Friday, May 11, 2018

Some Good News for America

The Washington Times ended the work-week with a feel-good story that should keep you smiling all the way to Monday again.
Half of all Americans now live in ‘sanctuaries’ protecting immigrants

Study finds surge in those jurisdictions

About half of all Americans now live under sanctuary policies that shield illegal immigrants from law enforcement, according to the latest tally of jurisdictions that the Federation for American Immigration Reform is releasing Thursday.

FAIR calculates there were 564 states and municipalities that refuse some level of cooperation with federal immigration authorities as of April 1, up more than 200 since President Trump took office and up more than 500 compared with a decade ago. There were just 40 sanctuaries when President Obama took office.

Entire states such as California, Illinois and New York are now sanctuaries, as well as major cities and counties such as Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and the District of Columbia in the capital region, according to the list.

Combined, the sanctuaries on FAIR’s list cover 49 percent of the country’s population, The Washington Times calculated.

“This is just an astounding and a dramatic surge of sanctuary jurisdictions,” said Bob Dane, executive director at FAIR. “They’ve doubled in just two years, and if you game that out, if the exponential growth continues, it’s not going to be long before it’s accurate to say the U.S. is a sanctuary country.”

While there is no official definition of sanctuaries, FAIR counted any jurisdiction that bans police or other officials from asking about immigration status, forbids communication with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or refuses to hold likely deportees for pickup by ICE.

The organization scoured local government policies, looked at press reports and used ICE’s own set of reports last year listing jurisdictions that refused to honor “detainer” requests to hold illegal immigrants.

FAIR’s numbers are higher than other counts, such as the Ohio Jobs and Justice Political Action Committee, which has been tracking sanctuaries for years, or the ICE detainer list, which was started then quickly discontinued last year.
This is great news for people who would like to see the federal government butt out of people's lives. The present administration believes in breaking up families, destroying international alliances, separating children from their parents, and making it harder to get get good crabs, and even though I would like to see a kinder and more sensible federal government it is not bad to see local jurisdictions take matters into their own hands.

Enjoy your weekend.

80 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/trump-voters/

May 11, 2018 8:27 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

It really is outrageously hypocritical of the government to tell any potential immigrant they need permission to come into the country. When the first European immigrants came to the Americas they didn't seek permission from the existing inhabitants. Really, none of us has a right to be here except the aboriginals.

May 11, 2018 11:31 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

There’s now clear evidence that anti-poverty programs like welfare and Social Security work

Poverty-alleviation programs like food stamps (SNAP), Social Security, and other “welfare” programs are broadly effective at reducing poverty, a new study from University of Chicago researchers found.

May 11, 2018 11:37 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

Hi Priya

Hope all is well

Did you know support for Trump in the black community has doubled since Kanye West wore his MAGA hat?

Been a long time coming, you haven't done nothing

Nancy Pelosi is looking for a window to jump out of!

Jason Whitlock lamented that the African-American vote has been taken for granted by the Democratic party and that blacks have made a mistake by swallowing liberalism wholly. Whitlock noted the historical importance of the church in black history and said liberalism and the Democratic is now the church for blacks and it is "not working out for us."

He also spoke about the backlash musician Kanye West has received for his decision to come out and say he supports President Donald Trump. Whitlock said of course Kanye doesn't agree with Trump and the Republican party on everything but he is someone willing to acknowledge a good idea.

Whitlock said that type of thinking puts you at risk of being "kicked out of the black race." He said if we cast someone out of the human race just because we disagree with them then we would have no one left.

"I don't really like politics much at all, but if you just say I think Trump has a good idea here, you get kicked out of the black race," the sportswriter said. "Kanye is saying I don't agree with everything Trump believes in. Kanye, I'm sure, disagrees with Trump and the Republican party and conservatives on a lot of issues but he's not willing to cast someone out of the human race just because he disagrees with him. If I cast everybody out that I disagreed with I would have no one."

He also blacks have to examine why they are the only group that has gone all in with one party and why they are "chained" to an ideology that hasn't worked out for the race for the last 60 years.

"I think we've made a mistake," Whitlock said.

Whitlock made an interesting comparison of the Democratic party being marketed to black Americans as the solution to all the race's problems like cigarettes were decades ago.

"It's been marketed to us the same as cigarettes -- fashionable, sophisticated, it's supposed to be liberating but I think it needs a Surgeon General's warning, hazardous to your family and all the values you were taught as a child," he said of liberalism.

May 12, 2018 12:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It really is outrageously hypocritical of the government to tell any potential immigrant they need permission to come into the country."

what a surprise, Priya said something really stupid!

"When the first European immigrants came to the Americas they didn't seek permission from the existing inhabitants."

how did that work out for the residents at that time

"Really, none of us has a right to be here except the aboriginals."

especially, Priya

go back to the swamp you came from!

May 12, 2018 12:11 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Remember when Obama negotiated the release of 11 Americans from North Korea and Republicans hailed him as a hero? Yeah, me neither.

Racism is so wild. You got a black man who becomes president and some of these white evangelicals spend eight years calling him the literal reincarnation of the devil. Meanwhile Trump is doing somersaults through moral scandals and they change it up to say "no one is perfect". White Supremacy makes you delusional.

"So...you're telling me he was spanked using a magazine with his own face on it by a porn star who remined him of his daughter. Imma have to get back to you on this one" - Sigmund Freud

McCain only wants real presidents at his funeral, not ones that got captured by Russians.

May 12, 2018 3:11 AM  
Anonymous The Kanye Effect said...

Why anyone would believe anything Donald Trump says is beyond me. I mean, it has been proved that the president has lied at least 3,000 times since he took office.

But the spin—and the media’s consistent repeating of it—doesn’t stop.

Recently, Trump bragged about his support “doubling” among African Americans, but many of us, including writer Jamilah Lemieux, remained dubious.

Jamilah Lemieux ✔
@JamilahLemieux

A whopping 8 niggas. Where shall I send the bouquet? https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/992509577311801344 …
9:28 PM - May 4, 2018


As we should have.

Reuters, the poll being cited by Trump in his claim, says its data is being misconstrued. In fact, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that the Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll Trump used wouldn’t even be cited by the network “because [it] does not meet CNN’s standards for reporting.” According to the report:

"On May 2, the Daily Caller published a story titled “Black Male Approval for Trump Doubles in One Week.” This was two days before Trump brought up the subject at the [National Rifle Association’s] annual convention.

The Daily Caller cited Reuters/Ipsos polling. On April 22, the weekly tracking poll had “Trump’s approval rating among black men at 11 percent, while the same poll on April 29, 2018, pegged the approval rating at 22 percent.”

The story pointed out that “Reuters only sampled slightly under 200 black males each week.” But it didn’t explain why that would matter when interpreting the results. And in any case, that nuance was quickly lost as the headline was shared tens of thousands of times on social media."

Worse than the fuzzy math, though, is the fact that Trump’s minions began saying this surge was because of rapper Kanye West, who starting sharing his love for the president on social media that week.

Liz Wheeler ✔
@Liz_Wheeler
Reuters poll:

April 22: Black male approval of Trump at 11%
April 29: Black male approval of Trump at 22%

The Kanye effect?
1:49 PM - May 3, 2018


A day after One America News network’s Liz Wheeler talked about the “Kanye effect,” the president doubled down on that narrative, thanking West in a speech before the NRA.

“Kanye West must have some power,” he said, “because you probably saw I doubled my African-American poll numbers. We went from 11 to 22 in one week. Thank you, Kanye. Thank you.”

And even there, there was a lie within the lie. Trump’s numbers allegedly only “doubled” with African-American men—you know black women weren’t a part of that bullshit.

CNN’s director of polling and election analytics, Jennifer Agiesta, explains that Trump’s poll is doo-doo because “it was conducted using a non-probability online sample, meaning that those who participated signed up to take the poll rather than being randomly selected.”

Bottom line: This means “there could be bias in the sample.”

Also, according to CNN, “the credibility interval [in the poll Trump cited] was more than +/- 9 percentage points for each measurement, which leaves open the possibility that his approval also could have dropped in this time frame” (emphasis mine).

The three polls that do meet CNN’s standards—Gallup, the Pew Research Center and Quinnipiac University—all show Trump’s approval rating for African Americans at about 13-14 percent. Which means that about 85 percent of us disapprove—Kanye West be damned.

May 12, 2018 7:53 AM  
Anonymous Trump's Art of the Steal subtitle said...

How to Lie with Statistics

May 12, 2018 7:59 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"Remember when Obama negotiated the release of 11 Americans from North Korea and Republicans hailed him as a hero? Yeah, me neither."

No, I don't. I recall Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter going over and picking up prisoners as part of a PR push by the North Korea. This happens so frequently that its not notable. Obama never really negotiated anything, btw. His activities would be better described as working out the details of his capitulation.

I don't hear anyone "hailing" Trump as a hero for getting these hostages. It's something we expect North Korea to do whenever they're trying to create an impression. They regularly arrest Americans so they can later do this.

Of course, one thing different about Trump is that he doesn't pussyfoot around. He confronted Kim Yum Fat and is getting results. If the upcoming negotiations are fruitful, he will be hailed as a hero. The world seemed on the verge of a nuclear war just a few months back and Trump may get a denuclearized peninsula.

If so, in addition to the Nobel Prize and Time's Man of the Year, Trump will put the final nail in the Dem coffin.

The economy is booming. Interest rates are starting to rise to healthy levels. Quality jobs are being produced not the crappy jobs Obama created where workers had to go on food stamps to get by. Labor participation is up. Minority unemployment is at its lowest level ever. partly because, in addition to the general increase in economic activity, Trump has stopped the flow of illegal immigrants soaking up all the unskilled job opportunities.

Meanwhile, Dems think the will get a bunch of votes screaming about a porn star who had a consensual affair with Trump over a decade ago. Historians a century from now will marvel at their stupidity.

"Racism is so wild."

There will always be some level of racism present. What we have is a society where that is no longer an insurmountable obstacle to success.

"You got a black man who becomes president"

Yes, and he entered office with a 70% approval rating and was re-elected, serving the maximum term. Sounds like racism is not much of a problem.

"and some of these white evangelicals spend eight years calling him the literal reincarnation of the devil"

I don't recall that, although in a country of over 300 million, you can probably find someone who said just about anything. One symptom of psychosis is to extrapolate single incidents to vast swaths of population groups. This is exacerbated when you have someone like Priya, who seethes with hatred.

"Meanwhile Trump is doing somersaults through moral scandals and they change it up to say "no one is perfect"."

You need to stop thinking of the Presidency as a meritorious award bestowed by the Wizard of Oz just before he gets in his balloon. Trump is President because he knows how to get things done. It's not a matter of forgiveness, it's a matter of irrelevance. It just doesn't matter to the country as a whole. Talk to Melania.

"White Supremacy makes you delusional."

Yeah, we're just imagining all those jobs and judges.

""So...you're telling me he was spanked using a magazine with his own face on it by a porn star who remined him of his daughter. Imma have to get back to you on this one" - Sigmund Freud"

Priya sounds jealous.

"McCain only wants real presidents at his funeral, not ones that got captured by Russians."

McCain has always craved the adoration of the press. Sounds he's taking that to his last breath. Sad.

May 12, 2018 8:19 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"The Daily Caller cited Reuters/Ipsos polling. On April 22, the weekly tracking poll had “Trump’s approval rating among black men at 11 percent, while the same poll on April 29, 2018, pegged the approval rating at 22 percent.”"

