reasons for this, but here are a few:
You’re dying because of your hypocrisy.
People see the ever-widening chasm between who you say you are and what they regularly experience in your presence.
They see the great disparity between the expansive hospitality of Jesus and the narrow prejudice you are so often marked by.
They see Christ’s deep affection for the poor, hurting, and marginalized—and both your quiet indifference and open hostility toward them.
They’ve listened to you preach incessantly about the immorality of the world, the dangers of greed, the corrupt nature of power, the poison of untruth, the evils of sexual perversion—and watched you willingly align with a President embodying all of these.
They see that you are so often the very kind of malevolent ugliness that you forever warned was coming to assail the world.
You’re dying because of your willful ignorance.
People are tired of your war on Science.
They are sick of your arguing with Biology.
They know the earth is round.
They know it is billions, not thousands of years old.
They know dinosaurs walked it.
They know that it is warming rapidly.
They know people here don’t choose their sexuality.
They know whoever and whatever God is—doesn’t appoint Presidents or sanction weapons or attack people with tornadoes.
You’re dying because of your devotion to cruelty.
People watch you dig in your heels against others because of their gender identity and sexual orientation; the way you continually exact violence upon them, the way you try and blame God and the Bible for your fearful bigotry.
They’ve seen your intolerance to other religious traditions; how you vilify anyone who finds spirituality and meaning outside of Christianity, how you so easily disregard the faith stories of those who don’t reflect your own.
They’ve watched you so revel in being the bully to those you’re called to protect.
You’re dying because of your complicity in violence.
They’ve seen you so often be a safe haven for misogynists, domestic abusers, sexual predators, and white supremacists—who all receive protection in your antiquated words, your personality cults, and your enabling culture.
They see your pastors and leaders misuse their positions and leverage their influence to victimize the most vulnerable.
They’ve watched you be the last, hateful holdout in matters of gender equality, racial diversity, sexuality, and theological difference; lagging behind almost everyone in the kind of goodness you say you aspire to.
Because of these things, Church, people are rightly walking (some running) away, because they refuse to tolerate something that so regularly yields hatred while claiming to be made of love.
They are conscientious objectors in your unending holy wars; choosing to step away from you in order to create loving spiritual communities, grow deeper in personal faith, escape partisan politics, craft a healthier planet, reflect the character of Jesus, and hold onto their souls.
Yes, Church, the bad news is—you’re slowly but surely dying.
The good news, is that you’re dying—and something else is being born as you are.
Rising in these days is a diverse, sprawling community of disparate people, who want to create something life-giving here, who don’t care what it’s called and who gets the credit.
Yes, this bloated, mean-spirited version of you is slowly and most surely passing away; the hypocrisy and the enmity, all the violence and racism—these things are correctly being seen as irrelevant by a watching world who will no longer abide them or participate in them.
These newly-emancipated sojourners are creating something of compassion and generosity and hospitality—a faith that opens the table, a spirituality that welcomes the world, a religion that does no harm.
Church, though part of you is dying, you get to be resurrected differently now.
You get to live on in the lives of open-hearted human beings who want to unearth the beauty buried beneath heavy layers of rigid dogma, ornamental religion, and institutionalized discrimination.
These people are excavating your religion and releasing love from its man-made prison, and in this way—the best, truest parts of you will live on.
The bad news is that you are dying, Church.
And it’s the very good news, too.
"These people are excavating your religion and releasing love from its man-made prison, and in this way—the best, truest parts of you will live on."
haha!
Watch Priya flip and flop on the deck!!
Don't feel bad, Priya. You've made a pretty big fool of yourself the last couple of years, but life goes on.
Who manages a booming economy, gets nominated for a Nobel prize, reshapes the courts, shuts up the Chinese, stares down the deep state, easily wins re-election, and drives Priya crazy?
Gay Agenda Buster, that's who!
Another politician from the TTF wing of the Democratic Party is found out!
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned on Monday, just hours after a shocking report in The New Yorker detailed four of his former romantic partners’ accusations of physical abuse.
On Monday, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam went on the record to say that Schneiderman, 63, “repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent.” In one instance, Manning Barish said Schneiderman told her that “if you ever left me, I’d kill you.”
Two other women, quoted anonymously, had similarly troubling allegations of abuse.
Who presides over the lowest unemployment rate among blacks ever and doubles his approval rating among that key Dem constituency in a month, and is trusted by millenials, another key Dem constituency, with the economy?
Not Hillary, that's who!
Here Are Quick Rebuttals to Every Pro-Gun Talking Point from the NRA
All the right-wing lies about Trump’s transgender military ban, debunked
If the god of the bible exists then it is incumbent upon us as a race of moral beings to hunt it down and kill it.