We have a TTFer who blabs on above, trying to discredit sampling techniques they have relied on for years. Sad denial of reality. When the truth is too harsh, some can't take it.


May 12, 2018 8:26 AM  
Anonymous A Democrat will be D18's next MD State Senator said...

Democratic primary election

Dana Beyer, Michelle Carhart, and Jeff Waldstreicher are running in the Maryland State Senate District 18 Democratic primary election.

Republican primary election

No Republican candidates filed for election.

https://ballotpedia.org/Maryland_State_Senate_District_18

May 12, 2018 11:10 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"Democratic primary election

Dana Beyer, Michelle Carhart, and Jeff Waldstreicher are running in the Maryland State Senate District 18 Democratic primary election."

yeah, Jeff stopped by my house the other night and we laughed about the last time he cleaned Dana's clock

Dana got the unions ticked off here during the Duchy days and that's unforgivable here in the gay socialist republic of Monkey County

Dana thinks the annoying pop-up ads on everyone's computers will get votes

no, Dana, they just annoy potential voters

"Republican primary election

No Republican candidates filed for election."

uh, DUH...

you new to this area?

May 12, 2018 11:45 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

To all of you who still support Trump: When we ask "How dumb can you be?" Please don't take it as a challenge.

May 12, 2018 1:25 PM  
Anonymous Candidate in District 18 Delegate Race Details Alleged Political Maneuvering by Waldstreicher said...

Helga Luest said she believes Del. Jeff Waldstreicher encouraged her to enter the state Senate race to make it tougher for his challenger, Dana Beyer, to win

Del. Jeff Waldstreicher has been accused by a local candidate of trying to entice her to join the District 18 state Senate race to potentially make the race more difficult for Waldstreicher’s primary challenger, Dana Beyer.

Helga Luest, who is running for one of three District 18 delegate seats, posted Friday on Facebook that in December Waldstreicher (D-Kensington) suggested she do him a “favor” by joining the Senate race instead of running for a delegate seat.

“I was shocked, offended, and felt disrespected,” Luest wrote on Facebook. “The request—presumably made to split the vote and make it tougher for his then only opponent, Dana Beyer— wasn’t a joke and neither of us laughed.”

Waldstreicher denied Luest’s allegations in a statement sent to Bethesda Beat, but would not comment further.

“These claims are false, defamatory, and born of actual malice,” Waldstreicher, who has served as a delegate since 2007, said in the statement. “When they go low, I go high—standing up for our community’s progressive values, leading the fight for $15 minimum wage, investing in our schools and resisting the Trump administration at every turn.”

However, Luest pushed back against Waldstreicher’s denial.

“That’s absolutely incorrect and he knows it,” Luest told Bethesda Beat Monday. “He’s going to say what he wants to say. I know the truth. It says even more to me that he isn’t being honest about it.”

She said he pitched the idea when the two met at Java Nation in Kensington on Dec. 22. She also shared with Bethesda Beat a Dec. 22 Facebook message conversation with a friend in which she discussed Waldstreicher’s offer. She wrote to the friend who, she described as her "brother," that Waldstreicher said she should focus on being a third vote for people in the Senate race because he believed it would help her politically...

...In January, the politics blog Seventh State reported that Beyer rejected a request from Waldstreicher to drop out of the Senate race and instead run for delegate in District 18. Two of the three delegate seats are open in the district because Waldstreicher is running for Senate and another incumbent, Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez, is running for the District 1 County Council seat. The blog reported that if Beyer moved to the delegate race, Waldstreicher offered to run on a slate with her to help her win...

...The day after the Seventh State post was published, Luest said Waldstreicher contacted her to discuss their conversation. She shared with Bethesda Beat text messages exchanged between her and Waldstreicher about arranging to talk by phone on Jan. 13. During the call, she said, Waldstreicher asked her to reframe their conversation at the coffee shop as “a joke.”

“I told him I had no intention of reframing anything,” Luest said.

She said she decided to go public with her version of events because she felt the need to be transparent.

“The way men are treating women, or using their power is really significant,” Luest said. “To keep a story like this silent doesn’t help anyone.”..."


TTFTroll + Jeff Waldstreicher = Misogyny's Mighty Duo

May 12, 2018 1:33 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

So agent orange rescinded Obama-era rules protecting transgender inmates, so transwomen are now forced to be housed with men where they have been and will be subject to sexual abuse and assault.

But, hey, "the gays are doing just fine" according to Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous because to them there is nothing that could be done to LGBT people that isn't "fine".

Trump is the most anti-gay president in U.S. history.

May 12, 2018 1:35 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"TTFTroll + Jeff Waldstreicher = Misogyny's Mighty Duo"

haha!! my only thing I like about JW is that he has made Dana look stupid by trumping Dana in past elections

btw, playing politics with Dana is not misogyny, by definition

Dana is a guy who had himself mutilated to approximate the image of a girl, if you're viewing from a distance

"MAY 12, 2018 1:33 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
So agent orange rescinded Obama-era rules"

uh, voters rejected the Obama era in November 2016

of course, Obama made it easy to reverse everything he did because he didn't know how to work with Congress

the only they passed during Obama era is Obamacare, which is why it was hard to get rid of

Eisenhower wanted to reverse the New Deal, and Reagan wanted to reverse the Great Society, but couldn't because FDR and LBJ pushed these through Congress

Obama, the most incompetent Prez ev, didn't even know how to talk to a Congressman

May 12, 2018 5:13 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

So, evil Jeff Sessions introduced a policy of seperating refugee parents from their children when they reach the boarder. Last year the New York Times reported they've already lost 1500 children they placed with sponsrs agncies...they don't know where they are. That's 1500 children that are missing.

I wouldnt be surprised if some of them are found as slave labourers in wealthy christianist homes sometime in the future.

Stupid stuff theists say..."I get my morality from the bible."
No, you don't. Your morality comes from common sense and respect for human dignity. This is why you don't stone the waitress to death when you to to breakfast after church for "working on the sabbath".

May 12, 2018 10:39 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

A CNN poll of adults on which has been a better president, Obama or the tangerine tornado. 56% said Obama, 37% said Trump. Not hardly a surprise, lol!

Alberta is Canada's Texas. Even in the land of enlightenment there exists evil conservatives. The conservative party in Alberta is proposing a law that would require parents to be informed if their teenager joins a gay/straight alliance group in school

Teach your children whatever you want at home. Teach them that God’s biggest concern about the state of the world in 2018 is that two 15-year-old boys in Red Deer might kiss. But no one is forcing teenagers into Gay-Straight Alliances: they exist because students want to support other students. There is no need or reason for a school to “out” anybody. Any child in a healthy family, regardless of their parents’ feelings about the LGBTQ+ “lifestyle”, will eventually feel free and secure enough to discuss it with them – or choose not to – on their own terms. And any parent at home seething with rage about whether their child is fraternising with the dreaded gay almost certainly does not deserve to know about it.

Conservatives don't or won't realize that children are not their positions that they may do as they please with them. The rest of the world doesn't have to keep silent lest your child hears something you don't approve of. You are not the dictator over your children. That's how my parents were and I have nothing but contempt for their memory and happiness they are gone.

May 13, 2018 1:46 AM  
Anonymous GOPers don't even try run in MoCo anymore said...

Happy Mothers Day, Regina!




May 13, 2018 8:27 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"when they reach the boarder"

"seperating refugee parents"

"children are not their positions"

what can you say about someone who expects everyone to trust anything they say and they can't even master basic spelling?

"I wouldnt be surprised if some of them are found as slave labourers in wealthy christianist homes sometime in the future."

were you born a jackass, or were you trained?

what is "I wouldnt"?

must be Canadian for "I stupid"

"Stupid stuff theists say..."I get my morality from the bible."
No, you don't. Your morality comes from common sense and respect for human dignity."

actually, theists don't say that

the Bible is a story about restoring the rift between man and God

it presumes everyone know the difference between right and wrong

that's what when you hear lunatic fringe gay advocates say laws to discourage homosexuality are a violation of church-state separation, it's fallacious

homosexuality has been considered immoral by all religions and even forcibly atheistic states

it's common sense

btw, some don't even have common sense

for years, Priya said the definition of morality is just do whatever you feel like as long as don't directly harm anyone

yikes!

May 13, 2018 10:23 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"This is why you don't stone the waitress to death when you to to breakfast after church for "working on the sabbath"."

uh, Priya

Earth to Priya

church doesn't generally happen on the sabbath

church is on Sundays

the sabbath goes from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday

if you want to be literate, you have to read the Bible

"A CNN poll of adults on which has been a better president, Obama or the tangerine tornado. 56% said Obama, 37% said Trump. Not hardly a surprise, lol!"

sadly, CNN has become one of the most biased cable news channels

it wasn't easy with MSNBC pushing hard for the prize

"Alberta is proposing a law that would require parents to be informed if their teenager joins a gay/straight alliance group in school"

good for them

parents need to know if their kids need therapy

who do you think is going to pay for it?

"God’s biggest concern about the state of the world in 2018 is that two 15-year-old boys in Red Deer might kiss."

I've never heard anyone says this

do you have a quote?

we'll wait

"But no one is forcing teenagers into Gay-Straight Alliances:"

yeah, no one is forcing into other dangerous activities, like drug abuse either

parents need to know what help their kids need

"they exist because students want to support other students."

they exist because lunatic fringe gay advocates what to make sure any kid thinking about becoming a homosexual does so

"Conservatives don't or won't realize that children are not their positions that they may do as they please with them. The rest of the world doesn't have to keep silent lest your child hears something you don't approve of. You are not the dictator over your children."

this is the classic cry from public schools who want to control kids and prefer not to get any interference from anyone with the authority to stop them

they like dealing directly with kids because our society gives no rights to kids

"That's how my parents were and I have nothing but contempt for their memory and happiness they are gone."

yes, we are all aware that you are consumed with hatred and there is nothing else left of you

sad

"Anonymous GOPers don't even try run in MoCo anymore said..."

that's been going on for years

if you like one-party governments, try North Korea

they'd love to work with you

May 13, 2018 10:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Then-Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid released a letter in the heat of the 2016 election alleging Trump-Russia collusion even though the CIA director at the time urged him not to, according to a person familiar with their conversation.

Mr. Reid’s Aug. 27 letter to the FBI appears to mark the first time a Democrat officially accused President’ Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russian government to hack his party’s computers.

The letter has come to represent the “deep state” — Obama loyalists leaking unproven allegations to the press against Mr. Trump and his people to ruin the campaign, the transition and the White House.

“The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount,” Mr. Reid wrote to FBI Director James B. Comey.

Mr. Reid wrote and leaked his letter after receiving a secret telephone briefing from then-CIA Director John Brennan.

The retired senator has portrayed the letter as having the blessing of Mr. Brennan, a fierce Trump critic who suggests the president is beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin for fear of blackmail.

But now the Brennan side rebuts Mr. Reid’s contention that the then-CIA director was actively trying to leak damaging anti-Trump information during the election.

May 13, 2018 10:43 AM  
Anonymous GOPers don't even try run in MoCo anymore said...

"if you like one-party governments, try North Korea"

Spoken like a true bubble dweller.

USA President GOP
US Senate GOP
US House GOP

So blind to what is real.

Look in the mirror to see one who adores one-party government.

May 13, 2018 10:44 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

Donald Trump just enjoyed the best week of his presidency. His detractors, whose mood swings remain inversely proportional to the president’s popularity, suffered through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

They will remember it the way normal Americans remember 9/11, the Challenger explosion, or the Kennedy Assassination. For years to come, they ask their coreligionists in the Church of the Holy Roller Trump Hate: Where were you when everything went so right for a man so wrong?

Psychiatric bills mount. Too many valium pills count.

When Donald Trump imposed harsh sanctions on North Korea last year, exchanged insults (“dotard,” “rocketman”) with Kim Jong Un, and uttered such words as “we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” critics accused him of putting the United States “on the path to World War III.” Actually, one of the president’s ostensible allies in his own party said that. His more full-throated critics said worse. Instead of a path to war, the president’s words persuaded the North Koreans to release three Americans held in captivity, formally end their war with South Korea, and agree to June talks with the United States on neutral ground. Talk of a Nobel Peace Prize abounds.

Domestically, tranquility ensues. April’s jobs report indicates a 3.9 unemployment rate. This marks the first time in the new millennium that the rate sank below four percent. The black unemployment reached its lowest level since the federal government began compiling the statistic.

May 13, 2018 10:50 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

The missteps and crashes of celebrity Trump haters over the past seven days compounds matters for the rank-and-file Trump haters.

Eric Schneiderman, who sued the Trump administration over immigration, the environment, transsexual rights, and much else, resigned this week over allegations that he physically abused several women, including one who got slapped for boldly refusing his advances. Late last year, TBS host Samantha Bee called Schneiderman “Spiderman” and compared him to Superman. Bee be like, “You’re gonna save us” and “you are a superhero.” One woman’s Superman is another bruised woman’s Lex Luthor.

Michael Avenatti, the camera-friendly lawyer of Stormy Daniels, issued startling allegations that President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen received payments from such places as Kenya, Russia, and Malaysia. “No, I never talk with or meet Trump,” a 26-year-old El Al employee named Michael Cohen told NBC News. He received a wire transaction from his brother in Kenya. “He owed me some money.” The real Michael Cohen’s lawyer wrote of a Canadian with the same name who received money from Tanzania, “The Michael Cohen who was actually involved in this transaction has expressed grave concerns about the breach of his privacy by Mr. Avenatti’s apparently improper possession and publication of his personal bank records.”

Marc Cohen of “Walking in Memphis” fame, Mets play-by-play man Gary Cohen, and comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen remain safe from Avenatti’s probe — but for how long?

Robert Mueller, the most powerful of the anti-Trump triumvirate, received a stunning rebuke from a federal judge a week ago. On Friday, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III wondered where the special counsel derived the authority to pursue his case against Paul Manafort, which involves charges dating back more than decade prior to any allegation of Russian collusion. The judge informed the prosecution, “It’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me the special counsel has unfettered power to do whatever he wants.” He further questioned Mueller’s motives in bringing the case. “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort,” the Ronald Reagan appointee explained. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead to Mr. Trump.” The following day, Mueller suffered a second courthouse loss. U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich rejected Mueller’s request to delay the arraignment of 13 Russians accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

All that and President Trump made good on a campaign promise to withdraw from the Iran deal imposed on the United States by his predecessor (but never ratified in the Senate), orchestrated a welcome outcome in the West Virginia U.S. Senate primary, experienced a surge in the polls, and watched his wife unveil a new campaign featuring the positively Trumpian slogan “Be Best.”

May 13, 2018 10:51 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

Each day, the impending electoral “blue tidal wave” gets upgraded on the Hawaiian scale of electoral wave strength. Every special election, no matter how small, is inflated to an epic scale that “spells disaster” for the president and the party he commandeered in 2016.

Just one thing stands in the way of this electoral disaster of biblical proportions.

Reality.

The writing is simply not on the wall for a Democratic blow-out. The president’s approval rating has been consistently higher than Obama enjoyed at the same point in his presidency. Economic news has been staggeringly good. The unemployment rate is at a 44-year low. The Democrats have no coherent message. The NRA is flush with cash following this year’s extremist anti-gun rhetoric. And the RNC has 40 million dollars more than the “dead broke” DNC.

Now, this is not to suggest that Republicans will make huge gains themselves. Honestly, how many more offices are left for Republicans to win? The only place where Republicans could see real growth is California, where we might not even be able to field a candidate for governor or senator. The party’s silver lining for the Golden State is, as always, that California is the living embodiment of the failure of left-wing politics. With no grown-ups in Sacramento, California’s pain is the Republicans’ gain.

And for their electoral woes in the other 49 states, Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

The party that once genuinely championed the working-class and traditional liberal values has been hijacked by elite coastal millionaires; insane college professors; impossible-to-please social justice warriors; and an unending, unthinking mob of protesters. The Democrats’ “big tent” has become a three-ring circus.

Liberals no longer call themselves “liberal” because they have abandoned the values that word embodies: “liberty.” Instead they now use the Orwellian term “progressive.” Only what we want is progress. Those who disagree will report to the Ministry of Love for re-education.

The far left, which has become the mainstream left, has turned on core liberal values like the presumption of innocence; freedom of speech; freedom of the press; the right to a secret ballot; racial integration; and freedom of religion. (The last one doesn’t even require a citation.) So basically, progressives have declared war on the core tenets of democracy.

Many even want to get rid of democracy.

There’s no room for classical freedoms when there’s a frenzied mob starving for its daily dose of outrage. The left now wantonly advocates violence against dissenters and frequently carries it out. Progressives haven’t just abandoned the best parts of liberalism, they’ve embraced the worst tactics once used only by the far-right.

May 13, 2018 10:54 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

This was bad in the years leading up to Trump’s victory and has only gotten worse since. Instead of toning down, the left has doubled down — with fresh attacks every day on any American institution imaginable. Upon the altar of impossible multi-culturalism, the schizophrenic left has sacrificed any hint of unity, which we’re seeing already with nasty primaries and disobedient candidates.

They have no core set of principles such as, say, nationalism — or even better, shared religious values. Their manufactured unity is constantly shrieking about prejudice, and inventing it when they can’t find it, with divisive, hypocritical nonsense like “micro-aggressions,” “cultural appropriation,” and telling people they can’t wear Black Panther costumes.

The modern left has waged a constant, relentless attack on American culture. Their main victim has been the Democratic Party itself.

Doubling down on identity politics will make finding a single candidate impossible, with 50 Democrats competing for the top spot and two unforgivably old white men at the head of the pack. Sorry, Bernie Sanders: even being Jewish won’t be enough for diversity zealots, and it certainly won’t sit well with the increasingly anti-Semitic part of the party of protests.

Democrats will fight each other over ideological purity, cannibalize their side’s resources, and provide endless grist for Matt Drudge to shock mainstream America into re-electing the man they feel stands between them and anarchy. Voters may want to check some of Trump’s eccentricities, but why give control of the country to people who can’t hate it enough?

Conventional wisdom suggests the party out of power will pick up seats in a midterm election, which does seem reasonable. But keep in mind that the same people predicting disaster assured us two years ago that Trump could never be the nominee, and then could never win the White House. After miscalculating the 2000 elections, pundits became cautious. After imploding in 2016, they became hysterical.

So ignore the obstinate, biased, alarmist headlines: the blue tidal wave will, at best, be a blue trickle.

May 13, 2018 10:57 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"USA President GOP
US Senate GOP
US House GOP

So blind to what is real.

Look in the mirror to see one who adores one-party government."

I thought we were talking about Monkey County

there are Dem candidates everywhere in the US, they just have a way of losing

here', in Monkey County, the other party is repressed by the teacher unnins

btw, you forgot GOP Supreme Court, GOP governor mansions, GOP state legislatures

and people are starting to realize which party will keep them employed

May 13, 2018 11:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous GOPers don't even try run in MoCo anymore said...

Yep, one party government, all marching in lockstep, just the way you like it.

May 13, 2018 11:38 AM  
Anonymous GOPers don't even try run in MoCo anymore and they prefer Trumplandia to America said...

Only 13 percent of Republicans say that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is a “legitimate investigation.” Fully three-quarters of Republicans agree with President Donald Trump that it’s a “witch hunt.”

Meanwhile, 76 percent of Democrats consider it a legitimate investigation. That’s according to a new Economist/YouGov survey of 1,500 adults between May 6 and 8 about the investigation.

What’s more, 61 percent of Republicans believe the FBI is framing Trump. Just 17 percent of Republicans say the nation’s federal law enforcement agency isn’t after the president, and about a fifth — 21 percent — weren’t sure.

Twenty-five percent of independents think Trump is being framed, with 39 percent saying he is not. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats say Trump isn’t being framed, 7 percent of Democrats think he is, and 15 percent aren’t sure.

The responses to questions about Trump in this Economist/YouGov survey are an example of the country’s political polarization and reflect recent trends of Republicans losing confidence in the FBI. It’s also another sign of the effectiveness of Trump’s messaging with the GOP that Republicans are now so deeply skeptical of federal law enforcement.

Just last week, for example, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani referred to FBI agents who raided attorney Michael Cohen’s home and office as “stormtroopers,” and Trump tweeted about a book that claims he is being framed, saying: “A sad chapter for law enforcement. A rigged system!”

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Republican Party is shifting toward Trump’s worldview. When Trump blasted professional football players who kneeled during the national anthem, Republicans’ approval of the NFL also dropped.

But Republicans’ newfound suspicion of law enforcement is far more troubling. Mueller’s investigation has indicted 19 people so far, but it’s now headed toward confrontation as Mueller’s team presses for an interview with Trump. Trump has cleaned house on his legal team and brought in new lawyers, including Giuliani and Emmet T. Flood, a skilled attorney who worked on Bill Clinton’s team during his impeachment. It signals a more aggressive approach to Mueller’s investigation, one that might force the special counsel to subpoena the president. A protracted court battle could follow, and if this recent poll is any indication, the country will remain bitterly divided over that fight.

There is one reassuring — if somewhat contradictory — finding in the poll, however. When respondents are asked whether the president should fire Mueller, only 34 percent of Republicans said he should. The exact same amount (34 percent) say he should not fire the special counsel. Another third are unsure.

Democrats, at 66 percent, overwhelmingly favor Mueller keeping his job, and 36 of independents agree Mueller should stay put.


This guy isn't just another politician. He's uniquely destructive of the very concept of reality. Through constant repetition he has millions of believing that up is down and black is white.

And you have to give him credit. In one year he's managed to turn the previously most protective of the federal institutions of intelligence and law enforcement against them solely to protect himself. It's quite a feat.

If they really believe the FBI set Trump up we are way further down the rabbit hole than I thought.

May 13, 2018 12:09 PM  
Anonymous Drip, drip, drip... said...

Mueller Investigating Unaccounted For Surplus Donations to Trump Inaugural Committee

ABC News reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating contributions to Trump’s inaugural commission, some of which apparently came from Russian oligarchs (which is a fancy term for organized crime bosses and their corporations, including Putin).

This is an area where buying access and outright bribery is easy to do. That inaugural committee raised a staggering $107 million, more than double what Obama did, and while they have to disclose the names of those who donated, they don’t have to disclose how the money was spent. And there’s really not all that much to spend it on. The government picks up most of the costs of the inaugurations. The money the candidate raises is used for a concert and for lavish balls that are private and restricted, not public events.