Nice watching Priya flip and flop across the pier
Notice we're not hearing any Russia talk
hahahahahahahahaha!!!
"MAY 08, 2018 4:43 AM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
Here Are Quick Rebuttals to Every Pro-Gun Talking Point from the NRA"
how about the one where it's immoral to take away someone's rights because of something someone else did?
the Nazis used to do stuff like that all the time
I think lunatic fringe gay advocates might be Nazi wannabees!!
"MAY 08, 2018 2:30 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
All the right-wing lies about Trump’s transgender military ban, debunked"
how about the one where the army doesn't take mentally ill people because they need the best and the brightest?
"MAY 08, 2018 2:34 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
If the god of the bible exists then it is incumbent upon us as a race of moral beings"
are you saying you're part of a race of moral beings?
last I heard you were telling everyone that anything goes as long as no one gets hurt
you said it was the ONLY moral law
then, you started saying lying is wrong no matter what the consequence of telling the truth is - even if someone is hurt
based on your words here, you also seem to think hypocrisy and hate are morally good
Then, there's all the other little immoral ideas you indulge, like egalitarianism, materialism, stealing from those who have earned money, forcing people to bake cakes to celebrate immoral rituals, and that property is theft
we won't even get into your lack of gratitude and sense of entitlement
what moral race are you in, the Illumnati?
Notice we're not hearing any Russia talk
Hee hee, that's right anon, no Russia talk at all. Not a thing.
That'll really help with North Korea. The vast majority of Americans are remembering years past during No-Drama Obama when they didn't have to live through hourly breaking stories with the each being more insane than the last.
Russia wins from Trump's pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal:
1) Higher oil prices
2) U.S. continues to fade from world stage
3) Iran moves closer to Russia for defence
4) Iran buys more Russian military arms
5) Iran becomes less trustworthy of west
6) Other countries see U.S. as a bad partner.
Gee, its almost as if that's what Trump wanted...
No one in Russia is lamenting Trump's poor decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Just the opposite.
"MAY 08, 2018 9:56 PM
Anonymous Don't Look at the News said...
Notice we're not hearing any Russia talk
Hee hee, that's right anon, no Russia talk at all. Not a thing."
oh, the media has kept it up
I was saying TTF has gone silent
it becomes clearer by the day that Mueller has nothing, that the whole thing was a dirty trick by the Hillary campaign and the Obama administration, that rampant collusion to undermine the judgement of the American people has taken place at the DOJ & FBI
and that the whole affair is turning America against the Dems and helping Trump's poll numbers
but you'll always have Stormy Daniels, the porn star, and her lawyer, Saul, on your side
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!
"MAY 08, 2018 10:46 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
That'll really help with North Korea. The vast majority of Americans are remembering years past during No-Drama Obama"
what has made the North Korea situation so difficult is that, during the term of Obama the Worst, the US turned its back on an agreement to leave Gadaffi alone after he gave up his nuclear program under pressure from the Reagan adminstration
Kim Yum Fat knows Trump is serious and is responding by ending his nuclear program
Obama the Worst sat around doing noting while Fat developed ICBMs
"Russia wins from Trump's pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal:
1) Higher oil prices"
I thought liberals always say we shouldn't let oil determine our foreign policy
America is on the verge of energy independence, Russia is on the verge of bankruptcy
"2) U.S. continues to fade from world stage"
tell that to the Chinese, who are worried that Trump is painting them into the corner
"3) Iran moves closer to Russia for defence
4) Iran buys more Russian military arms"
Iran was already doing this, we weren't planning to ally with them
there's a word for nations that get all their military equipment from Russia:
losers
"5) Iran becomes less trustworthy of west"
darn, I was really hoping we'd get on their good side
did you hear about the 150,000 rockets that Hezbollah has amassed on the border of Israel with a little help from Iran?
that happened while we were on their good side
"6) Other countries see U.S. as a bad partner."
Gee, so far it seems everyone is trying to make us happy
anyway, Trump will negotiate a deal with Iran
we've noticed that gays seem to love Muslims and the Ayatollah says he'd like to have a word with our repressed homosexual population, so we're going to send them all to Iran in exchange for them giving up their nukes
"5) Iran becomes less trustworthy of west"
boy, is Priya right on this one!
we had developed such a wonderful rapport with the always jolly ayatollah
and, now, Trump just throws that all away
well, Iran knows the lunatic fringe gay advocates in America (and Canada!) have their back
the gay community and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are like a mutual admiration society
I have an idea: Priya can go over and patch things up with the ayatollah!
He'd love to see Priya!!
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