Where all that money went remains a mystery. Trump friend and confidant Thomas Barrack, who oversaw the fundraising effort promised a full accounting by last November, but failed to produce one as of January. They promised to donate the excess to various charities, but have refused to produce evidence of having done so. It would be all too easy for a whole lot of that money to end up going to Trump and his family, directly or indirectly. It’s an area rife with the potential for corruption, which makes it a good place to investigate influence-peddling and bribery — and money laundering too.

May 13, 2018 1:23 PM  
Anonymous Yep, that's right. It's Russia, Russia, Russia! said...

Remember how President Donald Trump said that if Special Counsel Robert Mueller were to look into his finances that it would be beyond the scope of his investigation and warrant firing? At the time, that seemed like a tacit clue that his money would reveal criminal behavior, and more recent news seems to reaffirm that following the money points to some egregious behavior.

Just when we thought all of the dirt had come out about Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, we’ve now learned that the same shell company Cohen used to covertly pay off Stormy Daniels also received half a million dollars from Viktor Vekselberg, a tycoon who is connected to many of the influential Russians that Trump has denied being affiliated with, including Putin.

Was Vekselberg trying to reimburse Cohen for the payment he made to Daniels? Was he just trying to slyly slip money to Cohen and Trump to exert other influence? Though these questions certainly warrant an answer, it’s too soon to know for sure.

Well, it’s too soon for us to know for sure. Evidently, Mueller questioned Vekselberg last year, which suggests that Mueller has been on to whatever this scheme is for quite some time. Despite Trump’s protests, it seems these finances could very well be pertinent to collusion with Russia.

In the meantime, we’ve learned that major corporations such as AT&T, pharmaceutical company Novartis and Korea Aerospace Industries have also paid into Cohen’s account.

On the record, the companies have made excuses for these payments. Sure, they have businesses where influence in the White House would be beneficial, but they swear they were just paying Cohen as a consultant. Novartis claims they gave Cohen $1.2 million so that he could explain to them the positions of the Trump administration. They added that he failed to provide them with valuable information, but they continued to pay him anyway.

However, an anonymous executive connected to one of the aforementioned companies has told the press that the arrangement is exactly what it looks like. Cohen “was promising access to Trump and members of the administration, positioning himself as a lobbyist.”

By not being a registered lobbyist, however, he was circumventing all sorts of the usual rules. Rather than draining the swamp, it looks like Trump’s team is just digging holes to form new kinds of swamps.

May 13, 2018 3:00 PM  
Anonymous Samantha Bee rocks said...

"Late last year, TBS host Samantha Bee called Schneiderman “Spiderman” and compared him to Superman. Bee be like, “You’re gonna save us” and “you are a superhero.” One woman’s Superman is another bruised woman’s Lex Luthor."

Unlike some people, Samantha Bee is willing to admit it when she learns she was wrong about a person she once praised.

"TV comedian Samantha Bee has turned on New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with a vengeance — retracting her past praise in a profane rant against the disgraced former pol.

In the opening monologue on the latest episode of her weekly cable program, “Full Frontal,” Bee went on a coarse tirade that called the domestic abuse allegations against Schneiderman “especially infuriating, given his supposed woke bae-ness.”

“Now, Schneiderman was a guest on my show, so this is a little complicated for me to talk about, but — just kidding, it’s not complicated. F–k you, Eric Schneiderman!” she said, to cheers and applause from the audience.

“No, no, let me say it louder,” Bee interrupted, before repeating the insult with audio reverb added.

Bee also gestured to a video screen with the message printed out in flaming capital letters, flanked by images of two hands flipping the bird.

“The good legal work that you did does not absolve you. It will not give me not one second’s pause about tearing you a new a–hole on television. I give zero f–ks … Eric Schneiderman, you are trash and we do not need you!” she fumed Wednesday night on TBS.

Bee’s foul-mouthed about-face came a day after her show re-labeled an online video clip of an interview last year during which Bee gushed to Schneiderman, “You a superhero!” for opposing President Trump.

The Nov. 8 segment is now titled “Former AG Tricks Sam Into Thinking He Was Decent” on YouTube, where a description notes, “We taped this segment before the allegations against Eric Schneiderman came to light, and we sincerely apologize for characterizing him as a hero when, to so many women, he was the vilest villain.”"

https://nypost.com/2018/05/10/samantha-bee-to-eric-schneiderman-f-k-you/

It's called "learning" and it's good for everyone.

May 13, 2018 3:45 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"Yep, one party government, all marching in lockstep, just the way you like it."

yep, the voters had a choice, unlike teacher-union-controlled monkey county

one of the amusing aspects of the current political scene is Dems complaining how polarized everyone and, yet, any two people who agree on anything are characterized by them as "tribal" or "marching in lockstep"

sad, the rhetorical games to distract from the fact that Americans just don't buy the "progressive" worldview

in conservative circles, there is freedom of thought because they are confident a fair discussion will confirm their view

in progressive circles, there is constant pressure to shut down all discussion, because they are ware a fair discussion will not confirm their view

see the difference?

"But Republicans’ newfound suspicion of law enforcement is far more troubling."

Let's look back at the last few years of the Obama administration. Dems were constantly bringing doubt on the integrity of law enforcement. Indeed, crime was falling for decades until Dems starting blaming police of racism every time someone gets shot in an incident. Police pulled back on their enforcement to avoid being branded by Dems and the media as the bad cop of the week and crime started rising again.

So, now when you hear "Republicans’ newfound suspicion of law enforcement is far more troubling," you just have to laugh. The same people who have saying that J Edgar Hoover blackmailed Presidents for decades now think Comey and Mueller merit papal infallibility.

hahahahahaha

May 13, 2018 8:24 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"Mueller’s investigation has indicted 19 people so far,"

yeah, 13 were questionable charges against Russians who he assumed would never be tried

but, tables turned, one of the indicted is pushing for a trial and Mueller is trying to delay

"but it’s now headed toward confrontation as Mueller’s team presses for an interview with Trump"

he has yet to demonstrate there is anything that Trump could tell him he can't find out otherwise

as for the 'what were you thinking' questions, they are offensive and Trump shouldn't answer them

Mueller has failed

"This guy isn't just another politician. He's uniquely destructive of the very concept of reality."

oh, please

compared to the lying of Clinton, Trump is an amateur

Obama didn't lie as much but he wasn't opposed to it if it was necessary to degrade America

"If they really believe the FBI set Trump up we are way further down the rabbit hole than I thought."

actually, it's pretty well documented that they did just that

"ABC News reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating contributions to Trump’s inaugural commission"

oh look, the latest smoking gun of the week

they don't have much of a shelf life

sad

"Where all that money went remains a mystery"

kind of like all the money contributed to Hillary and Jeb Bush

oh dear

"Just when we thought all of the dirt had come out about Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, we’ve now learned that the same shell company Cohen used to covertly pay off Stormy Daniels also received half a million dollars from Viktor Vekselberg, a tycoon who is connected to many of the influential Russians that Trump has denied being affiliated with, including Putin."

so what?

"Was Vekselberg trying to reimburse Cohen for the payment he made to Daniels?"

I guess that's possible.

But there's not a shred of evidence that's so.

It's also possible that Hillary raised money at Comet Ping-Pong to pay Russians for information in the Steele dossier.

And in the resistance era, everything possible is fact!

"Though these questions certainly warrant an answer,"

they do?

OK, the answer is no

"Well, it’s too soon for us to know for sure. Evidently, Mueller questioned Vekselberg last year, which suggests that Mueller has been on to whatever this scheme is for quite some time."

If Mueller has a charge to make, he does so quickly. The fact he has not done so indicates another Dem rabbit hole

"In the meantime, we’ve learned that major corporations such as AT&T, pharmaceutical company Novartis and Korea Aerospace Industries have also paid into Cohen’s account"

gee, as long as we're making up crap, let's just say they were paying Stormy too

"On the record, the companies have made excuses for these payments."

why do they need an excuse?

they were paying for advice on the new administration from someone who knew a lot about Trump

big deal

"Unlike some people, Samantha Bee is willing to admit it when she learns she was wrong about a person she once praised"

she did nothing wrong

I only quoted her to demonstrate how key the disgraced politician was to the resistance movement

his departure is more great news for Trump

and America

May 13, 2018 9:31 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

Liberals make good movies and television shows. Their idealism can be an inspiration. Many liberals are very smart. But they are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.

And a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected.

People often vote against things instead of voting for them: against ideas, candidates and parties. Democrats, like Republicans, appreciate this whenever they portray their opponents as negatively as possible. But members of political tribes seem to have trouble recognizing that they, too, can push people away and energize them to vote for the other side. Nowhere is this more on display today than in liberal control of the commanding heights of American culture.

Take the past few weeks. At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, the comedian Michelle Wolf landed some punch lines that were funny and some that weren’t. But people reacted less to her talent and more to the liberal politics that she personified. For every viewer who loved her Trump bashing, there seemed to be at least one other put off by the one-sidedness of her routine. Then, when Kanye West publicly rethought his ideological commitments, prominent liberals criticized him for speaking on the topic at all. Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman from California, remarked that “sometimes Kanye West talks out of turn” and should “maybe not have so much to say.”

Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America’s universities. This means that people with progressive leanings are everywhere in the public eye — and are also on the college campuses attended by many people’s children or grandkids. These platforms come with a lot of power to express values, confer credibility and celebrity and start national conversations that others really can’t ignore.

But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are. Or, more accurately, this kind of power is double-edged. Liberals often don’t realize how provocative or inflammatory they can be. In exercising their power, they regularly not only persuade and attract but also annoy and repel.

In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way. I’m not talking about the possibility that jokes at the 2011 correspondents’ association dinner may have pushed Mr. Trump to run for president to begin with. I mean that the “army of comedy” that Michael Moore thought would bring Mr. Trump down will instead be what builds him up in the minds of millions of voters.

May 13, 2018 10:26 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

Consider some ways liberals have used their cultural prominence in recent years. They have rightly become more sensitive to racism and sexism in American society. News reports, academic commentary and movies now regularly relate accounts of racism in American history and condemn racial bigotry. These exercises in consciousness-raising and criticism have surely nudged some Americans to rethink their views, and to reflect more deeply on the status and experience of women and members of minority groups in this country.

But accusers can paint with very wide brushes. Racist is pretty much the most damning label that can be slapped on anyone in America today, which means it should be applied firmly and carefully. Yet some people have cavalierly leveled the charge against huge numbers of Americans — specifically, the more than 60 million people who voted for Mr. Trump.

In their ranks are people who sincerely consider themselves not bigoted, who might be open to reconsidering ways they have done things for years, but who are likely to be put off if they feel smeared before that conversation even takes place.

It doesn’t help that our cultural mores are changing rapidly, and we rarely stop to consider this. Some liberals have gotten far out ahead of their fellow Americans but are nonetheless quick to criticize those who haven’t caught up with them.

Within just a few years, many liberals went from starting to talk about microaggressions to suggesting that it is racist even to question whether microaggressions are that important. “Gender identity disorder” was considered a form of mental illness until recently, but today anyone hesitant about transgender women using the ladies’ room is labeled a bigot. Liberals denounce “cultural appropriation” without, in many cases, doing the work of persuading people that there is anything wrong with, say, a teenager not of Chinese descent wearing a Chinese-style dress to prom or eating at a burrito cart run by two non-Latino women.

Pressing a political view from the Oscar stage, declaring a conservative campus speaker unacceptable, flatly categorizing huge segments of the country as misguided — these reveal a tremendous intellectual and moral self-confidence that smacks of superiority. It’s one thing to police your own language and a very different one to police other people’s. The former can set an example. The latter is domineering.

This judgmental tendency became stronger during the administration of President Barack Obama, though not necessarily because of anything Mr. Obama did. Feeling increasingly emboldened, liberals were more convinced than ever that conservatives were their intellectual and even moral inferiors. Discourses and theories once confined to academia were transmitted into workaday liberal political thinking, and college campuses — which many take to be what a world run by liberals would look like — seemed increasingly intolerant of free inquiry.

It was during these years that the University of California included the phrase “America is the land of opportunity” on a list of discouraged microaggressions. Liberal politicians portrayed conservative positions on immigration reform as presumptively racist; Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, once dubiously claimed that she had heard Republicans tell Irish visitors that “if it was you,” then immigration reform “would be easy.”

When Mr. Obama remarked, behind closed doors, during the presidential campaign in 2008, that Rust Belt voters “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them,” it mattered not so much because he said it but because so many listeners figured that he was only saying what liberals were really thinking.

May 13, 2018 10:28 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

These are the sorts of events conservatives think of when they sometimes say, “Obama caused Trump.” Many liberals might interpret that phrase to mean that America’s first black president brought out the worst in some people. In this view, not only might liberals be unable to avoid provoking bigots, it’s not clear they should even try. After all, should they not have nominated and elected Mr. Obama? Should they regret doing the right thing just because it provoked the worst instincts in some people?

This is a limited view of the situation. Even if liberals think their opponents are backward, they don’t have to gratuitously drive people away, including voters who cast ballots once or even twice for Mr. Obama before supporting Mr. Trump in 2016.

Champions of inclusion can watch what they say and explain what they’re doing without presuming to regulate what words come out of other people’s mouths. Campus activists can allow invited visitors to speak and then, after that event, hold a teach-in discussing what they disagree with. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that states had to allow same-sex marriage, the fight, in some quarters, turned to pizza places unwilling to cater such weddings. Maybe don’t pick that fight?

People determined to stand against racism can raise concerns about groups that espouse hate and problems like the racial achievement gap in schools without smearing huge numbers of Americans, many of whom might otherwise be Democrats by temperament.

Liberals can act as if they’re not so certain — and maybe actually not be so certain — that bigotry motivates people who disagree with them on issues like immigration. Without sacrificing their principles, liberals can come across as more respectful of others. Self-righteousness is rarely attractive, and even more rarely rewarded.

Self-righteousness can also get things wrong. Especially with the possibility of Mr. Trump’s re-election, many liberals seem primed to write off nearly half the country as irredeemable. Admittedly, the president doesn’t make it easy. As a candidate, Mr. Trump made derogatory comments about Mexicans, and as president described some African countries with a vulgar epithet. But it is an unjustified leap to conclude that anyone who supports him in any way is racist, just as it would be a leap to say that anyone who supported Hillary Clinton was racist because she once made veiled references to “superpredators.”

Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.

Those prejudices will be validated even more if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2020, especially if he wins a popular majority. That’s not impossible: The president’s current approval ratings are at 42 percent, up from just a few months ago.

Liberals are making that outcome more likely. Is it too late to stop?

May 13, 2018 10:31 PM  
Anonymous Drip, drip, drip... said...

Breaking: Steele's dossier says Putin gave Trump a brokerage fee from the sale of 19% of Rsneft - Russia's oil giant. Today @MichaelAvenatti said a top secret agent of QIA, which bought the Rosneft stock, was secretely at Trump Tower 48 hours after the sale. To date Avenatti has a perfect record of his claims being true. Court documents also show the purchaser, Qatar's Al-Rumaihi, bragged about bribing the Trump administration.

May 14, 2018 1:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Steele's dossier says Putin gave Trump a brokerage fee from the sale of 19% of Rsneft - Russia's oil giant"

since Steele dossier was dated before Trump became President, this wouldn't necessarily be any problem

did Trump's organization facilitate the sale in any way?

"Today @MichaelAvenatti said a top secret agent of QIA, which bought the Rosneft stock, was secretely at Trump Tower 48 hours after the sale"

why would that be top secret?

"To date Avenatti has a perfect record of his claims being true."

actually, not really

"Court documents also show the purchaser, Qatar's Al-Rumaihi, bragged about bribing the Trump administration."

bribed to do what? sales of companies aren't illegal and the Steele dossier was dated before the Trump administration existed

did you dream this?

it sounds like a Dem fantasy

May 14, 2018 5:15 AM  
Anonymous Mitt Romney said...

Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney lashed out at the decision to have a controversial evangelical leader give a blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Monday, calling him a “religious bigot.”

The Senate candidate from Utah criticized the inclusion of the Rev. Robert Jeffress — the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas who is also an an adviser to President Donald Trump. The president recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year.

“Robert Jeffress says, ‘You can’t be saved by being a Jew,’ and ‘Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,’” Romney wrote in a tweet. “He’s said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.”

Romney is Mormon.

Jeffress denied he was a bigot, but added that he believed Mormonism was “wrong,” and said the Southern Baptist Convention had designated it a “cult.”

“Mormonism has never been considered a part of historic Christianity. People may disagree with that view, but it’s not a view unique to me,” he said in an interview with NBC News.

Along with many other evangelical so-called Christian Zionists, Jeffress is a strong supporter of Israel and the decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — a move condemned by Palestinians and many foreign governments.

Jeffress bases his beliefs and his general opposition to a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians on his strict interpretation of the Bible....

Many European nations who oppose Trump's decision to move the embassy are expected to skip related events on Monday.

May 14, 2018 7:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Pressing a political view from the Oscar stage, declaring a conservative campus speaker unacceptable, flatly categorizing huge segments of the country as misguided — these reveal a tremendous intellectual and moral self-confidence that smacks of superiority. It’s one thing to police your own language and a very different one to police other people’s. The former can set an example. The latter is domineering."

Let me guess, this was written by a "Christian" that doesn't think condemning LGBT people on a regular basis, denying them rights to fully participate in civic society, and possibly even jailing them for being gay, and trying to get them into programs that force them to change their sexuality isn't domineering at all. Talk about "moral self-confidence that smacks of superiority."

Plank, say hello to Speck.


May 14, 2018 1:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

New Book Documents Trump’s Long Relationship with Russian Mafia

Associated Press reporter Seth Hettena is the author of the new book Trump/Russia: A Definitive History, which documents the decades-long relationship between Donald Trump and Russian organized crime, which has helped finance many of his development projects and bought up his properties, often at higher-than-market prices.

“You have relationships with Russia — between Trump and people around him — that go back decades,” Hettena noted. “When we look at that, what we see is this isn’t a new development here, that these are relationships that go back to the 1980s even.”

“It’s about money, but it’s about Russian criminal money, specifically,” Hettena clarified. “What happened, is in the 80s there was a group of Russian criminals here in New York that were running a really lucrative gas tax scam, they had so much money they didn’t know what to do with it.”

“The interesting thing is Donald Trump found them, and got them to invest in Trump Tower and they wound up buying a block of units for a little less than $6 million,” he continued.

“That was Trump’s introduction into this world of Russian criminal money,” Hettena argued. “It continued in Trump Tower, it continued in his casinos, it continued into development projects, right up until the present day.”

And his attorney, Michael Cohen, literally grew up in a family that worked with Russian organized crime in New York. In fact, he had an ownership stake in a business his uncle owned that was the headquarters for the Russian mob in New York for decades. He only sold off that stake a couple years ago. Hettena says that’s how Cohen got an in with Trump in the first place, through their mutual business associates in that community.

And this wasn’t just in New York. One study found that Russian oligarchs — read: organized crime bosses; there is no such distinction in Russia — had spent nearly $100 million to buy up properties in Trump towers in South Florida alone. And in 2008, one Russian billionaire paid Trump $95 million for a Palm Beach mansion that Trump had only paid $41 million only four years earlier. That sale took place in 2008, just after Trump had emerged from one of his many bankruptcies and was having trouble finding banks that would lend him money.

This has all the telltale signs of a classic money laundering scheme. And you can bet that Mueller is following up on all of this.

May 14, 2018 1:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2018/05/14/feds-separate-kids-from-parents-then-lose-them/

Feds Separate Kids from Parents, Then Lose Them

As if the Trump administration policy of ripping children away from their parents at the border was not cruel enough, a Senate investigation has found that they’ve lost some 1500 of those kids. I mean literally lost them, not knowing where they were placed.

A Senate subcommittee has found that federal officials lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children last year after a government agency placed the minors in the custody of adult sponsors in communities nationwide.

The Health and Human Services Department says it uses its limited funds to track the safety of at-risk children, and could not determine where 1,475 missing minors had gone.

In fact, some of them may have ended up with human traffickers:

A Senate subcommittee has found that the government risks placing migrant children in the custody of human traffickers because federal agencies have delayed crucial reforms.

And not just delayed them, but adopted as official policy that more such children will be at risk by removing them from their parents at the border rather than keeping families together. And in the same breath, most of the people who support those policies will claim to be “pro-family.” That’s why all their organizations have that word in them — Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, American Family Association. But it’s just a dog whistle. They don’t really care about families, at least not about ones that don’t look just like theirs. “Pro-family” just means “anti-gay.” As if gay people didn’t have families, or come from families. It’s a cover for their bigotry.

May 14, 2018 1:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected."

What this dude doesn't realize is that the election of Herr Drumpenfuhrer was just as much a backlash against the Republican establishment as it was the Democratic establishment.

Republicans have been screaming for years (ever since Reagan at least) that we need to "cut taxes so we can create more jobs!" We've been doing that for the better part of 40 years, during administrations both R and D, and middle America has slowly watched all many of their jobs float away to China - no matter who was president. They've watched as corporations got bigger and more profitable, and yet in many cases, paid little or no taxes thanks to a taxes system so full of holes it might as well be called a colander. Meanwhile, in real terms, their salaries haven't really budged since the 80s.

What does the Republican voter have to show for all of their loyalty? A party that is only concerned about government spending when a Democrat is in the White House. When it's a Republican, spending the tax payers' dollars like a drunken sailor is perfectly patriotic, just as long as it's on guns and not butter.

Republicans get rid of "job killing regulations" because people killing jobs are much more palatable. Just ask Don Blankenship (You know, the coal baron that had to go to jail because his mine, which didn't follow safety regulations, got 29 people killed. He spent all of a year in jail, and considered himself a "political prisoner.") Somehow, this deplorable managed to lose a Republican primary. Maybe there is hope for Republicans to come to their senses after all, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

May 14, 2018 2:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Republicans got to watch as Hank Paulson socialized America's banking system under George Bush, and public tax payer dollars went to pay for the private losses of millionaires and billionaires in the credit default swap market, because banking regulations were "too old" couldn't keep up with the "new economy." News flash - it was the same "old economy" and what you were dealing with was a classic speculation bubble - the kind that banking regulations were put in place to protect the public from the risky games of rich speculators.

One might like to blame Obama and Democrats for not putting those bankers in jail and letting them get their bonuses for doing such a "great job," but America has been coddling Wall Street, corporations, and rich CEOs for so long that the thought of putting those bankers in jail was only the pipe dream of much-derided liberal hippies in the "occupy" movement. Slapping those banks on the wrist with a little fine was a much more palatable solution for our government bought and paid for by the rich.

Republicans were sick and tired of voting for the same establishment with the same tired old lies that kept the rich getting richer, and them getting poorer.

Unable to admit that they had been suckered into voting away their own prosperity for decades, their desperation pushed them to the only option viable - blow the whole damn thing up. They didn't care what Trump did or said, or that he "wasn't politically correct," which was just a euphemism for "I don't care if he sexually assaults women." He threw them red meat and they chomped on it like a starving lion.

They've heard Republican propaganda for years telling them that Democrats were going to ruin the country and send us careening into socialism. But that actually happened under Bush's watch. For all the right-wing's bitching about how "leftist" liberals are, the economic policies put in place by congress and presidents of the last 4 decades are further right than even Ronnie Raygun - the last Republican to genuinely be concerned about running up the national debt.

The Republican voter's choice for president in 2016 was an act of desperation. You can't argue he was a successful business man, because he wasn't. His greatest business skill is going bankrupt and leaving someone else holding the bag. But the Republican voter didn't care. When nothing you've been doing has worked for you, you might as well blow it all up, and Trump looked like just the guy for the job.

Trump will run America just like he ran his bankrupt companies. He will get rich, and America will be left holding the bag.

May 14, 2018 2:11 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "And a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected."

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Wyatt/Regina is constantly "advising" liberals on how to "succeed" and it always amounts to "Opposing Republican efforts is going to turn the public against you, your only hope is to support what Republicans want to do".

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous thinks liberals are as dumb as they are. Things could change, but right now the "backlash against liberals" is destroying Trump and the Republican party.

Hee Hee Hee!

May 14, 2018 3:35 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Massacre in Palestine: Now 52 dead and 2200 wounded by the Israel.

In an over the top display of his stupidity, after the barking wigstand referred to Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announced the move of the U.S. embassy there, Trump fatuously said the Palastinians should now be more open to peace because he'd taken the "jerusalem issue off the table" by denying the Palastinian claims to it.

Predictably this has rightfully enraged the Palestinians and resulted in the unfortunate escalation in violence only a moron like Trump couldn't have seen coming. Not to mention the escalation of violence between Iran and Israel right after Trump violated the Iran Nuclear Deal. But hey, as Trump says "Everyone thinks I should get the Nobel prize". No, No, Cadet bone spurs, what they all were saying was that you should get the Mueller no-bail prize!

Trump's shortsightedness, stupidity, and blind commitment to doing the opposite of everything Obama has done is making the world a more violent and dangerous place.

May 14, 2018 3:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The fact is, Trump doesn't think more than one step ahead, and he doesn't think about the implications of his decisions. Nor does he care about how it will affect other people or how they will react. He does whatever he feels like doing, and damn the consequences. When you have a mad-man as President, bad stuff's gonna happen and people are gonna die. Trump doesn't give a damn about anything other than himself.

May 14, 2018 6:07 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Today a landlord and a handbad designer represented the United States at a "party" for a new embassy in Jerusalem, and as violent protests exploded and over fifty were killed they smiled and took an effing selfie. You can't make this stuff up, folks.

By violating the Iran nuclear agreement the popular vote losing pussy grabber is raising Russian oil prices, an end run around Russian sanctions that got in the way of his original plans.

May 14, 2018 6:15 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Friends without benefits: how Europe was wrongfooted by Trump over Iran

World leaders thought they gained traction in a last-minute bid to salvage the Iran deal, but Trump’s radicalism persisted
Macron was well aware how hostile Trump was to the 2015 Iran agreement, the flagship achievement of his predecessor Barack Obama, but Trump had been so friendly and welcoming to his French guest, the first official state visitor of the administration, that Macron thought he might have some leverage.

He was just the latest ally to discover Europe had little – if any – sway on this president.

“Do you want a war?” Macron asked Trump, astonished.

According to diplomats, Pompeo thought he had won from Trump an extra two weeks in negotiating time with the Europeans. But in meetings with the secretary of state, the national security adviser, John Bolton, and Vice-President Mike Pence, it was clear UK foreign secretary Johnson was too late.
A decision had been made and US officials had little interest in his ideas.

“By the time he left, he was pretty furious he had made a trip for nothing,” said an official familiar with the US-UK meetings.

The officials they were talking to had little influence on Trump and could only guess at his plans. Even Bolton, Trump’s newest hire, was taken by surprise by Trump’s tweeted revelation last Monday that he would announce his decision on the JCPOA the following day.

He was informed by an European official who saw the tweet while they were having a phone conversation, in which Bolton was supposed to be the one imparting information about US plans.

Worse still for the transatlantic relations, US officials have told their counterparts that, in the wake of Trump’s decisive breach with the JCPOA last Tuesday, there would be no exemptions for European companies in the coming wave of sanctions against anyone who continues to do business with Iran.

Furthermore, the US shows no sign of making an exception for Europe when the administration imposes steel and aluminium tariffs due to take effect on 1 June, making a trade war a virtual inevitability.

May 14, 2018 6:26 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

In answer to Macron’s question at their 24 April White House encounter, Trump insisted he had no intention of starting another war in the Middle East. Seeing an opening, the French leader offered a set of proposals on tougher action on Iran’s missile programme and its regional activities, and a European commitment to pursuing a follow-on agreement that would aim at prolonging those restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme that expire over the coming 12 years under the JCPOA.

After painstaking to-and-fro talks, the Europeans thought they were close to a compromise text with the Americans, at least on missiles and regional issues.

But Trump gave the impression during his 24 April meeting with Macron that he was not even aware those negotiations had been taking place. It was also clear that even after years of campaigning against the Iran agreement, the US president did not know what was in it.

Trump told Macron he thought his policy of “maximum pressure” had forced Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table ready to make concessions, and that the same approach would work on Iran. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has told European officials the same thing.

“They call it the North Korean scenario. You squeeze the Iranians and they will do the same as Kim Jong-un. They will surrender in front of the American power,” a European official said.

However, US officials have not explained to their European counterparts how, even if they scare western companies out of Iran, they intend to stop big purchasers of Iranian oil, like China, India and Malaysia, to join a new boycott after Washington had violated the JCPOA.

“We were told that with what happened at the NSC [national security council], with the change of people, they have not had time to prepare the plan B,” a European official said.

The absence of a plan became evident in a phone conversation over the weekend between Pompeo and European foreign ministers, in which the US secretary of state asked his counterparts: “How do you see the future?”

The European response, summed up by one diplomat, was: “You broke this. What’s your plan?”

May 14, 2018 6:27 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again, old, ancient and humiliated said...

"It was also clear that even after years of campaigning against the Iran agreement, the US president did not know what was in it."

Trump has talked about and is completely aware of the agreement that gave Iran billions and dropped sanctions is order for them to temporarily suspend their nuclear program, without verification

Iran would be insane to fight against an American-backed Israeli-Saudi alliance

Iran is rational, despite appearaces

"Today a landlord and a handbag designer represented the United States at a celebration for a new embassy in Jerusalem,"

I think Priya is jealous

this is a big step up from the usual boring lawyer

Israelis are wild about Trump

remember when Priya lied and said Trump was anti-semitivc?

"You can't make this stuff up, folks."

the two most prominent Jews in America represent the US in a ceremony in Israel

wow, man, ya just can't make this stuff up

"By violating the Iran nuclear agreement the popular vote losing pussy grabber is raising Russian oil prices, an end run around Russian sanctions that got in the way of his original plans."

perfect

let's hope Iran pays a lot of military equipment from Russia

that will keep the Israeli-Saudi alliance strong

in the 80s, Iran surrendered when Saddam fired his non-existent WMD at them

https://www.wsj.com/articles/muellers-investigation-crosses-the-legal-line-1526233750?shareToken=st8055343be457430caf62cd0f5d8d622b&reflink=article_email_share

May 14, 2018 10:17 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Daily News Headline: DADDY'S LITTLE GHOUL 55 slaughtered in Gaza, but Ivanka is all smiles at Jerusalem embassy unveil

SCANDAL: Trump sells the U.S. out to china to personally profit

Yesterday, Trump ordered a bailout of a chinese government owned cell phone maker that had been sanctioned for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Now, we find out that three days ago China agreed to invest $500 million into a Trump branded Indonesian resort that will personally enrich Trump. TRUMP ISN'T EVEN HIDING HIS CORRUPTION.

In response to Trump's withdrawal from the TPP, Harley Davidson is firing hundreds at its Missouri plant and moving motorcycle production to Thailand. I'm sure the winning will start any time now.

May 15, 2018 2:33 AM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"Daily News Headline: DADDY'S LITTLE GHOUL 55 slaughtered in Gaza, but Ivanka is all smiles at Jerusalem embassy unveil"

headline: jackass liberals blame America when Palestinians act violently in reaction to an embassy move that has been promised by Clinton, Bush & Obama

apparently, if you don't cater to the violent demands of terrorists, that's your fault

"SCANDAL: Trump sells the U.S. out to china to personally profit

Yesterday, Trump ordered a bailout of a chinese government owned cell phone maker that had been sanctioned for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Now, we find out that three days ago China agreed to invest $500 million into a Trump branded Indonesian resort that will personally enrich Trump. TRUMP ISN'T EVEN HIDING HIS CORRUPTION."

Trump is playing the China card masterfully and the beneficiary is the entire world

"In response to Trump's withdrawal from the TPP, Harley Davidson is firing hundreds at its Missouri plant and moving motorcycle production to Thailand. I'm sure the winning will start any time now."

the winning has been accelerating a while now

you didn't notice because your head was shoved up in a place where the sun don't shine

May 15, 2018 5:33 AM  
Anonymous Brace yourselves, darlings. Here comes the pink hat powered blue wave: said...

An unprecedented rise in female donors to political campaigns, fueled largely by opposition to President Donald Trump, continues to grow in the run-up to the 2018 elections.

The number of women donating to federal candidates has surged by 182 percent when compared with this time in the 2016 cycle, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Much of the activity has been among Democratic donors, a trend that first began to appear after the Women’s March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration.

The number of women who are donating in smaller amounts, but enough to trigger the $200 threshold requiring disclosure to the Federal Election Commission, is even more dramatic: up 422 percent over 2016, the center’s data showed.

“It’s a huge increase,” said Sarah Bryner, the center’s research director. “It reflects a change in how women see political fundraising. In the past, people didn’t really view political donations as something that important or even that impactful, and it still may not be. But they are ramping up their activism — and money and contributions are included in that, especially on the left.”

By this point in the 2012 cycle, about 133,000 women had donated to federal candidates, the center found by using software and research to determine the gender of most donors. So far this cycle, more than 850,000 women have donated to federal candidates and political action committees, almost double the number of female donors Roll Call first reported last year.

In total, women account for 46 percent of all donors this cycle, up from 33 percent in 2016.

May 15, 2018 10:49 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Dana Beyer will lose again"

Geez, get a room already you two, send some flowers to Dana and invite her for the threesome you two are obviously dying to have. We get it, you're fascinated and obsessed with Dana.

May 15, 2018 2:05 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Filling The Swamp With Sewage - DeVos, Trump Killing Investigations Into For-Profit Universities

With so many for-profit universities being seriously scammy, the Education Department has had multiple investigations going into corrupt practices at those institutions. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Trump, are closing down those investigations — some of which involved universities that high-ranked department officials worked for.

Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.

The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.

During the final months of the Obama administration, the team had expanded to include a dozen or so lawyers and investigators who were looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several institutions, including DeVry Education Group.

The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor…

In addition to DeVry, now known as Adtalem Global Education, investigations into Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corporation, which also operate large for-profit colleges, went dark.

Former employees of those institutions now work for Ms. DeVos as well, including Robert S. Eitel, her senior counselor, and Diane Auer Jones, a senior adviser on postsecondary education. Last month, Congress confirmed the appointment of a lawyer who provided consulting services to Career Education, Carlos G. Muñiz, as the department’s general counsel.

So much for draining the swamp. We’ll just put the people who were under investigation in charge of the investigations, just like Trump wants to have the say over the Mueller probe. None of this should be the least bit surprising. After all, Trump just had to pay out $25 million to settle suits over his utterly fraudulent Trump “University.” He made huge amounts of money on that scam and he wants to protect others from the same fate. Because why would we want to prevent rich people from committing fraud on non-rich people? Who do we think own this country, anyway?

And DeVos is an avowed enemy of public education in general. I’m surprised Amway hasn’t built their own “university,” where the students sell other students education packages. Multilevel Marketing U. Their mascot would be the Fighting Con Artist.

May 15, 2018 2:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Donald Trump Lashes Out At 'So-Called Leaks,' And Twitter Users Pounce

"The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!"

Trump’s anger is clear, but the tweet was a little confusing, as Twitter users helpfully pointed out.

@joniadarola
"We must, at all costs, hunt down these leaking traitors who totally don't exist and it's not a big deal really."

More at the link

May 15, 2018 2:13 PM  
Anonymous More for Mueller to investigate said...

...A National Review report (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contributing-500-million-trump-linked-project-indonesia/) about the Chinese government’s involvement in financing “an Indonesian theme park that will feature a Trump-branded golf course and hotels” came just one day after Trump posted a bizarre tweet on behalf of the Chinese phone company ZTE — a company that had been hit hard by the Commerce Department for violating a ban on American companies “selling components to ZTE for seven years after it illegally shipped goods made with U.S. parts to Iran and North Korea,” according to Reuters.

During Monday’s briefing, reporters repeatedly grilled Shah about what prompted Trump’s tweet promising to help ZTE — especially since the tweet came on the heels of a campaign in which Trump accused China of “the greatest single theft in the history of the world,” saying things like, “we can’t continue to allow China to rape our country.”

Shah had no good answers for them.

“This is part of a complex relationship between the United States and China that involves economic issues, national security issues, and the like,” Shah said at one point, in response to a question about what motivated Trump’s tweet.

Later, another reporter asked Shah why Trump wants the Commerce Department to review sanctions on ZTE in the first place.

“The president has asked Secretary Ross to look into the matter,” Shah said, adding that “the issue has been raised at many levels by the Chinese government with various levels of our administration.”

“So just raising the issue is enough to spawn a presidential tweet and directive?” the reporter pressed.

“It’s a significant issue of concern for the Chinese government, you know, and in our bilateral issue there’s a give an take,” Shah replied.

The emoluments clause is a provision in the U.S. Constitution prohibiting presidents from leveraging their office into gifts from foreign governments. Trump is the only modern president to refuse to divest from his business interests upon taking office.

Despite promising before his inauguration not to profit from foreign governments, there is little evidence Trump has followed through on his commitment. Meanwhile, foreign governments and diplomats have made a show of spending money at his properties.

May 15, 2018 3:49 PM  
Anonymous "anti-semitivc" said...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-bribed-iran-400-million-to-release-u-s-prisoners/

May 15, 2018 4:42 PM  
Anonymous Hurray for Maryland! said...

It’s now officially illegal to perform so-called gay “conversion therapy” on minors in Maryland.

The Youth Mental Health Protection Act, which Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signed into law Tuesday, threatens mental health or child care practitioners with disciplinary action if they are found attempting to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of anyone under the age of 18.

Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said the new law makes Maryland “a better place for countless young people.”

“No child should ever be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy,’” he said in a statement. “This dangerous and inhumane form of child abuse has no basis in science and is uniformly rejected by every major mental health and child welfare organization.”

Conversion therapy is ineffective, according to several national health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The APA, in particular, criticizes gay conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, for offering a “serious potential to harm young people.”

“The potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient,” according to the association, which says conversion therapy programs tell participants that “homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction.”

Young people who are rejected by their families over their sexual orientation or gender identity are more than eight times more likely to attempt suicide than youth from accepting families, according to the Trevor Project, a pro-LGBTQ advocacy group that is working to ban conversion therapy across the U.S.

Maryland joins a growing number of states that have adopted similar legislation to protect LGBTQ youth. Connecticut, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Washington state and the District of Columbia have all banned conversion therapy; New Hampshire and Hawaii recently passed protections that are awaiting approval from their governors.

May 15, 2018 5:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-bribed-iran-400-million-to-release-u-s-prisoners/

I haven't read any of Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous's posts for a while but I can see from this they're up to they're usual B.S. pretending Obama or Hillary did something untoward to try and deflect from the mountain of corruption that is Trump.

Face it Wyatt/Regina:

Republicans have spent millions upon millions of dollars and several years investigating Hillary and Obama and they've found absolutely NOTHING. If there was the slightest crime either had committed it would have been found by now - they're obviously squeaky clean.

Hillary didn't hide from being interviewed by biased Republican investigators, she answered dozens of hours of questions, never once took the fifth and did it all with the calmness of someone who knew they would find nothing.

Compare that to the mango mussolini who's hiding from an interview and trying to restrict it down so much that it his lawyers can answer the questions for him. You can guarantee if Trump does get interviewed he'll be taking the fifth many times.

May 15, 2018 5:51 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Congratulations to Maryland on having taken another step to make your society a better place!

May 15, 2018 6:03 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump swamp monster Nikki Haley literally just cited the Bible in order to justify Israel killing Palestinian children. Using this logic, Muslim terrorists who kill in the name of the Koran would be justified in doing so.

Killing in the name of religion is wrong, no matter what religion you believe

May 15, 2018 6:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

A couple of weeks ago Haley blocked a U.N. attempt to investigate Israeli killings of unarmed Palestinians.

That's a classic conservative for you - its more important to protect your tribe than to hold your tribe accountable for the evil it does.

May 15, 2018 6:50 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"An unprecedented rise in female donors to political campaigns, fueled largely by opposition to President Donald Trump, continues to grow in the run-up to the 2018 elections"

haha!!

yeah, remember when Hillary and Jeb were a sure thing because they'd raised so much more money than anyone else?

problem for the Dems is that the GOP is on the verge of adding a solid midwest to the solid south they've held for decades

the smug condescension of four metropolitan areas: LA, NY, DC and Silicon V have created a cultural barrier that Dems can't figure out how to hurdle

no, Stormy won't do it

nor, will nasty women wearing pussy hats

"The number of women donating to federal candidates has surged among Democratic donors, a trend that first began to appear after the Women’s March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration."

go, Stormy and Michelle Wolfe!!

hahahahahaha!!!!!

"We get it, you're fascinated and obsessed with Dana."

gee, it's a little hard not to be

I get big glossy mailers every other day and pop-up Dana ads every time I fire up the laptop and the garish-colored signs that are twice the size of the other candidates are up and down the street

you wonder where Grewell is getting all this money

maybe the KGB is out to get Jeffrey Waldwacko and is giving Dana money to stop him

no one has proved that's not true- let's name a prosecutor

unfortunately for Dana, Jeffrey is going with the nuclear option

he's going door-to-door

and Dana can't do that

then, people will see Dana- and not photo-shopped fantasy

"And DeVos is an avowed enemy of public education in general"

she's a visonary!

"the Chinese government’s involvement in financing “an Indonesian theme park that will feature a Trump-branded golf course and hotels”"

that's like saying the Chinese are building an office building in a city that has a Trump hotel

so what?

"The emoluments clause is a provision in the U.S. Constitution prohibiting presidents from leveraging their office into gifts from foreign governments"

actually, I think you are misinterpretting

read it again

oh, that's right

you never read it to begin with

hahahahahaha!!!!!

"Trump is the only modern president to refuse to divest from his business interests upon taking office."

he's also the richest one

good for him

"Despite promising before his inauguration not to profit from foreign governments, there is little evidence Trump has followed through on his commitment."

quite a rhetorical construct

there is actually never proof that something didn't happen

proof is when something does happen

"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-bribed-iran-400-million-to-release-u-s-prisoners/"

they're right

he didn't care about US prisoners

he bribed them to enter a phony deal to make it look like he accomplished something

since the deal was never ratified by Congress, Trump easily cancelled it

poor Barry

he never knew what he was doing

May 15, 2018 9:52 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"The Youth Mental Health Protection Act, which Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signed into law Tuesday, threatens mental health or child care practitioners with disciplinary action if they are found attempting to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of anyone under the age of 18."

unconstitutional

"Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said the new law makes Maryland “a better place for countless young people.”"

yeah, now they can get AIDS, just like grown-ups

"“No child should ever be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy,’” he said in a statement. “This dangerous and inhumane form of child abuse has no basis in science and is uniformly rejected by every major mental health and child welfare organization.”"

actually, the concept of sexual orientation has no basis in science

"Conversion therapy is ineffective, according to several national health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics."

this is an inane statement

it would be like saying, cancer treatment is ineffective

let's ban it!

“The potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior,"

you can say the same about any attempt at self-improvement

"Maryland joins a growing number of states that have adopted similar legislation to protect LGBTQ youth. Connecticut, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Washington state and the District of Columbia have all banned conversion therapy; New Hampshire and Hawaii recently passed protections that are awaiting approval from their governors."

look at that

they all voted for Hillary

they sure know how to pick the wrong horse, don't they?

speaking of Hillary, she recently said she considered moving to New Zealand when she lost and says she lost because she's a capitalist and most Dems are socialist

of course, not long before that she said she lost because white women in America vote however their husbands tell them to

but, good news for Trump

she says she might run again

(oh please, oh please)

remember when Hillary said that SEVENTEEN SEPARATE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES believe that Putin interfered with the election to help Trump?

truth is DNI chief Brennan actually said four did

DNI, CIA, FBI, NSA

now, Mike Rogers who headed the NSA at the time says he never thought that

the other three were headed by Brennan, Comey, and Clapper - all of whom have perjured in Congressional testimony

"pretending Obama or Hillary did something untoward"

it's now obvious they obstructed justice and corruptly used the intelligence apparatus of our country for political purposes

they should both be tried

"Trump swamp monster Nikki Haley literally just cited the Bible in order to justify Israel killing Palestinian children."

well, provide us with the quote

unless you're lying

well, are you?

"Using this logic, Muslim terrorists who kill in the name of the Koran would be justified in doing so."

sure, then they can have 99 virgins!

May 15, 2018 10:18 PM  
Anonymous Dana Beyer will lose again said...

"anonymous said "Dana Beyer will lose again""

Geez, We get it, you're obsessed with Dana

this is so typical of Priya

whines for years that I don't use the same blog name all the time

and, then, I pick out one I like and Priya whines about that

psy-chotic!

May 15, 2018 10:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen 'asked Qatari investor for millions of dollars' which he said he would 'pass to Trump family members'

lol! No wonder Trump was crapping himself when word broke about the FBI raids on Mueller's homes and offices.

May 16, 2018 1:04 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Oklahoma GOP candidate proposes euthanasia for disabled and poor to avoid food stamps

He accidentally said out loud what most Republicans are thinking.

May 16, 2018 1:10 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Conservatives’ ludicrous new excuse: Liberals made us vote for Donald Trump!

Despite the whining of Bari Weiss and others, conservatives are adults. The left didn’t force them to support Trump

It's hard to believe it's come to this point, but apparently this needs to be said: Republican voters are adults, not children. They are responsible for their own choices. Liberals did not force them to vote for Donald Trump or support his policies.

One would think none of that needs to be said, especially since conservatives like to style themselves as the defenders of "personal responsibility." But apparently the idea is really taking root among the chattering classes that liberals practically held conservatives down and tormented them into voting for Trump. The argument is, I guess, that those who publicly decry racism and sexism are so obnoxious about it that they make conservatives double down on these bigoted beliefs. So progressives and liberals have more responsibility for electing Trump than the people who, you know, actually voted for him.

This bewildering thesis started spreading like a contagion after the resident troll at the New York Times, Bari Weiss, wrote yet another article arguing that well-compensated bigots with enormous audiences are being oppressed because liberals won't pretend to be impressed with their bad arguments. Weiss was laughed at online, which is what you get when you say silly things in public. And as trolls are wont to do, she then had a tantrum on Twitter.

"First: When that label is used promiscuously, people start to take it less seriously. And we shoudl be taking the actual alt right seriously.
Second: When conservatives, classical liberals or libertarians are told by the progressive chattering class that they--or those they read--are alt-right, the very common response is to say: Screw it. They think everyone is alt-right. And then those people move further right."

Weiss' premise that liberals are somehow forcing conservatives to act like fools and bigots should be self-evident nonsense, but it appears to be an attractive proposition to many in mainstream media spaces. Andrew Sullivan argued in New York magazine that while he understands that Kanye West's praise of Trump is foolish, he found himself "instinctually siding" with West because the critics are just so gosh-darned critical. Then Gerard Alexander wrote yet another piece for the New York Times arguing that the "backlash against liberals" — a backlash he openly declares liberals are causing with their supposed self-righteousness — "is going to get President Trump re-elected."

May 16, 2018 2:53 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Even the liberal columnist (and former Salon staffer) Michelle Goldberg, in a Times column that made some valid arguments encouraging liberals to debate conservatives, suggested that liberal repression is somehow causing "right-wing movements that thrive on transgression." That seems to rest on the premise that white supremacy and male domination are "transgressive" instead of the documented norms that still govern American society, causing widespread racial and gender inequalities.

To be clear, I just published a book called "Troll Nation," in which I argue that Republicans voted for Trump not because of any faith in his abilities to govern, but because they thought electing a grossly unqualified boor was an ideal way to stick it to liberals. So I'm very much on board with what political scientist Scott Lemieux says is "the implicit assumption that there’s no affirmative case to be made for Ryanism or Trumpism," and of course with the idea that the modern-day American right is more invested in causing anguish or outrage on the left than in actually defending its own so-called values.

Why hate and bigotry rule the modern-day GOP

But here's where I starkly depart from people making this argument: No outside force is responsible for a conservative voter choosing to behave like a jackass. I believe conservatives are actual adults who are responsible for their own actions. I reject the idea that conservatives lack autonomy, like wayward small children, and can do nothing more than react to the supposedly atrocious conduct of liberals. It's truly bizarre that liberals, in these arguments, are viewed as the only autonomous actors — and in fact as people so powerful that they not only control themselves but the choices of others.

The causal chain proposed by Weiss and others is completely backwards. Conservatives are not innocent lambs, free of prejudice, who only adopt bigoted beliefs because some liberal said something critical they perceived as unfair. On the contrary, racist and sexist beliefs clearly precede the vengeful, trolling behavior on the right. The typical bigot wishes to believe racist or sexist things because he benefits from a system where his race or gender provides him unearned privileges. But he knows he cannot defend this belief rationally. So instead he lashes out at liberals — and does stupid things like vote for Trump — not because those critics are wrong that he's an irrational and hateful person, but because they are right.

May 16, 2018 2:54 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This should be obvious, if only because our troll in chief, the president himself, behaves this way on a regular basis. A news report appears from a legitimate source that paints him, convincingly, as a crook or an idiot? He flips out, screaming about "fake news" and a "witch hunt" and issuing incoherent threats. His level of outrage and whining is directly proportional to the validity of the criticism. And so it is with his followers.

The notion that liberals are "self-righteous" is particularly laughable when the implicit point of comparison is conservatives, and especially the out-loud bigots who adore Trump the most. When it comes to judgmental, self-righteous behavior, even the most smug of liberals cannot hold a candle to Republicans. It's not liberals who want to shape government policy around the idea that non-marital sex is wicked and should be punished with forced childbirth. It's not liberals who wish to shun LGBT people for failing to adhere to narrow gender roles.

It's not liberals who insist on "work requirements" for social safety net programs, because they clearly believe that poor people are lazy. It's not liberals who argue that victims of police shootings or sexual assault somehow brought it on themselves by not adhering to saint-like levels of personal virtue. Sure, there can be a grating levels of self-satisfaction among those who condemn racism and sexism at times, but that barely registers as "self-righteous" compared to the punitive behavior of conservatives.

Ultimately, most of these arguments accusing liberals of somehow forcing conservatives to vote for Trump are little more than concern-trolling. I doubt very much that Weiss, who unfailingly exhibits sympathy for the bigots she covers, is sincere in claiming she wants to see less vile, Trumpified behavior on the right. On the contrary, I suspect she just wants liberals to shut up about the evils of racism and sexism because, ultimately, she knows they're right. Like most members of Troll Nation, she can't win an argument on the merits, so she changes the subject, makes things up and constructs arguments on false premises. In the end, those who voted for Donald Trump made their own decisions, and weren't forced to by anyone else. No amount of whining releases conservatives from their personal responsibility for the bad bargain they made.

May 16, 2018 2:55 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Here's the article above

You can find more detail at various links in it

May 16, 2018 2:57 AM  
Anonymous Russia Russia Russia said...

Thousands of pages of congressional testimony shed light on 2016 Trump Tower meeting

"A music promoter who promised Donald Trump Jr. over email that a Russian lawyer would provide dirt about Hillary Clinton in June 2016 made the offer because he had been assured the Moscow attorney was “well connected” and had “damaging material,” the promoter testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Rob Goldstone told the committee that his client, the Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had insisted he help set up the meeting between President Trump’s son and the lawyer during the campaign to pass along material on Clinton, overriding Goldstone’s own warnings that the meeting would be a bad idea.

“He said, ‘it doesn’t matter. You just have to get the meeting,” Goldstone, a British citizen, testified.

...Much of the testimony released Wednesday revolves around the Trump Tower meeting when Trump Jr. accepted the sit-down with Veselnitskaya and invited his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and top campaign aide Paul Manafort to attend as well.

Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet soldier and Russian-American lobbyist who attended the meeting, told the committee that Trump Jr. had opened the session by getting straight to the point:

“‘I believe you have some information for us,’” Akhmetshin recalled the president’s son telling Veselnitskaya.

Goldstone testified that he too expected Veselnitskaya would deliver a “smoking gun” to help Trump’s campaign. He testified that he was embarrassed and apologetic when she instead used the session to press her view that the sanctions imposed on Russia for human rights abuses, known as the Magnitsky Act, should be lifted.

Goldstone said Kushner, then a top campaign adviser, was one of just three people who spoke during the meeting, interrupting Veselnitskaya at one point to ask her to refocus her presentation. Goldstone said he recalled that Kushner stayed for the entire — contradicting Veselnitskaya’s public assertion the president’s son-in-law left early and never came back.

As for the president’s son, he told the committee he was disappointed that the Russian lawyer did not provide more information that could be used in the campaign: “All else being equal, I wouldn’t have wanted to waste 20 minutes hearing about something that I wasn’t supposed to be meeting about,” he told the committee..."

May 16, 2018 11:01 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Predictable Implosion of the North Korea Talks Begins

Put that Nobel Peace Prize on hold for a while, kids, because as I predicted from the moment this began, the diplomatic talks to bring peace to the Korean peninsula and an end to the North Korean nuclear weapons program are going up in flames.

North Korea is rapidly moving the goal posts for next month’s summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump, saying the United States must stop insisting it “unilaterally” abandon its nuclear program and stop talking about a Libya-style solution to the standoff…

If the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit,” he said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name. He also questioned the sequencing of denuclearization first, compensation second.

That Libya-style solution they’re referring to comes directly from John Bolton:

Trump and his top aides, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, have repeatedly said that the United States wants the “complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization of North Korea” — a high standard that Pyongyang has previously balked at.

Bolton, known for his sharply hawkish views, has said that North Korea must commit to a disarmament similar to “Libya 2004.” Seven years after surrendering his nuclear program, Gaddafi was overthrown, then brutally killed by opponents of his regime…

“This is not an expression of intention to address the issue through dialogue. It is essentially a manifestation of awfully sinister move[s] to impose on our dignified state the destiny of Libya or Iraq, which had been collapsed due to the yielding of their countries to big powers,” Kim Gye Gwan said.

And therein lies the problem. Think about this from Kim Jong-Un’s perspective. The model that Bolton, Pompeo and Trump have offered them for these negotiations is a model that resulted in Gaddafi being deposed from office, with the help of American cruise missiles, and then murdered. Why would he think that was a good model? Why would he want to do that? We could have offered an entirely different path, of course. We could have offered the path of Iran, where an agreement was signed to eliminate their nuclear weapons program in exchange for lifting the sanctions and thus helping their economy and their entire country.

Of course, we could have offered that and now no longer can because Trump reneged on that agreement and violated it. So again, from Kim’s perspective, why would he trust us in any negotiations? I wouldn’t. Would you? We can’t trust him either, of course, and that’s why this was never going to work from the get go. Both countries are run by clueless juveniles who bluster and posture but are utterly incapable of being rational and thoughtful. Two hopelessly irrational people — make that three, counting Bolton — cannot reach a reasoned, intelligent diplomatic solution to this or any other problem.

And this is why I did nothing but point and laugh at anyone who thought this was going to succeed. And because I know the history here, starting with Kim’s grandfather, and saw the familiar pattern being followed. Those who ignore history are forced to relive it, the old saying goes; those who don’t are still forced to watch other people do the same things over and over again and expect a different result.

May 16, 2018 2:12 PM  
Anonymous In new financial disclosure, Trump reports apparent payment through his personal attorney to adult-film star said...

“Was he lying then or was he lying now? He previously denied any knowledge of the agreement or the payment — and did so aboard Air Force One on video.”

May 16, 2018 2:30 PM  
Anonymous Russia, Russia, Russia! said...

Whenever Trump shouts “No collusion,” the response to that should be: “There’s airtight evidence of attempted conspiracy by the highest levels in the Trump campaign to obtain foreign help.” As Bergmann puts it, “According to Donald Trump Jr.’s own testimony, he was disappointed by the meeting because the collusion the Russians were offering wasn’t good enough. So we know the Trump campaign wanted to collude and we know the Russians ran an aggressive campaign to help Trump. Given the mounting evidence it really isn’t a question anymore if they colluded, it’s a question of how deep the collusion went.” No wonder Trump is so freaked out about the Russia investigation.

May 16, 2018 2:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.

May 16, 2018 3:39 PM  

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